1959-05-30 — Page 12

THE [CHINA MAIL: SATURDAY, MAY 30, ℗ 1959.

CHARGEA

A STRANIER-

Wony

fine bonus thos

ROBERT PITMAN'S book page

i

BRITISH TRIO MATCHES

Is this the secret lure BASIE BREAKS

of the kimono cult?

I REPORT the return of a fascinating little lady of the East. A lady

who first fluttered and fanned her way Grandma was a girl.

I refer to that prototype G.I, bride, Madam Butterfly.

Do you remember Butterfly? Fifty-five years have passed since she fet plunged a knife into her 11ttle midriff after being userted by the tenor-voiced Pinkerton. She has gone on plung- Ing it regularly since then-matinees Included" But she has survived.

She hos survived Western "We don't kiss like you'do. It is reaction against Japan's war silly to light a fre if you are

the utrocities, against Com- poing to leave a room. munist victory in China,

And now she ta going beyond riere survival. In New York, Paris. London she is making 2 sensational come-back,

On Broadway almost every sucessful show has an Oriental heroine. In France the East is influencing The new spring

clothes.

But eventually Masako docs not leave the room at all. And when her later hears about it he increly hisses with satis

faction of the girl's sense hospitality.

of

Against a landscape of cherry and lotus blossom this enchent ing and thoughtful love story in played out.

of

But the romantic landscape cannot wholly perfly's

the

East

Madam

And in Britain? Exoming the fiction shelves in your local explain

From cover after new-found appeal,

beokshop.

cover the same glamorous slant gyes peer dut,

The leader Why? For years in British

Look at Alka, amorous fiction the men and women of Japanese heroine of LOVER'S the East devoted their time POINT, by C. Y. Lee (W. If. almost exclusively to dope Allen, 138. 6d.). Lee's previous peddling and piracy under the rogacious leadership of Dr Fuovel, The Flower Dram Song, has been made into the new Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. He is a leader of the new Butterfly cult,

Manchu,

The question

How has Modam ter managed to oust Fu Manchu? Why is the For Eastern heroine dominating our love stories thee more?

Well, let us look of some at

those stories.

across the stage when

Fay Wilson la beautiful and rich. But, it is not surprising that the hero eventually loses his heart, not to Fay, but to gentle Japanese girl, Tamike,

Fay Wilson and Tamiko-can the contrast help to explain this new fusklon in books?

There she is

Recently I went to consult author Kirkbride himself at his

at South Kensington.

Kirkbride is a toll American in his forties who prefers to

live in London.

As we entered his big living- can he proudly waved a hand. the book.

He said: "There's the girl in

That's Tamiko."

The ulri was Mrs Kirkbride. years ago she was named When she was born in Japan Junko," but her husband calls her June," Looking at her, I saw that he had good crake to be proud.

Kirkbride suld; "I first went to Japan for n few months in 1154 At a party at the Ameri- een Club in Tokyo I saw a beautiful Japanese girl. I tell in love with her at once.

"But there were two draw- backs. One was that I was told she was married. The other was that she wouldn't speak to I asked her to come out

She laughed

But Alka, though Japalicse, me, does not live in Japan, She is for a coffee with me, By all a waitress in California. When, she said was 'No!" near the end of the book, she irles to commit suicide, she can. no jump from the top of Fuli- yama in traditional Japanese In the South Kensington flut style, She takes lax! to the pretty Mr Kirkbride shook Look at THE WORLD OF Galden Gate Bridge Instead. het head and laughed. Her hus SUZIE WONG, by Itehard There is to lotus-blausom in band explained: Mason (Collins, 183.). Pretty Alka's story. The vice in it is Suzic first appeared between not exotic or distant at all. hard covETS In 1957. Soon What then is the attraction the appeters in a paper-back that all these new Oriental Fontana, 38. 6d.). She is also heroines have in common? the leading Indy of a glittering I have been reading the latest new musical on Broadway,

But Suzie's background in the novel is not glittering at all. She works in the Nam Kok, Louse of fairly 311 repute on the

Hongkong waterfront,

named

"You 590, ΠΟ respectable woman would be seen in the streets with a Westerner. People would think she was a hostess er bar-girl. Well, I found out where the girl worked as a translator. novel in the new fashion, and

I kept calling. But believe I have found the answer. she just turned her back on me. That novel is TAMIKO, by Then, when I came along for Ronald Kirkbride (Cassell, the fifth time, she whispered to 12s. 6d.), 1 warmly recommend me: You walk down the other it. Its pages are crammed with side of the street. Go into the facts of life and love in coffee-shop.

this side.'

An English pointer Lomax comes to live at the Nam Japan today. Kok. He begins by sketching Suzlu In her working clothes. He ends by marrying her. As he returns with her lo Britain

Savage

There are details about

the thought of the thousands Japanese merda, clothes, food

or so other men in her life does

worry him at all.

A

What then does Suzie's story

(sample: "fried honry-bees and salted thrush-hearts served with turtle-dove soup").

#

I will follow on

Well, she followed me; and she told me that, before I had seen her, she was already in process of divorcing her hus- band. Very soon we decided to marry.

"But that was just the begin- ning. June's family were against You see, they are big the idea. people in Japan. June is related to a former Prime Minister, So arranged a special dinner in der to discuss things with her brother,

sell us about the new attrac- But there 18 something in tions of the Oriental heroine? Tomiko that is not often offered Do you conclude that the in the other Butterfly books. In appeal for Western readers lice contrast with the Japanese in respectably distant vicer women, there is D Savage

That cannot be

the whole portrait of an American girl, Explanation.

Fay Wilson. Look at IF CHANCE A With two men friends Fay STRANGER, by Charles Fuller tours Tokyo's back streets. A ton (Harvill, 133. Gd.). There is studio offers girl models with nothing sordid about the back- the poster "Puse and photo- ground there.

graph lovely girl." Fay insists was

Kidnapped

"Everything for the dinner enrefully prepared.

Pritchard, the hero, exupes by on entering. She hires a camera waited and waited for June and of the her brother. But at midnight boat from a Japanese prisoner and photographs one camp. But the boat is mined. girls. Next she tells the little they still hadn't turned up. 1 alscovered that he had kid- rapped his sister and taken her

O a beach in Japan a school age, "You get in the ple- master linds him floating, nearly ture dend with injuries.

The girls giggle. The manager Luckily for Pritchard, tho is appalled. But Fay (ells him schoolmaster loves gland. We haven't got all night Secretly he takes the wounded-Stand over there mon to his home: His young The manager moves to pro- daughter Masako nurses him. test, but Fay pushes han bata, breaking his spectacles Ther the Tère him -2,000yen/note.aw Utierly disgraced, the little man asks for a kiss. Masske replies: fually poses.

She washes him and cleans his

beth:

When he gets stronger

he

A QUICK LOOK ROUND

་

● HEAVENLY ADVENTURER, obsession during which he won

Basil Colller. Becker and War- £10,000 in two months and lost burg, 25. In his brisk easy-to- it in a few nights.

read way, Collier tells the story

to the depths of the country- side to prevent humiliation for his family. Eventually I had to call in the, diplomats and the Police to and her,"

Kirkbride shook la head: The funny thing is that the brother is

is one of our meatest pils now!

Kirkbride poured out whisky, With it we munched wafers of diled seaweed, a speciality from Japani, We talked about Kirk- bride's book. He said:

"The incidents are ali based en fact-including Fay Wilson's scene with the stúdio manager, That happened all right."

I looked round the big room. Japanese wooden dolls justled horse brasses from the English shires. THE MOUNTAINS OF I asked. Mrs Kickbride: missed his destiny the Air DASSELAS. Thomas Pakenham.) “Apart from dress, are there Force picaveur, Sir Sefton Weldenfeld and Nicolson, 218 jany things you always like

Brancker.

An attractive account, by Lord doing in a Japanese way-lo Pakenham's eldest son, of the remind you of homo? Tea, for

of a man of actiun who somehow

A personality both command- search for the mountain where instance?" ing and unorthodox, a hard- the prince of Ethiopia were She smiled and said: "No, living, Intelligent soldier, with a imprisoned, until one of them not really. You non, I always celebrated mistress and place was summoned to ascend the do just what my husband in the world of civil afintion throne. Brancker should have made deeper notch before he was

killed in the R.101 disaster, aged REVISITED.

63.

!

WORLD Aldous Huxley. Windus, 12m. · 4d.

• BRAVE NEW

Chatto

wonis."

The answer

Just what my husband wants, A failure of character, a Huxley is inclined to think that In that Kensington flat I sud- failure of judgment? Colller the wonders and horrors of his denly, had the answer to my June Kirk- account suggests the latter.

psychological slave-world will literary problem. engulf us a century or two bride is intelligent, with Inde- sooner than he believôd 29 years | pendent ideas of her own, But

● NORMANDY REVISITED. Bo, when he wrote Brave Now for her as for all the Eastern

•

ON MASTER

•

OF LANCUT. Fow

girls in the books-It is what the man wants that matters,

Americans can get a

A. 3. Liebling. Gollanen. 18m. World: Sentimental travela of вл American correspondent, nostal gically retracing his war-time Count Alfred Palockl.. W. X. Japanese wife like Mes Kirk- journey from Weymouth to Paria Allen, 156. The feudal land of bride. But at those Broadway 'via the Normandy beaches,

vast estate in Poland looks shows they can indulge in the back

recent, almost pipe-dieu,

W. 10

• A DOOR AJAR. Fett de incredible past, totally remble

And in Britain? “Well, girls

Polnay, Hale, 186. The gambling from the facts of the 20th like Taiko maka - change

chapter (Cúbnés, 1931))

pokmopolitan Mr de Polnay's life--the absorbing story of-an-

Make (after Lady Violet - Bonham Carter, don't they? But

InLondon Express Barelan,

century. W

--{London Express "Berotot).

'Tamiko' with husband Ronald, Kirkbride

JACKYS DIARY

JACKY MENDELSOHN

AGE 34%/%2

one of the man behind the new cult

Yester Day Daddy & Me Put ON Old clothes to Help MomMy Do her Spring Cleaning

st she made me throw out ALL of my old TOYS)

from when was A Little Kid Which was [about 3 Months Ago

PS: But at leased she gave them to the Poor People in the Charity Home to PLAY withs So didnt feel So Bad

After that Daddy Started into WASH THE WINDOWS OUT- Side With a Hose

OH

Pretty

JAZZ ...

by NOEL GOODWIN

THEY call themselves the Dave Lambert singers -Britain's own Annie Ross, with Dave Lam- bert and Jon Hendricks. You have read about them on this page before..

Jazz Improvisation started by imilating the voice. This trio which are, eloquent examples of

As a vocal Jazz trio they BLUEB SINGING: *The Best round incredible. Their frit of Muddy Waters" (Londen LP album 好

complote LTZ-XL15152;-12mm. LP). These Imitation of, the entiro Basio are the rools from which bandy by voices alone, using modern jazz grow, at tho mulit-tape recording.

opposite primitivo extreme from the Lambert trio's sophisticated Now they join forces with novelty. Muddy Waters, known Count Basie and his team in in person to many Britio person in "Sing Along with listeners, is the most fascinating. Base"

(Columbia 3381151 of the old Southern vagabond 121D. LF).

singers still recording. A long dozen wistful, whimsical Blues overdue first LP presents

turns the Instrumental soloa

back into words, matching them | word-for-note with flip-tongued

brilliance.

his strangely compelling power.

* *

of

TEN GREAT BOLOISTS "The Improvienflon”

12Ln

Annie Ross rites the trumpet Anatomy polos, Lambert the trombones, (Columbia 38CX.10141; and Hendricks (who contrived LP). A cream of top Jazz solas the lyrics) the tenor sax.

by Charlie Parker, Lester Young and others, collected on sue disc

I would not say the result to illustrate the modern art of adds any benefit to Jazz. I jazz Improvisation at is best. would rather hear the singers The title is taken from a create their own ideas. But the chapter In Leonard Feather's effect is certainly one of excellent "Book of Jazz" unbelievable and entertaining (Arthur Barker) where The virtuoso skill.

actual polos recorded hero, are Four of the 10 word-settings noted down and analysed with

An penetrating detqli.

Im- invented by Hendricka are

portant disc for the serious printed in full on the sleeves, stener, and one. that even which carries on the front the casual fans will and rewarding. best picture of Basle I have jẹt reca.

-(London Express Strules),

Only then She Changed Her Mind & made us clean the Whole House instead of just the SPRings Under the Bede

Soon Daddy Started into beat up wings

Persian Rug With A big Fly-Swafter. Lots of Dust) fell out of it, but not a single Persian.

©1949 pint Features Syndicates iric, Morid rights reserved.

Only

DUST

M Sothen helped Mommy Change the clothes ON THE SOFA WHICH is the best Part About Spring Cleanine cause some times you find! Lots of Money Underwear People sit❤

So then washed them on

the in-side to suprize Him

And Boy he Sure was.

Finely the House Looked nice.

&clean. The reason why is because ALL of the dikt came

All off of every thing & went on

me.

!

8

2

and a

Nickles ZZA

So then Mommy GAVE ME a Spring ADD VICE FOR Cleaning Afterwoods Boy & Sure Hope Spring Doesnt come for AtCHILDREN: Leased an other Year

When Rich People Visit Your House make sure give them the most conftable chair to Sit in

That way more Money WILL fall out of they Re Pocket Your Friend ACKR