PINK SUGAR AND BIG BUSINESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 935, 12 July 1957, Page 13

PINK SUGAR AND BIG BUSINESS

MAMA, I LOVE YOU, by William Saroyan; Faber and Faber, English price 15/-. THE GREAT WORLD AND TIMOTHY COLT, by Louis Atchincloss; Victor Gollancz, English_ price 15/-. THE ROOM ON ROOF, by Ruskin Bond; Andre Deutsch, English price 10/6. A TRAIN TO CATCH, by Anthony Rushworth; Angus and Robertson, English price 16/-. NO HOME BUT HEAVEN, by Jon Manchip White; Hodder and Stoughton, English price 15/-. N OST writers go sour at some time or another. William Saroyan, just to be different, has gone sweet. Mama, I Love You, unbelievable successor to Peace, It’s Wonderful, and The Daring Young Man, is all pink sugar and girlish laughter. Briefly, the story is this: Mama Girl and daughter Twink-she may have a real name, but she doesn’t tell us-are going to a party in Sunset Boulevarde, California. Mama _ Girl changes her mind, they take a plane to New York and go in a play together. Just like that. And what’s more, everyone’s so kind to them, producers, old friends, hotel proprietors-even the Press! If ever there was a theme that begged for the astringent Saroyan touch, this is it, but the author himself seems to have been stupefied by this husband-lorn Mama and her dreadful child. There’s the same solidity about Louis Auchincloss’s The Great World and Timothy Colt as there is in the legal world he writes about, and he has given us a readable study in ethics and human relationships. It’s unfortunate, though, that he has been so unimaginative in his theme, the well-worn one of the young man making good who takes a false step and crashes. You can see what’s coming from the first page. The Room on the Roof is the best first novel I’ve read for a long time, even though, basically, it’s nothing more than a slight account of an English boy’s life with a Hindu family. I found it remarkable for its lack of European judgment on the absurdities and inconsequentialities of post-partition Indian living. There’s a delicacy and a freshness about Ruskin Bond’s dealings with adolescent relationships that reminded me very pleasantly of Forrest Reid. Anthony Rushworth’s A Train to Catch is another canter on the weary

hobby-horse of post-war rehabilitation. The characters are a trifle vague and undifferentiated-which may or may not be deliberate-and the end, a final kicking over the traces and a high-tail-ing off to South America, is not altogether a surprise. No Home But Heaven, a rip-roarer about gypsies, doctors, pretty Sisters, fist fights and sports cars, seems to have been written with one eye on the cinema screen. Jon Manchip White’s prose is fast-moving and unfettered. This is entertainment for a rainy evening. hut

nothing more.

Peter

Cape