SO VARIOUS A BAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 900, 2 November 1956, Page 14

SO VARIOUS A BAND

_ THEY FELL FROM GOD’S HAND, by Hans Werner Richter; Harrap, English price 15/-. BACH AND THE HEAVENLY CHOIR, by Johannes Riiber; Rupert Hart-Davis, English price 12/6. PEOPLE TO BE FOUND, by Joanna Cannan; Victor Gollancz, English oe 12/6. ONE FOR THE ROAD, by J. White; Jonathan Cape, English price 13) 6. THE HEADLAND, by Caroi Brink; Victor Gollancz, English price 12/6. HIS mixed bag of five illustrates perfectly Walter Allen’s remark, * | "Novels are as various as the men and women who write them." The longest and most ambitious, They Fell from God’s Hand, by Hans Werner Richter, one of the most gifted

of post-war German writers, isa. packed picaresque work, giving a panorama of Europe from 1940 to 1950. The nine main characters, including a Spanish Republican captain, a Czech woman, a Russian fighter-pilot, an Estonian captain and a Polish girl, are followed in: their adventures, reputable and disreputable, through a shattered, pain-ridden world. Documentary detail, copious and telling dialogue and skilful manipulation of character build up a convincing picture of ten terrible years. Herr Werner’s pity for, and understanding of, human beings shine through a moving story, free from both bitterness and self-pity. The grace of sehidinal Riiber’s tale a musical Pope who wants to canonise Johann Sebastian Bach might lead some to take it simply for a charming modern legend. But it is more than that. Delightful though the story is, it also says some very wise things about

the relationship between religion and art; and breathes a fine spirit of charity. I was pleasantly surprised by Joanna Cannan’s novel, the first I have read by this prolific writer. There isn’t much story-chiefly about the gifted son of a labourer who wins scholarships, becomes an. intellectual and marries the horseloving daughter of the squire. But Miss_ Cannan’s fun at the expense of those class-distinctions other English novelists take seriously, her exposing of lowerclass snobbery, and her bright and mordant humour make the book tartly agreeable light reading. One for the Road is an odd but compelling first novel-a kind of psychiatric thriller. The setting is Dublin, the main character a man with a persecution complex (or has he?) and the story a study of character-disintegration as impressive in its presentation of Irish types as in its clever projection of neurotic states of feeling. \ Miss Brink’s headland is the French playground for five children -two American, two Spanish, one British. The childhood scenes are nostalgically real; but as the youngsters grow to adulthood, are involved in the Spanish War and the Nazi Occupation, and be- | come emotionally entangled, the novel slides smoothly down the slope of expert but insignificant glossy-magazine ‘iction.

J.C.

R.