More Long Pig

The Month's New Reading

With Judy Tudor

Russell Foreman’s first novel, Long Pig, which described ie Fijians as they were before they became the friendly sople they are today, was a grim document. And we have > report now that its sequel, Sandalwood Island, is pretty iuch the mixture as before.

ERE is nothing wrong with Foreman’s literary craftsmanship not even his best friends could >e him of having a sense of 3ur, as far as his novels are jrned. The pre-European Fiji of ibalism, murder, massacre and is much more authentic than the ■floss, love idylls that are usually d up as South Seas literature, i steady diet of horror, after it to two-book length, begins to be ssing. left Long Pig where Oliver , Mate of the wrecked Ameri hip Argo, had found haven in a Levu after an incredible canoe ey from Oneata, in Central Lau, another American sailor and a i girl. e years later, as Sandalwood I begins, the American sailor een gathered to his fathers and is the Fijian girl, although not s giving Oliver a son. ver, after living for several in Fiji under the protection of an chief, had been rescued by sing ship and eventually found ay to Sydney. Here he set about g the right sort of ship to return nua Levu to his son and what robably more important, to the (wood which grew thickly on sland and was, at that time, as us as gold. * right ship was the Union but tie Argo before her, she ended i a Fiji reef. There began again attles against the savage Mela world that were a feature of lan’s first novel, and there sails lis second novel, also, Solomon , the villain of Long Pig, *s enemy from the old Argo.

'■ departure from the original ve icre is, however, and that’s the action of a white woman into >ry—Elizabeth, who was rescued e crew of the Union from a n island where she had been

cast away. Her love story with a member of the party is incidental to the general narrative but does some thing to lighten the overall sombre note of the whole novel.

It was announced some time back that the film rights of Long Pig had been sold but it probably would make better cinema if Long Pig and Sandalwood Island were compressed into one for this purpose—and the part of Elizabeth considerably en larged.

In fact, you could go further and say that it might have been better if the two novels had been presented as one. It was obvious from the way the first novel ended that there would be a sequel; what wasn’t so obvious was that the sequel would follow so slavishly in the old pat tern. Together they cover about five years of time in old Fiji and at this rate of progress, the author is going to have sufficient novel material to last for the rest of his life.

In a final burst of mayhem, Fore man eliminates Oliver in the last

pages of the second book but leaves the stage set for a continuation of the story through other characters.

We’ll hope that when this third in the series appears, time in Fiji will have leapt forward at least half a century. Two books of primitive horrors are as much as the average reader is likely to stand. (SANDALWOOD ISLAND. Published by Heinemann. Australian price, 20/-.)