EXCURSIONS AND ADVENTURES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 798, 5 November 1954, Page 13

EXCURSIONS AND ADVENTURES

RITCHIE, or Behind the Tartan Curtain, by Join B. Bartét; Jonathan Cape, BAgHoh pricé 12/6. FALLING STREAM, by rer W. Chapman; Jonathan Cape, English price 10 6. THE WILD HONEY, by Victoria Linéoln; Fabér and Fabér, Enflish price 12 6. GENERAL IN THE JUNGLE by B. Traven; Robert Hale, English price 10 6. TIRST the worst. Ritchie is a feeble comedy about a youre art critic who is sé@tit by His principal to darkest Scotland, there to value an allegéd bust by Leonardo. Missing his station and his stép he falls into (in order) a deep stream, unconsciousness, a bed, trouble. and love. Assorted Scotch types ciftulate for thé sake of local éolout. The bust is of no importance either to the novel ot to the canon of Leonardo. The author’s fourth novel, 86 ome ¢an Hardly even cal] him promising. Falling Stream is a comedy, too, but the Writing is better and the author has a gtip on human situations. It is a triangle. a married couplé and the lady friend. What makes the triangular situation more interesting thati most is that all three members aré middle-aged and have contrived to live in a delicate and decorous balance for twenty years. A thréesome voyage to the exoticism of Southern Italy lets a few inhibitions out of thé bag. Husband has an affair of a Mommertit with the lady friend. Wife falls for a delightfully poftrayed Anglophile Italian afistocrat. who sighs in pfe-First-War slafig for gréy skies ovér Piccadilly, and who. in his turn, falls for an improbably Russian lady. It is all father a romp, but written with serious overtones, and the central] figure, for whom romance comes too late to be othér than a nuisance, is extfetnely well done. The Wild Honey is a collection of short stoties. Oné héed hardly add that they aré American. The insatiable American appetite for weekly and monthly magazinés keéps mahy a writer in fulltime employment, and the quality of the best is at present as high @& is to be found anywhere in the Englishwriting world. Miss Lincoln's work is mainly ¢oncerned with women and children, and she is skilled both in plotting and in the evocation of atmosphere On quality, this is the best volume so far, and I recommend it. Fiftally, the best book of the quaftette, Général in the Jungle. Readers of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Rebéilion 6f the Hanged and The Bridge if thé Junglé, will need no further fecommendation, The author, Traven, is a mysterious figure. I have been trying to get information on him for years, but when the dust jacket of this volume tells me that. neither his publisher nor his agent has evér seen him, I céasé to be despondent about my own researches. Traven writés mainly of the Indians in Mexico, and alternates between pity for theif plight and savage afiger at what they efidure. In this novel his mood is lighter, in that he concedes 4 kind of griti humour caf be wrting from situations that in his earlier books he regarded with horror. The General from the Jungle neéds a sttong stomach, but it is hone-the-less a fine piece of work. This story of a group of Indians who rebel against their masters is a kind of Uncle Tom’s Cabin in reverse,

and is qa notable addition to Traven's unbBlinking yet soffiéhow Sensitive

studiés in violence.

I.A.

G.