A New Zealand Novelist

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 1, 26 September 1907, Page 14

A New Zealand Novelist

(By M.C.K.)

■ There is small encouragement for tho New Zealand novelist thcso days. In a moro leisurely tho recent past, when-.,Georgo Meredith was the "reader", for Messrs. Chapman and Hall—publishers made merit tho condition>of print,v., and fewer nove]B:.were. : jftintfed. in. a'.year than now roar, forth; intortho -bookshops in a wooli. Thexlay when merit was sure to succeed' tia&gireii place'to an age which wants something new or blueraw, crude, and palate-scorching liko wood-spirits. This is tho day, not of " works," but of "output," and the writing world is a jostlo of clamorous hucksters shouting their wares, hot from tho typowriter, and profiting hugely from tho demoralised taste of the public. What possiblo, clianco of success has a New Zoalandor with thoso conditions —this mob of "popular writers?" ,

Distance is against him", his obscurity keeps him obscure. His small voico is lost in tho nois&j....And ovon if, by somo stroke of 'hick, his book has insinuated itself into,a reviewer's idle moment, and obtained ! a "notico" that opens the way to tho public's approval, tho'distanoe-.inakca it impossible for him to lire a pot-boiler at tho mob boforo his nine days of recognition ..are over, and his namo stamped Under by tho fifteen now' " greatest novelists of tho century," who have risen to ffluonco between two Brindisi mails.- ——

It ls jiot strange, since authorship is thus what it is, that the Now Zealand novel-reading public is almost wholly ignorant of the work of a young New Zealand lady! who has produced two volumes and many short storios of far more than average merit. | Readers of the Sydnoy "Bulletin" have for three or four years been familiar with tho strong and graphic -.story-sketchesrsigned ".G: B. Lancaster," hptibpyoncT EthpM "Bulletin"roaders.;!'it?;is : a'vsmalj public that 'has heard that ; : -fflie identity of "G. B£Lancastqr'; is : j half secret. That she" is' 'a is all that is known with tolerablo certainty. Her books, curiously enough, havo been largely/andiwarinly praised iii tho British the gravo ":Times" gavo "-Sons ; o' Men," her [first book, ajspeciaJ; j Sonfew in its literary supplement. That she should havo but a small vogue is therefore remarkable.-" (The issuo r of ~A Spur to Smite" .in a sixpenny edition may increase tho voguo.) What is moro remarkable, than any--other-fact of her authbrsjaip,.however,i is*that her stories aro harder; more istrenuo.us,, and moro virile, in-incident and manner, than tho strongest-.'of- most-of- the short stories "of' Kipling," : orj .to' take a> moro modern vinstftiico'," of: 'Jaclf London. 5 To tho'school" of ' Kipling our authoress clearly belong!. His influence is Visible on eyory'pago'of'her writings. RMiapVWe''ti'duTd -sily that you feel on every pago that it was an enthusiastic; rccognitio'n i: qf 'the value of Kiplihg's'"methpd ; 'tEat : i , set her to storyiwriting/ One -can;; understand readily r that.if.'sho liad':.written above tier bTO.femmine.inamdVt.lie incongruence "between her style and her sex nvould havo puzzled her readers, and damaged tho : , prospects ; of her stories. r^Yhat''has"'.%st';to'be'said of her is,that sho h'a'S a brilliant command of •technique—a fact which is - easy of explanation when one remembers that tho regular"story-writers'of tho "BulDyson, and Jeffries, in - partioular -t— are virtuosos a'bovo everything. Tho "Bulletin," having small spa'co v for short _ stories, an insatiablo craving for brilliancy of any kind, and unlimited material to select from,.has.therefore at any rato set a high and difficult .standard of story-workmanship. Diffusenesa, irrelevance, and digression aro wholly absent from "'G.'.' Bl' Lancaster's" work —sometimes painfully- absent, as it is painful to gaze for long at a picture composed wholly of black shadows, high lights, and vivid contrasts of violent colour. Intense energy and restless action, developed with a curt and brilliant finish by means of bright steely phrases — that is her method..,.. is hectic and exhausting as a fencing display. "A Spur to Smito" opens with a sentence like a hot sword strained almost to breaking point: "The sky was brass, and tho earth was towcolour, with a livid heat reeling gid-dily-lietwtoil. .'.The .(lead, air, thickened and groyed by-ia ! long-delay's dust, vibrated and grew sullenly stiil again as little Sp"ume-c}eyi]£'Ql'';bl:>sting wind flickered through'fitj' an# ''were gone." This ; strainecl compression, '; sometimes 'wonderfully felicitous, is ' the essence of the writer's stylo. She is all tho time reminding you of the-.."touch-the-spot" suiprisinghessi -.of ■ Kipling's " rain like ramrods." Yet this severe epithet-making assists to produco a remarkably real atmosphere. In "A Spur to. Smite" every pago has an incitement to breathlessness and thrill, and its picturo of Samoa —tho sun, tho jungle, and thosea —is quito unforgetablo. Her faults aro as great as her techniquo is fine. Sho is not sternly resolved to "paint true"; sometimes she doos not oven touch truth at tho edges as Kipling dbes."-..Her incidents aro often impossible.. AhvV s dramatic, of course, but manufactured for their dramatic effect without mncli regard to other ends;- "t as" Kipling's men wero often matured' "Stalkys" — or was Stalky tho. mannikin* original of the men ?—to which no-Iranian creature offers any resemblanoo, so " G. B. Lancaster's" men aro ofton completely impossible, doing", dramatic things which no son of 'man could or would do. In "Putnam's Monthly" lately sho had a story of naval officers. Ono of them, a typical Kipling "boy," has been grazed by a spear in ,a skirmish with natives—a mere scratch— and is "larking" on deck while his seniors gravely discuss tho horriblo fact that tho merry young sub. will in throo days bo dying in awful torment from "tetanus." Tho question is raised: would a surgeon be justilicdin killing his patient ? Tho "boy " -enmen look on thoughtfully. Suddenly the "bov's"--opponent raniombers the conversation, and makes an instant .decision,' . A .peqond later,- and las sword "goes thr'ttifih tiifi boy s heart as he chattels gaily between thrusts;f-'fIMS-was..*.jnrjvng discord unreality, of the kind that strikes with a of offence. The <Ir;:i!>."''I 1 ten! ul' e!net.', it tori': . :: tun--!:'::- " duw." 2i.U! ill real lif'.'

do not sottlo moral issues with that dramatic instantaneousness, and not all tlio art of tho novelist can mako such a falso noto sound truo. Kipling made that kind of thing popular, and tho public long ago lost its conscienco and its head in the matter of judging tho proprieties of dramatic fiction.