DIFFERENT WORLDS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 667, 18 April 1952, Page 13

DIFFERENT WORLDS

AFTER THE HOLIDAY, by Cledwyn Hughes; Phoenix House. English price, 8/6. | A SEASON IN ENGLAND, by P. H. Newby; Jonathan Cape. English price, 10/6. | A TALE OF HATE AND PITY, by Joshua | Abdanath; Phoenix House, Endflish | price, | 10/6. TIN SWORD, by Malcolm Stuart | Boylan; Victor Gollancz. English price, 10/6. | NIGHTRUNNERS OF BENGAL, by John Masters; Michael Joseph. English price, 12/6. YOUNG Mrs. Elsie Price, who hates her husband’s "sad breathing at night and the way he hung his trousers always by their braces from the peg behind the door," has to be careful because of her "gammy" heart. But she declares that some day she'll break bounds, "do some mad bad thing, enjoy myself, have my fling and die." She: has her fling, with a young curate, while on holiday. After tke Holiday is the story of the consequences. It confirms the good opinion of theework of Cledwyn Hughes I formed when I read’ The Civil Strangers, He creates sharp pictures of his characters and their environment and demonstrates better than any other writer I have read recently the power of the completely objective attitude. The last two. scenes in which Elsie appears in this book are among the most moving I have read. Mr. Newby tells a very different story and creates characters fairly remote from the everyday world of most of us. The first part of the book, set in Cairo, introduces two university lecturers, Tom Passmore (the principal character in the book) and Guy Nash, and Nash’s unusual Greek wife Renee. When Guy, who has not told his family of his marriage, dies, the story moves to England to follow the impact of Passmore, and later Renee as well, on Guy’s rather conservative yet oddly compelling parents, and the relationships between all of them. There isn’t any doubt about Mr. Newby’s ability to write, to create character, to tell an interesting story-and a story with some depth. But though I have much sympathy with his attitude, I can’t say that (continued on next page)

IB K $

(continued from previous page) A Season in England moved me deeply or left me very satisfied. Set in ancient times, A Tale of Hate and Pity follows the fortunes of a family who have fled from Gaza rather than sacrifice a first-born child to the local god. There is no exaggeration in the publisher's claim that it is "intensely realistic yet verging at times on the fantastic." The author has spared no detail of the shocking deeds that were often done in those’ times, and scenes such as the one in which a group of soldiers are impaled are too intensely realistic for me. His aim in writing the book presumably is to create a picture both true and complete. Without a special interest in the subject I wasn’t always held by the story, though I wouldn’t have liked to miss a very unusual ending. Tin Sword, which records the astonishing career of young Joshua Doty as a@ newspaperman and a soldier, is good entertainment. On the first page Joshua is seen .marching down Champion Street, Battle Creek, on his way to arrange for his own funeral (four dollars down, four dollars a year), "not to be a burden on his grandmother’s pension." There is seldom any let up after that, and the best of the situations are arious. Nightrunners of Bengal, a story of the Indian Mutiny by a retired Indian atmy officer, isn’t an outstanding book, but the author tells more than a mere

tale of adventure and has obviously tried, as he puts it, "to make the fictional whole present a true perspective of fact-the facts of environment, circumstance and emotion." And he does not overlook the faults of the British.

F.A.

J.