12
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, AUGUST 5, 1950.
The girl loved
a soldier
BOOK OF THE MONTH,
rovlowed by George Malcolm Thomson
|A TOWN LIKE ALICE. By Novil Shute. Helnemann. 10s. 6d.
333 pages.
koy
HERE is a new kind of heroine here. Looks? Yes,
But gallantry rather than glamour is the note to Jean Paget. She has courage, which she needs, and character, hich she puts to good use. She suffer unflinchingly, ves undemonstratively, and from the moment we meet er, comes alive, right out of the paper.
For, of course, Nevil Shute, master of the matter- -fact, is just the man to carve a girl like Jean out of ords. Out of very few words, for this new novel of his
obviously a choice as Book of the Month, hate at his most economical.
What, for instance, could one dab of colour.
displays
Yet the
e balder, more firmly un- inevitable place to plunge in, hored to the earth than the right note to begin on, is opening sentence: faking us straight into Noel James Macfadden died in Strachan's room In Chan March 1905 when he was 47 very Lane-Noel Strachan, ears old; he was riding in the elderly nolicitor who is he Driffield Point-to-Point." trustee to Macfudden's
There it is! Flat as a pan- ake, plain as the back of
Four
hand, without
Late and, in due course, ad- viser to Jean Puget, young typist who inherits a for
even tune.
Driver Casey is U.S. hero DRIVER
brought his
JONES CASEY
011 trains in Ime. He was proud of flat,
One day, after his run, he vas asked to take out another rain as the driver was . This 90 delayed rain had been alnutes, but Casey made it up. switched n Then somebody oods waron on to his line by to his istake.
He braked,
reinan to jump-and crashed. The passengers escaped, Cutey was killed.
It happened
дег
Nocl Strachan,
ustensibly, fells this dory, which is that of Jean and of Joe Harmon, Aus- tralian slack-rider; of herule uriventure in the Malayan war and, flanlly, of pioneering in the Australian "outback."
how
D
Dutch
Vonck
lady, Mrs
and George Malcolm Thomson says the last word in the controver with Agatha Christie
altacked him for revealing the name of the killer in her new novel. Geysel-
Jean, typist with a rubbed company. becomes leader the marchers. When she meets tho Austrailan sergeant, Joo liarmon, she tells him, There were 32 of us when we were
The taken. Now we're 17, Australian says softly, "Oh, my word!"-and what else is thre to say?
It is that kind of march. They are that lack of people.
Joe steals a chicken from the
to the starving women, Captain Sugamo ha tim crucified. This I how Jean describes it, years
Imperial Japanese army to give
after, to Mr Strachan;
"They took us all down to Jam Kuantan and they nallet hands to a tree and beat him to death. They kept us there, any made us look on wille they di "
RE
It is dreadful-as weil resolute, stoical, moving-but it is not the ctul, elther of Joe or Jean or A Town Like Alice, TO AUSTRALIA
Horror is followed by idyll.
setile marching women The down in a charming Malayan village and cultivate its paddy- fields until the war finishes.
When Jean comes into her money, her test thought is to back to that village; pay for the digging of a well for its women. Nevil Shute works up In these practical our interest matters will something of the brought to genius that Defoe Robinson Crusoe.
སྐ༠
In Malaya, Jean learn, acci- dentally, that Joe did not die. She goes on to Australin, about the time that Jue, looking for Jean, calls on Mr Strachan in in Chancery Lane. his office
In the They meet
end, and
marry.
Never, surely, has tragie and thrilling tale been told in moru level-headed accents.
Yet
Inspiring "Nocl
And out uf the Malayuri Struchon's emphatic lon- tragedy there hlussons ur moving Australian saga. För Australia. uage becomes, how
retreats especially the entile country of his embarrassed fruth rination. Told
any Northern Queensland, has taken other way, the fist part of this a grip of Shute's imagination. book might have been almost
that of once did ax Canada unbearable.
John Galt.
22:
NIGHTMARE
it describes how, for week and months, a little party of
British women and
The vant, empty, exciting continent, with its friendly peo- ple, its dazzling possibilities, its becomes.
obstacles
daunting children under the infectious enthusiasm are marched about in Japanese of his narrative, something alive, orcupled Malaya, A nightmare fresh and wear. trek. covering hundreds of miles.
From the native
HER DREAM
village to
To woo it,
win it, bring its
CALL OFF THE BLOODHOUNDS!
The detective writers who
rushed to 150 pport of Agatha Christle should keep their muddled reasoning for their novels
аго
They seem to think that the art, and success, of the deleclive story depend on fis ablity to keep a secret until
page the Inst fow reached. What nonsense i
In the case of a mystery play, everybody knows what The surprising dénoue- ment going to be. Nobody hes any doubt about the
bombshell. nature of the
Yet if the play is akil- fully contrived, that does not prevent the public from pay- in for it kents and sling Apellbound through ali three aels and applauding wildly ut the last curtain.
BUILDING TENSION
In what does the pleasure of the audience consist t
In watching the skitt and ingenuity of the playwright in leading up to the "dumb- shell. The art is not at pl} in the nn) surprise." but the inventiveness. in
the power to erenie tension, the capacity to command ilusion
Exactly the same is true of the mystery novelist. His art, If art, le no more destroyed when the pubile knows who kills whom, than the romantic novelist' is Hilled by the disclosure of who joves, marries of divorces whom.
One of the best of modern detective writers, Kor Vickers, opens his stories by giving away certainly does the secret of the crime not impl pleasure.
the
reader's
Only a bad delective story uffers from exposure of its ending
So call of the bloodhounds, Agatha !
Allee Springs,
which you can are on any inap, right bong in the middle of Australia, at the end of a thousand miles of rail. There is a swimming pool at Alice. And shops.
Before Jean is finished, Wills- its swimming pool town has
soda-fountain, beauty and Its
I factory where parlour,
The young made. shoes are women do not leave Willstowi any more and the young cattle- men do not drift away after the girls,
SOUTHAMPTON'S
NEW
OCEAN TERMINAL
KHEITH MEA
强
THE £750,000 ocean terminal opened this week by Prime Minister Attlee at Southampton is the most modern and best equipped in the world. It is a two-storey bullding, over a quarter of a mile long, with six miles of windows. The first power-operated telescopic gangways in the world will ald passengers to disembark from such ships as the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. Waiting halls and customs departments are on the upper floor, and below is an island platform for boat trains and facilities for dealing with passenger cars. Photo shows a general view of the ocean terminal building.
THIS
BABY-HATER
MARRIED
ON FALSE PRETENCES
MY
By CANON HUGH
WARNER
can't HUSBAND
nat It was n pily you did #tand children. Ite saps discover your husband's views he Wkes them when before you were married; he they have become in is thoroughly wrong-hended in teresting and can be the line he is taking.
A husband his
no right to companions. I don't now what to do. We are only 23 years old, and deprive his wife of the normal It seems such a shame not to ulment of her marriage. If hare our On babies. I don't he persists he will have been anything that will guilty of marrying you on falen want to do
Should I break our marriage.
pretences. He is not in fact al- agree to his suggestion of adopt Jowing you
what # to have ing a little boy of seven wha we happen to know is in need om naturally expeels mar
tlage to mean to
to lier. of a honi
"He then told me he was In love with another woman who was married and kad an three inrulla husband and chuldren at school. He has turned entirely to her, though qim Urino
She 10th me, hopes her husband will die au that the can go and tire
utlh her.
"Do you think my husban might come to his senses if I try to go on as if nothing was happening?
someone
"I think, since he loves you, HOW grand to find show the
he will see how unjust his at- 10ME men will tell you titude is, Knowing that his S they dislike
babies in plan of adopting a chlid is out general, but it is remarkable at the question there is no ren
on why you should not both has attached they become be able to come to a happy and reached a trille loo slowly, and to their own babies in par- sensible even if the reader has the imticular. So do not take your starting a family at once. pression that Nevil
Shule, too
So the end of A Town Like Alice is satisfying, even if it is
PC You
cas
think the
15 badly "constructed."
darin, has begun to write one husband's sweeping asser- story and finished by writing tion too seriously.
Ju any
event, the plan be suggests is impossible, for two reasons, As the law stands no couple who are under the ago of 3 may adopt a child, Fur- ther, the adopting couple must also be at least 21 years older than the child they are adopt. sometimes when inst except relatives adopt the child.
nother, from one callous wealth and beauty to flower is. But it is invincibly readable, Japanese commander to the for Shute and his readers, as next, looking for a women's it is for Jean, a project close to camp that does not exist, drop- pint one after another of star- vation, deappointment, sudden
told with all the ariful under- statement, modesty, firm hold the heart.
individuality which Jean wat
wants to make dreary of human
carcer une have mude Shule's Hitle Willstown, where
2000 of the most meteoric In recent station lles (all isease or sheer exhaustion. It eattle cents (214d.);
Ilerature. of it). into "a
New Or- cans 56 years ago. Casey is one of America's herues now. And in Ersued in his his slang nemory.
Face-value 3 Perforation
nused, ed.
11 by 10%; price
Joe's
ie a story based on fact-fact aquare miler which occurred in Sumatra to town Bke Alice." That is, like
-(London Express Service)
VIGNETTES OF LIFE
AND HER MOTHER'S BEEN WITH US FOR SW MONTHS
NOW SHE WANTS T' GOT TH' COUNTRY AN'
LEAVE ME WITH TH' HOUSE T'
TAKE CARE OF
ALL SUMMER
#
AND I'LL BUY YOU A MODERN RANCH-TYPE
HOUSE ... ALL ELECTRIC, WE'D HAVE TWO CARS, YOUR OWN CONERTIBLE, A MINIC COAT, OF COURSE AND WE'LL GO SOUTH EVERY WINTER, OR WE COULD LIVE
IN A SWANK HOTEL... BIGGEST TELEVISION SET WE CAN
BLY — AÚD ---
"
arrangement about
Try to mend it
WE WERK happy, always
$0 very out to- gether, when our two children 10 gre old enough, at the seaside or in the country, and had wonder- Jai Holidays. After the war my husband retired. Just over a year apo he suddenly be- came restless and irritable and bad-tempered, I became
really worried,
0
who does not childish irresponsibility of Ro many modern wives, who rush 1 once to their solicitor for they And their divorce when husbands have been unfaithful. A major domestic tragedy of this kind is a terrible thing. But whether it comes to a wife or a husband.
must be faced with steady courage which is de- termined that Things shall be
mended rather than ended.
You must try to do nothing that will
the finally disrupt other home, for not only are there the three young children, Lut the sick husband.
Your own hucbani is also a sick man. As a high tempera-
ture is a symptom of a phyɛi- cal disease. 50 his irritability and bid temper ure symptoms of spiritun cliseare. He knows he in sinning, and his bad con- science shows itself in these trails.
You can take ne of two feel your hus- courses. If you band would respond to a reali shock, you might your Intention to legal separation. kim this without rantour,
tell him of. apply for a You can fell
of losing attention, he
With the prospect core and
your
night And thin
An excuse for
breaking his association alto- gether, and coming fully back to you, mowing you still love
him.
11, however, you think that threat of proceedings would nake him o off entirely with the other woman and so break the other family completely. their makes as you must, for
well as his, go on as you are now, trying to help him all you.
can.
It is easier to bear pala when
you know that other people's lives are being protected from disaster by your suffering. AL all coxis keep the door open, and have no truck with these
who urge divorce.
-{London Express Sorgles)
Summer Politics
Bu
KEMP STARRETT
THE PARTY OF THE
OPPOSITION.
I DON'T
"YOU PROMISED
CARE IF YOU DID-
TO TAKE ME
TO AUNT
BESSY'S...
"I DID NOTHING OF THE KIND...
I TOLD YOU
TVO
DAYS
AGO.
ale,
FILIBUSTER:OILAND ON AND ON.
• CAR POP? CAR LAW? CREEPERS, ITS A SWELL! BIKE!
CAMPAIGN ORATORY.
"FALE!
"ONLY THIRTY-TWO
BUCKS/ITS BRIGHT RED
GEE POP ∙CHROME ALL OVER, IT. YOU COULD USE IT YOURSELF... I'LL CUT TRE GRASS FOR TEN
YEARS-IF
CAN
POP
SUMMER PROPAGANDA ... PROMISE 'EM ANY AND EVERY- THING... YOU CAN ALWAYS
DIG UP AN ALIBI LATER, JUST LIKE THE POLITICOS DO.
THE OLD, ALBİ POR, NOT
· BALANCING THE BUDGET.
COPR. 1950 BY GENERAL FEATURES CORP. THE-WORLD RIGHTS RESERVED.
"DOC SAYS I GOTTA WATCH MY BACK. NO STRAINNIN'? MAYBE I KIN GO T' VOIK IN THE
FALL - HE SAYS!
PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN ... FOR ELECTION TO A NEW CAR.
*THEY SAY
SIE
tic
THE ANNUAL WHISPERING CAMPAIGN.. GUARANTEED TO POLL RESULTS.
THE PATRONAGE BOYS AND GALS WILL BE AROUND LOOKING FOR A LITTLE GRAFT DIVIDEND ON YOUR TRIP ABROAD...
7.23.