THE QUICK AND THE QUEER
THE HONEYED PEACE, by Martha Gellhorn; Andre Deutsch, English price 10/6. THE JOKER, by Jean. Malaquais; Victor Gollancz, English price 12/6. THE WHEEL, by Leach; Chatto and Windus, English price 8/6. LINCOLN McKEEVER, by Eleazar Lipsky; Andre Deutsch, English price 12/6. EE HE short story is in less of a decline in America today then it is in England, where very few journals stil] print it. Those in Martha Gellhorn’s book are top-flight New Yorker-type stories of post-war chaos, European or American. They have drive, ruthlessness, and insight, and are as successful as they are uncomfortable to read. Malaquais is original. If you look on him as another Kafka (of whom there are inevitable trace elements), you may wax ecstatic about this translated novel of the future and the individual against the state. Or (like me) you may merely find it tiresome with the peculiar doctrinaire thoroughness of the French when they throw aside realism, their natural
strength, But these fantasies of the state Tampant are undoubtedly ingenious. The Wheel, virtually a long short story, is more successfully bizarre. An ex-soldier goes, against advice, into hot nomad-ranged deserts (North Africa? Arabia?) and suffers a nightmare captivity, from which, just as fortuitously, he is rescued. The book shows a respectable talent, but is not in itself very engrossing. The ingredients that make up Lincoln McKeever, a story of a lawyer defending a "framed" Spaniard tn New Mexico about 1900, are well tried and testeda dash of moral fervour, stirring legal jousts, a love interest, a heartbreak, and a background of violence stretching to the utmost the forms of law. Of these four it will sell the most and be worth the least. But you could wait for the film.
David
Hall
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19541001.2.23.6
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 793, 1 October 1954, Page 14
Word count
Tapeke kupu
295THE QUICK AND THE QUEER New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 793, 1 October 1954, Page 14
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Material in this publication is protected by copyright.
Are Media Limited has granted permission to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa to develop and maintain this content online. You can search, browse, print and download for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Are Media Limited for any other use.
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.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
Log in