1959-01-31 — Page 14

Anastasia: Could This Be The Truth?

7, ANASTASIA; an auto.

biography. Michaol

Josoph. 21s.

by George

TJERE is the case for the Malcolm Thomson Helaimant. The jury

must make up its raind

whether, on this testimony, studying the same evidence, may

a sick woman in her late think differently. They will, in Any case, and the puzzle a docu- fifties, living in an old ment of absorbing human and army hut in the Black hatorical interest. Forest is or is not Her Im- perial Highness the Grand Duchess Anastasia, Aole survivor of the late Tear's immediate family.

The case is presented without pay literary pretensions and on lines which are already familar to many people:

..AND MR FORTESCUE. Selection from the diarios of Chichester Fortestuo. By Osbert Wyndham Hewett. Murray, 211. BJCHESTER FORTESCUE, He rounds like some MP. When the Romanov family minor charcter in a Victorian were murdered at Ekaterinburg novel. He was, in fact, a not- In July, 10!0. one of the ro-minor character in Victorian daughters,

alive. was real life. rescued by a soldier and, After

wandering, month of brought to Rumania.

wan

She had a ron by her rescuer, who married her nad 2001 afterwards died.

Since he became President of the Board of Trade and, later, Lord Carlingford, Fortescue cati hardly be called failure. He also married the most delightful woman in England, Frances. Lady Waldegrave, who and Later, an unknown, reticent £20,000 a year and vast political and slightly mod young woman influence. tried to comunit sulride in B Berlin conal. This can be called the real beginning of the Anafasia story,

the

For, while she was in hospital

wall,

Anna known an Anderson, was recognised by a fellow-patient, formerly a dress- maker or a governess la Hussia, irst a Tatiana, one of the

daughters, Tsor's

later Anstalt, her sister,

The Russian emigres. Inclad- Ing the exiled Romanov family. have for the most part rejected the story. They still do.

55

For 12 years Fortescue had loved her, the 12 years covered by this diary of a Victorian love story.

Consoled

Yet there had been я Lime when Fortescue was consoled in his bachelor chambers in St James's by

from Miss veita

rkler Polly Fleming, the gipsy from Astley's Circus.

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 1959.

Love on the

simmering seaboard

THE WEEK'S NEW BOOKS BY GEORGE MILLAR

VARIETIES OF LOVE by HERBERT KUBLY (Gollancz 16a.)

TART with a bang. If possible pack the story into the first paragraph. STA

This is a maxim on most newspapers. Here is the first paragraph of Herbert Kubly's new book:-

"In a town where love was the main commodity, Marcus Springbrook had been a week without love. Between a steaming volcano and the cool green sen,

Marcus was suspended as if in the nest of an exotic amphibious bird. He could aco love everywhere by day and bear it everywhere by night. But he had none of it."

The town is an Italian one, "Paradiso," en a volcanic island that may or may

not be recognisable. A tourist centre.

Visitors, mainly female, come because of its scrubbed streets and alleys, its mountain's Wag- arian rambles. Its yuni sea.

Hut chiefly they come because of its glistening youų? men who will give to Nordics through sex an illusion of love.

"Practical in all things," these young Italians "had the cap:1- clous versatility of the chame- leons that sunned on the lova recks."

-

primitive of Europeans, an well,

its seems to me, es the best of D. H. Lawrence, of the curly Aldous Huxley, of E. M. Fors- ter's "Where Angela Fear to Tread."

THEIR GLOW

Herbert

who Kubly,

1115 described himself as a Wisconsin

Welsh

Some of the

A Welsh people another' novel with phrase should have been "got" or "hove its anchor."

believe in the owners, some background, Much will now be But a floater a pale could turn to the unlans,, sxime, to expected of him. not spolt this book, which for violent resistance. At the end me is the best of the wook,

of the book their pathetic revolt

Revolt in the valleys

RAPE OF THE FAIR COUNTRY

BY ALEXANder cordELL

(COLLANCZ, 146.)

by

in crushed, but in this defent The mood

the render understands the vic- tory of the Jocers.

For tho nten and women, the chlidren and the country, come from thaqɑ pageo hot and strong as red-hot cannon balto. It le not a and book but a triumphant song about splendours of .courage,

the of

humour, or tempestuous love, of family togetherness.

cm

A young man calls to see a girl. Ho in "dressed to kill with buttonholes both sides."

missed

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY BY LUCIE HEYMANN...

TRANSLATEO BY WALDEMAN HANSEN HEINEMANN, 156.)

scene

ONLY

that

fcmole Imagina-

On almost every page there RY APPOINTMENT is unusual felichy of phrase.presents a situation For example, the crooked shop- may ekle THIS is a tremendously lusty koper has "a chubarb anile," ions and induce day-dreams. And when the splendid Mortydd novel about Wales, written Mortymer loses her lover she weman psycho-analyst prepared It concerna A successful There are terrifying charac with complete en fascinating crles to her brother, "There's and paid to deal fer: the blind masseur, Rosalia authority

with mon Englishman emply an

without my boy, patients in present-day Paris. bar- born in Ceylon and educated in lestyn. Empty...." the maid, the unmarried tender, the mock-strstimental China and at the Regent Street

Where most men to potty, seducer of the catacombs. Even Polytechnic.

Though seldom quite dotty. the American women, appre- hensively wandering the

In the sibilant, melodious, and

It is a story told with con- Itation

Apoelry-laden language of the towns, are givin

Fisticuffs and lave-making siderable ingenuity and with alzange glow of ecompassion, of Welshman speaking English, we

and of the mannerismy are here given history fellon in abound, but here they are Q UrECTLY.

effects of Francoise Sagan- a peculiarly effective form,

part and are not dragged in to

motor cars, whisky, and a kind spice the narrative. There are of clusive and shlfless pros- It is the history of the superlative decriptions of the The eminent Victorians were, In fact, little different from their

farm boy, writes with a crisp Mortymer family, iron surnace joys of drinking beer, of putting Perity. ciegance that

European workers, between 1028 and 1840, on one's еласта on a cold Regency inthers, the

bucks.

The psycho-unalyst's husband rather than American in flavour. yours of upheaval and violed morning, of tickling trout, of is also a doctor, but en ordinary Lady Stanley of Alderley told Fortescue how Palmerston made

Hla style is admirably suited to in the valleys. Jeslyn Mortymer, finding bells made fast to the practitioner. He takes a mistresa the short story. So is the the elder son, is serrator.

springs of one's marriage bed. love to her with a "la, ha.

whom she delesis, but does not economie brilliance with which it all-beautiful

"upbraid." This in a eplendid novel. to neglected by her

It a

All allow me-etc."

great ons?

that it Jacke is what the symphonic In the demi-monde, the nt-

In this hothouse atmosphere

His origins, as the name sup-

havo, a planned offeet of mood Peter could com- Marcus has

SIT UP AT THE START tractive Mrs

When he is eight he is taken and volume, the sudden rever હો. affair with a

Eests, are Swiss. The Kubly plain one Derby day: "Here I

toothy

chambermaid In his

She confides to her diary; "I Though three of these mily emigrated from Clarus, up the black fill to work alon from "the storm" to the have a Prince of Blood upstairs

thought catalyst for 0 She is small, unde- remarkable and gripping short Switzerland, to Glarus, Wiscon- the Garndyrus furnaces. It is and the Prime Minister down-Pens one.

a choice between that or being dancing." veloped, unresponsive, on

others. 1 probe them, I analyso &tories аге in France, the sin. Herbert, who may make Instead, there are misty out- glaire, and I can't get a few

a. slave for as fle

ali to enigma. He falls in love with United States,

Zurich the name world-famous, worked sold like

them. They give their fund Pres, and little else.

hours to go to the Derby." Later her. That does not change her respectively, most of them

are on nowspapers in Pittsburgh

the. Abergavenny "Alexander Cerdell" in as me, but I can't keep any of it," she was hond

of a convent lu attitude to him. He means to her in Italy.

and New York, then was music Hiring Fair

Abergavenny surveyor, ogod #4. She "probes herself, weigh- Belgium.

Illa real name critic of Time,

ia

reaction. and later a

Georgo ng her every mood, only "monela"--money.

this typ As is in

The ironfounders are tearing? Accommodating, raffish, con-

Graber, Married, and remembered Alexander

dream, but it in professor at Illinois. Does

travel books, “Stranger

the mineral wealth of mid Victorian

with young daughter, he does not do her much good. Italy," and "Easter in Sicily," There is a nautical "Boater" Wales. The stout people of the

stock. of oldlering is the brilliant back-Well, it is not

country arc exploited They Perhaps his ground of the story that For autiful one, told in the kind Mr Kubly paves here that he at the beginning of the book, in

RBOCSLOTS were

Her husband, finding that his of writing that can bring a knows and feels that extrava- a story that must have passed spend their misciable pay in among those redcoats who shot mistress cherishes

secret story itself is one of love lescue's diary unfolds. But the

sendor to the vergo of tears. gantly wonderful country three sets of sub-editors and' company's shops, passing the down the Welsh workers. Dassion for his wife, tells, his and

The warmth. the history seaked,

pervading There is blood and excitement, professional readers. ^ ship wage back to him who gave it.. devotion-the

wife "For you all sex falls into half rotten ironie ecolners and a very great leaving the teland "taken up lis The owner import Irish and His cariler book "A Thought mirict categories. Going to bed attraction of เทค Mediter. · artistry in these pages.

moorings," which is a manoeuvre Scottish labour. Their rule is of Honour" was about war with you is like going to, bed canaan lo suddenly real again, He writes of Halians, the done, and then only occasion- enforced by the redcoats, who service wlih the Royal with a textbook on psycho-

basically ally, on arrival. The teclurical shoot when ordered.

Engineers. 110 13 writing physiology."

Anustosin's recolletins hier elildhood have a cûrlously cloudy, generalised quality. This might well be a consequence of the girl's injuries and sufferings. Juf, instinctively, one looks for vivid fragments of memory -lucidents, anecdotes-breaking

the amnesia,

After a royal tragedy, it usual for a host of myths to spring up.

to

The Dauphin is rumoured

have survived the French Heve Jution; the Archduke is zoid not to have died at Mayerling Is the Anastasia story Just one more of thesu?

The verdict of one member of the jury is that she has nol conviction. Others,

carried

500

sident society

woman

husband-

*MONETA'

thio

high

love of a senst lve man lor 3 lovely and

formidable woman.

(London Express Service).

Bound sordid?

The story lea

in London, in winter.

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

HAIR MUSSER.

COAT FOLDER.

Cor. 14

GIISTRAL FEATURIS

FURE, TM-MARIO RIGHTS ALSHINGO,

AUTHOR KUDLY

previous

he dicks in background, per- conalities, appearances.

ard most natural

Theatre Goers ·

AISLE FIGHTERS,

NOT ONLY THE WRONG SEAS

- ITS THE

WRONG THEATER.

AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION — THE DRAMA, LOVERS WHO ARRIVE LATE AND THE CRITICS WHO DEPART EARLY.

11-30

THEY SHOOT

(13 15. at

out

WATER

BOY.

soft

COTICS

of pastoral

"presanta

By Harry Weinert

IT'S

ALL

So

REAL.

THE TIMETABLE SLAVES WHO HAVIE, TO...+

MISS THE ELEVIM TEN OR THER

LAST

ཡམ་

KUTI

PROBED

↓

After that the lady doctor weans horself from her husband and, naturally enough, falls in love with one of her more attractive patients, a fall cuthor with suicide impulses.

My own reaction on reading this, in many ways Interesting novel is to advise men not to fall in love with psycho-analysis,

What disturba me about the book in the odlous American translation. It is full of vul- garities, completely unFrench, Buch as "Cloud poured mo some wine." --Time and again It obviously less the mood of its original,

RESPECTABLE

Surely it these most reputable publishers thought the novel worth publishing in England they should have done us and the French author the Justice of a new and respectable trans- Iation?

I do not suppore they could have prevailed on somebody with the bursting talent of Patrick Leigh Fermor to do it. Have you read his exquisito translation of Madame Coletto's "Julie do Carnellhan" ad, "Chance

Acquaintances" (Secker & Warburg, and Pen- guin)?

But I am sure that there are many other fine translators in Britain for French works, many

more then exist in America.

The aim of publishers in presenting foreign work should bo to make it faithful to, but even better original

then the

Gardener's friend...

ANNUAL AND BIENNIAL FLOWERS

11. A. P. BALFOUR..

{PERQUIN, 108.)

Tis seems to me a valuable

and informative work for the amateur gardener, it is the most casily understood.com> pendium of "annuals”. Uhat 1 have seen, and is an Idení-size for the pocket, ¿

With no fower than 145 tun- coloured) plates,' it must ba jjudged oxtmordínary value for Imoney, bla

=-fLondon Express Serving2, 1