TWO NEW ZEALAND BOOKS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20508, 8 March 1930, Page 8 (Supplement)

TWO NEW ZEALAND BOOKS.

FICTION AND FACT. "New Zealand Short Stories," chosen by O. N. Gillespie. (Dent.). '• A Rollins Stone," by Bertram Bunny. (Robertson and Mullenß.). It has fallen to Mr. Gillespie to make tho first collection of New Zealand Short Stories. Of all forms of literary activity, tbg work of tho authologist is perhaps the most thankless. Ho is reviled for his sins of omission and of commission, for bis rejections no less than for his selections. This volume then, it may be prophesied with confidence, will not pleaso everybody. Mr. Gillespie, in an impartial and illuminating preface touches the heart of what may be called the literary problem in New Zealand. Speaking of the purity of our British stock and the absence of leaven in the form of foreign elemonls ho proceeds, " This devotion to things English is rather blind and not without its perils. It is so deep-seated however, and its compulsion is so general that superficial differences observed in us by hurried travellers should never be thought permanent. Any distinctive, national characteristics will be long _in making their appearance." Tho decision to include only stories which relato to New Zealand—a decision, however, which apparently admits of a few exceptions—has shut out many good stories of life in other countries and has helped to include many which have a very slight claim to represent the high water-mark of New Zealand's literary skill. Still for a collection addressed primarily to English readers the decision is probably a wise one. The twenty-nine authors repressented include Sir "George Grey, Katherine Mansfield, G. B. Lancaster, Johannes Andersen and B. E. Baughan. #** * * ■ From fiction about New Zealand we pass with "A It oiling Stone," to fact about almost every other country in tho world. This unpretending little posthumous volume gives a vivid account of an adventurous life up and down the Seven Seas. But the bulk of Bunny's adventures were in the Yukon and the book is illustrated with some beautiful photographs of remote Alaska. Altogether, tho zest for colour and variety in life shown by the author will make its appeal to the hearts of those readers who have never had tho chance of " rolling down to Rio," For there is little reproach in the name of " rolling stone," As G. K. Chesterton somewhere remarks, the only stone that gathers moss is a gravestone.