1950-09-09 — Page 12

THE

12

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1950. .

FAMILY of FEAR

TALL HEADLINES. By Audrey Erskine Lin- dop. Heinemann. 10s. 6d. 326-pages.

THIS

T

Thomson roviows the NEW BOOKS

up his courage fa féll tie frudi to Doris, his pathetic wife. But

an unhappy story about ordinary Forin, too. remembers the th people overlaken by headines. She screama and extraordinary events. runs away, pursued. And then Throughout, they act, talk she is dead.

and think as ordinary people would do. That is strength of the book, a con- vincing study of people out of their depih.

As it turns out, Doria wa Inocked down by a car. But the is difcult to ensvince Philip, ur his fally, that he did not re, ennet his brother's crime, Last limpse of the Rackhams, they are going back to Putney to make a fresh start.

The story of the Rackhams begins when Ronnie Rackham, a quiet youth, murders a girl He has picked up. The cireum- płonecz pre not pretty The publicity--he tall headline- is shattering.

No profundities, no eloquence, no glamour here. The novel im pressen by steady ambitleus attention to the truth.

THE BURNING GLASS. By Jahn Franklin Bardin. Gollancz. 9s. Gd. 221

pages.

THE

First impulse of the Rack- hams, led by George (father), is defensive. To close the ranke Drawn line across the ledger.

family Change the

name to Dlake. Steal away from Putney where they have been living and take a house belonging to Tel, George's loyal old friend York nre: from the war.

Ani never.

never

15

E best short-cut to a view over this novel is to Hat some of its characters, Holiday making on an Istand near Now

the nobly

Those who like a conducted ramable

psychological in the Jungle, here it is.. EARTH ABIDES,

ily

George R-Stewart-Gol- lancz. 12s. 6d. 334 pages.

HE human race is wiped out by a new disease, Pracflculty all of it. That is the datum tine of Stewart's big-sente, sluggish,

itimately

novel. absorbing therwood Williams, busy with geologiem feld work, is billen by rattlesnake whose poison acts

defence against the Infection which, at that time, Is sweeping the world. He drives back to town to And that civilation hos co to a complete stop.

After a bit, he meets a few

survivors, stunned

takes 11 entoured veniatur to wife, nurd set up as headman of a tribe, thaned food in an Uving on empty city.

Isherwood tropes he will be able to raise a new generation to pick up the threads of civiliza ilon where they were dropped. But the young people are too

ay, bored, the bewildered.

itherwood rees the end, shape of the future: a young nan in an animal skip carrylus

bow. Imaginative power; inventive Japries inlo mock- bibeat an clever.”

RUTH, who writes portas

can

and understand, murder or Ronnie to be men- wants to have a baby. Anybody fertility: tione: again. These are George's can understand that."

orders.

The

But to make a fich start is not so easy as all that. Rackham-flakes are pursued by

fear. Fear. that the lurid past will catch up with them stains every trivial incident in life: rrentra round the family drenciful little prison of lies and evasions.

For Philip, the younger ron, there a special fear: he and Ronnie were thought to be very like one another; he may do

usel

What Kommie did. Philip tries to escape from it all into a secrol, Unsuitable zuarrince.

No He is only entangled in u new web of falsehood. He besting to have violent dreams, one day, unconsciously, he signs a post- eard "Ronnie,"

From there it is n straight run to a new disaster, Philip screws

LIBRARY BLUSH

The

THE ACE OF SCANDAL 1ly T. 21 White Cace 15.264. saucier side of the enth century, arranged at a diversions for theses whit dwellin *

the sclater en of twentieth

HOUSE IN THE IUH. By Dane Chandes Michael

ius. EU 222 pages. Adventure it on amateu hotel-keeper Is Mexiku: drenched in surviving and hume.

HAVING THE LAST WORD. Iver Binwit, Cape, il popes Snoring to an end these engaRIE strolls amcns words anciens

By

And

modern, comenon and fare

נין

231

LYING AWAKE. By Catherine Cas Sexes and Wartung 15%. PAREL. Serves to show what a fa

ning autobiography is Carswell would have written had are lived to trish this phe,

London Erpton Service.

MARK. her geneticist hutz- a strange fy and band. finds has an maglanry friendship with Sigrid. à Alin star

JOEL, another geneticist, els Mart's fly fly away. Deliberates ? A case of scientifle jealousy? What nu think?

HOWARD DEVANTER, rich, elderly, appens to Ruth's father. complex,

WINSTON,

A

it is not progressive to object to

dowling after Markt.

Should anyone

111 the

Recruits For

Australian Army

Major Aubrey Thomas of Melbourne, who has been in the Royal Australian Army for 25 years, is in London starting a recruiting drive for men for the Aus- tralian Army. Ex-Regular Army men. Territorials and certain classes of reservists are eligible. The first recruits are shown signing on at a Jermyn Street Hotel.

If you

were

the

last

man left on earth

I remote

by J.P.W. MALLALIEU,

M.P.

о Q

The remoteness of his cabin to the right, he found, here and

the the plague. -

card death.

amused

ne

In the end

NO GIRL SHOULD SPOIL HER LIFE LIKE THAT .

H wonder,

By CANON WARNER

She was tormented

row many parents. I women.

became angry whenever he came home Inte.

In the two other stories, home with the vicar who said

life in any

that mat- schsc that "no nmarried girl ex-

had never tored

even been pesting T baby should

properly begun. Not love, but Into marry with the idea fear hand driven them,

that she has got to do it"? marriage.

In one, the mother had come Only those, imagine, bitterly to resent her husband's who talk about "the honour presence around her, when she of the family" as if it were was deeply longing for affection something which hnd which he could not give her. nothing to do with personal happiness. Let me tell you why.

In the other home, It was the child win was ruffering as much as anyone. His father had come to hate him na the innocent enuse of lost business prospects through the hurried marriage.

The other day I had letter from a girl who knew she was to have an illegiti- His rezenlment was aggravat- mate baby, She was ter- ed by the scorching tongue of his rified. She dare not tell her wife. For she was disillusioned beyond ali imagining by the parents. She had no real stormy domestic atmosphere day friend to turn to.

She had discussed | all with her boy friend, and they had decided that the only thing that might save the situation was to ret married. She wrote to know if I agreed.

'Lost'

HER arguments were

touch-

She felt lost. If she ing. knew she had a husband to stand alongside her she could { face it.

She might succeed, by moving

of the country, in blusterlur it all out as normal birth. And, she added, wouldn't it give the baby a name?

E set himself, through them,

to presstve or rebuild the One could not help etching clvlijention.

from her letter something of the But whereas

Wells's survi shattered hopes and frightening vers bullt themselves a civili-bewilderment that this tragedy mean for her. On sation more tremendous than the hat come to

clarinettist, TOI

a Just was climbing in

how the author us part of his life in a box,

part of Cali- makes them strike at the and the antidote of the sunke ture, others who hud geaped away to a job in another part which restores his vitality: nn-

What happens rattlesnake beginning of his story and he had saved him from other part with Eugenis, a forth-fornia when a

they have signifi- . him thereafter in the story coming girl in a win-suit who bit him. He got back some before helps.

how to his lonely cabin and cance is a fine example of of "Firth Abides,” ALICIA, Winston's wife, withdrojo n hammer on the dramatic writing,

In reverso the children. Atleta knows that floot.

Joh recovered from the

DANY people have Eintenta. In any case, she is busy The hammer "fell, handle bite-and from some added themselves at some

up, on its heavy head, rock- sickness und began to won- by imaging what they would wish furthered back and forth for ader why, even in the silent do if they were left alone clues to the nature of the novel,moment, and then stood hills, he had seen no one for the world. let me add that the socks on the still, handle in the air.”. two weeks, except for two island are covered with myse terinus yuhtar drawinger and that Therein is a neat literary men who looked at him and Ruth her thoughts run like

The districk which I cannot un- this The rave-pit. membered rod. The splinter of ravel. These words are writ-

He drove down to the nearest sun. The woman-wood with its ten on the second page of ring station. There was 40 barren woint."

EARTH ABIDES, by me there. He drove on to the

Stewart. (Gol- rest township. Cars

dece George R.

parked in the streets, kinez, 128. Gd).

barked, cats strolled across the But there were no hu- They are commonplace, street. But they

are meant to man beings.

Now we all know just where we are. Take the third trauma pant the 1sychiatrist's couch and Mind you keep traight 21. don't trip over the fixations.

The bit emotional scene comes when Ruth is attacked

ran.

strike, for, through the Gradually he came to realise

in story that follows, the ham- that an

mer gradually becomes symbol

wood, The boy in any twelve, but he draws a pregnant woman in lipstick on her back. It turns out to be prophetle,

power.

11

་་

and right.

No-it stands out so plainly the wise woman will always be thankful that she had never to stoop to low as to marry a man where there was no live upon which her life, and the lives of her children, could be grounded.

-(London Express Service)

It's a shooting stamp

-from the Alps

THREE men with rifles kneej 1 and take aim in this Swiss favourite stamp. Shooting is a

port in Switzerland. Every t

un keeps a title and goes for army trafelag each year. They

left them alone.

in old, which had been smashed the face of it one was tempted

by war, Joh, at the end of his to say go right ahead.

life, could only say that

alde. Yet there was another Chakl Defoe's "Robinson at least he had taught bl1⁄2 tribe

the bow and On my desk are three letters Crusier was written round that how vital was fan. So was "Swiss Family arrow.

which have all come within as Robinson." So, too, was Wells's

The tribe, for

had many weeks. Two from married 1tself

things-

women and one from a husband, learned three other

arc who

in despair. Their Shape of Things to Come."

that decisions of the tribe must marclages are breaking up and But in these storics the be neceped, that Ioh himself

of heroes, starting from

scratch,

their stories they are such good shots that litter "had to get married."

Bei ed when he refused to give built up a civilisation of thelewes god who must be pinch-in each

The stamp is one of a divine guidance. and that the Was there any relation be issued annually for the national hammer was

his symbol of tween the breakdown and the festival of independence, This carly start to their married life? year they show outdoor sporta, deky

The story is well written and

the wife dis- In one story,

Face value 40 centimes (80.), which brillantly imagined. I like my trusted her husband whenever plus 10 centimes (2d.),

perforation ten as much as anyone. But he became friendly with other oes to hospitals;

He had been "easy" 111⁄2: set of five cosio 3s. kl. "Earth Abides" saved me from women.

increase. about Whips with her before marriage, and Their value will feeling resentful through an all-nigh diting,

she had no assurance that hejJ.A.A.

London Express Service). -London Express Service) wouldn't be "easy" with other

CWD.

how-

George Stewart's Ioh, -ever, began with every resource of the most up-to-date civilisa- in to haml-reads, motor-cars, limited tinned food, modern heuses, books, sanitailon. world Driving along super-high- ways, but still keeping steadily

the

epidemic hut killed

everyone virtually

in United States. And, it appear- o f supernatural d, in the rest of the

es well.

VIGNETTES OF LIFE

-AND-THEY'LLINSTALL_A_ TELEVISION SET TODAY ... NO OBLIGATION TO BUY...

AND IF YOU DO

WANT TO KEEP IT

IT'S ONLY

£399.0 ON

EASY TERMS,

TIREE YEARS

TO PAY!"

YOU HAVEN'T SAID ANY VICE THINGS TO ME ALL DAY... DON'T – YOU LOVE ME

ANY MORE.

DEARS

6

Relax, They Tell You

By: KEMP STARRETT.

"SMITH, YOU'LL HAVE TO POSTPONE-YOUR-VACATION UNTIL NOVEMBER.BROWN HAS TO GO TO THE COAST AND YOU'LL HAVE TO

HANDLE HIS

ETC.

WHEN YOU'RE TRYING TO FIGURE

OUT HOW YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE

"THIS MONTH'S PAYMENT ON THE CAR:

"GEORGE,

GEORGE, THERE'S

GREAT BIG

GREEN

WORALS

ON OUR. TOMATOES

YOU MARK MY WORDS, WE'RE COOKIN' UP A WAR

AS SURE AS YOU'RE ALIVE..!

AND THIS BOOM ... PHOOEY!! WATCH

IT COLLAPSE LIKE A...LIKE A BUSTED BALLOON. LOOK AT PRICES, LOOK AT TAXES: LOOK AT....

ElC

· A

CALCULATED TO MAKE YOI AS JUMPY AS A TVELVE- BUCK TELEVISION SET.

JUST WHEN YOU'RE ALLSET TO REALLY RELAX FOR TWO MEASLEY WEEKS THEY GET YOU AS AGITATED AS A CHICKEN ON A HOT TIN ROOF

DO YOU REALIZE FTS ALMOST

TIME TO BE

THINKING

ABOIT

CHRISTMAS?

COFL 1159 BY GENERAL FEATURES COS, TILWORLD RIGHTS RESERVED,

JUST TRY TO RELAX AT 95o 1}} THE SHADE, AFTER A JUNE HONEYMOON

AND SEE WHAT GOES.

"YOU REMEMBER LENDING FIFTY DOLLARS, TO TRAT MR.GYPSEM TO PAY HIS DOCTOR? WELL,

THEY'VE JUST BOUGHT A NEW CAR? DO WE HAVE A NEW CAR I ASK YOU,

DO WE S

RELAXÈD, LIKE A POLITICIAN ON TIE EVE OF ELECTION.

*JULMY!

JOAN?

STOP THAT./"

"ALWAYS RELAX AT MEALS,

THEY SAYAMA