13 DECEMBER 1957, Page 26

Too Far Away From It All

Journey to Java. By Harold Nicolson. (Constable, 21s.) The Sheltering Desert. By Henno Martin. (William Kimber, 25s.) .

Beyond the Pillars of Hercules: A Spanish Journey. By Madelaine Duke. (Evans, 16s.)

SIR HAROLD NICOLSON travels to escape rather than to explore. Life on board ship affords him

more time to pursue his studies than his commit-

ments at home allow. Thus, when he set out in January this year for a trip to the Far East, he went armed with a pocket edition of every moral

philosopher from Aristotle to Colin Wilson, determined to consider the problem of content- ment with special reference to the fact that 'the

tnaladie du siecle of the nineteenth century pro- duced languorous melancholy, whereas that of the twentieth century is distinguished by fear and anger.' This investigation forms the central theme of Journey to Java. _ Sir Harold agrees with Aristotle that 'action is happiness' and assumes that his own contentment can be explained by the busy life he leads. Habitual melancholics; on the other hand, prob- ably suffer from some physical disorder which saps their energy, making them sluggish, bored and hence permanently discontented. Nothing he reads on the trip alters his belief that 'pessimism is almost always caused by the bodily humours.' While personal complaints, such as defective glands or extreme ugliness, may explain. many of the malcontents of the nineteenth century, one must look, I think, rather more to external causes to account for the fear and anger of the present generation. Sir Harold admits as - much, but he achieves the astonishing feat of emphasising every possible cause except the obvious one—the hydrogen bomb. Any discussion of contemporary angst which isn't based upon the constant pros- pect of universal obliteration must be largely meaningless.

This major defect apart, the book is highly enjoyable. And anyone who presumes to mock Sir Harold for his love of punctuality, his insis- tence on a daily routine into which the first bath and the first martini must fit exactly, the relentless allusions to classical literature, and the general feeling that even in the middle of the Indian Ocean the standards of Balliol, The Times and The Atheneum must be maintained, should be sent at once, by way of punishment, on a long sea trip with the other two books listed above as his only reading matter. For these are deeply depres- sing, based as they are on the misconception that some minor incident, such as a car breaking down, is not only necessarily more interesting if it happens in Africa rather than on the Kingston by-pass, but also that a series of such incidents strung loosely together make up a book.

Of the two, The Sheltering Desert, by Henno Martin, is the more readable. It is the story of two German geologists who, at the outbreak of war, drove off into the Namib desert in South Africa rather than be interned. They lived there for two and a half years entirely on their own wits. Re- peated descriptions of ditlicultiei being overcome (e.g., how to catch fish without a fishing-rod) do lose their interest after a while, but even so a certain amount of the drama of their situation comes across.

In Beyond the Pillars of Hercules Madeleine Duke goes on a quest for what she describes as `the feel of eternity.' For various reasons, which she is quite unable to convey, she found this 'feel, in 'the mysteries of Spain,' which provided her with a 'workable symbolism' for her _own net philosophy and satisfied her search for 'the abstract made concrete.' This will bore the reader who has visited Spain and be meaningless to the reader who has not. But then, as we are told is the introduction, the book 'is not intended as a dull literary experiment in the art of writing.'

WILLIAM DONALDSON