Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

ADVANCES AND RETREATS

THE FLAW IN THE CRYSTAL, by Godfrey Smith; Victor Gollancz, English price 10/6. LOOK NOT UPON ME, by Denys Jones; Jonathan Cape, English price 12/6. DOLORES, by David Stacton; Faber and Faber, English price 12/6. THE RETREAT, by Forrest Reid; Faber and Faber. English price 12/6. ‘HE FLAW IN THE CRYSTAL is an intellectual thriller (no bodies and plenty of contemporary ideas). Its dust jacket suggests that it was inspired by the disappearance of the two Foreign Office diplomats, Burgess and Maclean. A dedicated young public servant, Meredith, is detailed to investigate Graham Several, ex-fighter ace, business magnate and superman of London’s younger intelligentsia, whom the Government is considering sending abroad on a highly confidential: mission, The story takes in its stride the worlds of big business, diplomacy, Fleet Street and today’s "gay young things," and contrasts the integrity and comparative inertia of the public service with the drive and lack of scruple ef big business, This cleverly contrived novel is recommended for businessmen as well as public servants, Look Not Upon Me is set in Kenya towards the end of the last war, when the Mau Mau terror was just beginning. It is the story of Lance-Corporal Carter. employed in the censor’s office in Nairobi. He falls in love with a black nurse at a local hospital, The girl is, actually, a qualified doctor of medicine, well educated, charming and attractive. As the hospital is administered by whites she cannot work as a doctor. She must be content to serve simply as a_ nursing sister. The general frustration resuiting from this situation is reinforced by welldrawn subsidiary characters. The African background is well conveyed. Dolores is another expatriate novel by another young American, The story follows an attractive young girl from a secluded Californian beach to the fringes of Roman and Parisian society. Mr, Stacton plods heavily, and, Im afraid, wearily, in the footsteps of the Lost Generation. Forrest Reid’s novel, The Retreat, described on first publication in 1936 as (continued on next page)

BOOKS (continued trom previous page) "a book for everyone who can see magic in boyhood and shadows of eternity," is

now available in a reprint.

J. R.

C.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540827.2.24.5

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 13

Word count
Tapeke kupu
366

ADVANCES AND RETREATS New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 13

ADVANCES AND RETREATS New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 13

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert