LIFE AND LITERATURE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 31, 5 August 1939, Page 20

LIFE AND LITERATURE

NEW- ZEALAND NOVEBS

$W0 RECENT EXAMPLES

(By

•'■."" Whatever else . imay be said about ■-New Zealand-literature, the output is not inconsiderable. Our writers seem to have two important qualifications •for success —courage and industry, ■ courage to tackle the job of writing and industry to see it through. The result is manuscripts. The next thing fc publishers, and it says much for the Hy^ffiJJjjjPaed publisher also that he is generally prepared to do his part and give the writer a chance of finding the reader by printing the manuscript and putting it on the market in the form of a book for anyone to buy and read. The reader can then judge of the quality and the consensus of opinion of readers determines the fate of the book—for the time being, at any rate —whether it is a success or not. If the book refuses to sell, then the publisher suffers with the-author—accord-ing to the agreement between i them— and the public taste for local literature receives a setback. There are readers who have tried New Zealand books —books by New Zealand writers about New Zealand—and, to their own taste found them wanting. Hence, a prejudice against New Zealand literature, as likely as not to lead them into complete neglect of our own writers and the consequent liability to miss a good thing. Hence, the importance of quality, as well as quantity, in ■" literature. There is so much that is worth while reading nowadays that a discriminating reader, who values his leisure, demands a certain standard in the books he buys or borrows, and would resent any special "salesmanship" of a book as a theft of his s time.' One is bound to take notice of this aspect of New Zealand' literature, set out in recent discussions in this column by A.M. and others, in any criticism -of'new books. In the present instant ), the books are two novels —"Castles in " the Soil," by Beryl McCarthy (A. H. and A. W. Reed, Dunedin and Wellington), and "The Young, Pretender," by C. R. Allen (Massie Publishing Co., Ltd., London). The former work, I fancy, is a first novel, but Mr. Allen has already five other novels to his name, as well as volumes of plays and verse, and must have a considerable circle of readers, as he is described by the publishers in their "blurb" as "the leading New Zealand novelist," a title which, at first sight, might be open to dispute, with Robin Hyde, Miss Nelle Scanlon, and Mr. J. A. Lee already in the field, not to mention others. But it is obvious from a reading of the two new .novels under review which of the authors is the more practised writer and storyteller. Mr. Allen certainly knows his. craft.

These two novels offer a most interesting contrast both in subject mat-ter-.and method. "Castles in the Soil" is a combination of the family chronicle and regional romance, for which New Zealand, with its early days of pioneering, contact and conflict with the Maori race, and the rise of families with the growth of districts, presents such rich material. The subject has been attempted more than once by New Zealand writers, but not so far triumphantly. The fiction in the main is usually based on fact familiar enough to the writer. The task is to interest the reader at an early stage and hold ■ that interest to the end. It is, contrary to general opinion, by no means an easy form of fiction to do well:, though it may seem quite easy enough to write. How difficult it is can be realised by the small proportion of good family and regional novels among the many written. It needs for success either a big canvas, with plenty of room, or, if that is ruled out, the mpst careful selection" of detail in building up the scene in the mind of the reader and a multitude of touches in the creation of character. The former method of the large canvas—the big volume—calls for unflagging energy and liveliness and great fertility of invention on the part of the writer to avoid tedium. It also requires a, balance in structure to produce a unity of effect'in^thereader. Phyllisßentley's "Inheritance," often mentioned; before, in this column, is the best modern example I know of sheer skill.in craftsmanship of this kind. When the family or regional story is. limited in space Balzac is probably . the writer most easily called to mind who has succeeded in conveying reality in small space. "Eugenic Grandet" and "Old Goriot" are masterpieces of the method. CONTRAST IN METHOD. "Castles in the Soil" is the story of a family founded in northern Hawke's Bay an the fifties of the last century, coming through the Te Kooti massacres of the late sixties, and passing along to the present day with the ups and downs of sheep farming. There is a strong Maori interest in it, just as there was in. a similar story •'about the Gisborne district, "Sheep Kings." The subject, or "plot," is a good one, but also one needing great care in the handling. Within the 300-and-odd pages there is little room for waste in telling the story. "Thus more scope could have been given the latter part —the more important—if the earlier stages had been compressed in the manner of Balzac into a few pages. As it is there is too much of the hastychronicle, with the style in rapid^ tempo, about the whole of the first part •*£ ihf" novel. The story improves as . goes and the later chapters grip the -reader. On the whole "Castles in the Soil" shows genuine promise. The characters are nicely differentiated and the Maori side well handled. "Castles in the Soil" is. worth reading as ..much for its faults as its virtues. It gives a vivid picture of life in a remoter region of New, Zealand appropriate to this Centennial year. The family relationships'are indicated in,a genealogical tree, which will assist the reader. "The Young Pretender" is a totally different kind of story. Mr. Allen takes a small "intelligentsia" circle in Dunedin and pops into it a little stranger, an orphan boy left as a legacy to an old schoolfellow by a dying father, an actor in a travelling theatrical company 'visiting the south,*xr city. The queyiion is how will %c fare with the three bachelors, of 2rhom his guardian is one, in the establishment they have built up at Saffron Villa. The answer makes a most charming story, beautifully done with a multitude of literary allusions woven into. the', fabric of the novel. The method is quite original and gives the reader a .feast in. itself. Though the plot is.slight and the range of the story circumscribed,- the style of writing and the workmanship in detail are so good as to lift "The Young Pretender" quite into a class by itself. In its purely literary aspects this must rank high

in: New Zealand fiction and go far to justify the claim of the publishers that the. author is "the leading New Zealand novelist." In its general atmosphere there is something of the "Little Lord Fauntleroy" about "The Young Pretender," but■-.'■lt., is, none the worse, for that, for: the. author of "Fauntleroy"; was thoroughly accomplished: in the. :art of Celling a story, which is.the.first and foremost in the ;craft of fiction. After, all in these days; of much that is sordid and squalid in . contemporary' fiction, it is a relief to come across something a little sentimental. As a study in;child life and its relationship to . the outer adult world.;and its reactions on the more intimate circle of apparently settled ;bachel6rdom there is something singularly attractive about .this book of, Mr. Allen's. It is a definite contribution to New Zealand1 literature of quality. ■ ■ '