AN AUSTRALIAN NOVEL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 63, 11 September 1937, Page 26

AN AUSTRALIAN NOVEL

Novels by Australian writers are assuming a definite form and colour, and Australia is beginning to build a modern literature of her own. "Legend for Sanderson," by Vance Palmer (Angus and Robertson), is typically Australian, although it may strike many of its readers as an "ordinary" book. It has little new to say—it is a story of life in Australia—and the author offers it as such. But in its pages come gleams of warm Australian sunshine, delicate little pictures of the pounding surf on her shores, and perhaps a distant haze over the quiet acres of rolling grasses, and the familiar, resinous smell of crinkled gums.

The characters are animated, and although not always quite convincing, where, one feels, the author conceived them boldly etched, the whole " story makes interesting reading. It is about the son of Sanderson, Neil, and the son experiences a strange dislike of everything connected with his father, and his father's life and friends. But apart from the main theme, the little asides. are well developed, and there is a sense of satisfaction in the last 'chapters that gives the reader the conviction that the book was worth, reading.