FOUR LITTLE AMERICANS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 34, Issue 869, 29 March 1956, Page 14

FOUR LITTLE AMERICANS

MY SON GOGGLE, by Bentz Plagemann; Victor Gollancz, English price 12/6. CONTRARY PLEASURE, by John D. MacDonald; Robert Hale, English price 9/6. THE DARKNESS OF THE DAY, by Robert Coates; Victor Gollancz, English price 12/6, CRISIS 2000, by Charles Maine; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 10/6. ARENTS whose children are (a) firmly and definitely asleep, or (b) firmly and definitely in either a boarding school or borstal, will be able to laugh themselves silly over Goggle. It is very, very funny. And there’s comfort in it, too, for those who think that theirs is the only irrepressibly demoniac child that ever.dropped a flour bomb on the caretaker’s greying head. Huckleberry Finn was an innocent, measured against such as Goggle, precocious product of America’s new pediarchy. As he’s not our son, we can enjoy every minute of this book, till toward the end. However humorous the book is, child worship is child worship, and humour must be paid for by an eventual Making Good. In America particularly there seems such a short gap between being childishly irresponsible and irresponsibly childish. But, ah, the grave American novel, the Family Chronicle! Contrary Pleasure is not even much of a title to the "absorbing detail" of the small town manufacturing Delevan family. Certainly. once you start you will inevitably finish this book; but they’re all like that, so weari-some-competent. The bad son, the difficult daughter, the problem brother; all going to bed and going to business. Take this one to bed. >

The Darkness of the Day is explained by the publisher as "an intense and moving story of love with a*tragic conclusion." Would that one could come to the conclusion as quickly. Hungarian born piano-tuner meets new York waitress. Marries her, of course. A mistake, of course. It has its moments, but there are some lives ore can’t feel inquisitive over — too many other things to read. But is there any hope for the future? Turn now to A.D. 2000. The Little Men are with us again, this time from Saturn. They want to come to the World Festival, and they do-behind their bubble of impenetrable

force-wall they are being transmitted nonstop by radio teletransition (or somesuch) all the way from Saturn to New York assembly spot. The Senator is a fat, flabby oratorical type, trying forcefully to be friendly. ~The Colonel in charge of the U.S. forces is scornful of such Billy Bunterism ("I cannot jeopardise the safety of the world, and the U.S. in particular, because of an irresponsible man and woman’), All the rest of the personae, on whose shoulders everything may fall to preserve, et cetera, are busy eyeing and dating and making passes at pretty Dr. Lynn Farrow, the scientific brains of the cast. As in most of the space-yawners, the human beings are quite, quite, silly subhuman. Up, the Saturnians!

Denis

Glover