BOOK REVIEWS

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 109, 1 February 1941, Page 15

BOOK REVIEWS

LITERATURE AND ART New Zealand Achievement Surveyed ‘‘Letters and Art in New Zealand,” by E. H. McCormick (Wellington: Department of Internal Affairs). Mr. McCormick has written a good book: just, critical, accurate. His chief aim, he says, in this evaluation of our letters and art, ‘'has been to bring out their relation to social changes iu the years since European discovery.” This has made a most readable narrative. When so much fulsome praise and distinctive blame has been handed out to our efforts, it is a comfort to read Mr. McCormick’s fair-minded estimate. His information on such less-known figures as Mrs. C. Evans, Alexander Bathgate, Amy Wilson, Henry Lapham, George Chamier, and on such pleasant old books as “Station Life in New Zealand” and “Brown Bread from a Colonial Oven,” will be of value. His reckoning of Katherine Mansfield is cool, temperate, yet fine. She is primarily important to New Zealanders because she interpreted accurately and beautifully a segment of New Zealand life and a part of the New Zealand landscape. And to New Zealand writers she stands as an example of the self-dedication and the never-ending struggle toward personal integrity without which literature, in the highest sense, is impossible.” Naturally one turns to read his comments, since it is exciting to come across so fair-minded a critic as he, on such difficult writers to assess as Jane Mander and Robin Hyde. His consideration of their work is admirable. It is surprising to find that he does not single out Evelyn Hayes’s “Burkes’ Pass,” and that Charles Brasch’s serious work is passed over for Allen Curnon’s tiresome ‘‘Not in Narrow 'Sea's.” Curious, too, that M. R. Escott’s novel, so warmly praised ■in England on its publication five years ago by Chatto and Windus, is not mentioned. Mr. McCormick pays a handsome tribute to Erank Sargeson’s recent volume of short stories, “A Man and His Wife”; the dialogue is certainly convincing, but do not their weak structure, their appalling sentimentality, spoil them? However, these may be accounted as pin-pricks in Mr. McCormick's admirable survey. One can but be grateful to him for his pointers to the best in our literature.

For painting, Mr. McCormick has necessarily confined himself to painters working in New Zealand, so that those who have done the bulk of their work outside, like Oweu Merton, Raymond Mclntyre, Frances Hodgkins, Rhona Haszard, most disappointingly do not come in for review. Mr. McCormick writes with grace and perception on Charles Heaphy, James Buchanan and Gilfillan; shrewdly and a little cruelly places Christopher Pekins's landscape of Mount Egmont besides Heaphy’s, in a footnote, sees a penetrating likeness in one of Miss Hodgkins’s pictures to a Katherine Mansfield character. How one warms to him that he praises so well Alfred Walsh’s work.

At first Mr. McCormick seems less sure when he comes to painters nearer our own day. He praises some portraiture, which to other eyes is vapid and slick, sees influence of Cezanne, either where there is none or in what is only student work, and is kind to our picture-calendar landscapists. To this may be countered, perhaps, his aim quoted above. John Weeks and T. A. McCormack are rightly praised. The name of J. Cousins might have been mentioned among early water-colour-ists; his delicate art is' the equal of any the author mentions. Now that centennial surveys are in the air, would it not be possible to publish a comprehensive set of reproductions, in book, or booklet, form, of our achievement in painting?

AUSTRALIAN POETRY “Cut from Mulga,” by Ernest G. Moll (Melbourne University Press) ; “Purple and Gold,” by Frank S. Williamson (Melbourne: Lothian Publishing Co.).

The poems of •‘Cut from Mulga” are mostly the fruit, of a visit recently paid by Dr. Moll, professor of English at Oregan State University, to his Australian homeland. Dr. Moll is expert in technique and bis work is pleasant to read for its smooth flow alone. It is simply contrived yet immensely effective, most of it being concerned with divers aspects of bush life. The poems which are little character sketches are particularly good. The late Frank Williamson’s collected poems, entitled “Purple and Gold,” were first published in 1912. They now appear again and with them are many new poems equally representative of his charming talent as a writer of colourful and memorable lyrics. CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE “St. Paul and His Gospel,” by A. E. Baker (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode) ; “The Activity of God,” by A. A. David (London: Centenary Press) ; “The Kingdom of God,” by C. A. Alington (London : Centenary Press); “A B C of the Christian Religion,” by Walter Carey (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode) ; “St, Mark in Current English,” by Mary L. Matheson (National Council of Religious Education in Australia). The part the Christian religion can play in these anxious days is adequately demonstrated in these small books. Canon Baker provides a splendid exposition of St. Paul’s teaching, the volume being a companion to this author’s “Teaching of Jesus for Daily Life.” Dr. David, Bishop of Liverpool, offers a convincing answer to such questions as how is God’s purpose dependent on our will and what can we do to forward or frustrate that purpose. He does not shirk a discussion of the part God is playing in the present crisis. Dr. Alington, Dean of Durham, explains the nature and importance of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God in an inspiring volume which, with Dr. David’s, is issued in the Christian Challenge series. Dr. Carey’s little book, to quote the Bishop of London’s preface. puts in plain form “the bare bones of the Christian Faith about God and about you.” Mrs. Matheson’s rendition of St. Mark into simple modern English should be of great value to all to whom the language of Elizabethan days is a stumbling block—to children in particular. THE AUSTRALIAN SPIRIT “Cobbers Campaigning,” by Thomas Wood (Sydney: Angus and Robertson). Dr. Wood, already an authority on the Australian scene and the Australian spirit, in this little book tells of Australia at war. Writing in a purely personal way, he provides what is at once an entertaining story and a fine tribute to the country he likes so much. He has a vivid style and plenty of appropriate anecdotes help to make the tale bright and lively. All profits and royalties from its sale will go to the Australian Red Cross. BOOKS IN DEMAND The Wellington city librarian has furnished the following list of books in demand:— GENERAL. ‘H.M.S.,” by C. King. “The King in Peace and War,” • by K. V. Gordon. “After Hitler,” by A. Hey st FICTION. “Chad Hannah,” by W. D. Edmonds. “Ghost House,” by N. Berrow. “The Big Wheel,” by M. Bennie.