NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33277, 14 July 1973, Page 10

NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE

Essays on New Zealand Literature. Edited by Wystan Curnow. Heinemann. 192 pp. Index, notes. (Reviewed by H. D. McN.)

Apparently mainly with the-needs of students in mind, Wystan Curnow has collected a number of critical essays and reprinted them in a single volume. Of the eight essays included, all but one were first published within the last decade, and so most people with a reasonably long-standing interest in the subject will probably have most of them already; even so, their publication in this collection will save a good deal of hunting through the rather idiosyncratic indexing of old “Landfalls” and the like. In addition. Dr Curnow has included a short essay of his own, “High Culture in a Small Province,” the only previously unpublished work in the book; his general observations on New Zealand culture are interesting, perceptive, and stimulating, though his style is in places rather formidable.

As a general introduction to New Zealand literature, the volume has a good coverage. Copland and Stead are the only critics to focus on individual writers—on Sargeson and Alan Curnow respectively, quite defensible priorities. Broughton and Sturm write about pre- ' V

war poetry, and Smithyman contributes his article on poetry in the fifties, the last in the series which Dudding commissioned for “Mate” in 1962, and which formed the basis for “A Way of Saying.” In more general terms are three very important critical works particularly suitable for reprinting as they are relatively inaccessible in their original form: Pearson’s “The Maori and Literature,” Curnow’s “New Zealand Literature” (both of which appeared in a context that was not primarily literary), and Chapman’s “Fiction anil the Social Pattern,” a seminal work in New Zealand criticism which dates back to “Landfall,” in 1953. In fact, the student approaching New Zealand literature for the first time might well begin his critical reading by going carefully through this book a couple of times; the index, too, will be found particularly useful for later reference. And, of course, any fairly serious reader who wants to find a critical perspective to our literature will find the book invaluable.

For thorough analysis, this volume cannot compete with a dozen or so book-length studies of particular subjects; it does, however, make very good work of filling the considerable gaps between these isolated books.