Lot Of Bustle In Brazil

There Is An Awful Lot Of Bustle In Brazil

AND now to Brazil. We 1 with Mr. Kenneth Matt a BBC foreign correspo] for their radio and tele 1 services. He went to Rio o assignment, stayed on to lo( the jungle. When he return London he wrote a book. T the book: Brazilian Interior.

However, inspite of its title, than half of the story is not the interior at all but abou and the life of adjacent c< cities.

(Continued on Page 90)

This is a light-hearted acco of his personal adventures in vast territory of sharp contr of sophisticated Rio and primitive and virtually unexpl interior. Brazil, as he describe is a brash, bustling country boom and expansion that threa 10 burst at the seams, in w! the relatively few indigenes relegated to the jungles backwoods where they still liy stone-age isolation.

Not that there is not s enlightened concern for Indians; there is, in the approp] Government Departments in and there appears to be s argument as to whether or their remaining lands should secured to them. But the we] of the Indians is certainly not first plank in Brazilian policy the average Brazilian has abou much contract with his Indian the average Australian has his Aborigines.

Tenderfoot Matthews’ advent when he sets out as a guest of Air Force to see the jungle its inhabitants, do bear a stri resemblance to some of our personal adventures in New Gu: however. There is the j delightful uncertainty as to p Where the plane will land, whether having landed it leave to-day or some time week; and the same glorious 1 of dropping in on people ou the skies when it is known only five minutes of day remain. And Mr. Matthews (a have been) is torn between a* what might be regarded as J questions or stifling his anxi over such mundane matters falling fuel-gauges and u p schedules.

For a tenderfoot, Mr. Matt acquits himself very well, even through a rearrangement of I he remains behind at an ou with two taciturn, only-Portug speaking men, while the Air 1 party flies away—promising to d a mail-plane to pick him up.

Matthews’ relief when the r plane finally doss * arrive is ( pathetic—but for anyone who had similar experiences in tralia’s outposts of Empire, reaction is very, very underst able.

The Brazilians too exceptionally air-minded.

One of the first things a rar does is put in an air-strip, sh to be followed by a couple of about planes. . . . “We use red one to go shopping.”

Even if you do not intend to visit this other land beneatl Southern Cross, you should, if are a good arm-chair traveller, this account of Brazil Brazilians completely absorbini (Published by Peter Davies, Ltd. Aus price, 18/9.)

Both Feet Through

rkest Africa

DNT put down that suit-case yet. This is the month for travel: It’s over to Africa with ;r Finney. He has called the d of his tramping-travel books Where But Here, which we gine is a phrase that he ■owed from some of the Admin itors in the territories on which died the light of his presence, nney is quite a different case to i of our other two travellers. No ns-with-bath for this one; show to the nearest rondavel, or ly beach, or wine shop in the ve quarter, and he will ask no nney must be one of the top dng examples of reaction nst early environment, for, if remember correctly, he is the idson of Sir Hubert Murray, la’s most famous Lieutenant “rnor until his death in 1940: the son of Captain Finney, one e Administrator of Norfolk id. But since he took his place le adult world (he served with Independent Company in NG ng the war), it is a pretty safe to say that Peter has enraged ; Administrators than he has sed. - his first two books (Dust On Shoes and Who Wanders Alone, h covered Greece and the

Travelling

IdveSture ln he ba w a rf 0 a Black Watch tartan kilt and.carries

H& Sss.'Ssei Ms. Ts

bique, in Portuguese East Africa, across the Rhodesias, through Angola on the West Coast of Africa, through Nigeria, and finally to Timbuktu, in French West Africa.

Some times he jumps a train, at other he hitches a ride in a lorry and for a lot of the time he walks ... as one Portuguese yelped in amazement, “You walk about the

retr among wUd animals? On both

Passports, permits-to-enter,

he" r^lard 8 NaturaU^he

f„ which he passes 1 6 through For much of the current iournev he is accompanied bv the Dutch girl, Anna, who also occupied space in Who Wanders Alone The^re lationship, it is inferred is entirely platonic: they travel together be cause for both travel is an end in itself.

Master Peter writes entertain

ly enough about the bottom igs of society around which he nds his time; one might enjoy books even more if one did not pect that the whole thing is , something of a pose. Why, if disdain of materialism is as )le-hearted as his writing would re us believe, does he bother ;ake time off once yearly to write ook? üblished by Angus and Robertson, Ltd. ralian price, 21/-.)

i Southern Recipe

IE author of The Treasure of Pleasant Valley has sold 13 million copies of his books in United States since he began ;ing in 1946. It is claimed by [ publishers —s o m e w h a t un pssarily, we think —that he has ;ten nothing but best-sellers, ires seem to prove it. he best known of his stories is • Foxes of Harrow, which has a made into a movie, he latest has all the ingredients a popular American best-seller.

I recipe: Sex, fighting, bad men, i men, bad women, good ditto, iciples, brutality, sentimentality, jion, good-will-prevail—and sex. ip up to a good froth and serve jconomical sentences. [r. Yerby follows the formulae r his American readers like it. it’s not to say, however, that the ling has outstanding merit or

that The Treasure of P.V. (at all events) will ever become a classic.

No classic ever sold a million in its first few months of life.

It is, in essentials, a decorated Western. The main characters are gentlemen of the Old South who go to California in ’49, there to make their respective fortunes. Hailey Burke, a Southern lawyer, became a public figure, his friend, Bruce Harkness, son of a Carolina cotton planter, desired no gold, but only to farm his land, and in the lawless ness of California of ’49 he found this hard to do without also doing what he had sworn not to do —go armed.

Bruce also had the complication of another man’s wife who had fol lowed him from Carolina; and the “torment” of his attraction to the the beautiful Mexican-Indian wife of his Mexican friend.

But, in the manner of best-sellers, it all works out right in the end. (Published by William Heinemann, Ltd. Aus tralian price, 18/9.)

Another by Idriess

lON L. IDRIESS’ books of Aus tralian now run well into the 30’s in number, and no doubt the latest of them, The Silver City, will be welcomed by his fans.

As the name implies, it is the story of Broken Hill, to which the Idriess family went when son lon was a schoolboy. In which year

this event occurred, or how long Idriess, Jnr., stayed there, it is hard to discern from the narrative, but certainly it was early enough for him to hear the stories of the first great silver strikes; and to be a first-hand witness of some of the important developments that fol lowed.

The writer cannot be called a master of English prose, but his ro u n d-the-camp-fire style of narrative appeals to many Aus tralian readers. (Published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd.

Australian price, 21/-.) And More To Come . . .

ALSO received this month, too late for December reviews (they will appear in January) are the following:

Talk Of The Devil, A Novel,

set in England, by Frank Baker—

described as “A book to be read at a sitting. But whether it is a bed side book is another question.”

Published by Angus and Robertson; price 16/-.

Who Rides On The River?

The Story of Sturt’s journey down the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers in 1829-30, by J. K. Ewers.

Published by A & R: price 21/-.

Another Mystery In Suva:

A second detective novel by Frank Arthur, who left Fiji to live in Eng land about 20 years ago. Published by Heinemann; price 15/6.

The Brabazon Story, By

Lord Brabazon of Tara, famous in motoring, politics and aviation. Pub lished by Heinemann; price 31/-.

The Last Grain Race, By

Eric Newby; the story of the last of the sailing ships who annually tried to race one another home from Australia to Europe. Published by Seeker and Warburg; price 26/-.

Count Your Blessings, By

Sir Brunei Cohen, who has devoted a lifetime to helping ex-servicemen of the British Legion and rehabil itating the disabled. Published by Heinemann: price 18 9. (All Australian prices) . t Captain Max Stanton, ship delivery specialist, well known in the Islands, flew from London to Karachi in October to join the British salvage tug Salvigil for a towage voyage to Genoa.

t The cost of tar sealing existing roads in Fiji is estimated to be £F6,500 per mile. It is thought that this figure may be of interest to Rarotonga residents in the Cook Group, where there has been con siderable agitation to seal the 23miles road encircling the island. At this cost it would be quite beyond the Cl budget.

t A native youth, Reuben I* was fatally injured on Octobe when he sawed through a Japa “stick bomb” near his parent’s 1 in Honiara, presumably under mistaken idea that it was a le of metal piping. He died frorr juries in the BSIP Central Hos the same day.