1 MAY 1964, Page 31

NOVELS

Strange Perspectives

" for Certainties. By Robin Douglas-Home. (Longmans, 18s.)

'It81‘11' Mr. Taylor's 'Hitler was a very ordinary 1erman' and the outlook is forbidding. But if history must sometimes be rescued from his- [sedans, Mr. Semprun has certain qualifications. Spanish Republican refugee and French Resister, he endured Auschwitz. In describing such ex- Pejiences, he faces obvious difficulties. Time and `kunercialism make clichés even of crucifixions, and unusual talent is needed to hammer home ;:ke's remark that all history is contemporary. this novel's spine is the journey from Compiegne `0 Auschwitz in a packed cattle-truck. The story rIk°ves backwards and forwards in time. The esistance, the nauseating train, the SS hooks 11 Clubs, post-war sightseers gaping at the lens are all woven into another existence, of awns, girls, pianos, work, Proust, Faulkner. It apses only in some of the American translation. the unending 'guy from Semur' and some 'Hey snap out of it dialogue jar intolerably, but 'ILieniably one feels again the eeriness of 1964 a„11,r°Pe. Just as French Revolutionary kinglets 114u minor terrorists lived to become contem- sit).r,arY with Lincoln and even Shaw, so we can -IV be expertly treated by a doctor-murderer. eimplication is whether retribution is ever permissible to defenders of civilised values. Mr. Semprun is too knowledgeable to do more than supply evidence.

Maurice Druon turns from the perplexing Philip the Fair and his Atreus-like brood to Zeus, whose popular image never quite justifies his Sophoclean superstructure. Zeus is generally Offenbach's 'libidinous Papa,' with the sexual outlook of a stoat and the ethical range of a provincial mayor. Here he is meant as a dig- nified refinement of the classical genius instruct- ing the post-Hiroshima world. Pupil of Memory and Prudence, co-ordinator, settler of limits, he represents an order wilier but juster than Cronos, the instinctive savagery that supplanted Uranus, creator of golden Atlantis. As a mildly ironic success-story from Crete to Olympus, it is agree- able enough; there are lucid accounts of the dethronement of Titans, the sufferings of Demeter within an acceptable definition of myth.

The Somnambulists is short and original, justly balanced between simplicity and oddness. Andy and Jessica are orphans, hemmed, in by child- hood games, pidgin warfare, misunderstandings which they will never entirely escape. As if in futile dance, brother and sister drift towards nowhere in particular. They fumble with an outer world: moony Cotswold Fascism, minor cruelty, half-cocked love-affairs. Jessica's Albert is killed by a flying potato, Andy is glad enough to renounce his unexceptional opportunities. That they never wholly come to life is as, though they are overawed by their own creator, who can so swiftly transform the commonplace into the mysterious. An old woman thinking of rats, children tense in a summer-house, a dream of elephants, houses with uneven numbers. Sharp as a drill, the writing sUggests powerful reserves on which there is no need to draw.

Mr. Douglas-Home presents a very different approach, ruined by indifferent language, unreal dialogue, stock situations. Apart from a reference to the loo and a brief account of National Ser- vice, the war it mentions might be the South African. The plot concerns David Melrose's loss of innocence via public school, seductive step- mummy, ,regimental spite and country house complete with tyrannical butler, partridges on the lawn and a bed-willing parlourmaid. • David, often, and understandably, bewildered, is seldom merely, passive. 'He grabbed her hand, squashed it brutally, hurled it out from under the bed- clothes. "Don't," he snarled, eyes still closed.'

This is an incredible, full-dress parade of all the pre-1939 school romantic cliches, apparently written in all sincerity. There is a serious theme of .disillusionment and hypocrisy beneath • the verbiage. A Denton Welch could have retrieved the less silly bits, but it is sad to find that such excellent school-novels as Not Me Sir (Timothy Pember) and A School in Private (Philip Toynbee) have apparently been written in vain.

PETER y ANSTITART