Evening star., 1948-12-19


JOHN X
After the portrait
Young New Zealand
In Novel of Family L
THE CUNNINGHAMS
BY David Ballantyne. WAN
guard; $3.)
Reviewed by
CARTER BROOKE JONES.
! A youthful New Zealand
writer makes his bow with this
sharply focused novel of a fam
lily on the lower edge of middle
class.
1t is q down-to-earth story,
natural, recognizable without un-
necessary distractions Of description
and reflection. The CunninghamS
lived In a small town of New Zealand
but might have lived anywhere
Aside from superficial differences
Of speech and custom, their strug-
giles and worries could as well
have happened to a family in To-
peka or Cumberland.
Gil Cunningham served in the
First World War and came home
with his health shattered For
while he seemed to have recovered,
and he married and did well as
carpenter. The couple had five
children. But Gil's insidious troubles
finally developed into advanced
tuberculosis and he no longer could
work. He was an invalid, most Of
the time in bed, and years of staving
off creditors and trying to make
ends meet began for his wife Helen.
Helen had been reasonably good
wife and mother. But she was bored
with the long fight for survival, with
the town and its people. She was
shallow, illogical and without re-
sources to fall back on. So she took
to going out with man who had a
car and was willing to furnish the
diversion she missed. Gil, helpless,
in and out of the hospital, was not
fooled. Even the older children were
suspicious. And there was the gossip
that never fails in a small city.
Characters Are Well Drawn.
Helen felt that if anything" hap
pened to Gil, she and Fred would
take the children and move to the
big city and everything would be
fine. But Fred wearied of the gos-
sip and probably of Helen: anyway
he left alone. And then Helen,
desperately lonely, turned to the
next friendly man.
Mr.. Ballantyne has drawn his
characters sharply. The portrait of
Gil. embittered, discouraged, but
trying to be hopeful, living increas-
ingly in the past, is particularly re-
vealing. So is the portrayal of
Helen, an account of the gradual
softening of a character never too
firm. Gilbert, the Oldest boy, is the
only one of the children developed
at much length. There seems too
much about him and the other chill
dren-too many pages of their dull
adventures at school and elsewhere.
In his commendable insistence on
naturalness, the author perhaps has
leaned too far away from drama;
there is certain monotony of mar
rative, plethora of inconsequential
episodes.
But THE Cunninghams" is ma
ture, intelligent novel-a rather
amazing performance for a young
man of "a. Much may be expected
of Mr.. Ballantyne in the future.
GAUDY CENTURY: 1848-1948
BY John Bruce. (Random
House; s3.75J
San Francisco newspapers, of
which this is an entertaining history,
were not always the enterprising
medium they are today. When gold
was discovered in 1848, it was two
months before either of the two pa
pers bothered to mention the news.
Then the Californian ran a para
graph on page two reporting the
find and adding this chilling SEN
tence: Gold has been found in
almost every part of the country"
Even after the East had blazoned
the news and gold seekers were on
their way, the San Francisco papers
advised their readers to forget about
it and stick to their business or
farming. Mr.. Bruce traces the later
story of the city, as reflected in it's
press, from the brawling days of
vigilantes and duels to more sedate
decades of the new century.
4 *
THE EMOTIONS
by Jean-Paul Sartre. (Phuo-
sophical Library; $275.)
In a further excursion into the by
paths and implications of existen-
tialism, the French philosopher and
novelist emerges with a new theory
of the emotions.
While M. Sartre is not always too
clear, 1T appears that he has broken
entirely with the psycho-analytical
theory that an emotion comes from
the sudden prodding of some re-
pressed memory in the subconscious.
He contends that Everything which
takes place in consciousness can re-
ceive its explanation only from con-
sciousness itself" He calls an emo
ton "a transformation of the world"
This, he explains, means that when
the world at some point becomes
too difficult, an effort is made to
schools, his recurrent crushes on his
schoolmates and attendant quar-
rels, conspiracies and pettish notes,
lit is an unworthy postcript to the