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.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540827.2.24.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 13
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366ADVANCES AND RETREATS New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 788, 27 August 1954, Page 13
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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