This Month's New Reading

Pearls for

Everywoman

LIVES of great men all have a basic similarity in their pattern: log-cabin to White House, news boy to business tycoon—or noodle pedlar to pearl king. The essential ingredient is perhaps, persistence; the refusal to accept defeat.

The Pearl King is the success story of the fabulous Mikimoto of Japan, written by Robert Eunson, with the co-operation of the de scendants of the pearl maker.

Mikimoto, like most great men, was an eccentric, an individualistic, a free thinker and very much a law unto himself. He was an old man when the Pacific war broke out, but he refused to co-operate.

He locked up his factories, refused to hand over the keys and retired to his laboratories.

The militarists retorted by send ing him a short sword and suggest ing that he commit hara-kari. He threw the sword aside contemptu ously, lived almost 10 years after the coming of peace and re-estab lished his pearl-culture industry be fore he died, at 96, in 1954.

In the seaport town of Toba, Kokichi Mikimoto was born in January of 1858 —just five years after Commander Perry had come knocking at the closed door of secluded Japan demanding that she open her ports for trade.

This so-called Meiji Restoration was an auspicious time for a prospective millionaire to be born and Mikimoto took full benefit of the spirit of the times: Under the shoguns of the past it had been im possible to break the strict class system. Son of a noodle-maker re mained a noodle-maker. But now, intelligence and enterprise were permitted to have their just reward.

The way was hard. As the eldest of a large brood, and with an ailing father, it was commonplace for Mikimoto to spend anything up to 20 hours of the 24 in complete drudgery even before he had entered his teens. A great deal of his boyhood was spent on the streets of Toba selling one thing or another —always noodles, from the family noodle shop; and frequently other things as well.

But the young Kokichi prospered and eventually entered local politics.

When he married in 1881 he was already in the seed-pearl and oyster business but it was only in the next

wnHr dl he ?, egan seriously to problem of why some .° n y . *?ad Pearls, and how they could be induced to have pearls even f Tn he i oon °S ld i? ot norma lly do so. 1890,I 890, h ? discussed the subject with a marine biologist and from S*;. ti i£ e henceforth until his death, the culture of pearls was Mlkimoto" 5 ' fr ° m the mind of At first the oysters refused to co-operate, spitting out the kernels that were inserted into them by the » lrln g and hopeful Kokichi. In 1893 came partial success. After trying everything in the way of a kernel, only to have them re gurgitated or ignored, pieces of pearl were tried—and the oysters obligingly covered them with nacre, and produced the first cultured pearls. But the pearls were only half-round, or button shaped.

Mikimoto’s ambition was to pro duce perfect, spherical pearls. The secret of this, he knew, was in the method in which the kernel was placed, and—even more important —where it was placed. Real success did not come for another 12 years.

In 1905 he found the first round, perfect pearl—it had been grown from a kernel that had been com pletely wrapped in living tissue and placed close to the hinge of the oyster shells.

Pestilence, plagues of natural enemies of the oyster, loss of face with his neighbours—who thought he was crazy—beset the King before the kingdom was firmly established.

Mikimoto was not only a man of genius in introducing the oysters to produce his pearls, he was a super salesman for his wares and travelled the world publicising the gems.

But perhaps the world will re member Mikimoto as he was in his later years—the small figure in the dark kimona and bowler hat and the long bamboo staff —a man secure enough in his position to indulge in the whimsies of eccentricity.

Mikimoto gave Japan a million dollar industry—and put real pearls around the throat of Mrs. Average Woman. Born in humble circum stances in a Japanese fishing com munity he became international in outlook. He deserves his niche in international history. (Published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd.

Australian price, 18/9.)

Whose Baby

Was That?

THIS book more than fulfils the Colonel’s own recipe: comedy fantasy with marine, biological and religious overtones. Of Trees and the Sea, (by Edgar Mittel holzer), is about Barbados and comes well within the requirements of

those readers who believe that a book about the West Indies should have an element of, shall we say, the peculiar.

The slight touch of voodoo and the religious overtones are supplied by the darker hued Barbadians; the marine and vegetable life are in situ; and the principal characters —Bl-years-old Mr. Drencher, a coloured-g entleman of some erudition; the newly-arrived from England, young marrieds, Patricia and Roger; and the daughters of the poor-white Sedge family—supply the fantastic, full measure and run ning over.

The story is concerned largely with the business of procreation, with which Mr. Drencher is more than ordinarily involved; as he says im self, he always had been handy with his extremities.

It probably requires the puckish mind of a Mittelholzer raised in the West Indies to get away with a story of this variety, and certainly to conceive the extraordinary if enlightening ending.

Not to be taken seriously, but if you like the bizarre you will likely get your money’s worth in this.

Mittelholzer is of Swiss descent although born in British Guiana.

He has lived around the West Indies all his life—except for a few years in London —and his knowledge and description of stratified Carib bean society, descending from white through all shades of coffee to purest black, is a gem of satire and intimate knowledge. (Published by Seeker and Warburg. Aus tralian price, 17/-.)

Back Home

To Die

Extraordinary in another fashion is Home From the Sea, by Jean Reverzy, medical prac titioner of Lyons, France, who “likes to travel, particularly in the East and Oceania.” It cannot, how ever, be called a comedy.

It is the story of a man dying of an incurable disease, much of it told in retrospect by the doctor who shared some of his earlier ad ventures in French Oceania, and was with him at the end of his illness in France. It is the story of Palabaud, a Frenchman, who kept a ramshackle, islands hotel at Raiatea but who went home to France with his Tahitian mistress to die.

Simple in its conception, the story and his presentation is a piece of literary craftsmanship that surprisingly loses nothing in its translation (by Edward Hyams) into English from its original French. It is stark, sordid, holding the attention by the sheer quality of the narrative.

Through the story of the dying Palabaud are woven the threads of his earlier life; Palabaud, the pre

cocious schoolboy expelled by the priests from their school for his too early interest in what they called “sin” —to wit, pornographic litera ture and a particular street-girl; Palabaud, the proprietor of the South Seas Hotel; and always, of course, the Palabaud of the en larged liver, the man who had “come home to die,” the medical curiosity.

How much the author has travelled in Oceania it is hard to say—but certainly sufficiently to portray successfully the underlying dissolution of the typical life of the South Seas drifter, who without any natural, strong principles at the outset, finds these islands of laissez faire and easy women, no climate in which to cultivate virtues. There was no particular harm in Palabaud; no particular good, either.

Knowledge of Tahiti was neces sary, also, for the description of Palabaud’s last mistress, Vaiti, and her transformation when she reached France; and for the other Polynesian women who preceded Vaiti, coming into his life without preliminaries; staying their due time and departing with little more than a nod from either side.

One of the incidental points of interest in this book are the passages dealing with Alain Gerbault, who Palabaud was supposed to have met while Gerbault was permanently anchored at Borabora. Gerbault, still regarded in some quarters as a cult, is presented as a poseur of the worst kind, a homosexual, and a crank —some of which is already known to those who have struggled through his writings.

Reverzy writes: “The old men (Polynesians) who were Gerbault’s hosts knew nothing of homo sexuality . . . and they were puzzled by their guest’s indifference to the oeillades he received from the island girls. . . He wrote, laboriously, the books which gained him his liveli hood. His relations with young native boys, often disturbed by violent quarrels, sometimes left him absent-minded and melancholy.

Liking to talk ... he discovered in Palabaud the ideal listener always silent and attentive to his diatribes against the modern world.”

Gerbault sailed away from French Oceania at last and died in Timor in 1941. But the memory of Ger bault, dirty, emaciated, in his ragged pareu, came back to Pala baud amongst a host of visions as his own end approached. (Published by Seeker and Warburg, Ltd.

Australian price, 18/9.)

The Canberra

Strangle hold on P-NG

A NYTHING that is published under the auspices of the Aus tralian Institute of Inter national Affairs and the Institute of Pacific Relations does not come

into the category of entertainmei but for a complete—and readable account of Australia’s interests: New Guinea and the islands i jacent , J. D. Legge’s Austral Colonial Policy, makes a value contribution to the history of area.

The account—from the imrruj ate pre-annexation days of Pap to 1953 —is unbiassed and Dr. Le rides no particular hobby-ho: He contents himself with giving straight account of the achie ments of Australia in the M Guinea territories, as well as I shortcomings.

About 4/sths of the book ] taken up with the history of two territories (as they then we up to the time of the Pacific v Only a comparatively short accop is given of the post-war peri© possibly because the author f that there has, as yet, been notM more in the historical sense tic “trends”—the ultimate result I which he feels to be in some doK The “New Deal” for P-NG,;, says, has proved more difficult translate into the practicalities day-to-day administration that! allowed for in the optimistic atnr phere of 1945—more was reqm for that than mere benevolence the magic touch of Ministerial! cision—but he allows that the p( war record has not been altogef; negligible.

He remarks on the “unobstrut tendency” towards the centraM tion of P-NG administration] Canberra . , , “for the most part : noticed, this development . . on such a scale as to constituti silent revolution in the systenn Government of the Territories.’" thinks that the beginning of revolution began at the deathd Sir Hubert Murray and with thes duction in rank of Papua’s cz executive officer. Sir William M Gregor and Sir Hubert w ( Lieutenant-Governors and as s

exercised considerable power a; suffered little interference fro higher authority in Australia. Whr Sir Hubert died, his successor w called “Administrator,” and as t years have passed so has t authority of succeeding adminr trators.

This change in status, and tr rule of Canberra bureaucracy place of the administration of tr man on the spot, has not gone unnoticed as Dr. Legge seems < think. There has, in fact b© several moves to have the title Lieutenant-Governor restored—as the result has been nil. Public m in the Territory have not been uj aware of Canberra control, or t evils thereof, but, under the pi* sent political set-up are qui powerless to defeat it.

Dr. Legge says with much trut “If one were to compare P-NG wh any of the British colonies who constitution is similar, one mig be tempted to ask whether M Guinea has a Government all in the sense that t British colonies have one, whether the Administration ! simply the lower and local extensii 9f the Department of Territori' its outer office, so to say.”

Dr. Legge seems to incline towai the idea that the purpose behii this deliberate plan of CanbeK control is the ultimate integration!

P-NG into the Australian politid system.

The book has an extensz bibliography and is well indexed: (Published by Angus and Robertson, I Australian price, 25/-.)

For the Youngsters

FOR sub-teens readers 71 Brown Land Was Green, J Mavis Thorpe Clark, will supjt Christmas holiday reading.

This is a story of a family Victoria’s Western District in t pioneering 1840’s—with all t thrills of wild blackfello' bullock waggons and bushfires se. through the eyes of a lively bum of children lately arrived frr rural England.

Upright and honest Papa, pn Aunt Belinda and the wicH station manager take care of 1 adult roles. (Published by William Heinemann, - Australian price, 13/6.) t The Governor of Fiji (Sir Ronu Garvey), and Lady Garvey return to Fiji by RNZAF flying-boat November 2 from Noumea, whi the Governor attended a session! the South Pacific Commission, aft having previously been present \ the celebrations in Vila to mark < golden jubilee of the New Hebriu Condominium.