Australian Life

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

Australian Life

Australian novelist* no longer feel that they must concern themselves mainly with gold rushes, desert treks, backblocks, sheep farming, and the other typically pioneering ventures of their country. A novel such as "Wind in Spring," by Alison McDougall (Angus and Robertson), is a sign that there is growing up a real understanding of Australian life in all its aspects, and that the cultural life of the community, itself in the pioneering stage, is receiving the thoughtful attention of competent writers.

Freda, the heroine of this story, is an Australian who has gone to England to study art and has settled in happily to life in London. She marries Jeffrey, a successful writer, whose personality and

art seems so encrusted with the conventions and sophistication of their own highbrow set that he seems scarcely a humaji being. As a holiday after the strain of the successful West End production of one of his plays, they visit Australia, -intending to stay for only a few weeks. We are introduced to Freda's family, and she and Jeffrey become rapidly involved in other people's lives and destinies. Events move quickly, human relationships change, and Jeffrey, to Freda's surprise* and joy, decide* not to return to London.

This book is full of incident, and its characters are warm-hearted, vital people. It is first and foremost a competent and colourful story, but it is based upon a very valuable understanding, both critical and sympathetic, of the problems of Australian culture.