WRONG BUT NOT SORRY

Press, 18 June 1976, Page 11

WRONG BUT NOT SORRY

By

A. K. GRANT

As a rule I don’t reply to letters critical of my reviews. There are few things more pathetic than the sight of a critic proving sensitive to criticism. However a recent letter from a reader, written apropos of my review of Fay Weldon’s play “Alan’s Story.” requires a response from me. In the review, as those of you who keep a clipping of it in your wallet or tucked inside your brassiere will recall, I said that Ms Weldon appeared to have gained her knowledge of New Zealand from 10 minutes hanging round Earl’s Court tube station. The reader writes: "Are you sure that Fay Weldon is British? I

understood that she was a New Zealander, bom and bred here in Christchurch. At least I am sure I read that she was raised here in Christchurch. It is most unusual for British playwrights to write a play depicting so intimately the life in another country without having more knowledge than that gained at Earl’s Court tube station. Is it possible to check my information? Will you apologise if you are wrong?” My answer to the reader is, yes I am wrong and no I most certainly won’t apologise. I have located a couple of interviews with Ms Weldon. From these it appears that Ms Weldon spent her childhood in Amberley and Coromandel.

and for a period was a pupil at Christchurch Girl’s High School. In 1948 while she and her mother were on a visit to Britain her father died and she never returned here Therefore Ms Weldon’s play is based on impressions of New Zealand, the most mature of which are those of a 17-year-old schoolgirl and the freshest of which are 28 years old. It is no wonder in these circumstances that Ms Weldon’s views about New Zealand in general and the nature of New Zealand women in particular are so patronising a collection of cliches. What cannot be forgiven, in my view, is the presumption involved in

writing a play about people who are obviously intended to be representative New Zealanders, and endowing them with attributes which are no more than the half-remem-bered prejudices of a permanent expatriate. There is a parallel tendency to justify one’s presence in Britain by representing New Zealand as a hostile land of Philistines, from which all true and sensitive spirits must escape as soon as possible.

Ms Weldon’s play seems to me, now I know she is an expatriate New Zealander, to exhibit the tendency. I think her play is insulting to New Zealanders and I think it is she who should apologise to us.