AN OLD CAPTIVITY

If this story were told in straightforward fashion, it would be a readable yarn, good adventure, good romance. But, for some inexplicable reason, the author chooses to make it a story within a story — and since the main story involves yet another story (a dream this time), the whole emerges like the inner kernel of a nut, involving unnecessary work to get to the meat. In the main, the story is that of an aviator who contracts to take an Oxforddon to Greenland, there to discover the truths back of the theory that the Norwegians who settled first in Iceland, were also the first settlers in Greenland. On the verge of this adventure, the aviator discovers that the party will be complicated by a troublesome daughter. A succession of mishaps makes it still more difficult, and the strain ultimately culminates in an oddly vivid dream, a recreation of the whole episode of the Norse exploration, not only of Greenland, but of "Vineland" as well. Nevil Shute, in telling this somewhat odd blend of adventure and fantasy has departed completely from the social implications of his other two novels of today. He shows no growth in mastery of his craft, but he spins a good enough yarn.