LOCAL HABITATION

Evening Star, Issue 19841, 14 April 1928, Page 14

LOCAL HABITATION

BEST BOOKS OH HEW ZEALAND [Written by C. R. Allen, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] It is claimed for Thomas Hardy that he invented the term “ Wessex, and that he revived it is doubtless true. One seems to have heard of a Wessex in King Alfred’s day. and a statue to that monarch stands at Wantage, which is a fairly far cry from Dorchester. Bo that ns it may, Hardy [provides us with a prime instance of a writer’s power to make a place grow in his own image. This power is possessed in varying degree by all imaginative and creative writers. One may teach geography with the help of guicle books or ordnance maps, but there is another way. There has recently visited New Zealand an evangel of Empire of the school of Lionel Courtis, in the person of Mr H. 0. Frind, who is working to consolidate the Empire through its libraries. Mr Frind is a Canadian, but it appears that he takes the Empire for his parish. It is Mr Frind’s_ belief that the circulation of books written in New Zealand or inspired by tho genius of New Zealand would be’a more potent educational factor in England than either wireless or the cinema. One cannot claim for any Now Zealand writer as yet that he has made his native town his own as Hardy lias made Dorchester, but it is nevertheless among the poets and the writers of fiction that wo should find tho writing best adapted to Mr Frind’s purpose. It is not the writer of the guide book pr the statistician who makes tho soul of a country known to a dweller overseas. Mr Frind put the interesting question to me: “How would you fill a New Zealand shelf in the Warwick County Library?” This is a question I am inclined to pass on to other readers. What aro the hundred best books of New Zealand?' What are the books which would most aptly constitute the links in Puck’s girdle round the world for a Warwickshire lad with the reading habit? This is really, I suppose, a question for the biblingrapbist, but it might provide a. pastime for the amateur during the coming winter evenings to set about filling such a shelf in imagination. It must be kept in mind that, as far as possible, the Warwickshire lad must come to know his New Zealand from tho North Cape to Stewart Island, yet he must not be taken on a personally conducted tour by some eclectically-minded compiler of a tourist’s handbook. The bonks upon tins shelf must give him the individuality of places, I think that pride of place on such a shelf would be given to ‘Tho Long White Cloud ’ of William Pember Beeves. Next to it should stand the anthology of New Zealand verse which has recently been republished. Having thus generalised in the selection of the first two books, it would be necessary to take a map of New Zealand and diligently to sock out our Dorchesters. Wo have our four centres, but wo have not_ yet our Five Towns. Hector Bolitho has written of Auckland; Kathleen Mansfield has written of Wellington. I must leave it to someone else to discover a New Zealand Trollope who has interpreted tho spirit of Christchurch*. Nor in my ignorance can I put ray hand upon the Stevenson or Scott of Dunedin. Tho gold-digging days which preceded our present academic calm have been written of in such works as ‘ Cabbage Tree Jack,’ which should certainly find a place upon ■the shelf if a copy is still available. Edith Howes once sojourndiLat Stewart Island, arid, if.ahedias.not already;dope so. site should be prevailed upon to publish something that should fill the Warwickshire lad with a nostalgia for oyster beds. Tho New Zealand writers upon our shelf should, as far as possible, be free from tho propagandist taint. The worst novel that Mrs Humphry Ward ever wrote was ‘ Canadian Bor.n,’ which she was commissioned to Write for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Wo do not want our Warwickshire lad to be persistently nudged upon the elbow. The purpose of this column is not a categorical statement of what are the most representative books of New Zealand. but an indication of bow one should proceed upon tho quest for enlightenment upon the unprejudiced English reader’s behalf. Someone may be able to point to a book that reflects tho spirit of a New Zealand town in the sure and decorous manner with which Mr Owen Wistor reflects tho spirit of a Virginian town in such a book ns ‘ Lady Baltimore.’ Someone may object that ‘ Lady Baltimore ’ was not a town, but a cake. I have mentioned ‘ Lady Baltimore ’ for a specific reason. Effects in literature aro often produced indirectly. Tho surest way to write a local novel that will miss the mark is to say to oneself “Go to. Let ns write a novel about Timaru or Owaka or what not.” The insidious influence of the guide book will make itself apparent upon the first page. The books for our New Zealand shelf are the books in which the English reader shall come upon geography as a secondary discovery. He must first come upon the spirit of delight which moved tho author to set pen to paper. So far_ ns I am aware, someone lias yet to discover a second Arden in tho beech forests that flank the earlier marches of tho Milford Track. Milford is shortly to be written up in the_ interests of the European and American tourist, but such interests arc not those of the Warwickshire lad with a delight in the otherwhere which ho may be able to indulge only by recourse to our hypothetical shelf in tho county library.