[If] you can plough through the first 130 pages [of The Feathers of Death], most of which are irrelevant, you will then be drawn into Mr. Raven's horrible world. As you lay down his book, you will bow in admiration to the clarity of his characterisation, the simplicity of his prose and the design of his plot. I greatly fear that he is a writer with a future, and I only hope I can discourage him.
His story is of a homosexual love affair (here we go again) between a god-like subaltern and an earth-child drummer. It is set against a background of peace-time soldiering in a troublesome colony where the regiment (which is neither cavalry nor infantry) is involved in some wog-suppression. It reaches an excellent climax in a sharp action against the natives, and the description of this battle … is masterly. There is no question at all that Mr Raven knows all the details of this sort of action and of other aspects of peace-time soldiering. There is also no question at all that he manages to present us with a totally false picture of British officers and men. A spell in the army and a spell in the classical sixth have produced not, as we might hope, a certain maturity of view, but an ugly case of astigmatism….
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