INTERESTING NOVEL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 69, Issue 51, 9 December 1948, Page 6

INTERESTING NOVEL

DOROTHY EDEN’S LATEST * EFFORT “Dorothy Eden is a young New Zealand author, the freshness and charm of Avhoae writing is fast gaining her a wide public,” says the “blurb” on the jacket of her latest novel “The Schoolmaster’s Daughters”—her sixth work of fiction. Added interest in her Avork in Ashburton is due to the fact that Miss Eden Avas born at Elgin, Avorked for a time in the office of Mr R. Kennedy, solicitor, and is noAv employed in a Christchurch legal office. To assess the quality of a novel it is necessary to ask what constitutes a good full-length story? The ans Aver includes good characterisation, interesting plot, adequate and logical development and elaboration, and sufficient “romance” (in the sense of out-pf-the-ordinariness) to make the reader curious as to how it all works out. All these the story has —there is sufficient suggestion and suspense to keep the reader guessing, and the denouement is satisfyingly dramatic. . It is not claimed that the work is to be classed among the great novels of the decade or the century—which is Avell, for its canvas is not broad enough, its motivation sufficiently deep nor its philosophy (if any) adequate to sustain 'such a claim, but Aye have in Miss Eden a NeAv Zealand novelist who tells an adequate story without straining for NeAv Zealand atmosphere apparently without any great concern as to whether she is contributing to a “truly indigenous literature.”

In short, a Very readable light novel, one which undoubtedly adds to the reputation, of the writer, an achievement in which Ashburtonians may, even if vicariously, and at a distance, take pride.