A Short Course in the Empty North

If you want a short course in why Australia’s empty north is way, we can recommend a novel (The Interloper) by a new er, Noni Braham.

writing of a chain of vast cattle tations in the gulf country of h Queensland, she paints i of her clouds with glamour— even during the Wet. fen the Flying Doctor Service, h usually comes in for the best ment in novels of the Outback, is produces only a Flying Doctor is “cranky”. The hospital from h he operates is rickety, dirty run by a staff that is overworked, usioned or sullen. 1 the book-keepers, on all the ms are dipsomaniacs; the cook lently is likewise, and here and ;, so is the manager. Where the agers don’t drink, they have : psychological disorders. Their s are neurotic, have fixations or j a full-time job of simply endur lis, perhaps, is no ordinary •th”; it is, in fact, the six million i cattle kingdom of a pastoral aany where shareholders are ly British and which receives nspiration and orders from an ipotent general manager in Mel ne. lese acres are held on lease, and cpiry of the lease and an agita for cutting up the big holdings doser settlement arrive together, company, to make its marbles with the authorities, decides to i a very large sum of money on m “improvements”. is these “improvements” that ide the theme of the story—the ict between the conservative old s who have evolved their own ods of coping with the far-off ipany” with least trouble to selves, and the newcomers with new-fangled notions designed take the North a better place to in. lis clash is seen through the eyes dargaret, herself an interloper, y to escape the monotonous istication of city life, she marries i, the manager of one of the >any properties while he is on i in Melbourne. le romantic ideas she had at the it are quickly dissipated as she is up against hard reality in all latural hazards of climate, isola and poor living conditions, addition there are the psycho al hazard s—the old hands’ al attitude to the company, and

their policy of non-co-operation with the “experts” it sends to put its bril liant new plans into effect. There is, too, the station managers’ indifference to intolerable living conditions and to the welfare of the native people.

Because of these fundamental dif ferences of view point, a rift develops not only between station folk and experts but between Margaret and

Colin as well and both come to a climax towards the end of the novel.

The author, at times, lays on her effects with a heavy trowel—it is dif ficult to imagine a general manager quite so lacking in human qualities as the one described here; or that two aristocratic shareholders who visit a station at one part of the story, could be so comic-opera Eng lish upper class.

Nonetheless it is a good story, its occasional lapses from good technical craftsmanship compensated for by the fact that it is fast-moving and in terest holding.

In its own way, it is an indictment of the pastoral company system

which allows large areas of land U be subordinated to the business 1 providing regular profits to oversea shareholders. It is a system—at leajj as it is described here—in which noth ing is put back into the property (except under duress) and leads ia evitably to a war of attrition between employed and employer.

Such areas can be used in this wa; only when the size of the holdings! vast enough and the number of then large enough to allow the company to shuffle stock from one to the othe as fire, flood and drought dictaf If disease carries off half the stol on one property, there is still enoug left on a dozen others to pay norms dividends at the end of the financi year.

In the past it has been only tk big landholding companies that ha| been able to afford this type c “farming”. If the system is to h changed in the future and the bi stations cut up for closer, individul settlement, who is to supply the astn nomical amount of money that wii permit the change over from om form of land-use to the other? It! the North’s $64 million question. I For the purposes of this nova however, the result is compromise! between conservative and “nel fangled” and also between the co| flicting beliefs of Colin and Margarl (THE INTERLOPER. Published t Heinemann. 20/-.)

The Greeks

Probably Had

Words For It

Lydia Holland is probably hem known as a translator (The Woman I Rome, etc.) than as a novelift although “The Honeyed Life” is tH fourth of her works of fiction.

PRESUMABLY because she h$ specialised in classical Greed; this novel’s background is model Athens. It allows her to employ! collection of strange internationi characters who doubtless would b out of place in Brighton or London Arkansas or New York.

All of the characters have, in om way or another, sex problems, som of them eccentric, some of them jusi run-of-the-mill kind. The marriajfe of Sonia and Harold, for example! had never been consumated (on asj count of Harold). He was a newjb paper correspondent although, so fas as we know, what ailed him istfr an occupational hazard of the journi listic profession.

Because of her “unsatisfied neee for affection”, Sonia has affairs wil|t

r men which are arranged for by Harold, who takes a vicarious sure in same. In the early chap as a result of one of these en ters, there is a long description Sonia having what is politely ed an “illegal operation’’ in the oom while Harold cosily gets i for the Bulgarian abortionist le adjoining kitchen, le could bear the assorted un :actory sex lives of these people, eir conversations, interspersed as are with antiquarian jargon, n’t so infernally boring, le author writes as though she still translating, and for our jy we’d settle for it in the tial Greek.

IE HONEYED LIFE. Published by Davies Ltd. 20/-.)

tire Amongst

e Aneient

moments

needs the particular talent le English to get away with a A like A World Fit for

nsby —and the Englishman

has got away with this one lilary Evans. It’s his first c, although he has written for

lish periodicals.

ANS is the same sort of writer as Willian Cooper, whose two Is were reviewed in April PIM. depend on gentle satire and the lard English background that i of vicarages; sweet-william and hocks in summer gardens; the aeing irrevocably separated from Mons; and a classical education, the same background that makes ishmen believe that the right it is still important—although Englishmen worry about this; that they are still the salt of the , although the country can now msidered no more than a second power. ith the Evans and the Coopers, background is ground-up, brewed distilled and hung on the slen ;t of themes—and voila, a novel, result is nonsense—but amusing ;nse, even artistic nonsense, born le Englishman’s vast superiority )lex. ic theme that Evans hangs his action on, is Nicolas Grimsby, hh century North of England who apparently existed. He was own to your reviewer—which surprising; and also to the two dopaedia which were consulted uch is slightly more so, but that

Nicolas did have his being some where between 1617 and 1671 is established fact. But that doesn’t matter.

According to Evans’ story, Grimsby’s supposed birthplace is the mythical town of Riddleford, where, in modern times, also according to the story, a whole Grimsby industry has grown up. In the summer months, tourists from all corners of the globe arrive by motor bus or mammoth whale-like American car to view the Birthplace (50 mins.), St. Bridget’s Parish Church (where Grimsby was supposed to have at tended, 25 mins.); monuments and museums. There is a vast trade in picture post-cards, buns, fish and chips, souvenirs, beer, sandwiches and entrance fees.

American tourists festooned in cameras and dollars; cyclists; hikers; matrons by the bus load; school girls in crocodiles—all converge upon it and although all are not driven by a desire to acquire culture at second hand, the result is sufficient in Riddleford tills to tide these good folk over the period of winter hiber nation.

Grimsby has also been taken up seriously by one American multi millionaire to the extent that a Foun dation has been established to allow deserving students from all over the globe to spend two years in Riddle ford studying English literature, in general, and Grimsby’s contribution to it, in particular.

It was over this comfortable Riddle ford horizon, just as it was emerging out of winter sleep and looking for ward to a new tourist season, that the first dark cloud appeared in the shape of a book that purported to prove that Grimsby was not born in Riddleford at all—but in the neigh bouring industrial town.

The struggle for the long departed spirit of the poet and his somewhat bawdy verses is the theme upon which Mr. Evans works all his con siderable talent for English-style comedy.

(A World Fit For Grimsby. Pub

lished by Macmillan. 20/-.)

It’s Against Our

Code of Ethics

EVEN people with the most for midable literary talents write (and read) whodunnits. It’s now univer sally U. Denzil Batchelor has all the right background—educated at Trent College and Oxford; Major in Mili tary Intelligence during the last war; before that, wrote a column in Aus tralian Woman and Sydney Sun and

chief book reviewer for the ABC. e the war and return to UK he edited in all the best places, as as writing novels and other rted non-fiction works. he Man Who Loved Chocolates s second thriller—and if the first supposed to be too terribly y, this one is too complicated, le victim was far too rich and too wicked; he had too many timate children and too many rmal, legal ones. There seems to 0 good reason why a wild expe n to California should be inin in the middle of proceed id the sleuth, Detective ;ctor Johnson, is a bad case of ted snobbery in so far as he have read Nancy Mitford’s ise on U and Non-U and there is continually saying and doing SJon-U thing and being covered confusion thereby, nally, we are sure that Mr. idor contravenes the Whodunnit irs’ Code of Ethics when he lets inor character, who gets only :ing treatment, turn out to be guilty party. We naturally ex d it to be the butler.

[E Man Who Loved Chocolates,

ihed by Heinemann. 18/9.)

s*li Adventure

id History

r Youngsters

FHOUGH he has written some adult factual books of the sea, ain Frank Knight has been most ic with his studies for children, latest of these The Slaver’s Ap ice is also a “novel for boys and ’, which, as well as providing fast action and pages from 18th ry history, stresses the fact that very hot questions can rarely itirely white or extremely black. 1 to the time that slavery was shed in Britain, the traffic in s between Africa and the New d was a respectable occupation ;ed in by honest mer s and seafarers. It was open and board and the conditions of laves on the ships which trans d them, although bad on pre day standards, was no worse— sometimes a lot better—than of the seamen of the period, one, of course, raised a voice otest against conditions for sea although their food was shock their wages miserable and they completely at the mercy of the ins of the vessels they sailed on. was after Mr. William Wilber had managed to have the anti

slavery laws passed in Britain that the lot of slaves really became bad.

Then they had to be smuggled across the Atlantic, respectable people no longer engaged in the trade and the slaves were at the mercy of the worst type of men.

But Knight’s story is of the “respectable” days, and his young hero, Septimus Abercorn, has numerous adventures with press-gangs, abolitionists, a French privateer and the African people before his first voyage in the brig Wolfhound is over. (THE SLAVER'S apprentice. Pubiished by Macmillan. 17/-.)

ll4k r |''|_ ..

VIIC wf Or J. lie S like stories of war X even when the moral at the tail is in the best interests of peace. The Perilous Road fills all specifications, as it covers the period of the Ameri can Civil War and shows young Chris Brabson, who was all for the Confederacy, that a little tolerance can be a good thing, Yankee raiders had stolen his family’s only horse, the newly har vested crops and the meat laid by for the winter. Yet, when he reports the presence of a Union supply

in a valley, he finds that his brother, who is fighting on the ng” side, is probably with it. iw Chris gets himself out of this cament is the climax of this ng story for younger readers.

E PERILOUS ROAD. Published by illan & Co. Ltd. 15/-.)

it’s New in Paper Backs

•LDFINGER, by lan Fleming, issional tough man, James , meets an adversary of the calibre —or almost. There is isual quota of beautiful girls, much rushing about in the ;d States and Europe during i gold-bars appear and dis ir in mysterious fashion (Great :e hours after midnight, >seph Hayes. Another suspense , of the “tough American” by. It covers a little over two i in time, during which Charles Helen Elgin sweat it out while teen-age daughter is held to m by a 17-year-old delinquent. 3, “love” and psychological dis nces must begin young in the id States (Great Pan).

E Nursing Home Murder

gaio Marsh and Henry Jellett latter for technical reasons). is one of Ngaoi’s earlier models, published in 1935. The British * Secretary is taken ill in the le of introducing a contro il bill. He is later operated on ppendicitis by a surgeon who threatened to do away with Was it murder in the operat neatre? Or an even more cun crime? (Fontana).

WDOWN, by Richard Jessup, -age idol, a style like Frankie’s, m-dollar record sales, smash hit Then at 33 an old burnt-out through too much sex, grog iving it up. That was the story alter Alise. (Great Pan),

E Eight Of Swords, By

Dickson Carr. Crime can still gentlemanly thing—in the d Kingdom. There is none of >eat-’em and bash-’em in the s Dr. Gideon Fell has to solve; is he diverted from business ie endless bed-worthy blondes make life difficult for trans tic sleuths. Colonels, bishops, ;eller writers gambol through story, in which most of the cters are from the upper s. (Great Pan).

THE ROAD, by Jack Kerovac, electrifying” novel of the Beat ration, it tells how these super ited delinquents rove all over United States looking. What •e looking for is far from clear, hat they get by the way is sex, music, grog, drugs and new iences. It’s the kind of novel makes you think there might

be some sense to the nuclear bomb after all. (Pan Giant).

The Christian Experience

Of Forgiveness, By H. R.

Mackintosh. This was first published 34 years ago, but its author is still recognised as a distinguished theologian. In his day he studied religious thought in Germany and

Systematic* Theology 8 ar'Etoiburgh

University. He believed that Divine forgiveness was the very centre of religious belief (Fontana).

THE CARMELITES, by Georges Bernanos. This also is from the

Fontana religious series, but is writ ten as a play. As such it has been staged in nearly every European country and was made into a film j n iggo. in time, it is shortly fol lowing the French Revolution. The characters are mainly Carmelite nuns whose convent has been dis persed by decree, and who are sent to the guillotine. (Pan).

Say I'm In Conference, By

Nicole de Huron In its original French it won the Pnx Courtelme for the most amusing novel of its year.

It is about Penelope, a two-finger typist who becomes personal assist ant to the managing director of a

liar magazine. She swiftly :ed her way up to a room of her and a secretary to whom she i say, “Say I’m in conference”, lever anything threatened to irb her peace. (Fontana).

IE INTRUDER, by Charles ifort. The assimilation of the rican South’s negroes by decree not by inclination is the theme his novel. The people of the 1, sleepy town of Caxton were ared to accept the principle of Tation in their schools because as the law; not because they ved in it. Then came a stranger a mission and whipped the nunity into racial violence.

Giant). ) R R Y Y O U’V E BEEN ÜBLED, by Peter Cheyney. The I formula plus a £40,000 insur claim, two beautiful females, a i that could have been murder ;uicide. First published 1942. tana).

IMNED shall be desire, Stephen Coulter. Guy de lassant brilliantly portrayed •'ranee of the late 19th century •ose that disturbed the Puritans iis day. Much of the same try realism has been employed is biography of de Maupassant, writing wizard who, through and dissipation, wore out body mind at the age of 43. (Pan t).

Lomon’S Vineyard, By

ihan Latimer. More Americana »ut a Private Eye named Karl m and a blonde with curves, breasts like Cuban pineapples, it Pan).

CTOR MAYS, by Elizabeth rt. As you might guess—about rs, love, etc. (Fontana).

E Inscrutable Nymph, By

Duffield. Also about Love (as ;h you didn’t guess). Place: In da. Period: 1940 (Great Pan).

E Achilles Affair, By

;ly Mather. Peter Feltham had in war-time adventures in the ie East, but back home and de ed he was prepared to forget.

Less compelled his return to t, and there he discovered that Firm” was still in business and a long memory. (Fontana).

Ken At The Flood, By

la Christie. Comparatively rn for a Christie reprint—circa Five people wanted Rosaleen’s y—five people with a motive, it wasn’t Rosaleen who was Purely shuffled off this mortal (Fontana).

E BATTLERS, by Kyl i e ant. A story of the Australian ;ssion years and the tough men ougher women who meandered town to town living on their the little work they could pick id Dole rations. It’s a world

that has vanished since the Second World War, and this combined with the author’s own philosophy puts it into the classical period.

Australian writers once felt the necessity of producing social docu ments as well as novels, and this comes out strongly in all of Miss Tennant’s writing. (Pan Gant). (Our copies from Wm. Collins (Overseas) Ltd. Aust. prices: Great Pan, 4/-; Pan Giants, 5/-; Fontana, 4/- with the exception of “The Christian Experience of Forgiveness”, 5/-.)

A Novel

With Skill

FAT’E causes a mass of unrelated human threads to converge and tangle at a given moment of tragedy —why we know not, except that it has afforded numerous novelists a convenient scaffolding on which to hang a story. Patricia Ledward does it with considerable technical skill in The Long Summer Day, a novel of contemporary London.

The immediate action of the novel occupies one summer day and cul minates in a traffic accident that affects a number of individual lives.

For Jennifer, the runaway wife, it was a process that reached right back to war-time evacuation to Australia.

For Jack, the lorry driver, it included an eccentric mother who had seen better days and the public disgrace! of a son who was hanged for murder.

But for each of the people who were immediately concerned in the acci dent, there were many others who touched them at some point, and had a bearing on the ultimate event. For that is one of the themes explored by the writer—the idea of human inter dependence. Are we just metaphori cal, converging rings produced by stones tossed into the pool of life? (THE LONG SUMMER DAY. Published by Macmillans. Aust. price, 20/-. I