Richard Mason

Richard Mason (16 May 1919 – 13 October 1997), published also under the pen name Richard Lakin, was a British novelist best known for his 1957 publication The World of Suzie Wong. His novels usually concerned Britons' experiences in exotic foreign locations, especially in Asia.

Personal life Born into a middle-class family in Hale, near Manchester, he attended The Downs Malvern, a private boarding school, from September 1928 to 1933. There he was taught by novelist W. H. Auden, and at the age of 14 wrote a juvenile novel (criticised by Auden as "no good" and now lost). A passage in his second novel, The Wind Cannot Read (1946), may shed some light on Auden's critique: "When I was a boy at school I had written a story about a man and a woman. The English master was a poet with a great understanding of human nature, and in red ink at the end he had written, 'Yes, my dear, but people do not fall in love as quickly as all that, you know.' I think my characters had declared their mutual love at a second meeting." His later novels allude to school bullying, and a fictional character mentions a painful separation from his mother, instances that may give some flavour of his own experience of boarding school. (The Downs Malvern, where he was a pupil from the age of nine, is a considerable distance from Hale.) He later attended St Marys School and Bryanston…Citește mai mult

Career Mason's first novel, The Body Fell on Berlin, was a murder mystery set during the war. Jasper Doyle, an intelligence officer formerly of Scotland Yard, is posted to Fenmallham Airdrome, England, from which RAF bombers depart for missions over occupied Europe and Germany. In reviewing some photos taking during a bombing run over Berlin he spots what looks suspiciously like a body - which seems to have been very neatly disposed of indeed . . . . The setting is keenly observed, as are the many convincing characters. His second novel, The Wind Cannot Read, was written in India between February and May 1944, sometimes in temperatures over 100 degrees, after the day's duties. It was based partly on his wartime experiences learning Japanese and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 1948. (The character "Peter" featured in it was based on his friend Lyons, while the Michael Quinn character is transparently himself.) Mason also did a surprisingly competent job of writing the screenplay for the 1958 film version, starring Dirk Bogarde. Many of the themes of love transcending cultural boundaries, also developed later in The World of Suzie Wong, make their first appearance here. The movie setting, Red…Citește mai mult

Fiction The Body Fell on Berlin, Hodder & Stoughton, London 1943 (as Richard Lakin) The Wind Cannot Read, Hodder & Stoughton, London 1946; screenplay 1958 Angel Take Care, 1947 (as Richard Lakin) The Shadow and the Peak, Hodder & Stoughton, London 1949, film 1958 The World of Suzie Wong, Collins, London 1957