Warm Dunedin memories

Press, 1 October 1983, Page 18

Warm Dunedin memories

Full of the Warm South. By Dennis McEldowney. Mdndoe, 1983. 208 pp. $16.95. (Reviewed by Mervyn Palmer)

Observing for oneself the essence of a way of life is one thing. Reporting it faithfully, and preserving its enchantment for others, is entirely another. It may be that a bed-ridden early life was by no means a totally negative experience for Dennis McEldowney. He certainly demonstrated the will and the courage, with the help of others, to beat his disability: at the same time, his writing shows a rare quality bred of having the time to cultivate penetrating powers of observation of people and events surrounding him. Life in Dunedin in the early 1960 s is the subject of this four-year diary. Its attractions will certainly not be limited to those lucky enough to live in “The Warm South” and to appreciate from experience what that means. For a Dunedin resident who knows the places and many of the people about whom Dennis McEldowney writes, the descriptions economical and full of light have a compelling magic about them. When the Dunedin environment is exchanged temporarily from time to time with Auckland or Christchurch or Queenstown, the luminous quality of the writer’s observations is not dulled.

There are those who will read about themselves in “Full of the Warm South,” all people with minds of their own and good minds at that. They will see themselves through the sensitive word-selection of the author, whether consciously or not, creating mosaics. The sketches of his most regular associates come together through the course of the diary, penned with a

distinctive stamp of sincerity and no traces of meanness or hurtfulness. The period of four years covered by the diary sees McEldowney already through the immediate rigours of surgery for a perilous heart condition, venturing upon a part-time job at the School of Physical Education in the University of Otago, and discovering that the job seems to grow parallel with his expanding physical strength. The time comes when he feels able to stand the strain of a full-time job as librarian at Knox College and he is scarcely settled there successfully when the chance comes to take up the managing editorship of the Auckland University Press. It is a giant stride from the restraints of a dangerous illness to the challenges of work in a field where success is never easily won. “Full of the Warm South,” all about everyday things like planting the vegetable garden, visiting friends, observing the triumphs and trials of others, and living with Townsend the family cat, reveals through the ideal format of the diary, one man’s ability to give generously and to take graciously in life, in his search (it would seem successfully) for contentment. Not many living writers, let us share a backward look into their everyday lives. Admittedly, this editorauthor had it within his power to score the diary with his selective pencil, but one has the feeling that he used the power with the same light touch that distinguishes his prose. Thus, the reading is pleasurable and the reader, whatever his or her pursuits, should find it possible to identify with the author, and maybe even to tune in upon the wavelength of his particular brand of contentment.