AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21716, 3 February 1934, Page 8 (Supplement)

AUSTRALIAN ESSAYS

FASCINATING COLLECTION From Australia again comes sometiling of real worth —a book of essays which iiiolds between its heliotrope covers what must surely be among the best that her reflective writers are producing. They have been chosen with care, and whilo many emanate a typically Australian atmosphere, which is perhaps what one mainly demands from such a book, others show with what ease and with how much originality subjects of general interest can be dealt with. As Mr. Walter Murdoch says in his essay " On Being Australian," when tho English critic opens a book that comes all the way from Australia he expects something different, something with an Australian flavour. " And at the back of his mind is a strong suspicion that, on the subject of .books, an Australian is not at all likely to say anything worth hearing. What he has learnt to expect from Australia is, iri Mr. J. C. Squire's curt phrase, ' Philistinism and frozen moat It is to be hoped that we in New Zealand a:re not going to make the same mistake, and when, Thomas Tucker, Dorothea Mackellar and J. Scott Macdonald talk to us about literature, Raymond McGratli about travels in Spain, and Ha,rold Godsall concerning the Cornish coast, surely we shall not pass OTer these as being un-Australian and better treated by, an English pen ? If so, we are doing our. neighbours a great injustice. Artistry in Words Turning now to those essays for which one naturally looks in a book '.of this kind, in spite of Mr. Murdoch's injunction—vignettes, w-ater-colours in words which shall paint for ua the broad sunlit stretches, the birdhaunted bush, the glamour of Sydney and the heart of the continent itself, we find that Australia has a band of worthy interpreters who know and love her as so many have loved and felt for England. Anyone who is familiar with Sydney and the lovely flower stands by the arcades of its general Post Office , will appreciate the delicacy of description in "Martin Place"; and those who know anything of the Australian bush, its sombre greens brushed with white lilac and the vivid wings of birds, will live it all again in delightfid bird studies such as " The Jungle Chorus," " Where City Meets .Forest," and the delicate, dewy "June 1." History and exploration are not touched on at all in this collection except in " The Flinders's Centenary," an illuminating sketch of a famous man that makes us wish for more sidelights on the great navigators, the sturdy pioneers and explorers whose very names are etched about the coasts and the vast interior of the continent. Romance of Solitude One of the most realistic sketches in the whole collection is that which describes a man's lonely life on a plantation surrounded by the ever-encroach-ing jungle and isolated from every human companion for months together. In "My Crowded Solitude," the writer begins by describing the various birds which visited him, their friendliness, and-his observance of their habits and migrations; from these he passes to the ways of a ground spider, ants and lizards, all of which he studied with the greatest interest until they became to him almost companions; and finally, in realistic paragraphs, he tells of " one of the most dreadful experiences " of his life —an encounter with a snake in the humid darkness of a tropical night, of its fierce grip upon hi? .';rni, of snake's blood dripping from its head, on to a little fire of matches . . . darkness, paralysis, pain. . . Truly, olr all Australian experiences, Mr. Jack McLaren has done justice' to the one most dreaded. Altogether, these essays will awaken in the overseas reader both appreciation of what Australia can produce and a hauntingly-beautiful vision of what she is. " Essays: Imaginative and Critical." chosen from Australian writers by George Mackanrfis and John D. Holmes. (Angus and Robertson.)