This Month's New Reading

The Benevolent

Occupants

AFTER August 29, 1940, things were never quite the same again on Baressa. Even greater changes came at a still later date but that is to anticipate the climax of The Occupying Power (by Gwyn Griffin).

Baressa was a blow n-a way, Italian island colony, 600 miles out in the Arabian Sea from Italian Somaliland but existing on no map except that of the extraordinary Mr.

Griffin’s considerable imagination.

It is possible, however, that the story which he tells could have been founded on numerous benevolent victor-ships of World War 11.

In August, 1940, the British came to occupy Baressa and the bizarre and entertaining events of the next five years are woven into a story that grows upon the reader as it moves skilfully to its surprising ending.

The trouble with this small Occupying Power was that it had stayed too long on the island; it was, collectively, in the language of the AIF, troppo.

There was the British military governor, Euan Lemonfield, a barrister in private life, who began his reign as a plain Major and ended his career as “Your Ex cellency,” surrounded by native troops in white and gold uniforms: young Captain Kellermann, who in France had been given the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre for something he did not do, and who wished for nothing more than to find sanctuary on the island; Sergeant Brinsmead, the Governor’s right hand man who kept pet shops in London (although he did not like pets); the young signalman who fell in love with Silvana; and the young engineer officer Paige (who was a Lord) who so closely identified himself with his duties as Police Chief that he contemplated changing his nationality—after the war.

But if the Occupying Force liked Baressa, Baressa liked the Force.

The island had never been so prosperous and both parties would have been more than content if the Occupation had gone on for ever.

But the years were not entirely without shocks. The first was when the General arrived about the end of the second year and for a week disrupted the normal serenity of the island by planning fortifications and playing soldiers. The second was the discovery of a German spy.

And the last was the arrival of a cruiser escorting troop ships which had been damaged in a freak storm.

The coming of the troop ships was the end of the idyll—but by then it was too late for those who had dwelt so long in the mirage world of Occupied Baressa —and their reaction produces an ex traordinary conclusion to the story.

This entertaining b(Dok would make an excellent movie. As well as an ingenious plot, its characters are just sufficiently larger-than life to suit the motion-picture medium. (Published by Angus and Robertson, Ltd.

Australian price, 18/9.)

You Probably

Need a Dictionary

HAVE you ever read a dictionary?

It can be done for diversion, as well as for occasional instruc tion.

Once, long years ago, this re viewer, marooned in the wilds of New Guinea, solitary and tem porarily without current reading matter other than one pocket edition dictionary, learnt that the can make much better entertain ment than reading the jam-tin labels (another traditional literary pastime under such circum stances) .

Since that time she has been seif-elected president of the Society of Dippers into Dictionaries.

Recently, among our books for re view, there has come to us a New English Dictionary, published by Collins the large, great-great grandson of that small New Guinea pocket version.

How does one review a dictionary?

By employing the technique of the Dippers’ Society: We let the book fall open at will, and get page 786 amongst the “P’s.” Here we go: pterygoid, pterylosis, ptochocracy, Ptolemy, ptomaine, ptosis, ptyalin, pub. . . .

We imagine that few of our readers do not know the meaning of “pub.” But did they know that “pterygoid” means resembling a bird’s wing; or that “pterylosis” is the arrangement of a bird’s feathers; or that “ptochocracy” is a govern ment of beggars?

Everyone needs a dictionary and everyone needs a new dictionary about every decade to take care of the new words, technical and other wise, ,that are continually being added to the English language.

Collins’ New English has 1,200 pages of dictionary, a section de voted to common foreign words and phrases, a section of information about Australia and New Zealand (including a dictionary of colloauial terms), a coloured World Atlas,

customary abbreviations, ceremo. forms of address, weights measures and a great deal of oo general information in si nr volume about the size of a large novel. (Published in Great Britain by CO Australian price, 31/-.)

Preparatory

Class

AN episode in premature ao , hood is the theme of a novel by a young man cs; Douglas Fairbairn. A Man’s W is the teenage love story of G© Fox, a cabin-boy on an Amen millionaire’s yacht, and Chris who is forced to be a hostess im bar of her wicked aunt.

George finally goes back America and is sent to school by millionaire, but that takes up 11 pages in the last chapter, rest of the story takes place the French Riviera in an ate phere where sin, sophistication j unpredictable millionaires abou An entertaining enough piecs nonsense which leaves us won ing whether the author intendeJ for nothing more than a lit© hors d’oeuvre, or whether he acti: meant it as a piece of serious t ing. (Published by Wm. Heinemann, Ltd. tralian price, 13/3.)

Picture Book

of Scotland

A BOUT 40 full-page colour pH graphs of Scotland’s sw beauty spots is the basis ofi Heritage of Scotland In Coloun There is an introductory se* and notes on the illustration!

John Kerr, and the picture bon printed in the Netherlands Angus and Robertson LtdJ Sydney.

It would make a suitable gifi a Scots friend, or would be of terest to anyone who had vi Scotland, or hoped to do so. 0 tralian price, 24/-).

Mr. Clune Goes

Wandering

Australian author f Clune has temporarily des* his bushrangers and gj Roaming Round New Zealand..

This is Clune at his most ebuli Apparently having digested » piece of tourist literature ever ten about New Zealand, he foe it up with three months intes travel and study and then spill! lot in 320 pages, plus photograf As complete a guide for tox in New Zealand as we have i

written specially for Australians, , Australian, by an Australian (wv knows everyone by their ftf names).

You will also get complete statist* of everything Mr. Clune sees, hes; or smells, plus a plug for Holcb cars and Ampol petroleum.

There appears to be no way prevent Frank Clune from writir books of instructions for his fell!

Australians (or, as he would put; people from “the land of N' Kelly”).

Thousands of them like it, course. (Published by Angus and Robertson, I Australian price, 25/-.)

A Little Business of

Their Own

ALL businesses seem good fr«the outside looking in. Butt small country newspaper, view from the same position looks b( of all. This is a pipe-dream i dulged in by crack newspapernr (and women) the world over —ai by others not so crack; just crack: Minding Our Own Business, Charlotte Paul, will probably appn to those who are fatally attract by ink and newsprint, more thr to those whose chosen metier selling groceries (for instanc« However, there are sufficient in tt former category to provide mo than an adequate number of read»J for this book.

When Charlotte Paul married Groshell during the war she w assistant foreign news editor of) Chicago newspaper and Ed w news editor for the same new paper. Five years later she had U come a successful freelance wrii of short stories and novels, he hr gone into public relations. Tb had, between them, a good incom no debts, two small children and farm. They also had a hankerii to buy their own business and “ their own boss.” (“Work when want, go fishing whenever like. . . ”) The business, of course, cov be of only one kind —a small, weef country newspaper.

They finally found what tb could get for the money they cov raise—if it was not exactly wh they wanted—in Snoqualmie, Was ington State. The climate was ve wet and the ramshackle old buu ing that housed the anc i e machinery that produced t Snoqualmie Valley Record (circ lation 1,800) leaked like a sieve.

Cost of the business was $30,00 on which they made a down-pa ment of $8,700 Five years lai they were still in business, althour they had not paid off their deb They had a new building and son new plant but they didn’t wo

ben they wanted; nor go fishing len they liked.

They were still working about 18 lurs a day, seven days per week, id they still had not been able put themselves on their own pay -11.

Ed had learned to operate a lotype—to fill in when they were nporarily minus a regular erator; and also to work the print l press, to backstop for a machinist whom they were likewise as ■quently minus.

Charlotte doubled as office girl, jorter, subscription clerk and iture writer, and occasionally >ught off a welcome if erratic n-ary coup in the outside world, * proceeds of which helped pay ■ newsprint or the salaries of the ed staff. Even the two youngsters, iv 10 and nine respectively, be ne part of the outfit, fhey were wiser, poorer but ppy. As their friends were fond pointing out: At least they were lir own bosses. it times Charlotte’s account of ir early years of minding their n business runs close to nestic bathos; sometimes it is arious but overall it is an ex tnely entertaining story of the uliar madness that afflicts most irspapermen: the madness of ating to own your own little mtry weekly. oblished by Heinemann, Ltd. ralian price, 22/6.)

Old Friends in

New Wardrobes

THE small paper-backed reprint book is one of the modern literary inventions that has been a great boon to the reading public —particularly to the reading public of the Islands where expensive cloth-bound books need special care if they are not to deteriorate.

The best of the world’s books now appear in these cheap editions.

Passed on from hand to hand, each

book has many readers. As the companions of long journeys, they can be left behind for the next wayfarer in plane, ship or hotel.

We have received from Collins this month, four new titles recently added to their Fontana Books;

Reach For The Sky: Paul

Brickhill’s best seller about the leg less Battle of Britain pilot, Wing Commander Douglas Bader. This remarkable story about a remark able man has been made into a motion picture as was Brickhill’s earlier Dam Busters (which sold in

Ilions when reprinted in the per edition). Brickhill, an Aus ilian, is regarded as the most suc ssful non-fiction writer of the gsent day.

Rhe Crocodile Hunt: First

Wished in 1954 under the title, ocodile Fever, it is another non tion story of adventure. Written a Canadian ex-newspaperman ■ned book writer, Lawrence Earl, 3ut a young South African, Bryan mpster, who after serving in the ddle East and the Mediterranean ring World War 11, set himself f in business as a professional codile hunter on the Zambesi ;h below and above Victoria Falls, mpster told his story to . Earl in i latter’s flat in London, and Earl 5 probably been no closer to •ica than that, but he has fol red Dempster’s story faithfully 1 has presented this part of ica authentically enough. How r. we very much doubt whether npster was, as is claimed, the t professional crocodile hunter the world. The history of the 3 around Papua and New Guinea I the Northern Territory who duce the raw material for the iiry handbag trade seems to go k further than 1948.

He Murder Of Roger

KRO Y D. One of Agatha istie’s first Poirot mystery stories nd still probably one of the best. it published in 1926, when the

eccentric Belgian detective had just retired to England (it has never been explained why), he seems not to have been much younger than the Poirot we are meeting to-day, 30 years later. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was the first of Miss Christie’s plays to be dramatised and to have a successful West End run. This play incidentally gave Charles Laughton one of his first leading parts in the London theatre.

The Climate Of Courage:

Australian author Jon Cleary’s well known novel of the Pacific war, in which he tells the story of a group of men of the 7th Division AIF, fresh back from the Syrian cam paign, their brief stay in Sydney (which had already been taken over by the Americans), and the cam paign in New Guinea. War and sex, with an Australian accent. (The price of the Fontana books is 37retail, with the exception "Reach for the Sky", which is 5/-.) t Passengers travelling from Auck land to Apia aboard Tofua at the end of February included Mr. G. R.

Powles, High Commissioner for Western Samoa, returning after consultations with the New Zealand Government in Wellington; Mr.

C. A. Brew, Public Service Commis sioner in Western Samoa; and Mr.

W. H. Kelly, General Manager of NZ Reparation Estates.