With It
The White Fathers is Julian Mitchell's fourth book, and one can see him settling comfortably into the adroit manoeuvres of 'contemporary' fic- tion. This work deals with a district officer in the Colonial Service. so in love with the stone- age primitivism of the Ngulu tribe under his, care that his vaguely left-wing but distinctly old- fashioned values cannot cope with modern England and the disaffiliated young. The Ngulu tribe has • no distinctive life of its own- it
operates as a rosy image of 'savage innocence' against which the equally unconvincing life of jazz musician and pop singer can be set. But it's the idiom that finally exposes the implausibility of the work. There's an ear for 'styles of speech' all right, but beneath the arch and uncertain variations no single person takes on even the lightest weight of his own. It is a smart and unintelligent book.
ANTHONY WARD
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