Cuba Libre

MAN WANTS BUT LITTLE--Wilson Wright--Boni ($2). This novel about present-day Cuba treads delicately among the thorny implications of Cuban politics and calls no grave-digging spade by its right name. Sinister echoes of U. S. big business, of Havana terrorism, are felt only in the background of this pastoral tale of Cuban peasantry. Variously and wildly com- pared to the work of Thornton Wilder, Norman Douglas, Willa Cather, Author Wright's first novel needs no such gaudy bush: to plain palates it will taste like a good, sun-ripened vin du pays. Now an English instructor at his alma mater Haverford College, Author Wright (real name: William Reitzel) worked in Cuba a year five years ago, there wandered the countryside, spoke the language, watched the people instead of the politicians. Young Spaniard Jose Perdriga found Cuba rather puzzling. He had a job in a U. S.-owned mine and did it satisfactorily, though his simple tastes would have attracted him to farming. All he wanted for the immediate future was Maria, daughter of fat Marco Sanclemente, who ran the company canteen. Marco was a politico in a small way and tried to shape his future son-in-law into one. But again, though Jose made a success that surprised himself in his only venture among the firecrackers of Cuban politics, he did not like it, slipped off at the first opportunity and went back to his Maria. Fat Marco stayed on in the town, became a politico in earnest. Jose inherited his job at the canteen and his place as head of the Sanclemente household.

Soon Jose was in a comfortable rut and wanted nothing better for the rest of his days. But Senor Wilson, his Americano boss, had his eye on Jose: when a new mine was opened up in the hills he promoted Jose to be timekeeper there. Again Jose did the job satisfactorily, but still he did not like it. When he got a chance to buy a farm and settle down once more he did it. Senor Wilson and Jose's other forward-looking friends could not understand it; but at last Jose was happy. He flattered Maria by marrying her. Meanwhile Father-in-law Marco had been rising in the politico world; now he began to use his new-found power to plague his cast-off family and especially Jose. Jose found himself evicted from his farm; he moved elsewhere; the same thing threatened again. But then Senor Wilson stepped in and effectually removed the threat. In the banditry and guerrilla fighting that the late lean years brought Cuba, fat politico Marco went the way of all politicos, while Jose stayed on on his finca (property), minding his business, begetting children, improving his acres.

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