New Zealand Cavalcade

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 220, 17 September 1938, Page 10 (Supplement)

New Zealand Cavalcade

Books In Review

" PROMENADE" is the title * given by G. B. Lancaster (Miss Edith Lyttelton) to her latest book, a novel in the 'Cavalcade" or famiiy-saga manner which han become popular in recent years. This novel, pubiished by Angus and Robertson, is the eleventh G.B.L. has produced since she made some reputation for melodramatic writing with her "Sons o' Men," a rather girlish romance of tlie Canterbury tussock land and sheep kin<;s, published

more tlinn 30 years ago. "Pageant," a

strong story of pioneering in Tasmania, preceded the present quite heroic effort to reproduce the New Zealand scene over a period of nearly half a century. "Promenade" may well be described as a gorgeous picture, the canvas is so large, the colour is splashed on so generously. If the scene and the figures are not | always true to the life of New Zealand las it was. Miss Lytteltoii nevertheless makes a very good shot at it. litis book of nearly .">OO pages is probably the most elaborate effort that has yet been made to portray a family's career in the colony from the day of its lteginnings as a British country. Fault may be found with it because of the diffuseness, a common characteristic of the modern novel. The book could be reduced in bulk- by a third, and be improved in the process. But if the promenade is rather too leisurely a saunter, there is such a vast lot of thinpn to see in the garden that the stroller cannot but be entranced with the richness of it all. Girl-Bride and Tyrant The story is that of an English family of gentlefolk who came out to New Zealand a century ago to repair their fortunes. The characters around whom the action chiefly revolves is a lovely girl-bride of 15, 6ally, and her stern bully of a husband, Peregrine Lovel, of Lovel Old Hall. With sundry kinsfolk they took ship to cannibal land, soon to come tinder the British flag. They made the Bay of Islands their home for a beginning, then Auckland. Sally is sweetly devoted, obedient, even abject, wife, who always timidly addresses her stiff try ant of a husband as "Mr. Lovel." She is, in fact, too meek and abject to be quite convincing. Around the couple and the gradually increasing family, in the varied scenes of the raw new country, the novelist skilfully assembles a multitude of figures, governors and bushmen. sailors, soldiers, politicians, traders, farmers, Maoris; all sort* and conditions of immigrants, promenade through the pages, comporting themselves after their kind and tradition. The Lovel family increases, the young ones become colonials, but the elders never become really acclimatised. The founders simply transplant the English ways. Peregrine, the head, becomes more and more the lordly family bully, impervious to the liberal colonial influence, and priggish in the extreme. A Crowded Stage Political history, soldiering, Maori warfare, are woven in and out of the family chronicle, and carry the action well Qn towards the end of the pioneer[Jnff period. From the Treaty of Waitangi to Vogel's public works' policy of the early 'seventies is a noble span of nation-making life. But it might better be described as a vivid costume play with a crowded stage. Only a woman novelist could be so particular about the right period dresses.

Ry l - - - * I r* J'*"

G. B. Lancaster is most at home when she is describing social gatherings and Itlie life and junketings of the oldfashioned days. Here is an agreeable picture of the Governor's ball in Auckland : "The reglmontnl hnnd swung from quadrille to waltz, and back again. The long room gleamed; white arms and shoulders gleamed: colour was a delirium of azure, pink and pearly white and a thousand brilliancies more—of flouting scarves entangling in epaulettes and being released with pretty shrieks, of scarier jackets black coats. Jewels, ringlets floating gins' sil.v. perfumed side whiskers going off with Ihe ringlets to supper, champagne bubbling m crystal glasses, gentlemen being merry ar the buffet. Caroline bouncing like a stray orange down the centre with the (lovernor in Sir Koger." There is much about Governor Grey ill one way and another and much that is very true to history in the discussion of the topics of government, or misgovernment, that excited the rage of Knglishmen. There are very pleasant pictures of Auckland town and port; the gardens, the semi-rural lift; of the young town. Some Weak Points But there is also much that is unreal in the types the author tries to bring before the reader when she stravs into the rougher life of the country. The pioneer life away from the towns is missing from the picture. The novelist's Maoris are the weak links in the historical romance. Tliey seldom talk or act like Maoris.

I his is an inexcusable blunder: Tn the Auckland Domain "two old Alaori gentlemen squatted outside a reed wliare. cooking their supper in red eml>ers." One was old Rauparaha, the other was 1 e \\ hero (short for Te Wherowhero, of \\ aikato) Imagine it! Two of the greatest men, the most tapu of chiefs, doing the work of a common cook, to which no gentleman would condescend, that was tlie women's job, the slaves'. And le AY hero talks across "the cooking haangi" to the other chief. Pollution «orse and worse!

At the Bay of Islands: "Ten war canoes . . . each bearing at its prow a stately chief, standing upright like the god lie was and so sacred with tapu that the rowers dared not look at him." The chief in a war canoe did not stand in tlie bow. There was usually a "kaihautu who balanced himself amidships, frivinj; the time on this side and on that, but the paddlers were not in such abject fear of his tapu a* the novelist imagines.

Again, when war threatened: "Over the tussock hill began the low beating of Maori drums and the increasing rhythmic stamping of feet. . . . This wide silent world brimmed up with the Maoris' rolling thunder, of drums, their exultant challenge to death." Those drums of the Maoris are as yet unknown to science, and history. The novelist must have confused her scenes and strayed into Papua or the Pacific Islands. There were wooden gongs suspended, and beaten as warning signals, but the only real drums known to

the Maoris were in the village brass band of modern times, when its young bloods of the kainga pounded out Wagnerian thunder. In Kororareka A touch of authentic colour in Koro raioka. was the tarring and feathering of a bad. or at any rate a doubtful character. But the novelist makes hi» ollVnce «uii-runiiin<r. siinifijiliiijT arms to this .Maoris. Bless her innocence, gun trading or bartering was no crime the Kororareka folk. Everyone was doing it at that period. Certainly no Bay of Islands community, or league, was likely to tar and feather anyone for trving to turn an honest dollar in arms ' trading. (The term "gunrunning"' wis not used at that period.) Miss Lancaster is on reliable grounds when she draws upon some of her eontemporaries for data about old Kororareka and its public-houses and stores, whalers' crews and hard old whaling skippers. The Knglish-life picture of the early days are easily and pleasantly drawn. But her Maoris are palpably introduced for "colour,*' and they are not the real tiling. When in doubt leave out, is a safe motto for the novelist as much as for the journalist. Fictitious von Tempsky When sentiments are put into the mouths of historical figures, the unversed writer is likely to get the facts wrong side up. At Orakau, after the chase of the defeated Maori, Major von Tempsky is made to say: "Ake, ake, ake" (quoting part of the Maori cry of defiance). "Has there been anything like it since the days of the old (Weeks? What madness makes you kill such men when you may want them to fight for you some day?"

He was supposed to be addressing some of his Kangers, remonstrating with them. But the fact's were that von Tempsky, so far from scolding his men for killing the fugitives, was the most vigorous in the pursuit himself, urging his Hangers on—bawling his lungs out at them, as he narrated — and the most eager to wipe the Maoris out.