THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1959,
**************** NEW BOOKS by GEORGE MILLAR
IF YOU DON'T FANCY JAMES THURBER
GIN WITHOUT
THE FRENCH
ASCANDINAVIAN film actress of predatory aspect confessed recently
to one of my colleagues in New York: "I have two passions. Gin and the French."
team, the pompous German charmers-in-uniform, the MT.C. Steindorf, in dismayed as are Then the blitz, when she worked the two American women. for Lady Kemsley, and later the
Board of Trade. Thanks to Steindorfs fear, spying, and meddling, all the native workinest›› desert after lack of plan and economy. murdering their beak-faced foreman. In these dangerous'
Her gusto and undeniable humour are rother wasted by
circumstances Purcell make HONESTY
big discovery-gold doors, under- ground ohambers, fettered skeletons,
impact is
-shattering.
The.
He is able to safeguard his
ONE MAND ISLAND, -by-Elizabeth Ashe (Long-
crowning discovery, but he dies. Mr Johnston
is Conrad
Only two of the party are saved. I pure, Miss Ashe is Somteract They are all, even Steinder?, Maugham without the cries worth saving and if the end is held touch, the remorseless dis- section of women that pays off so well.
To which he replied, "Then your only other need must be ice." For, like me, he dislikes gin separately, or sharp vermouth, yet is not and i la uplifting. averse to them in unison, proportioned nine to one, very cold.
gin recipes, Excellent,
10
However, I learned in a if marinand in suy and da can write like the Ukrainian- con- born T. J. K. Korzeniowski, now autobiography, DON'T before grilling. Being a
scientious eriile, I tested her known to us and loved as Joseph TYPE IN BED, by Peggy
Conrad. Warner (Angus & Robert- HON, 258.), of another use for this colourless and sick ly alcohol It can help to make an excellent Japanese dish called Sukiyaki.
Off aim
2
Melt a knob of buller in frying-pan. (Mrs Warner says fat, but I don't agree.), Throw in some ringed leeks and onions, gently brown in a little sugar. Just show the pan's heat to
ad of minute steaks, then a good dollop
mushrooms,
of soy sauce and a lot of gin. Further, Mrs Warner sug gests, atoaks or chops are good
Apart from this useful Infor- malion, Mra Warner tries show that being the wife of busy foreign correspondent makes one into "a special brand of woman ... alightly schizo- phrenic." She does not succeed.
UPLIFT
THE DARKNESH' OUT- SIDE, by George Johnston (coli, 159.).
Mi Johnston's writing packed with Imagery: His gentle fingers claw into tortured minds, yet the pace is lively. How fresh and vital it is. Much the best book of the week,
Mr Johnston's new novel is dog a dig on the banks of the about a party of archaeologists GUSTO Tigris. Their tented village isolated in a dusty wilderness.
15
LIFE IS FOR LIVING, by
bein Btucley Tiltona, 1.).
· Sandford, a poor Englishman, an island a pleasantly on in the Indian Ocean. His love affair with a visiting Engilsh- woman is clean and real.
writes his best yet about the man who made him and
disliked his dogs!
3.
My
NEXT time you see a humorous weekly magazine called The New Yorker give a thought to a man with a knitting needle, Harold Wallace Ross. The New Yorker was his creation, his love, his Frankenstein, his life. I liked the havour of this book, its cerenity, its hosesty, He died in 1951, aged 59. If him one of the best characters The sea and the wind are free. Elizabeth. Ashe is a pseudonym. there be freedom in the spirit in modern American fiction. I have been "buying myself The island and the main world
disembodied Ross
the war. Dave of course seeks love. He yachts since characters are surely based on prowls the office he founded in loves a woman who, at 35, is economies are phenomenal. I Brm reality.
1925, growllug as he scans next pure, and afraid of men, an live on one now. No rent, no week's copy, "Unclear attitude he cannot understand, bills. QUICK FLIPS cliche
Their meetings add plquancy to Think of Drake; Cook, and fancy.**
deep breath Deleting hated words Ilke a book that introduces Dave Nelson. Taks SCULPTURE OF THE "le" and "pretty"; scrutinis- and Frank to a horde of women, and buy a seaworthy yacht, WELL-BORN
You will want to know where product of PARTHENON, by P. E. Corbetting funny drawings for doubt some interesting, some grond,
some horrible.
you are going, and the stock Devon. full of de II and (Penguin, 5). A lovely little less unintended-phaille дут-
Admiralty method is to Milsa an energy,
Stucley
des book. Painlessly instructive, To
bols.
It is a mammoth novel, with charts ard my mind the subtle Parthenon
sailing directions, cribes her opulent physique:--
Ross demanded humour that 75 chapters, 020 pages, of close but such is the press of Brillah "Six feet tall, broad
in The Wonder of the' World,
was clear, concise, and clean. print. Yet it does not sprawl. THE HOT HALF HOUR. by Yet he could only talk in Robert L. Foreman (Angus
the yochismen all through With this third book Mr summer across the water that stream of profanity,
Jones adds to his repulation. It we now have further literature. remains to be seen he wHI survive success.
The splendid leader, Professor Purcell, has been digging there for three years to establish his beller in a Sumerian civilisation. wiped out thousands of years Purcell himself raves ugo.
the life of on old stranger. Englishman who has wandered scatter-brained into the desert.
pro-
THE
portion... the sort of figure that cfled out for a dressing- gown falling off one thoulder Robertson, 12s. 6d.), About an
American TV quiz and a fame lamb."
programme and Its sponsors. Foul but readable.
From his sickbed the English man spreads insidious poison. the island of Hydra, where He raves at Europe haster of white windmills offer their destroyed by atomic disaster or roller-reefed sails to the force plague and that the hordes north winds of the Aegean, livea China are on the march, George Johnston, now 40, who slaughtering. One of Purcell's in
JACKYS DIARY
BY
JACKY MENDELSOMN AGE 3/21⁄2
Last Night Daddy Read me a Fairy Tail called te The Ugly Duckling
OUT CAME LOTS of Baby Ducks who were all Very BEAUTY FULL... EXCEPT ONE WHO WAS real ugly.
REAL PRETTY ONES
First he figgered maybe HE
WASN'T A UGLY Baby Duck,BUT PEALLY A UGLY BABY chicken, But They Kicked Him out also.
BUT
BAM!
When He Looked on his c 。 Longera Ugly Duckling
• Refraction IN THE WAter, He saw.
He washo
any MORE
Teres
ALLAN
of
In these memoirs. she romps through the last war, driving France with those British
Once Upon A Dime...
-London Express Service.),
ot was About This Momma Duck Who Had a BUNCH of Eggs, which | instead of Cooking them, she, sar on Them UNTIL THEY Busted
Crack
Bam
ALL of The Other Ducks Laughed on Him & Kicked Him OUT, CAUSE he LOOKED So Diffrent from theme
HR.CHA.
So did THE GOBLETS, (which are Baby Turkey
8-2
Go a WAY
HO!
TEA HE
This MADE THE UGLY Duckling. Very BLue. (which Made Him Look even funnier) so PRETTY Soon he decided to Drowned Him SELF IN THE POND
1959, King Features Syśldzate 175. World rights ROSETVED.
But instead he HAD GRoan into a Gorgeous Swan...Which is a diffrent Animal all together, So Then he was Real Happy', CAUSE ALL of The People said How Beauty-full he was of Would THROW PEANUTS & Stuff
(AH.). (WOW)
(Boy)
The Moral of this story is. You mustn't Laugh AT PEOPLE Who LOOK FUNNY When THEY'RE SMALL
Cause They might Grow up.
writing
BAFFLING
He seemed Impremably un-
•
OLD MASTER
humorous. He rarely laughed, PLAYS ON
but sometimes threw back his strange Colorado head and scunded a barking guffaw.
A FEW QUICK ONES Judging by my own reactions, BY P. G. WODEHOUSE he would have barked his way HERBERT JENKINS, 128, OD. through THE YEARS WITHI R088, by
this newest James Thurber, NOTHING about published by Hamish Hamilton. Wodehouse volume of short Mr Thurber went to work for stories betrays it as the work Rows as a writer when The New of an elderly gent, yet the Yorker was two years old and author is 77. losing money.
Thurber had always doodled dogs on loose bits of paper and never thought anything of them. Ross NEVER thought anything of them, and was baffed by I particularly liked the noted
golfer John Rockett, who has their popularity in Amerled.
"How the hell did you get the three sons, Sandwich, Hoylake, Idea you Could DRAW?" he and St Andrew Rockett, and asked Thurber. But his opinion two daughters, Troon and Prest
wick Rockett,
Ten stories introduce again
Wooster, Jeeves, Bertia Mulliner, Ooty Prosser, Freddie Widgeon, the Angler's Rest, and the Drones Club.
of all artista except one was law, "Artists siny home 1 Writing this quality spalis, night drinking · soft drinks In
one for almost anything else. cold sitting-rooms. They can't ride on trains, or drive after F'dark, or cat clams."
GOT A YACHT?
BISCAY HARBOURS AND
ANCHORAGES
BY K. ADLARD COLES COLES-HARRAP, 448.
0
use
Lleut-Colonel H. C. ("Blon- die") Hasier distinguished war-time Royal Marine has provided an excellent guide to harbours and anchorages on the north coast of.France.
Now Mr Adlard Coles, оде of our most able and modest yachtsmen, is doing the same for the west coast. This volume describes it with many photo- graphs and charts from, the Chenal du Four to Lorient,
Have a look at this book. If your blood does not stir, you had botter go to a doctor.
JUNGLE BOOK
NO ROOM IN THE ARK BY ALAN MOOREHEAD HAMISHI HAMILTON, 216. AFARIS motorised, white
hunters too, even the stave trade. Cars, cars, cars, evén In Africa, Mr Moorehead, how. ever, is not out to boast of his, own comfortable travels, but by ald in the telling to present
'wild animals and tribes observed
the behaviour and beauties of
during three African Joumeys.
His clean, deadpan prose and absorptive mind make him the best.of guides.
If this book lacks the warmth. of older jungle and forest books.
The exception? Curtis Arnoux Peters, who, fresh from Yale but with a New York job as a planist, entered the office in
with Hym shoes
3 sheaf of drawings.
These, signed Peter Amo," helped to lift him and Ross up the nursery slopes of prosperity and into the success funicular unaccountably slow in develop should be emitted.
A GAMBLE
Ross liked gambling. and it
cost him plenty. He was so shy
RE you. British? Do you by Hudson, Batas, and such, it
AR call yourself
1
man? is better written than any
of
Your roads are fossilised with them, and Invariably interesting. trafic.
travel is Helicopter
ing. Holidays arc dear, Everywhere? No, not at sen.
The last chapter on the Nile,
-[London Express Service).
that he' dreaded meeting his THE MAGIC OF
own employees in the corridors, and he waNever leave me alone with poeta"the reverse of an aesthete.
Apart from Rebecca West and Janet Flanner he tended to dislike women journalists. Не used his white kaliting needle as a pointer, Before he took to it be mussed up many drawings with a thick, editorlai pencil,
His function, as la that of all good editors, WOS A ruthless drive for accuracy, ideas, clarity, The writer of one profile found 144 queries from Ross In the margins of his proofs.
EFFICIENCY
NORTHCLIFFE-
IN THINGS HE SAID
Why draw
policemen thin?
TO THE EDITOR OF ANSWERS: "Why do you allow your artists to draw thin polleemen? Sure. ly you are aware that the public prefers its police to be
Fascinating reading. Even fat and kindly.”
Mr Thurber has never written
better he loved his odd editor "I do not like luncheon en- that strikes are against the nor with surer touch. One is Rogements, I do not find that State stop Strikes are agalast left with the impression that anything happens as a result of years of ill-treatment by bad but for Ross's efforts The Now them.'
employers especially during war Yorker would never have been.
period." And that that quality of dis- elpline, of efficiency 112 the Inquire why it is that one can go as porrible, write magazine, which repels some through British Coisales and find letters sa possible, de no work readers, may alca. have hundreds of their pupils occupy after 9 p.m., and start the emanated from him.
[Ing mental positions, and why day at 6.30 am. At least he has a tombstone men with businesses such as I down a quarter- have, wale straining every nervo million dollars' worth of ads, a to use publlo school boys, rarely To the vlee-president of the year,
find thore Bhinn 10 per cent of National Union of Journa then any good."
Bats (1017): "I am one-of-the few newspaper owners who have been through the mill of ON one of his rare, appese reporting, sub editing.!! and..
ances in the Daily Mirror editing, and I have very vivid office he noted with dissatisfec- and resentful recollections of tion that the reporters were underpaid work for overpaid,
He gave millionaires." "unsuitably dressed,"
"Some of these gentlenest (pabllo school masters) night "I will ses, as fow': pròplo tow
that: turns
MAMMOTH
SOME CAME RUNNING
BY JAMES JONES COLLINS, ZIN.
DARKMAN, a
lown on
PAR hillico in the Illinois prairie,
KAKUHAMANTAUTIŠTOURNA
a
an Instruction that any man "I cannot secept: Mr is still expanding, after the applying for a talpy increase Churchill's view that Labour in wartime boom.“ Dave Hirsch, should receive it only on colle. Incapable of governing. It coult : demobbed, geta home with dition that he undertook to buy not govern worse than he does n nest bag of poker winnings. How ul.
"Politicians and newspapers brother Frank owns Parkman's To the writer of a pamphlet "and financiers and wwspapers main lowellery shop, has big for Americans. "Endisining, the are best kept apart.", Anancial ambitions, and only British” (1915); "All that cricket secretly blots his record with reference la mon+D#O.
The
recourses to sex and the bottle national game has of
a "B"
Great (CT)USINESSES Brow old
rapidly maka a ruld
nearly, dead beføre never to bring in anyone fron. we pay Male Moutalde over the age of 2319 Jag
ratuses to be outwardly respec- Cricket: Lable. The brothers raap, on Pach other like a file on case hardened steel, Dave takes up with Dama Dilleri, a zambler.
the Editor of
Dillert, toll, mim, waybacked,ebruary with a small fianglig prunch, la
| zinister yet mytractive. ·X" rate} wrilog: "fa" nilathkuns
„Ties Fine Rnd the staken are human.
Überly,
ve (Kerndon - Hajruss-Tarujeo) 242"