LOVE IS THE THEME
| TOWER OF IVORY, by Rodolfo L. Fonseca; | WHITE NIGHT, by Forrest Rosaife; THE " CITY CALLED HOLY, by Maurice Callard; Jonathan Cape, :English price 12/6 / each. | OVE is the theme of these three novels, but in only one case is it ) "love" as understood by best-seller | writers. | By far the best, Tower of Ivory, winner of the José Janés International Prize, breaks the rule that prize novels shall be drably mediocre. Its premise, one likely to be distasteful to many, requires, and receives, delicate handling. A group of nuns are vidlated by Chinese rebels. Sister Praxedes bears a daughter, rears her in the community, then relinguishes her to foster-parents. The conflict in her soul between her religious vocation and mother-love is at the centre of a remarkable book, passionately real and psychologically subtle, despite a touch of melodrama towards the end, and searching in its appraisal of the religious life. The austere dignity of Walter Starkie’s translation suits the subject perfectly, and seems to capture
the formal quality of the Spanish original. In White Night, one of those "crazy mixed-up kids’ American novelists are so fond of plans a not. implausible revenge on his aunt, who, he believes, has caused his mother’s death. How his actions enable him to find emotional stability and bring peace of soul to his aunt is a sound enough subject, but it is worked out a little factitiously. Lack of depth in character and motivation makes the book thinnish, yet it is not a bad effort; at least, it has an idea. More run-of-the-mill is the love-inter-est in The City Called Holy, in which a British policeman in strife-torn Palestine comes to suspect his Jewish mistress of being allied with the Irgun terrorists. The conventional sexuality is less interesting than the details of the birth-pangs of Israel, clearly based on first-hand knowledge. Mr. Callard, whose first novel this is. holds his pen rather
stiffly.
J. C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19541015.2.24.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 795, 15 October 1954, Page 14
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325LOVE IS THE THEME New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 795, 15 October 1954, Page 14
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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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