This Month's New Reading

Reviews By Judy Tudor

Full-Rigged Ships

And Iron Men

Sails Beneath the Southern Cross will please those who like a story with a good salt-tang to it. Its author, P. A. Eaddy, is rising 73, but in writing of the era of sailing ships that has now passed, his en thusiasm is that of a young man.

Even in the period of which he writes —from the 80’s to the begin ning of the First World War, the sailing ship was fast disappearing.

But as yet it has not become ancient history, and the author’s breezy, mpretentious style can induce lostalgia in the most land-lubbery imongst us.

Mr. Eaddy’s voyages mostly started rom Auckland and fascinating are lis descriptions of that city when t was much less a metropolis than t is to-day. Likewise what he has o say of the life of a child who tad the good fortune to grow up round the bays of Auckland har our, or in the New Zealand bush, dll awaken memories in any New iealander who had similar begin ings—of which your reviewer was ne (although no one need run away dth the idea that it was at the ame time as Mr. Eaddy).

He describes how the “long rata ines swinging loosely from the reat trees overhanging some deep aol in the river also provided great m in the summer, as we would ving out over the clear water and t go with a splash. ...” Was there rer a NZ kid who did not experi ice that exquisite delight?

Mr. Eaddy writes of a time when wer of the material comforts of :e were demanded—and, heaven lows, fewer of them realised. An a less orientated to the pay en- Iqpe, but in which adventure was sier to come by. In these days sail, an AB got £4 per month, id the creature comforts provided r him were close to nil. A Master is paid £l6 a month; a Mate got with £B. But somehow they man ed to marry and raise families.

In those days, Auckland was the. me port of the small sailing ships at traded to Polynesia, and Mr. ddy’s own Island adventures, as 41 as the famous Islands ships the period, are fully described, om Auckland, also, he shipped to .strahan ports, to the Americas and around the world. Illustrated :h a score of photographs; and an Jellent index allows the reader to i : pomt any of the hundreds of ling ships that he mentions. In irt—an invaluable book for all )se who are interested in ships.

KSf by „, A ' H - &A - W - Ree d. 182 sefield St., Wellington, NZ. New Zea -3 price, 17/6.)

Blood And Gold

The seventh of E. V Timms’

A ustrahan series, The Fury, was published during the recent cen tenary of the Eureka Stockade It was a happy coincidence because the iatest Tunms covers this part of Austrahan history. o figure in the story is Sally May Lome, who was orphaned on Black Thursday—February 6, 1851—the day on which bush fires swept across the whole of southern Victoria—New South Wales as it still was—ravaging the country as far west as the present South Aus tralian border, and northwards and over the Dandenongs.

Sally May is adopted by an ex gentleman turned wandering pedlar and it is through her eyes we see Victoria in the mid-century years when recently discovered gold was forcing revolutionary changes on to a colony which in many respects was unwilling to take them.

Timms, although a Queenslander, had made his name as a writer— mostly of 17th century historical novels with a European setting—be fore he embarked on his Australian saga. He now has a large following and, as with all popular writers, it is no longer a matter of reviewing, so much as whether the individual reader likes Timms or not.

Some of the characters of the previous volumes receive honourable mention in The Fury, and the Gubbys, uncouth, kindhearted Martha and her meek little husband Henry, turn up in Ballarat—some what with the appearance of hav ing been dragged into the narrative by the hair of their heads, but there nonetheless.

Timms plans a dozen novels cover ing the growth of Australia from 1831 to World War 11. Two of his novels—the first in the series, cover Western Australia; two New South Wales; two Victoria and one Queens land. So far Tasmania, South Aus tralia and Australia’s Territories re main untouched—but there is enough material in each of them to provide for the missing five books. (Published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd. Australian price, 16/-.)

Clune On The

Kellys

The combination of Frank Clune — master of the cliche —writing about Ned Kelly is sufficient to make the stoutest-hearted book-reviewer quail.

Or so I thought; and was wrong.

In The Kelly Hunters, Clune not only has produced some good, straightforward writing, but a his tory of early Victoria, and of Aus tralian institutions, that is hard to equal. It has an extensive bibliography and a catalogue of

material that will be in valuable to future historians. „ ™ e . r P e arch that obviously has and 6 i n lr Vbi C H lB b ? ok 18 P rodi gious, Th d p ande P far outdoes „{l ( L Fu r y ' T et the two books com each other, and it is no had thmg to read them as a pair Edward Kelly—soon to be nick named Ned—was born in June 1855 six months after the Eureka Stock ade ’ and the whole 25 years, five of his life, before it ended at the end of a rope in Melbourne was against that tumultuous back ground of Australia’s early years.

Asa man may be the product of his early environment, so a country hittle discernment is necessary to see in the Australian characteristics of to-day, a hangover from those early days when a foundation of convict settlement was overlaid bv the peculiar land laws that per mitted wholesale “squatting” that, in turn, haci produced a variant of a landed gentry class with peculiar Pu lvi |j^ es ’ whole complicated by the discovery of gold and the re sentment by Authority and the Squattocracy of that fact, all leavened by the entry of poor im migrants and the enforced residence °* time-expired convicts. For although, as Clune points out, full provision was made for the release or prisoners who had served their sentences (seven years deportation in the case of Ned Kelly’s father who stole two pigs from a local larmer) no provision whatever was made for returning them to their original homes. Most of them, there rore, had no alternative but to stav in Australia.

The Australian mob’s notorious contempt of established order and those who administer it—they will still watch while a policeman is done to death by a bunch of hooligans —is easier to understand against this background of early Australia when law was not so much a matter of justice as of power and prejudice.

Although so far as Kelly v. the Law is concerned, we suspect that Mr.

Clune’s sympathies are slightly on the Kelly side of centre, the re action of most Australians reading of these events to-day is that they too, would have joined the Ballarat miners behind their stockade in de fence of their personal liberties against the petty, persecuting methods of the colonial police; pos sibly, tcio, would have joined the Kellys in their fight against the lop-sided state of the society of their day.

In all these aspects of those early years, it is easy to see the genesis of the average Australian’s fierce defence of what he takes to be his private privileges; and his acute class-consciousness which makes him forever distrust the “boss.” A hundred years has failed to breed out these characteristics.

In his treatment of the Kelly story, Clune goes away back beyond

(Continued on Page 90)

Australia into Ireland; and traces back all the little tributaries, that, flowing together to make a flood, forced young Ned along the narrow channel that inevitably he had to travel In tracing this history and telling this story, the author has given a fascinating account of that country that Victorians (many of them these days without knowing why) still call the “Kelly Country’’—from Mel bourne north along what is now the Hume Highway to Donnybrook and Beveridge (where Ned was born), over Pretty Sally Hill to Kilmore and' north-east to Seymour and Euroa, Benalla and Glenrowan.

West again to the Strathbogie and Buffalo ranges.

If Clune, in his case for Kelly, has not entirely proved that he was altogether innocent and misjudged, he has at least proved that Kelly was no 19th century version of the modern gangster. Only his times and those circumstances could have produced him. A Ned Kelly would be impossible in 1954.

FOOTNOTE: It is interesting to discover that Ned Kelly’s paternal grandmother was a Mary Cody, kins woman of William Frederick Cody, born in lowa, USA, and better known as Buffalo Bill. Thus the Cody blood produced two folklore

heroes born within the same decade, but half the world apart. (Published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd. Australian price, 25/-.)

The Queen In Fiji

The second last of the Royal Visit books (Tonga is yet to come) has been published. The Royal Visit to

Fiji is a fitting companion to the other two, the Royal Visits to New Zealand and Australia, which were both printed in Australia.

The Fiji book was wholly produced in Fiji, by the Government Print ing Department and the result is technically of top grade, with modern layout and reader appeal.

The narrative was written by Mr.

J. W. Sykes, who was secretary of ;he Fiji Royal Visit Committee and ater Tour Manager. He also has done a first-class job.

The book contains over 30 black and white photos, most of them by Fiji’s ace photographer, Rob Wright, md many of them have not been jublished before.

Royal Visit has been a best-seller n Fiji in recent weeks, although t was not published until almost a ear after the events described took lace. A special copy of the book as been presented to Her Majesty. (Fiji Price of “Royal Tour’’ is 12/6.)

Jrandpa Was Not A

Iice Man

Not a whodunnit but in the same ategory and likely to appeal to le same sort of readers is The 'etter To Eat You, by Charlotte rmstrong.

A “suspense” novel— you know iat grandpa is the evil genius but le heroine does not find out until le last page.

If you can accept the fact that ie Very Nicest Kind of female has te wool pulled over her eyes very isily, you’ll accept this as is. But you prefer your females to be ade of sterner stuff, then occasion ly you will have an impulse to ick a pin into Sarah Shepherd, even sympathise with grandpa.

Apart from that, however, the ok is first-class thriller fare with i American setting—recommended all those who occasionally (or Dre frequently) read for relaxa m and amusement, rather than • the improvement of their minds, rhe story concerns Sarah, who inks she is pursued by a jinx nethmg nasty often happens to cple who take her out or become (crested in her. The man she imed dropped dead at her feet the wedding reception. Sarah— maps not unnaturally—develops a irosis about it. A young college ifessor, David Wakely, sets out prove it is no jinx. And David, course, is right.

Published by Feter Davies, Ltd.; Aus lan price 13/3.)

;Rses—Various

probably the less said about a lection of modern verse the ter Particularly when it is a lection of Australian modern se. ’here is no special reason why Australian variety should be •se than other varieties, of course; I know of no reason to suppose s any better, either.

II I can suggest is that if you given to poetry, you buy Aus han Poetry— l9s4, and try it out rself. have self-sacrificingly read the ection myself; and although e of it makes really sweet music nine ears, a little of it is not as as J- ? ad feared - The two ms which came nearest to ring

ing bells are “To John (1940),’’ bv Mona Brand; and “Crow’s Nest,’’ by Douglas Stewart. The former is about a billy-cart ride—which is something my cramped, cultural soul can understand; and the other i? M™J erse iines about that inner North Shmre suburb of Sydney where involved in the usual Monday-morn ing traffic snarl, I have often felt along the same lines as Mr. Stewart. itrf PUb i ish f ed ,. by Angus and Robertson, Ltd. Australian price, 10/6.)

The Very Careful

People

The prize of one green lemon goes this month to The Careless Peovle a combined effort by Helen Fowler and Bernard Harris.

This is an Australian novel, writ ten on the flimsiest excuse in the maximum number of words. It might be tagged an introspective novel; in a sen tence, its theme is that the world is not well ipst for love because God wouldn’t 111C0 it.

Th e scene is Sydney and the nearby Hawkesbury country—this is so clear that one could almost put ones finger on exact street or village, but for heaven knows what reason, all these places are given fictitious names.

The first quarter of the book is taken up with the thoughts of the heroine, Esther, as she waits in a holiday cottage above the Hawkes bury for her lover, Martin.

Esther is married to a plonky

barrister; Martin to a young matron of fixed suburban ideas. It is essential—for the usual conven tional reasons—that no one should find out about Esther and Martin.

That is the essence of the whole book.

At various stages during these first 60 pages of prose, Esther freezes like a startled fawn as she imagines that Martin is at last approaching. But no dice. Martin does not show up.

Part Two describes Martin at home, fixing the babies’ bottles and pushing the babies in the pram while his wife is out shopping. And, tiow at last he makes his get-away to the waiting Esther.

Unfortunately, by the time he 'caches the Hawkesbury, it is dark md in climbing to his loved-one le falls and cracks his skull or rery near it. Exit Martin.

Part Three: Esther returns to the ;ity and plonky husband. Come Monday she goes to the office. No Martin.

Suspecting what has happened he leaves the office, and by train nd launch, returns to the Hawkes ury, follows the road Martin must ave taken—and finds him, still un onscious.

There follows a description of how. r ith the aid of an understanding oatman-cum-milkman, she gets lartin out of their joint predica nt* into hospital and under the .° f t s e J amil y doctor and [artins suburban wife

Still no one has the slightest suspicion of their affair.

°. n t legitimately expect

that havmg got to this stage, there would come the great renounce ment scene either by Martin and Esther of their respective spouses who, heaven knows, are presented in such an unsympathetic light anyone would be excused for run ning away and leaving them to stew m their own juice. Or, having had the fright of their lives, by Martin and Esther deciding to play safe and conventional in future, which is the normal end of nine-tenths of illicit affairs.

But the authors want it a little each way. The scene shifts on two years, when Esther and Martin, hav ing spoken no word to each other in the interval, come suddenly to gether out in the vicinity of their old haunts.

Esther has been very ill. But both have been cleansed in mind and spirit. During the time that Esther had been near to death, she had found that she was in no position to die—that she had been cut off, by her own hand, from the Divine Love that she and Martin had re jected. She learned that life was a mere apprenticeship for death.

Martin, too, had wrestled “with his demon”—and so, when they came to part, they knew that in future they could meet in an atmos phere of decency, honesty and sanity.

So moral. And so confoundedly unconvincing. y There is, of course, the germ of something here that could have made a good novel. But in the way the authors have presented it, it is as inspiring as a gallon of tepid milk —when one might have expected a magnum of champagne. „ The “ The Careless People, comes from a line in Lad” manS verses ’ “ A Shropshire T < Pub i isl i e< * by Angus and Robertson, Ltd. Australian price, 16/-.) f Sainiana Sorawale, the Fijian girl who represented her country at the Empire Games in Canada last year (in the broad-jump section) has joined the office staff of the Fiji Visitors’ Bureau, Suva.