1949-02-12 — Page 11

DAB and FLOUNDER _by

Di Valter

.FROM HERE AND THERE :

Peace Get-Together In An Art Gallery

FLORENCE: An international academy for peace in to be set up in Florence with its headquarters in the Pitti Palace, the world's most famous art gallery. The academy will have two principal functions; the pro- tection of the world's art treasures and the study of problems of good neighbourliness; the encouragement of the exchange of cultural, political and social ideas. For the moment the academy is purely Italian, but all other countries will be asked to join.

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1949.

THE

THE

THE

STORY OF SECRET AGENT

MIDDLE OF THE Housmannava JOURNEY. By Lionel Trilling. Secker and Warburg, 121, óð. 328 pages.

FTER his dangerous ill- ness, John Laskoll goes down to stay with his friends, the Crooms. Travelling with him part of the way is a frightened man named Gifford Maxim.

that

What frightened Maxim and, later, shocked the Crooms; is he has deserted The Party. Need I

party

talking say what

We are about?

The Middle of the Journey is A drama of the fellow-travellers. Its dominant moilve is not human love, hate, Jealousy, greed or any of the emotions recognised by. Aletion. It is the relation of human beings with a cause, a philosophy, a loyalty, in short, with the party of Lenin, Stalin, Old Uncle Karl Marx and

all.

n

Maxim has been

moro than fellow-traveller; he has been a Com- munist secret agent. This does not prevent his fellow-traveller friends from being shocked by his defection, Why has he been guilty of this be- trayal7 virus la sufficient to immunise a man Maxim's story breaks thunderous FOR THE IGNORANT

Bu for six months. They in the background on uneasy against

produc- situation between the convalescent NEW YORK: For the benefit of Phillips plant has started

vaccine. The Laskell and the Crooms. Nancy the poor uninformed private soldier, tion of the anti-fu America's brass-hals have just put cat must be incubated for ten days, a.very small out

72-page booklet to make clear then injected with

flu virus, which quantity- all the terms that the science Focker and tonde warfare has add allowed to multiply 100 000 men ed to the language. Sample of producing one miligramme of the

This takes two days Army

and This vaccine. clarity isentropic:

injected. means the following-without any then the patient can bo

After

eight or ten days he is ab- change in the entropy.

solutely immune for the whole the winter.

ATTENTION PLEASE....

of

of

WINDOW-SHOPPING

of

Core

LIBRARY LIST

CREEVEY Belected by Jaka Murray, dia paget-11 la probably not possible to crowd all the good things from the Creevey. Papers Into one voluma But sur t chough her to prove him one of the willtest old scandalmongers that ever watchus Bociety and 001ies in Laniton

#

•

*

THE NIGHT - WALKERI, James Norman. Michael Jouph 99 60

Thriller 100 pages China to-day David Armour wakes up in a mission hospital with no recollection of what bai havnaned during the previous alu pasra except that somehow, ha 11 mixer up in very complicated trouħila.

•

/ THE MIDNIGHT. READER Edited by P., Van Doren Stern The Hedley end. 101. 6d. 610 paren This book is out to scare you

• Ghevar, bogies, and all manner of dreadful beings dwell within 19 COYMEN To give it a proper chance you are requested ant to read by Havlicht

a

Crooms annoys Laskell by refusing to face the fact of death. It is if dying were, for them, a form of political reaction.

Then, Nancy dislikes Emily Cald- well; Lockell falls in love with her. Emily has kept a teashop and paints "peasant" bowls. She has married In fact, she the local handyman. belongs to the age of D. II. Lawrenen and nudism.

be more

subtly Nothing could offensive to Nancy than the constant reminder offered by Emily that, one day. Nancy's fancles will ap pear equally, affected and out date.

HERE'S A NICE

of

SLICE OF LIFE ..........

LILLY

Lilly House

WAS ON

A

It appears that, in consequence

of some experience in the Spanish

B

Simone Gives The

Novel New Life.

THE BLOOD OF OTHERS.

War, Maxim has turned from Com- muniem to

Christianity. But-and Simone de Beauvoir. (Secker

here Trilling shows aubtlety-Maxim

will not religiously retire from the and Warburg, 10s. Gd.), 228

world. There is worldly power in

his now passion. The pendulum is pages. swinging "that way. Maxim is rid- ing the pendulum.

by

disillusioned,

whom religion

for

has

no answers: particu- larly the politically

Margaret disillusioned, whom

LANE

loss of Kalih has robbed of the power to act.

If the author's

The Middle of the Journey is, in happening to the novel. We not, in the end, lead

OMETHING interesting is

effect, a metaphysical novel. the adjective frighten nobody. conflict of Ideas is brought to terms of human clnsh tragedy. There is passion in

philosophy Hoes

ús into

Let Tha have been ataring too long at haven where all problems are for down

aver solved, our childish half-hope and the old worked-out patch of of revelation on the last page shows how powerfully she has carried us

the

writing and wit in the talk. Telling ground, while new life was, along. And if, on the other hand,

unusual novel.

TUNE On a MELODEON.

has made an outstanding job of an calmly shooting up in a fresh in the course of considering what a writer offers is truth, Wo quarter.

stumble with surprise ori a truth of our own, there is greatness in it somewhere. The Blood of Other. has done me this service.

By Ian Niall. Heinemann, 9. The development of character, as 6d. 279 pages..

an end in itself, has lost its virility. VERY autumn the harvest hands as pure story-telling did a genera-

como over from Ireland. Some-tion ago, and the new shoots appear- THE HUNTING WASP. tires one of them remains, settles ing here and there urn of dif down, Like Johnny Lavery, who ferent species. They are concerned

John Crompton (Collins 10s. married a woman older than him-almost solely with man's spiritual Od.). 255 pages. self rather than go back to his de tested mother.

predicament.

for

CIMONE

П

my

in able amateurish curiosity about all

is

tem (in every other respect superior to ours), cannot operate for any- thing much larger than a hornet.

It might have worked out all right

remember how long If Johnny had not got with child For a time it looked as

though I CANNOT

ngo it was that I lost my horror Cope,

adored 18-year-old only Catholle writers were breaking of spiders. As a Meg

child I feared daughter of Longshanks Cope, the ground, and other people could not them, but at some point in terrifying

tinker. At which point help feeling that they started with grown-up life-perhaps not until I. the story, really begins.

had discovered Fabre-I became In- Copo's thirst for vengeance In advantage. Evelyn Waugh had his terested in their habits and child- translated into action of a crude, say in Brideshead Revisited (with hood panie faded before un agree-

́character. | oh, what delectable backsliding bloody and precipitate

est anyone should doubt what is The Loved Onet) and Graham insects. Longshanks lays hands on him, the the

Hikely fate of Lavery when

Greeno is still saying his. The

Once one has gone so far, It reader is given a few specimens of weakness, it seems to many people, extraordinary:

the whole world the Cope handiwork in triaing of The Heart of the Malter is that changes. It is no longer man's world: skirmishes with policemen and one it rests on a foundation which exists it is possessed by creatures infinite- or two tactless members of the

only

Guilt and ly older and more numerous than Catholics. public.

ourselves. We are not wiped off responsibility torment us all. few of the face of the earth, it seems, only They provide Impressive—argu- ments in favour of flight, instant us can take that closely reasoned, because the insect's respiratory sys- and headlong, from this savage Jesuitical way out, Scottish scene. Lavery obeys the promptings of reason, taking young Meg with him. Longshanks fol- lows in his pony cart, accompanied by a posse of relatives and a gun.

Good heavens, what a break. But DE BEAUVOIR in The for that limitation in the size ΤΟ GOODBYE

of Hampstead The police fellow the Copes, by Blood of Others does not

use insects, we and all mammals would motorcor.

this patent escape. It is not

for long ago have gone the way of the NEW YORK: Window-shoppers HOUSE by Marjorie Hessell Hent. It had a blue door and

magnolla tree. When Caroline went The tune played on this melodeon her, as it is, not for most of us. Her mastodon, and the world would be сап the

do

In Tiltman. Hodder and Stough to live there with her young artistis the real thing

of passionate characters was heavenly. Their abrupt events. The law seems

and theme is essentially the same A Delrolt store set up a ton. 10s. 6d.

as peopled only by monstrous America. recording machine in its shop win-

to Graham Greone's how to absolve ferocious females. with their, alaves, daughter Karen was not so keen on skirt the edges of this part of Scot-our inner gulit, how to face the their progeny and their little con- dow. The window-shopper puts

a playwright, and separated after deal of their time looking the other too. to setting for a novel. The she had borne four children.

move again when we have scarcely changed since the days have seen completely round a ques- of the great reptiles. ing machine takes it down. The present is apt to be uncom- The eldest daughter, Hirla, came

PRINCE OF FOXES. Bylon and are morally immobilised. shop promises delivery first thing

After the bomb The future seldom to adore the house. fortable. next morning.

dropped...

....but what happened

Samuel Shellabarger. Hamish But how different in conception With this sobering thought never proves worth look-

then must not be disclosed.

Hamilton, 12s. 6d. 400 pages.

very far away, I always pick up forward

with interest any new work which ing

to.

BOOK OF The publishers—say

time TERE is a smooth, skilful and Mile. de Beauvoir is, with Jean- deals with the insect creation, and Besides, the best

and again you will catch yourself tireless novel about that Paul Sartre, the leading exponent of the very jacket of Mr Crompton's of the

past is. THE DAY

exclaiming, "How true, I remember fashionable period, the Italian Re-Existentialism. and she writes there is so much

10 book prejudiced me in its favour, by

Just such a moment in my own life." naissance. Its hero is talented clearly and so beautifully that Do

It did not work out quite that young man who does equally well one can say her novel suffers fram-This-prejudice was rather diffeatt¬ "Donlel way for me, but I can see that this in soldiering, diplomacy, love and being the vehicle of her uncomfort to sustain, for, enthralled hs I am Goorge

novel, with its cleverly mixed in: | painting.

Ing philosophy. Indeed, Idea and with the subject, I find it irritating terests of ort (academic and There аге enough Intrigues, story are so completely fused that to have it presented with unremit Bohemian), the stage (acting and treacheries, tumults, and battles to they are truly.one.

ting facetiousness,.' like a fitnay producing), the Press (popular daily | satisfy the most avid. The conver and Intellectual weekly), love (re-sations are liberally sprinkled with

commentary on a nature.alm How- In the story of a young French ever, perhaps I will tempt quited and unrequited), and scores

Gres words like "Your

Some Magnificence, man of the Resistance the author cautious newcomer into this fas of characters, all more or less un-Your Signory," and so forth. Local poses, and offers to answer, serious cinating field, so I will hot carp too der the good, gracious influence of colour is laid on regardless of ex-ethical and philosophical questions. much. Besides, before the arid of the house itself, will delight thou- pense.

They are not abstruse or recondito; the book I had myself succumbed to sands more people than it fails to In short, a competent slab of they are worrying nearly all of us. Mr Crompton's Indestructible good

sophisticated hokum

They make up the dilemma of the humour.

NEW YORK: Selence, through the hand of an electrician named Carl Schaeffer, has found a way of con- trolling a large family. With arrival of his 10th child, Mr Schnef- fer filled out his 14-room St Louls home with a public address system,

пож

husband It

and

Sald he: "Now we'll be able to keep shiling in the slot, speaks his order!HE past is always a useful it. She became an actress, married innd and the police spend a great responsibility of our own lives. How, sorts, dwellers in civilisation which

tabs on them."

a

THE HORSE HEARD....

GRANADA: A traveller took Granada hansom-cab and Was driven rapidly the address he had given the Victoria, Hotel. When he

Hotel it was dis alighted at the cavered_there.was_po_ seachruan The coachman was discovered un- conscious near the station where he had fallen off after a heart attack The horse has been following the samo Itinerary for the past Ave years, and apparently understood the direction given.

into a microphone and the record.

HEALTH TALK

NEW YORK: Carlton Fredericks is what the hospitals call a nutri: tionist. He, is_so_convinced that bad eating is the cause of America's of it. bad health he gets up at six every morning to deliver in wisecracking back style a radio talk to housewives. Sample wisecracks---Women make mistakes in the kitchen and feed them to their husbands; if we are what we cal, then some of us are INFLUENZA NEWS in a terrine mess; war and cooking are the two modern methods of AMSTERDAM: One egg with an self-extermination. His pet cooking extremely smail quantity of fu hint--stop peeling everything.

If you only go 19 far ая Hessell Marjorie Tiltman does in "Goodbye to Lilly House"the eighteen-nineties -you can cover, with a backward glance or two and slow motion for wards, enough generalions to make as large and thickly populated novel as any reader could desire.

#

charm:

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

CAN'T DO IT! TAXES ARE

TOO

HIGH

"CONGRADULATIONS/"

that

way.

1BOUT TELL

ME HOW

TO DRINE.

BEEN DRIVIN FERS

and execution

1

"Lines for Valentines"..

B KEME STARRETT

gudeless

2.1 tht i

WE HATE THE MAN WITH THE HEART OF GOLD.

WHO KEEPS IT AS HARD .... AND JUST AS COLD.

THIS IS THE BEST ROUTE

AND DONT LET ANYBODY

TELL YOU DIFFERENT...AND DONT USE THAT MAP YOU'VE

GOT...

NO. GOOD!

WE HAVEN'T ONE OF OUR.

ADULATIONS FOR THE GUY WHO CALLS IT

"CONGRADULATIONS.

WE'D LIKE TO START A REIGN OF TERROR FOR THE LAD WHO ALWAYS CALLS

BUT... YOU WOULDNT WANT ME TO GO AROUND IN RAGE, WOULD YOU 2

'ERA "ERROR.

LAN

THERE'S NO ONE WHO SO ARROUSES

OID IRE ASTME GAL WHOS ALWAYS AS GREEDY·

AS FIRE.

Ledger Syndicale

THE LAD WE'D LIKE TO PUT ON ICE IS THE ONE WHO INSISTS ON HIS ADVICE.

TWENY YEARS

WE ABHOR. THE GIY WHO IS NEVER WRONG... WE WICH HE WAS WEARING A TIN SARONG.

"YOU WAIT... MAYBE THE SIN IS SAINING. BUT BY TOMORROW

IT'LL BE

RAINING.

OR

SHOWING

OR SUAPT

WE DETECT THE-GIY VIO

CARRIES A COMB AND STOPS AT ALL MIRRORS

"TO RAKE HIC DOME.

THE LAD WHO SQUAWKS ABOUT

THE WEATHER

SHOULD BE TIED OUTDOORS ON A BARBED WIRE TETHER..