1949-12-31 — Page 11

America Remembers The Genlus Of The Uncanny

AMERICA recently remembered the centenary, of Edgår Allan Poe, the master of strange and uncanny iajes, with this stamp.

.

Poo was born in America, son of an English actress. He was taken to London and went to is Manor Helool, in Stoke Newington. But he made few .......... friends, and grew up in a dream world

of his own,

Back home he tried to be a soldier, Ho was expelled from America's Band-

Academy, hurst, West Point Military

hlaybe hō was. Bee how because he was said to be mad. ho, writes:

"The huge antique panels throw slowly back their ponderous ebony jawn. Without those doors stood the lofty. enshrouded figure of Lady Madeline. There was blood on ber whlio robes."

Face value: 3 cents (2148); Perforation: 11 by 181⁄21⁄2).

-(London Express Sarules).

FROM HERE AND THERE :

The Gaol-Bird Flew From

The Church Door

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY DECEMBER 31, 1949.

An egotistical, indiscreet, readable author with a chip on

NEW BOOKS:

SCENES FROM A BOUR. GEOIS LIFE: The autobiography of Alaric Jacob. Socker and War- burg. 15s. 310 pages.

by GEORGE MALCOLM THOMSON -

.

war

the

Instead, there was Comfort, a school and became a reporter on a "schizothyme young woman provincial newspaper at the age of with an aquiline nose, whom 19. Was the Daily ExprOTE COTTES pondent in Washington in the late thirties, and served as Jacob chased nude through a

France, wood

we correspondent In the rain "till

Western Desert, Burma and Russia, steamed

。 like

couplo of

Now works for the Bnc, te married ketties."

to nowellat Iria Morley,

And Mona, who divided her 77HO has been unkind love between Jacob and her

to Alaric Jacob? Sealyham, and Worse Why does he write anointed herself with a herbalist concoction. Jacob gave her n divertingly, yet with a chip bottle of perfume; the silly girl on his shoulder?

was too deep in D.H. Lawrence to take the hint:

WH

Perhaps if he had won that scholarship to Eton, if he had entered the Foreign Service and not become a foreign correspon- dent, if, in short, ho had taken his due pince as member of the ruling class and descendant of generala, Jacob might lie more easily on his pillow.

a

As thinge are, he turns hostile eye on Western, especial- ly British, life and ways. He is an amorist, a snob, a republl- ean and either a full-or a half- Marxist-I am not sure which.

still

ON A DARK NIGHT. By Anthony West. Eyro and Spottiswoode, 10. 6d. ́ 324 pages.

Tuis book begins where many Flora coincided with Jacob's books end, with the death, discovery of Charles Morgan, a by suicide, of the hero, John from whom he Wallis, a British lawyer engaged philosopher

on a war crine trial. drew the erroneous notion that unconsummated love was He's supreme experience. "Unhappy Flora was the victim of this degenerate thesis." But not for Jong.

Came

u.

on his shoulder

ANTHONY WEST

tabloid

The Torajas unspoilt by calling a London -- dally? tourism, warlike... ambitión or, when he was 23 years old, the desire to improve their lot, THE GREEN BERET. BY have pleasant dances, manners, architecture and traditions.

No doubt they should worry,

about their shortage of trousers.

Hilary St. George Saunders, Michael

Joseph. 151. 362 pagos.

medicine, food. Thele morals TIS proud, worthy history of

Justy

Innocenco and -naive gusto, as Wilcox puts it, giving the Commandos has many ample evidence should causa virtues. Above all, it captures self-examination They should and transmits the spirit of the semi-irregular be downcast about the pre extraordinary

that Britintu force

military valence of yaws and malaria.

genius evolved to meet unprecedented situation.

But are they? Not much! And who, looking at Wilcox's magnificent photographs, is going to blame them?"

Incidentally, this delightful book, this escopist's Odyssey, powerfully vindicates tho ha

Dutch govern the son Paternalism of

ment. Let the champions of co- realled. Indonesian "nation- alism" think again!

1

on

All through the ages, it seems, the Brush have been waiting for something like the Com- mandos to give outlet to their Jove of Aghting and hatred of soldiering.

This is history, not in pom- pous robes but with a glint in its eye and soldier's phrases on Its lips. Great stuff!

he has loved, the marriage On a Dark

Night tells of has helped to wreck, Wallis's adventures in the next who rises to accuse him. in hell, world. To be exact, whero Wallla finds himself in Wherever he goes, two go more of a the company of Von Keholm. with him: Kenelm,

whose man than Wallis and more of a German general execution ho helped to bring damned soul; and Ransome. Inarion from Normandy to Berlin brarian of the House

Wallis's mard and tempter, about.

On n Dark Night is a spiritual allegory, conceived in the form of a novel and in terms of

psychology, with modern symbols drawn from the world we know.

day when the the Morgan heresy discarded, Alaric prepared his room with flowers and furniture polish for "ho solemn rites of the evening."

Ile noliced the delicious sandalwood smell of her body seemed stronger after the rain enough to keep Alaric out of the arms of Miranda, whom he woord in the Geological Museum. South Kensington, where he was re- porting a world economie con- ference.

There is n trend back to the

He writes with the Journalist's bathing dress days. Shoulders ease, the patrician's neglect of and lega stiil show, but not so

grammar ("I know not who much of either. And the French-etc.) and the convert's cogerness It was not strong CAT

stylo mult la out altogether, to spurn his past. (The pur- Neither the girls nor the men

passing

of vulgarity

his would stand for it.

ideology was not yet apparent to me.")

BRUSSELS: Stefan Becker, aged 21, was given special leave from prison for a few hours to get married. A polica brought him to the town hall When it was for the ceremony. over he walked outside and ducked into the crowd of well- wishers. Neither his bride nor police have seen him since. Becker was serving a term for theft.

Fat Man's Problems

CAPE TOWN; Nobody loves a fat man, and local Falstaffa, hit by the summer heat of the Cape, are more miserable than usual. Dollar conservation has stopped the importation of out- nize bathing trunks and only Rize 48's available are in bright yellow, which are not chic on Weekend bathers large men, are entering the water in cut slacks, off flannel

which one causing much embarrassment and amusement

Lucky Black Cat

PRETORIA:

Under the will

of two aged splastera of Bantry Bay, Cape Colony, their black (named Persian cat "Jannie"

General Smuta) after

108 Inherited £300, which will guarantee bis daily meals of fish ifo milk. Jannic is Elx. and

was found as a stray kitten by the spinsters' brother.

Cold Weather Suits

LOS ANGELES; Bathing suit chose the year's manufacturers coldest day to show off their next summer's brach fushions.

Enthusiastic Guest

KANGOON: It is a wedding custom in Burma for stones to be thrown by well-wishers at the newlyweds' house on the bridal night. At one wedding recently onelgbour threw brick, hitting a wedding guest and necessitating his removal to hospital.

A

Tiger trouble SINGAPORE: Malaya is still having tiger irouble. In Raub, ninosque keeper was onying Irle prayers when a tiger walk- ed into the room. The keeper shut his суга

in horror and ALTRO when he opened them the tiger was gone. Another Raub man heard a knocking on his door a two a.m. Be perped outside And now a figer with a raised

the man boiled paw. So door and went back to bed.

ago

Dream came truc

D

hia

NEW YORK: Washing dishes in a New York hotel 31 years for £2 week, Louis Ritter made o vow. One day he swore he would buy the hotel. Today, Ritter, mil- tonaire from mink coats, bought the hotel. Hls Bret improve- ment-more elbow room in the kitchens.

Ho is egotistien), Indiscreet, enormously readable.

His snobbery is aimed at the Lower Middle Class, an unfor- tunate

group "divided

social

from the clars I was born into by a guit You could not mix with them because you could not talk with them. Marriage with the Villanage was unthink able."

Marriage was the last thing thinking of young Jacob woa

ALARIC (ACOB

Tho

the

conference failed, wooing suceeded. "As a lover," he records with a touch of mugness, "I was more succeлD- ful after my looks had gone."

Married and free to give his attention to public affairs Jacob went to America, bring. picture of ing away a brilliant the early Roosevelt and An entertaining impression

of the Royal visit to Canada.

"What

low, what Trivial people are attracted to Royal personages."

11 Win then he became Π republican.

But the big, transforming experience of Jacob's life has been his stay in Moscow. He succumbed to the Russians, contrasted their vigour with Western feebleness and makes an impassioned, angry, uneasy defence of the Soviet system.

Inore

If only Russla had Habens Corpusl It only Alaric Jacob bad

balance and Jess arrogance-how much of the vitality of this book would evaporatet

* ALARIC JACOB wa bom in 1903, educated at an English public

its

The world that in to say, of concentration camps and die placed persons--and the gaudy emptiness of the Cote d'Azur. "Hell la contemporary" and you reach it by train.

If you care to "collaborate" with the authorities it turns out to be a place where you do just what you fancy most, and go on doing it for all eternityl

It is also a place where, on the distant horizon, you may dis- cern zlittering penks (the Delectable Mountains?) beyond which lies another life.

VALLIS, who sees the peaks, refuses to succumb to the sunny side of the Inferno. He seeks the mountain passes.

Meanwhile, he is haunted by his life, the women vistons of

* HARRY WILCOX Wca born in Dorset in 1910, lie followed the

with the Guarda Armoured Division. Was on duty at Potsdam during the Victory conference, decided that In the end Wallis Ands salva- war in Artā looked cleaner than and voluntecrud tion by facing the truth of prace in Europe,

Spent everything he hus done in life, for service in the Far East,

nine months as Chief of Informa tion in Indonesto, and upon de- This ไป en immensely mobilisation lived among natives in ambitious novel. its symbolism a Dutch East Indies faland, 13 confusing? That could scarcely be avoided. A book ONCE UPON A TIME. By which deals with the Analities stark, Impressive and in a

Vaughan Wilkins. Cape. ultimately most moving narro- tive.

the son 01

12s. 6d. 450 pages.

West, * Anthony famous writer Rebaco West, tons SAY born

good-bye to credibility

in August, 1914. In 153a hu and let Wilkins have his way! married artist Katharine Church, Overlook a certain archness. In who persuaded him to start serious the style; bear with the wild writing.

mystifientions of the plot. It is well worth it.

Lives in Dorset, where he breeds Guernsey cattle. Likes people, cats, owls and small boats, Dirikes ail gamca

Here is farce and.adventure; characters robust,

noisy. drunken and full of literary WHITE STRANGER, by talk; ladies lovelier than it is Above reasonable to expect. Harry Wilcox. 16s. 384 all, here is Mr Warrack, soldier of fortune and currency smug- pages.

gler, hot on the trail of a horrid Nazi ex-priest who is hot on the trail of the Ehrenburg Treasure.

AFTER the war, Harry Wilcox A did what many n soldier talked of doing-he got away from it all! For six golden months he dwelt with the Toraja highlanders of Celebes.

How wise a choice it was!

SLIBRARY LIES T

♦ Walk in Darkness. By fans Habe, Harrap, 10s 04. $10 pages. Norel

An American.. negro - poldier. married miserably toà German Kiri foins one of the deserter- racketear gengs Infecting Europe, The grim sory anila in murder and execution.

Nelson the Battor. By Caplain Васи Grenfell. N. Faber. ** 215 pages, Biography.

The author of that line story of neval war The Dumarex Episode.

achieves la this 2017 05 greatest of cxplains, a) fine, par- Förmanes in spare, taut and jer.

manlike naria live.

First-rate rending

• The Valley of 85 3res. By Arthur Herbert Bryant. Gollancz tus. ed. 275 pages Novel

A schoolmaster named CLAT

girl named Christine. But Christine 10 in love with horse hamed Pequo, She_prefera the bars to the husband so do t

And here Is Oliver Granville. who cannot remember what he has been doing since D-Day and ว afraid he has been doing something very nasty Indeed. And here, among viher chara- ingly preposterous Inventions, is Brackett's Factory of Family- History.

Family history plays an im- .portant but complicated, part In this escapade, which is re- commended to all who find sad reality too much with them to- day.

*VAUGHAN WILKINS Jought In the 1914-18 war in France and Palestine. He created a record by

in

* NILARY ST GEORGE SAUNDERS was born in 1801. Hie served

The Watch Guards between 1010 and 1818, and toge awarded as MC. Fie has been

mona alnico 1040,-

of Com-

4

-(London Express Service)

LETTER OF THE LAW

DAB and FLOUNDER -by Walter

BILLSTIFT WILL BE PROSZES

BILL STICKERS

WILL BE

PROSECUTED

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

"YES, I KNOW WHO IL

IS. HE'S MY,

HUSBAND

"OH, I'M SO SORRY! NO,

THAT'S NOT THE RIGHT

ANSWER. BUT CONGRAD- ULATIONS FOR A WONDER- FUL TRY... AND WE'RE SEND- ING YOU A PACKAGE OF THE WORLD'S BEST

CIGARE

WHEN YOU ASK WHO THAT FUNNY-LOOKING MAN IS.....

AND FIND OUT.

HIYA

JOH⋅

EXCOCE

N

"Embarrassing Moments

BY KEMP STARRETT

"I'VE KNOWN THỰC TRAMP SINCE HE WAS

THAT HIGH AND

WAC HE

WILD MAU

WITH THE GALS!

Oll, BROTHER!

35

THE OLD PAL WHO WASN'T WARNED ABOUT THE WAFET *SUSPICIOUS NATURE....

YOU GOTUM CHINA ÞIG,

HOG CAVY?

- PIGS CHINAS

CHORCHOP?

SLAPPING THE VRONG.

MAN ON THE BACK....

*OX.YES INDEED. I UNDERSTAND.

WE HAVE JUST VIAT YOU WANT..

· JUST Å·· |«MOMENT, SIR

WHEN A MAN'S BEEN BRAGGING FOR THREE WEEKS THAT HE KNOWS THE ANSWER TO THE TWENTY-· THOUSAND-DOLLAR QUESTION AND, BY SOME MIRACLE GETS A CRACK AT IT...AND FLOPS LIKE

A BUSTED BALLOON.

NOBODY EVER PUTS ANYTHING

WHERE IT BELONGS, HUN

THERE'S YOUR OVI SIGNATURE AND MARKED

PAIDS

VIEN VE GET ALL MIXED UP LIKE A TOSSED SALAD AND TRY TO COLLECT A BILL THAT'S ・BEEN PAID FOR SIX MONTHS.

0.27.

"OH, HET SICH

A PRETTY BOY!

· COME KISS YOUR

AUNTIE

''

SPEAK TO AN ALIEN IN PIGEON= ENGLISH, GOOD AND LOUD, AND THEN FIND OUT HE SPEAKS BETTER, AMERICAN" "TRAN' YOU DO,

•VAEN WE RÅVE AROUND FOR TEN SOLID MINISTES LIKE AN APE. WITH A TOOTHACHE BLAMING EVERYONE FOR, MIS

LAYING TIE CAR KEYS, AND THEN FIND EA IN OUR OTA POCKET.

MEETING A LONG LOST RELA VE FOR THE MRST TIME AND HE HOPES FOR THE LASTA ED