TALES OF THE CARIBBEAN

by Garland Roark ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

There's a slight echo of Maugham in his days of story telling against the tropical background of southeast Asia in these tales set against the lush island background of the Caribbean. Roark makes his stories grow out of the settings; whether he writes of jungle or sugar cane plantation, or the waters that can be incredibly beautiful or incredibly treacherous, or the menace of nature in the threatening volcano, his characters and his situations develop from the violence, the excesses, the passions of his tropics. But in those characters and in those plots, one sees nothing of the mastery that Maugham exercised. There is overplay of emotion, considerable tendency towards melodrama, and a repetitive use of such elements as jealousy and retribution. Too many men see their fate in the woman against the ship's rail. And yet the stories make good escape reading. Five are straight fiction; one plays with various interpretations of a mystery at sea; and the introductory chapter etches superficially the tangled historical pattern of the history of the Caribbean.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1958

Categories: FICTION