BOOKS
Doomed to destruction
Patrick Marnham
Amost valuable quality for any writer who draws his material from the con- temporary world is the journalistic one, of 'being on the spot'. Graham Greene possessed it to such a high degree that Evelyn Waugh used to suggest that instead of anticipating revolution he was fomenting it. Norman Lewis also possesses it, as these two books prove.
A Dragon Apparent is an account of travels in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. It was first published in 1951 when it became a bestseller. It now reappears to launch a new imprint specialising in classic travel books which have gone out of print. Cuban Passage is a new novel set in Havana in the last days of the Batista regime. Together the two books make a strong introduction for any readers not already acquainted with Norman Lewis's work.
The Indo-China of 1950 is, of course, a lost world. When Lewis visited it the jungle of Vietnam was a no-man's land without in- habitants of any kind. It was far too remote even for the Viet-Minh. The frothy vegeta- tion looked as 'close-textured as moss'. There were 'butterflies of rather sombre magnificence ... usually they were black with splashes of green or blue ... they did not settle, but hovered, poised like fruit- sucking birds' probing at the blooms. Walking through this paradise the author had a very bad moment. Suddenly from beyond the canopy of trees there was a huge roaring sound: not an aircraft but two quarrelling tigers. Some parts of the coun- try were 'overrun' with tigers. Chemical defoliants cleared up that problem at least.
As travel writers go, Norman Lewis gives exceptional value for money. Early in the book there is an accident and he is thrown from his car. Later he joins a French army convoy which is nearly trapped in a forest fire started by insurgent forces in Laos. Needless to say he is not content to stay with this convoy. Instead he sets out on his own and finds a remote stream in which he can bathe with the local girls. Finally, hav- ing exposed himself to all sorts of danger with the French settlers, he changes sides and goes out on patrol with the Viet-Minh. He is able to interview a captured Foreign Legionnaire, who turns out to be a German formerly with the Waffen S.S. And he is able to observe a night attack on one of the famous towers erected in Vietnam by the French to guard the highways. This par- ticular patrol is itself heavily counter- attacked. Throughout the book Lewis's ac- count of his experiences is unassuming, humorous and vivid.
When a Laotian falls asleep in the back of the author's jeep, Lewis notes that 'his head rolled from side to side like a freshly cut-down suicide.' In Vientiane he observes the corrupting effects of exile on the French community. They recommended a visit to the place where the animal slaughterers worked. Because the killing of animals was shameful to Laotians the butchers worked at night by the light of flares and paddled around in the blood. The French considered it 'not done' to be present at the actual kill- ing, but afterwards they stationed their cars just beyond the reach of the smell and pointed out the beauty of the colours.
Some of his happiest times were spent with the tribal people of the mountains whose days frequently revolved around in- toxicating drink. Elaborate ceremonies ac- companied the drinking, starting with the beating of gongs. It was impolite to refuse the cow's horns full of spirit, and it was obligatory to invite the women of the village to join in, starting with the oldest. These dowagers were treated with great respect and could not be hurried. They were followed by the nursing mothers with whom it was usual to exchange a few good- natured familiarities. Finally, still clustered at the door, there were the chief's daughters, perfect representatives of the Polynesian race. Unfortunately, by the time their turn came, the visitors were invariably too dazed with alcohol and the noise of the gongs to continue. Lewis writes of these happy and affectionate tribespeople with the freedom of one who is unattached, a considerable advantage for any travel writer. And the reader gets a clear sense of the rewards that used to lie around the cor- ner for those travellers who set off alone and who were prepared to take a few risks. The contrast between the innocence of the old Indo-China and the knowing sophistication of the package tourists who pour through the 'massage parlours' of modern Bangkok is painful to contemplate.
One has a first impression from A Dragon Apparent that the French colonial power made a more civilised business of their occupation than the Americans who were to succeed them. For instance, General des Essars, the commander of French troops in Cambodia, had to be in- terviewed in an opium den. And two French administrators visiting a mountain village finally lost patience with the newly-arrived American evangelical mission when the village girls paraded to meet them wearing calico blouses. The chief was sternly reprov- ed and the girls were immediately ordered to remove these novel garments. Enough was enough. But in essence this impression of relative cultural harmony is false. Both French and Americans were bound on the same mission, the complete destruction of an alien culture, at almost any cost. When Lewis met the young King (later 'Prince') Sihanouk the ruler told him that the infant guerrilla movement was largely a French creation, and that if there were 110 French troops there would be no guerrillas. Every effort the French made to repress the revolt merely strengthened it. History was to prove the King horribly right. On the cultural level as well the deadly effects of materialism were only too apparent to the author. Noting the early effects of western . technology on Laotian art and music Leso,s prophesied: 'The microphone is an infalt!- ble sign of what is to come. Nothing of this kind will survive the era of materialism. under whatever form it arrives'. The high' fragile cultures of the Indo-Chinese cities were as doomed as the tribespeople who greeted him gravely with the words 'nam In ('let us get drunk together') and who were regarded as pious for doing so. Lewis already sensed the barbaric triumph of the clever little men working in the laboratories of Californian universities. Cuban Passage is also set in an historical- ly interesting time and place. It is an in- genious attempt to tell two stories, that of the fall of Havana to the forces of Castro, and an English boy's attempts to rescue his mother from her repulsive Cuban lover. The factual basis of the novel never 31.1" its characters. on the fictional world of characters. On the contrary, it adds great,IY to its interest. It seems that in the weeks before the triumph of the revolution Havana was gripped by an extraordinary fatalism. 'Guests at the Tropicana nightclub owned by a crime syndicate from New Jersey, danced ... to old revolu- tionary songs about freedom and justice cobbled into new Samba rhythms . • • °lt e prostitutes of Havana united to protest against U.S. support for the failing dic- tatorship by doubling their charge to soldiers'. All the Statues of Liberty were confiscated from Woolworth's during police raid. On all sides the highly-arril government troops were surrendering to the ragged columns of guerrillas. In one inel: dent a body of urban police 'eager to sur render to any unfamiliar uniform eve, themselves up to a bewildered municipal health inspector as he emerged from 3 drain'.
Oblivious to all this confusion the ha' Dick Frazer, plots against his apparently all-powerful enemy who has removed his mother to a remote country house while his father is away on a business trip. With the aid of a teenage American drop-out he ac complishes his violent objective. He is then arrested and thrown into one of Batista':
hideous jails, apparently abandoned by th crumbling regime to a fate considerably worse then death. It is at this point, about half-way through the story, that a her°_ emerges in the unlikely figure of Craker,,a British lawyer who sets out to rescue Dicg•
Up to this point Craker has appeared as a comic stereotype. 'He was an old man who did all he could to deck and disguise himself with the trappings of youth, and who pur- sued all the things pursued by youth, among these a facile optimism'. Craker's adult awareness fuses the two worlds of the book, the public political world and the Private world of Dick. His bumbling at- tempts to 'assist the boy are both amusing and moving. At one point he tries to bribe a magistrate, not a very demanding task it Might be thought in the circumstances of that time. It is a chilling moment when we realise that Craker has had the ill-luck to deal with the only honest magistrate left in the city. It is the honest judge who has become fatally dangerous.
The plot reaches its climax with the triumph of Castro and the return of Dick's father. In this lawless atmosphere the power of voodoo is strengthened and black com- edy gives way to the growing menace of an older Cuba which closes in on Dick and his family and friends. The pattern of the per- sonal and public events is ingeniously united and reaches a terrible resolution on the last page. Mr Lewis's books must not go out of print again.
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