1961-09-30 — Page 21

THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1961.

Roderick Mann **************** ALL I ASK IS A CHANCE SIGHS ANTHONY STEEL

'I'm lonely, I'm bored

and I'm broke-but I keep hoping something will turn up'

Rome.

ON the Via Veneto-the most parochial quarter-mile in

Europe, where Camparis are drunk and reputations dis- sected-someone is always talking about Anthony Steel. He is drinking again, or he isn't. He is still moping about Anita Ekberg, or he isn't. He is returning to London, or he isn't.

Rome is a village and the Veneto is its green. And Italians, in common with other rues, find

¿

man's

SHOW BUSINESS

1.

at his house until I found my

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆

better than I was before be- gut expensive tastes, that one. cause my problems have made She wants three of everything me more sensitive-hit nobody "Do you know that when we will use. ine.

were firal married and ved in Hollywood we had nine tele- vision sets in the house. Ninet Site She watched everything. was mad about TV.

"It seemed I was all set. Then the phone rang one day and folla Company who'd

"Oh, I know Pin 44, and 1 eun't been frying?

Nut to

play 20-year-olds any plcture for

tomy: "Ume more, but there must be things U with myself vand Evi Bartok sok it was ready to go ahead.

"new back here immediate ly, did five weeks work on the fa unk

the company more then went

never got a

bust. I

can do.

"Can you imagine trying to "Nat wearing shorts and be romantic with nine television saving the Empire.

the sort cels About the place? I used of things I used to do in the old to try to break them. Raak days. 1 don't want any of that. Just ordinary

penny. Now I'm right back rules Guod God, surely a man

where I started.

It's

cheap

1

can't be finished at 417

"Anita (Ekberg) will never admit that I was quite a big name when we got married, you know. Towards the end of our marriage she used to sneer; You were nothing when I married you. I was the star." "I wasn't true. She was a

I know,

und "I am weak, during the past few years I've been drinking very heavily-but I can stop any time. Any time. Nobody's ever taken a picture of me drunk. I can tell you. Tacy all say: Tonys drinking apote, but it's not true.

"The trouble is I get so low hunging about the flat waiting for the phone to ring. I've got to yo cut to the Via Veneto now and again in the hope of

think if I'd stayed on in London I could have made a go of it. But now the pros- you peet of going back and start- Stewart) ing to try to find a flot again much-photographed starlet, but and asking for jobs scares me. the only thing she'd done was a

im called Zarok. I was one of seeing a chum. do it.

the highest-paid acters Rank had under contract.

inisfortune a more reward- viita I had ruing thm without There seems to be no end to it,

"Some mantlin ing subject for conversation Muress. And he had talked strain

und ogofri uf

Junny going bark to know. undon; of trying to pick up the Granger

persuaded threads of his shattered British return career; uf making a fresh start.

than his success, His suc- cess spurks envy; his mis, fortune

Buskes one feel secure.

Going back

Ami, su, at Doney's or Strega's or my of the half-dozen cafes on the strip, they sip thole Negronis and espressos and dermate the reputation of Authony Maithanal Steel.

10 1:0

He sold just can't bring myself to

In London. I should try to get my carver golog again in British pietums,

Not a penny

Now here he was, de an opuri- ment high up in the Parioli dis- arlet of Home wearing a lense, red. Cupri-style shirt. white shucks, and white shoes. Drink- ing orange Juice (though over "Well, I tried. 1 flew to Lon- lunch be was to share sane don and booked in at the Carl-

TORO with

me; looking ten Tower --- Though 1 had no idea how 1 was going to pay for

lonely.

"I nun fonely," he said, "Innely was surprised to find him and bored me brake. Things still in one -- for ett previoit are shif all going what for me.

It.

"I'm not saying that to boost

because

I'm now

"My furniture is all in store in Hollywood, you know, and I can't afford to get it out. So myself, I stay on here, where it's cheap enough. And I keep hoping something will turn up. Though nothing seems to.

"I play tennis, or go to the beach, or sli in cafes. But it sends me crazy. 1 want to

work.

"Then Pinchy (Peter Finch? "I'm an actor-quíte a good wang me and subd I could slay one

NOW, 1 nk. Certainly

Durrell: A NEW ASSESSMENT AS

HIS PROVOCATIVE QUARTET REACHES

AN EVER INCREASING AUDIENCE

JUSTINE. BALTHAZAR. MOUNTOLIVE, CLEA. BY

Lawrence Durrell. Faber Paper-backs. 5s, each.

THEY must be read

as a whole. Alexandria

itself is the chief character.

Its moods, its smells, its colours, its licence, its invitation to indulgence in any and every surfaces and its form, its brilliant deceptive

dangerous depths-these dominate and condition the lives of all who choose to live in it.

Mr Durrell's most obvious talent is the descriptive ung nud he brings this city hong to us. perversely alive and humanly unpredictable. Equally his big

ONE TO READ MAGAIN

ANNE SHARPLEY CHOOSES:

Kilvert's Diory. 1870-9.

Jonathan Capc. 181.

TENDER, and detailed in TEND

a way suggesting that Victorian hours were more kindly THE and prolonged than our the Roverend Francie Kilvert's Diary in a book with which to live. I have kept a copy of the selection made by Willam Plomer by my bed for three years and so can conɛtantly return to placid, pretty Clyro in Radnorshire, where

KBvert

curate WAB

for saven years, and Langley Darrell in Wiltshire.

are

The deathbeds of hle parishioners, the terrible, intimate expats that curates daily business com- bina with an envlabis social ilfe-picnics, skating parties and balle.

From time to time this gently impressionable man falls in love and we suffer with bim for his shyness and, slar, hle unsuitability that makes the father of hia loves turn down a per- niless curate.

A peaceful book and yet there are unforeseen por. turbing momenty in it when the pastorale ho painta with such Innocence and charm ft, and for a moment we

tei-pieces-a masked ball in the rity, a duck hunt, & meeting of the tribes outside the elts these too display his gin at its richest.

He hanself

makes different

claims for his work. First, it is,

LAWRENCE

DURRELL has

¤ คริ

been hailed

majar novelist on the strength of the Alexandria Quartet― four novels set in Alexandria and published

one by one

over the years. They are now all available in paper. backs at El for the four.

by RICHARD LISTER

be says, "an investigatic. of novelist, Purseworden, that the modern love"; and, secondly, he was really pursuing, and Dariey claims that the method is new.

ንጉ and to deceive her The rather portentous notes to husband. the novels in which he tries tu sabstantiate this second clubn ere a mistake.

POLITICAL PLOT

But when we get to the third make book, Mountelive, yet a third

They will make unsophisticated readers think the work is above them; and they will sophisticated readers think that in Then Mr Durrell has got aboen himself.

AN OLD DEVICE

one

In fact his scheme is novelists often adopt of show

Mr Durrell seems quite blind

to the fact that Purséwardun is

a crashing old bore.

But there is no doubt that the Impact of these volumes taken together is much greater than of any by Itself.

icur

Very опе

created д

Mr Durrell has explanation is provided. She world complete and whole And her husband Nessim were itself which is one of the great; engaged in a political plot to tests of a novelist. It is a smal smuggle arms into isract, and hothouse world of personal re Justine was using both Darley latlong conducted in a sensuous has an authentic and Pursewarden as cover for vold, but it these activities.

palpitating life of its own.

And so it is with all the events in the

work.

Fach succeeding ONE MAN-BY

ing events Brst through one book. uncovers a new layer of observer and then revealing explanations, Pursewarden's them in quite a different light sulente in the secind buuk, for from someone else's angle. istuner, when he discovers how

But while other novelist da this in successive chapters parts, Me Durrelf does it ki suc- cessive books, This Is tut Invent new device, but extend an old one. But i none the less effective for that.

he has been used, geumis quite out of character,

ไป

10

1x

We have to walt until the third book to get the real ex- planation: an Incestuous relation

with his sister coming to an end,

And we only fully understand

THREE WOMEN

By

END OF INNOCENCE.

Jacquelino Cummins. Cape. 16s.

THIS acute, intelligent

first novel

is also

In the Brst novel, Darley, the narrator, ubandons his litle the relations between Justine most ingeniously con- Greek mistress for a long un- and her husband Nession when zatisfactory affair with the we reach the end of their poli- structed. It covers seven mysterious Justine, the Jewish tical venture in the fast volume. years, from 1944 to wife of a rich Copt Nessim, whe liver In splendour with his One is bound to have reserva- 1950, in which we see tions about Mr Durrell as Mark Bergson, a clever, civilised, idealistic top American journalist moving downhill from success to success,

family outside the city,

Darley

Investigator of modern Iove in

nnnlyses at great this context. length the comparative fallure

of this affair and ferrets out

from his friends and acquain THEIR IMPACT

tances, especially Pursewarden,

A novelist, and Clen, a pointer,

Heme of Justine's past history

account for

There Is # disngrecable

and psychologicut make-up to flavour

No it COBER

We are shown him through of Charles Morgan at the eyes of three women whose his prinsiest u kla handling of love, he accepta some of the characters, and Mr. But in the second book, his Durrell badly overestimates the and dropa as he goes. thole

friend, Balibazar, throws a dif- ferent light on the affair.

Be the agony within tits

two parinhos And gantis chronlater.

*Abridged edition. The corn. plate diary in three volumes,

will be re-fie:sed in the alumini “at & gulistan,

character worth of his novelist

Purrewardati, whene platitu- the gradual corruption dinous epigrams and tedious ruccess,

Each of them notices in him from and each reacts to it

He reveals to Darley that analyses of sex are quoted far in a different way. A very in- Justine was only using hằn as too extensively in support in all toresting and entertaining novel, a cover, that in fact it was the four volumes.

--London Exprons Bervice.

nothing. I'm saying it to show you how Anita felt about me. Maybe it'll give you a about her.

clue

"Oh, I've got over her now, I no longer wake up beating the pillow. I haven't seen her for months, and I'd like to be friends now. It's she who won't be friends with me She's be come very tough.

Not bitter

al

"Anita's doing - very well the moment. She's got three speedboots and Fellini Federico Fellini, the director) has been mad about her ever since she mude La Dolce Vita for him.

Rubbish.

"I'd like to get married again, but how can 1 I've got noth- ing to offer. Being broke at 41 is not like being broke at 20. Then, one has got one's future ahead.

"Until I get offered that sort of m 11 just have to stick it out here. It's not expensive.. Į

in One can live quite cheaply Itome, The thing is to be as mene as the Hallans, 'They olwuy! leave you to pick lip the bill, ynt know. At first I always did, but now I can't ufford to.

"And I've got no false pride about myself, I promise you, I write to producers myself asking for work. I have to.

I'm

"There's talk about something wish her nothing but interesting being lined up for Success. I've got over my me next year, I hope 50. bitterness now. Though I will quite a goox setor. after all. say that unyune who morries Something just has to turn up."

her bad better be rich.

She's

-London Express Service).