Women Away from Home

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 797, 29 October 1954, Page 12

Women Away from Home

WHILE HISTORY PASSED, by Jessie Elizabeth Simons; Heinemann, Australian price 15/-. THE BROADER WAY: A Woman's Life in the New Japan, by Sumie Seo Mishima; Victor Gollancz, English price 13/6. PERSIA IS MY HEART, by Najmeh Najafi; Victor Gollancz, English price 13/6. HOME IN THE BEAR’S DOMAIN, by Martha Martin; Victor Gollancz, English price 13/6. MRS. BETSEY, or Widowed and Wed, by Francesca Marton; Hamish Hamilton, English price 12/6. DANCE TO MY TUNE, by Linda Boscawen; Hodder and Stoughton, Enélish price 10/6.

(Reviewed by

C.

autobiographical, two fiction. A tea-party for the authors would produce some curious talk, with a strong current of feminism. Jessie Elizabeth Simons and Sumei Seo Mishima could meet with profit. Sister Simons, in While History Passed, describes the experiences of members of the Australian Army Nursing Service as prisoners of the Japanese. Mrs. Mishima, in The Broader Way, describes the ex-periences-and changing attitudes-of some of the Japanese during and after the war. Sister Simons’s book is a tight-lipped account of terrifying treatment and almost inconceivable endurance. Of the 65 nurses evacuated from Singapore in 1942, only 24 managed to survive their ship’s sinking and their subsequent capture and imprisonment. The prisoners gave up trying to understand the Japanese, Sister Simons says, and in their struggle for survival there was no place for the luxury of reflection. Some of the causes of this brutality ate explained indirectly by Mrs. Mishima’s well-informed account of the breakdown of the old Japanese society. From the ruins of total war Japanese women have salvaged independence and responsibility, with, says Mrs. Mishima, the pre-eminent hope of a _ peaceful place in the world. To her personal story she brings perspective and insight, and the result is an absorbing account of the forces working to make presentday Japan, not the least of which is the power of emancipated women. Somewhat similar in outlook is Najmeh Majafi’s Persia Is My Heart. A young woman brought up in the tradition of a great Persian family, the author has seen her country virtually forced to jump from ancient to modern times, To help in the difficult transition she conceived the radical plan of establishing small factories in the villages, to give her desperately poor countrywomen some chance of employment. Her story is unusual, and told with grace and charm. Home in the Bear's Domain, by Martha Martin, is a best-selling mixture of piety, adventure and shrewd comment. The scene is Alaska, and goldmining, hunting and rearing a family in remote and rugged country are the themes. Mrs. Betsey is a surprisingly rich novel, rich in incident, character and Victorian atmosphere, Francesca Marton’s Betsey gives us a delightful maid’s-eye view of goings-on above and below staivs. A fine sense of period and a distinctive style make this an uncommonly good novel of the not too distant past. Sc books by women: four

There is nothing memorable in Dance to My Tune, by Linda Boscawen. It is the lightest of fiction, about not very convincing people in Cornwall.