Some Samoans Are Weird, Too

The Month’S New Reading

With Judy Tudor

loane—Johnny in English—of John O’Grady’s third book tas a lot in common with Nino Culotta, the larger than life talian character who turned the first two books into a riot for he customers and a financial bonanza for publisher and author.

)TH were catapulted into alien society—loane into the papalani ity of Apia, Western Samoa; and d into the working-class environ t of Sydney, where nothing ed out exactly as he had been to believe that it would. Both

had a talent for putting the wrong interpretation of circumstances and events and for getting into bad trouble; and both were men of con siderable determination in spite of a babes-in-the-wood exterior.

But there most resemblances be tween Number 3, No Kava For Johnny; and Nos. 1 and 2, They’re a Weird Mob and Cop This Lot, ends.

Because John O’Grady, Australian pharmacist, was working in Apia hospital at the time his first book was published in Sydney it was natural that he should write another about Western Samoa. And it was also natural that his publishers, after the phenomenal success of Weird Mob, should insist that a sequel to this be written and published next. That ex plains why No Kava For Johnny has been on ice for over three years and has just now seen print. loane was a small Samoan who was born prematurely because his mother tripped over a pig, and in size he never quite caught up. His father was not precisely known—an act of gross carelessness on the part of his mother, it was felt—but Samoan fashion, this was otherwise not held to be any great blot on the family honour. All children were ac cepted into the enlarged family group and loane was no exception.

Although his body remained small there was nothing wrong with his brain, but the respective size of each set him apart in a category of his own, and a crossed-up system of re flexes produced a rare talent for creating confusion worse confounded in his village.

Life really began for loane when it was decided by his matai (family head) that as his lack of size and other characteristics would not make him an asset in the village, the best thing was to send him to Apia where his brains might be put to some use.

He became, therefore, the lowest grade assistant in the hospital dis pensary which was ruled over by the odd-speaking, beer-drinking Austra-

lian called William Neil (or more usually, Uiliamu) who is, of course, John O’Grady in thin disguise.

Uiliamu and his wife Betty have unconventional ideas on creating a multi-racial society, on beer; on New Zealanders; and ancient Samoan cus toms, and it isn’t long before loane is putting his own and shattering in terpretation on all of them.

It is quite obvious from his Nino Culotta books that John O’Grady could have been a great deal funnier in No Kava if he had wished—but at the expense of the Samoans.

As it is, he leaves a slightly off beat Samoan to tell his story only at the expense of certain ingrained Samoan customs. loane is allowed to buck the matai system of family obligation and set himself up as an individual in Apia. He is allowed to criticise Western Samoa’s cockeyed liquor regulations which make beer, wine and spirits available only to Europeans and certain influential Samoans on a points system; and to wonder about the corollary to this— the wholesale manufacture of wash tub home-brew.

O’Grady, you feel, has no respect for ingrained tradition-feudal Samoan, or otherwise—but the back ground from which Johnny emerges, and his head-on encounter with Euro pean society is authentic enough.

Someone of less perception could have turned it into slap-stick comedy.

Whether the 400,000 people who

Unless otherwise stated, all book prices; quoted are in Australian currency.

Samoa's loane.

bought O’Grady’s two Australian books for a laugh will find this Samoan epic to their taste is a dif ferent matter —some sort of back ground knowledge of Samoa is cer tainly a help to full enjoyment.

Numerous Australian book critics who fancy themselves have dissected Weird Mob in an attempt to find out what makes it tick. Few have come up with the honest opinion that O’Grady has a genius for creating atmosphere, although some of these are already discovering that No Kava For Johnny has more literary merit than its predecessors. It costs no money to wonder if this could be because, as the book is about Samoa, they find it slightly more difficult to understand.

For my part, having no culture to speak of, I found Weird Mob a tonic when I first read it and a pick-me-up every time I have dropped into my favourite parts since. If any excuse is needed for this, all I can offer is another New Zealander and an Eng lishman (a KCMG, to boot), who got the same sort of enjoyment out of the late Lennie Lower’s Here’s Luck; and the thousands who still read C. J. Dennis’ Sentimental Bloke.

All three writers, in three succeed ing generations, wrote about Aus tralian urban life, yet came up with a product as authentically Australian as eucalyptus oil or koala bears.

O’Grady is an ingrained Australian with no pretensions of being any thing else. He writes naturally in this way. For his Samoan story he was just a shrewd Australian ob server looking in—and that is the essential difference in the two sets of books. You need a built-in, literary-merit detector (which I ap parently haven’t got) to give one marks over the other two in that department. (NO KAVA FOR JOHNNY. Published by Ure Smith Pty. Ltd. 18/9.)

No Thanks For

American Millions

Since the end of World War 11, and since the Cold War became sticky, the United States has given unimaginable and incalculable sums in “aid” to most of the non- Communist nations—and has got in return an enormous, active and growing amount of international ill will. ‘TTHEY grab our cash—and pay for ft m hate,” remarked one puzzled American commentator.

What is even more remarkable is the way m which a huge proportion of this aid ’ has been wasted.

Almost without exception, the arrival of this massive cash gift in countries which observe no standards of political ethics—and they are the great majority—simply has opened for those countries a new era of waste, nepotism and wholesale cor ruption. The money which the Americans intended for development of industry and social service, so as to produce a higher standard of liv ing and less likelihood of Communist

breeding-grounds, simply has bee diverted to create new classes ( human parasites.

William J. Lederer, Far East editf; of Reader’s Digest, with his base!

Honolulu, has been travelling f< years among the Asian, African an European countries which thus hajj wallowed in United States generosii has marvelled at the stupidity of tl American bureaucrats who have pe mitted this thing, and of the Amel

people who condone it and lly he has written about it in a k which he has called simply and itedly A Nation of Sheep. ts issue was timely. USA’s new sident actually was on the war h concerning America’s wasted 'ons before the book was pub ed, and the “sheep” were waking ince then, the US public has n reading Lederer’s forthright, [-documented, fiercely-told but en aining account of what the Id’s political teddy-boys and /■engers have been doing with erican money. The book tops the -fiction sellers in the US, and de es to, ill Lederer is well-known in the ific Islands. He spent some time Fiji late last year, observing the il scene. Some wag who knew of pending book remarked he was ng to separate the sheep from goats.—RWß . NATION OP SHEEP. Published by W. Norton and Company, New York, price, $3.75.)