The Month's New Reading

With Judy Tudor

It is probably not true that the world can be divided into those who like Erskine Caldwell’s books and those who don't millions of the benighted are still mercifully unaware of their existence and are indifferent but those who are “for" his bawdy folktales of the depressed American South number 10,000,000. Or so his publishers calculate.

rpHE most famous of the Caldwell JL novels are Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre, but there are 16 other full length stories besides, all alike in technique and theme, as well as a pile of short stories.

In addition, fond admirers have churned out assorted “Collections” and anthologies.

Like Steinbeck, he has specialised in the unpolished and the seamy and alth<pugh—as stated elsewhere in this issue of PlM —Americans abroad are more interested in the plumbing than in how the other half lives, at home by their own firesides they obviously are ready to take a vicarious interest in their own primitives, particularly if the basic material is spiced by a big wallop of sex.

Americans, of course, are not the only Caldwell fans. When a paper back edition of God’s Little Acre became available here last year, it went off in thousands.

The Fourth Urge

Latest of the Caldwell epics to be launched on palpitating fans is Claudelle— which you can have for your own delight at the modest cost of 18 9 Australian. As we said at the beginning, there will be those who will consider it an experience well worth the price; while others will find this story of gambolling amongst the corn-husks and cotton bolls somewhere Down South, little short of boring.

When Linn first made love to Claudelle—she was then 16—she vowed that no one else ever would.

Linn then went off to do his stint in the Army and when, at the end of 12 months, he wrote to say he was lonely and was marrying a girl who lived near the camp, Claudelle suffered a complete character change in a matter of hours.

Like a concupiscent bitch she ranged around the country stirring up the males, and extracting money, red shoes, nylons, party dresses and wrist-watches. Her mother caught the complaint, and after having nagged her share-cropper husband for his inadequacies as a provider for 20 years, went off to live with the local man of substance. Most of the book is occupied with episodes in back rooms, and back seats of cars, told country-style.

The end comes when her father urges Claudelle to seek spiritual help from the local parson. She meets the reverend gentleman—he cultivates a five-acre plot of corn in the time he has over from ministering to souls—behind the altar one Saturday afternoon, and in no time at all they are rolling on the floor together without their clothes. This incident may have passed without further consequence had not one of the ladies of the congregation burst in upon them with an armful of calla lillies, and then spread the glad tidings far and wide.

Unlike the other lads of thP village ’ the Horace Haddbetto had (In addition to a buxom wife

nSht-aSSnf a

conscience and some inhibitions.

PlfliiHpllp rpfncpH tn cm oivatt

teW &&SS?

he shot her and then himse]f all

over her papa’s living room papa ruefully staggers out om porch after viewing this me: finds Linn, the fellow triggered the holocaust. Lin: had a change of heart: He’s back after all, to marry Clai This is the only subtlety i: book; the rest is just good b fun. If you like your sex this this is for you. Even if you you might find the novel, an Caldwell phenomenon, an int: ing subject for sociological i The whole field of commerci sex is, of course, an interestini in this day when legs, bare be scanty bathing suits are ham in the good cause of selling simple tin of pork-and-beans c lowly aspirin tablet; and whe novel can hope to get into the selling class without large sla it.

It could be a sign of the t the 40-hour week and other m< boons.

According to the anthropolc man’s four fundamental urge needs, are food, shelter, preservation and sex. The W( State takes care of the first 1 and the shorter working provides ample time for pond on the fourth. • CLAUDELLE. Published by Heine] Australian price, 18/9.)

In Old Haiti

THIS colour piece, called D On the Volcano, by a Fr writer, Marie Chauvet, is adequate enough historical nov the West Indies at the end ol 18th century. But like the majority of novels in today’s ( booked world, it has little in : raise it above the ruck.

This primarily is the storj Minette, daughter of a slave * her white master, who becaus her magnificent voice was abl break through colour prejudic become the first coloured perso perform in a theatre in Port Prince.

Secondly, it is a story of a J for political freedom against a b; ground of the conflict between European colonists of Haiti and rest—the slaves whom they boi and sold like cattle in the mai and the in-betweens, the m bloods, the freed-men, who, th selves oppressed from above also their own oppressing of those be The author herself is a Hai and the novel, doubtless, has a g deal more significance in that r of the woods than it does in c As a social document it is inter ing enough but with so many b< clamouring for attention, it is likely to make more than a i ripple on the literary pool.

(Dance On The Volcano. Publi

by Heinemann. Australian price, 22/e

i Over Heels

Tzu Hang"

1955-1957, PIM readers of the Iruising Yacht section followed ie fortunes of the Smeetons of Jang, down through the Islands Canada to Australasia and on there, well south of 45 deg. S., •ds South America. We last I of them when they had made outh American coast with great ulty after turning completely and being dismasted 900 miles land. fc it is not only yachtsmen who appreciate Brigadier Miles ton’s first essay into literature; is Enough— and he’s refer to rounding the Horn, and not ig—is a top-notch adventure , even for people who have > as much as got their feet wet dinghy. es smeeton was a regular Army r: in 1938 he married Beryl r who turned out as adept at ■ strange, difficult things—like ling Himalayan peaks, running 3 and sailing 45 feet boats —as After the war, the Smeetons their small daughter, Clio, d on a farm in British Columbia iome of this period—fit training ailing yachts around the Horn 5 described by Dr. Peter Pye, oonraker, in his book, The Sea n Sailing (reviewed here dur -958). was during this farm period they took off to purchase Tsu r in England and sail her back mada, but when the bigger ad ire started in 1955, the farm been sold. e crew during the south-bound je from Vancouver to Australia included Clio, a small brown and Pwe the Siamese cat. But the family had taken in the ipic Games in Melbourne at the )f 1956, Clio flew back to school ngland; the small brown dog shipped home to the same nation in a cargo ship: and to Miles, Beryl and Pwe Smeeton i John Guzzwell, who had sailed own 20-ft Trekka across the ic to New Zealand. He joined l there for the Tasman crossing, later accompanied them across lonely, 6,000 miles of southern i from Melbourne to South rica. [ is this latter voyage that ston now describes in his book, if it can be said he sails his like a sailor and not a Brigadier, equally true to say that he writes neither. This book is technically [lent; it has humour; it grips interest from first to last; it rs neither from misplaced under went not yet from any assump of superiority. It is a rollicking I story of three people and a cat, their battle against the might fury of the sea. But these, as ilist Nevil Shute says in a fore

word, lest the uninitiated think that what they did was common place, are no ordinary people. More ordinary people undoubtedly would have perished. The ship was—before she left Melbourne—“rugged and tough and functional” to the last degree, and so were the two men and the woman who sailed in her. Had they not been, w Ql fici not have suryived the first dismasting, let alone the second.

The only pampered princess on the ship was Pwe, the Siamese cat, who as Miles Smeeton’s story unwinds, becomes a real personality.

Quite a slice of the book is taken up with their stay in Talcahuano, Chile, where they went for their big repair job after the first dismasting, Some months were spent there with the easy-going Chileans who held strongly to the belief that manana was vastly better than today. ionce is enough. Published by Rupert Hart-Davis. Australian price 22/6.) r .i • • T Lentralia in IWO , xL p.

and Ihree U

LYNDON ROSE, whose first novel, fm nf th p Dpclcl has recentlv been DUblShSd in Sydnev b w?fe of Ronald Rose, Kingdom—but that will be factual, covering his experiences In Western Samoa. Mrs. Rose’s novel s based Australia Country of the Dead might have

■ mjm Ss,H

ability to create its atmosphere 1 feeling for the aborigines are excellent. It is with her Europea whom she introduces to make h plot, that she falls down on the jet Almost without exception they are shallow, and lack conviction ann subtlety.

The policeman is just a two dimentional cop; the no-accoun W hite man, Logan, who sleep; around with native women and pro duces unwanted offspring, is either too bad or not bad enough; the missionary is a cardboard prop who seems based on the missionary of 50 years ago rather than the modern breed; and the station owner’: narrow, overbearing, stubborn out look is too narrow, overbearing and stubborn to be quite authentic, Few people fit into their in dividual picture-frames as neatly . these characters are made to do, This ability to see the natives i the round, while seeing the wli. characters in the flat, may be r result of prejudice, but whatever is, it has changed what could h: been a first-rate novel into some thing a little less than that.

The plot is a dual one of t policcm&n s hunt for an old ns,! , who had indulged himself with ; tribal killing; and the inner conflict other. But m the unfolding on he

aboriginal characters.

and tils Is by far the best part of t“ e DOOK . Lyndon Rose is at least con-

S£SF&s as

icther’s people—in spite of a bond of contact he develops the policeman. s novel is currently being read in Australian Broadcasting fission morning session.

JNTRY OF THE DEAD. Published ;us and Robertson, Ltd. Australian 17 6.i

< With

agio Potion

RYONE who has met Eloise ill be a sucker for Ortrud Jertrude, if you must) who ; Buttons in the Back an jus adult-sized riot about a ized girl. tten by someone called icth Kirtland, it probably largely on the Kirtland youth ir reasons unstated, it takes in the more spacious days of 1916 when families were Papa was a power in the hold, and large houses and help were not as scarce as are today. 5 Ortrud, introducing herself: sitting in the tree house— -1 myself I’m sitting in the ouse in our orchard and I’ve y magic potion in a catchup right beside me. My stomach .vering like the cottonwood

leaves because I’m thinking hard about my future life as a circus rider. I’ve decided on gold stars on pink tulle for my skirt, not blue tulle with silvery spangles. I’ve decided on a white horse, not black”.

The magic potion is to turn her from being Ortrud into being someone else much nicer—but fortunately, in spite of the crushed bugs and blue ink, salt, pepper, mustard and sugar, not to mention a couple of fireflies (“to make my hair gold and shiney”) it didn’t work.

If you want to forget the troubles of our H-Bomb era; if you feel fed-up and depressed: take a two-hour-course of Ortrud, with her “substitute” who had an un wanted daughter who had to be adopted: her pear-shoot that didn’t work when used from the hay-loft instead of an aeroplane: and the pink dress with ruffles and buttons down the back that Ortrud charged to Papa’s bank. It’s as good as a tonic and guaranteed to do good. (BUTTONS IN THE BACK. Published by World’s Work. Australian price. 15/6.1

Big Four Conference

In 2Bc

ALTHOUGH we know that, from the beginning of time, history has gone on repeating itself ad infinitum, it is disconcerting for most readers when authors give the year 2BC (or 57AD) the full mid 20th century treatment.

It is possible that they were mull ing over the same old problems 2,000 years ago; using the same old phraseology that is current today: but when this particular gimmick is employed it gives a sense of un reality that is a serious hurdle to the acceptance of any novel.

Taylor Caldwell, in her story of St.

Luke, Dear and Glorious Physician, reviewed last month, used the de vice to a degree, and now Norbert Coulehan in a novel of about the same period, goes further along that particular path.

Quadrantus Rex covers the few years preceding the birth of Christ.

In 2BC, the Emperor Augustus of Rome decided to call a Big Four conference with the object of secur ing world peace; to it were bidden the Kings of Africa, Asia and the Baltic and the story concerns primarily the journeys of Titus, a young tribune whose duty it was to bring the Kings of Rome, and later to take them on a visit to King Herod in Palestine. To a lesser de gree it concerns Quadrantus. a Greek shipmaster of the vessel in which they voyaged, whose seaman ship bordered on the miraculous and who is himself mystic.

By the time the three Kings were decanted near Philippi, and taken to camels to follow the new star

flaming in the sky—over the small town of Bethlehem, according to Quadrantus’ calculations—they seem somehow to have turned into the Three Wise Men of the East, of Biblical fame, carrying gifts to the new King of Kings.

What this story is all about is no doubt clear enough to the author; to this reader, however, it appears only confusing. (QUADRANTUS REX. Published by VTacmillan. Australian price, 20/-.)

Round the World

And Still Going

PERHAPS readers in the Eastern Pacific will remember Jacques- Yves Le Toumelin and his 7 h ton cutter Karun around 1950-51.

At that time he was in course of a world circumnavigation from his native France.

He had already written about this voyage in Karun Round the World, and now has followed it with Karun in the Caribbean. This compounding of titles, in a sort of Pollyanna series, no doubt pleases the yachting fans but it cant be regarded as serious literature.

It is doubtful these days whether cruising-yachtsmen cruise in order to write books about it, or write books in order to cruise. Some make the grade—as the Smeeton story, page 91, does; others are also-rans.

This Karun is an adequate description of a lone-handed voyage across the Atlantic to the West Indies, and of several months cruising around these picturesque

"CHEESE”, Sibil Valley, [?]therlands New Guinea, style. [?]e fellow looks happy, any [?]y, and maybe that's because [?]s not yet civilised. The [?]olograph was taken by a [?]ember of the scientific ex [?]dition now at work in the [?]ar Mountain area.

Islands. Of literary gimmicks none—which is probably re 1 as a very good thing b yachtsmen although apt t boresome for people who c share their passion for spi their lives in small ships oi larges pieces of ocean.

I Karun In The Caribbean

lished by Hart-Davis. Australia! 18/9.)

One of Our

Blonks Was Missing

STRICTLY for the under sei The Blank From Beneai Sea, but as the books that along in recent weeks were very gay lot, it did in one ins anyhow, provide a little com lief.

The Blonk Blonkiom\ marina was its full, Sunday- Meeting name—was fished uf the deepest ocean-deep by Prc Pokeberry’s oceanographic re vessel. It had been believec Blonks had been extinct for a a million years, but this v near human it immediately f a firm friendship with Pokeberry, the Professor’s n< who had been sent on the shi; cabin-boy (or to get him out mother’s hair during school days).

Peter and the Blonk have exciting adventures, partic after the Blonk is installed ; in the four-storied Oceanarii

(The Blonk From Beneat]

SEA. Published by Worlds Work tralian price, 10/6.)

What's New in Paper Ja

THE following Pan and Fc books (ours from Wi 1 Collins (Overseas) Ltd.,Sy are available in bookshops nc UP PERISCOPE, a novel of adven the US submarine service durh Pacific war written by Robb Whi served in that particular piece i himself. The book has now beer into a movie by Warner Bros. (F yellow).

The Ship Busters, By Ralph

is an account of the men and the fort torpedo bombers in that bra the RAF that took care of enem; —including the “Scharnhorst”

“Gneisenau” —in far northern wate the German and Italian convoys Mediterranean. (Great Pan).

The Saint Steps In. Is The

printing of this cheap edition of thi Charteris thriller. (Great Pan).

Inspector West At Bay, B;

Creasey, in which some baddie get Chief Inspector West of Scotland not only with threatening notes bi acid. (Great Pan).

The Secret Adversary By

Christie, written in 1922 when Agat very young in the crime story b> The characters call each other Old and Old Bean, and the time is jus the sinking of the “Lusitania” ii (Great Pan).

The Half-Crown House By

i, a competently written novel based s English phenomenon of our times once-wealthy family reduced to tak -6 a time from tourists who amuse dves inspecting other people’s . (Fontana, yellow). )NRAKER; lan Fleming has secret James Bond performing his most g assignment in amongst inter ental women and missiles. (Great S VERY EARTH by Erskine Cald- Those who cannot afford the 18/9 ilaudelle’’. by the same author, re l in the beginning of this section, e able to get, for a few shillings, much the same diet in this reprint, t Pan).

IRAH! THE FLAG, by Philip Mackie unusual wartime escape story in that a light-hearted and sometimes >us account at how two British rs escaped into the hills of Italy the Germans, rejoined the Bth Army

with the helo of the Italians, and later re turned to the village that had befriended them. It is, as well, an account of Mackie’s roniance with the Baronessine, which was just about as light-hearted as the rest of his story. (Great Pan).

THE GRAND DUCHESS, in which Anne Duilield “blends mystery and romance’’ in a romantic story about occupied Austria. (Great Pan).

Together As Strangers, By Renee

Shann, is another romantic little number —about a young doctor with a flighty wife and a pretty secretary. (Fontana, yellow).

Gypsy And The Striptease

MURDERS, both by Gypsy Rose Lee, probably the world’s most publicised strip tease exponent. The former is her auto biography. The latter is a whodunit, also against a personal background. The two versions of her own life differ in certain respects, but that’s artistic licence. Both books are good entertainment value. (Pan Giant and Great Pan).

HALFWAY HOUSE, an early mode! (1936) Ellery Queen, about a corpse th had two names and two wives. (Grea Pan).

REGENCY BUCK the well-known Re gency romance by Georgette Heyer that has already won thousands of fans when published in the expensive editions. (Pan Giant).

OVER AGAIN; Three books that have al ready been reviewed in this column in the last couple of years, and are now available in paper-back editions, are: THE SHORT REIGN OF PIPPIN IV, John Steinbeck s brilliant dig at French politics; CANTON AIRLIFT, by Andrew Geer, a thriller abou . an American airman who cashed in on Nationalist China’s last days on the main land: and STOPOVER; TOKYO, John P Marquand’s only post-war story of Japan and his famous Mr. Moto. (Steinbeck in Great Pan; the others in Fontana, yellow), (Australian prices; Great Pan. 3/9; Pan Giant, 5/-; Fontanas, 3/9.)