The Things That Happen

The Month's New Reading

With Judy Tudor

The Things That Happen In Suva

The reasons why writers adopt noms-de-plume are varied, but obably in the case of James Meade, who this year gave Fiji an cellent first novel (That Wild Surge), it was a matter of discretion.

[THETHER it has prevented Suva r people with tender feelings from ing after him with a metaphorical jat-chopper is doubtful. There ;ms to be no mystery in that city to who James Meade really is; d not much about who some of s characters in his novel are sup sed to be.

“Meade” arrived in Fiji in 1951 d in his early years there was an thusiastic member of the Arts Club, still have a wash-drawing of his at he exhibited at one of their hibitions. Technically it is prob ly far from perfect but he has man ed to give real personality to the bject— the old Indian peanut ndor who, for years, has had a tch outside the Club Hotel.

The same sort of personality rmeates his novel—and he is a far itter writer than he is an artist, hen he arrived in Suva he went to jq, with a part-Euiopean family and concerning himself with this ction of local society in his story, : really strikes literary pay-dirt.

"Must be Perfect"

If you are a European and try, it fail, it passes with little comment, you are a full native, you probably on’t try at all. If your ancestry is ixed, and you try—then the result ust be perfect. Anything less and le spectators on the sidelines are [ere to trample you back where they msider you properly belong.

That was the proposition that Dan lenard had to lick, and he knew —with one side of his nature, dth the other side he was seme mes easily lured from the direct )ute to getting there.

Dan’s fancied means of escape om a “European’s job with half-pi -ages” was the purchase of a igistered launch in which he could any passengers or parties of tourists n charter trips. The means was at uned with reasonable ease and for while Fortune, in the guise of the

Big Firm (which extended credit) and the bank manager (who okayed an overdraft), smiled sweetly. Dan even became a somewhat uneasy member of the Yacht Club. (Over to p. 82)

But when the problems came, it was a different proposition. Not only did Dan not understand why they should be settled strictly according to the European book, but his friends did nothing to help: “ ‘lt’s the same old story with these half-castes,’ said Macdonald.

They get ideas that are too big for them to handle and then they go to pieces when they hit the hard sled ding. Sorry to see it happen to Dan, though. As half-castes go, he wasn’t a bad, poor bugger.’ ‘They talked about Dan for a while longer, not viciously, but using the past tense as though he were dead or in another country. In a way, that was correct; the little world that Dan had sailed into with the Adi Cakau would now reject him. It happens that way in the Islands. . .”

With this outlook from the white branch of his family tree, it probably

is no wonder that Dan reverts to a bit of old-fashioned Fijian witchcraft in an attempt to solve his problems.

This story is in no sense what we have come to expect from a novel based on racial relationship—which, of course, it is. It is not an expose of white man’s ingratitude to his brown, or part-brown, brother. No one gets hysterical, sentimental or political about the problems inherent in half a dozen different races co existing in one small set of islands.

The attitudes, the conventions, the background are there; the moral, if any can be drawn, is left to the in dividual reader.

The book has a pleasing freshness about it, an occasional rawness, characterisation that is excellent when it comes to its non-Europeans and somewhat less so with its Europeans.

It does what every good novel should do—it entertains, stimulates and leaves the reader hoping for more— sometime, (THAT WILD SURGE. Anthony Gibbs and Phillips, London. UK price 15/-.)