PAST AND PRESENT

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 726, 12 June 1953, Page 13

PAST AND PRESENT

A KING RELUCTANT, by Vaughan Wilkins; Jonathan Cape. English price 12/6. AN OAK FOR POSTERITY, by Diana Buttenshaw; Hodder and English price, 10/6. THE LONG. FIDELITY, hy Kathleen co Faber and Faber. English price, 12/6 KING RELUCTANT is likely to enchant readers fe dle ually | ae historical gorels Dem ig is not a- book to go to facts, | cause Mr, ~’ Wilkins. has. applied romantic imagination to thfee historical: pointsthe central one being the fate of the heir to the French throne during the Revolution. In any case, historical detail and argument are kept to a minimum, and the characters have room to move and breathe. They are people who live, and who wake one’s interest and sympathy at once. Mr. Wilkins writes with distinction, knows how to put a story together, and to build atmosphere, and he leaves one feeling tender towards the people he has created, ‘ Easy to read and easy to forget, An Oak for Posterity tells of the ‘social life of British officers and their wives in occupied Germany. A touch of romance and adventure is thrown in, together with information about living conditions, The characters are decent and smug. Technically the story moves well enough, the author having a_practised hand with dialogue. There is no profundity here, but none seems attempted. The attachment of a lonely child to a neighbouring household of colourful people is an appealing theme, though by no means new. In The Long Fidelity the bond is permanent. The little outsider grows up to become the almost disillusioned support of the decaying Bohemian family that had once seemed glamorous. In a quiet way this is an honest and tidy book, wrapped in an}

air of polite melancholy.

D.F.

T.