Domestic Entanglements

In Thomas Baird’s humorous novel, the sale of the works of old masters is inextricably mingled with the domestic entanglements of the rich. The flash- point of the novel occurs when the son of a rich American pairs off with the daughter of a Greek millionaire. The two young people seem curiously human and fragile in a world of moneyed armadillos and troglodytes. The book is very readable, a first-class work of light entertainment.

A Cage of Humming-Birds is also most readable, an intricate story of tension and inter-marriage between two South African families, with (what is rare in these days) no comment whatever on racial problems. Perhaps it is the insularity of the white enclave in South Africa which accounts for the sense Miss Drummond conveys of a closely inbred society. The heroine, Sabrina, intended to represent a latter-day Helen of Troy, for whom the towers of the Wittlin family burn, is unfortunately never quite a believable character.

Mr Youd’s competent but flat account of a liaison conducted in the shadowpage 679 of the world of big business does convince. It could be just like that. But a competent account of an empty love affair, unless written by a master, is likely to be a rather empty novel. The thing which most caught my attention was the way in which Paul, the ambitious young bed-hopping executive, regards his boss as his main source of spiritual authority, and equates his ethics with the demands of the firm. The author gives no indication of a satirical intention.

Predictably enough, the best novel is the last one. Told in the first person by the local baker in an English country town, it describes his canny involvement with Mrs Brackett, the wife of a local flamboyant ne’er-do-well. Each character – the baker’s mother, his dead father, Mr and Mrs Brackett, and various other local people – comes to life in the space of a few words. The yarn rings true from start to finish.

1964 (324)