MOMENTS IN TIME

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 735, 14 August 1953, Page 13

MOMENTS IN TIME

THE MOUNTAINS REMAIN, by Hanama Tasaki; Victor Gollancz. English price, 13/6. THE APPRENTICE, by Joseph Tomelty; Jonathan Cape. English price, 12/6. THE ENGLISH MARCH, by Elizabeth D’Oyley; Michael Joseph. English price, 10/6. DESIREE, by Annemarie Selinko, translated by Arnold Bender and E. W. Dickes; Heinemann. English price, 15/-. N one sense all these novels are "historical," concerned with specific moments in time. Their period is the heart of the matter, post-war Japan, Belfast between wars, Restoration England or Napoleonic Europe. The placing in this review is in order of merit. The Mountains ‘Remain dramatises the contemporary conflict in Japan between a native tradition and the ideas of an encroaching west. Tasaki’s novel has a value as a document because of what it is about-it would be interesting even if it were less ably handled. Here is a book, however, with the line and melancholy of a Hiroshige print; the Japanese characters in it maintain style and dignity even in despair. The Apprentice is also a study in melancholy and compassion: readable; too, although the subject has been explored in fiction so much more often than Japanese life for example. Adolescent storm and stress is a common topic of contemporary fiction and it indicates the quality of Tomelty’s writing that he gives the impression of treading new pasture. There is suffering in his novel which invokes but does not force pity. The English March takes Rupert as hero, the ‘older scholarly Rupert, not the dashing cavalry commander. This might be a useful background book for fifth and sixth form history classes. It is less impressive than the author's earlier Mired Horse. Of Désirée I can only say that it should make a very nice movie with Vivien Leich in the lead. Pure M.G.M. |

D.N.

W.