DOMINION LITERATURE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22005, 11 January 1935, Page 11

DOMINION LITERATURE

,f TIME IT APPEARED" COMMENT BY PUBLISHER SELF-EXPRESSION WRITINGS Taking a holiday of six months away from London, Mr. Jonathan Cape, head of the London publishing firm of Jonathan Cape, Limited, arrived in Auckland yesterday from the South. He has had a little over a week in Now Zealand, and has been as far south as Christehurch. On his way to Auckland he visited Rotorua and found it intensely interesting. "Although I am on holiday," Mr. Cape said yesterday, "I am taking the opportunity of meeting in various towns, booksellers, many of whom I have known by name for a long time. I feel it is time that these young countries produced literature. The United States produced literature in its early days. Perhaps there is more interest here in the matter of the book than the manner. After all, writing is a gift, and being a gift it does require to be worked at a great deal. "People sometimes suggest that there has been a lack of catastrophic happenings here to stimulate literature, but that is not so at all. Did you not have an earthquake ? As to the suggestion that the larger audience in the rest of the world is not interested in what is happening in New Zealand, they are interested in any literature which is presented in attractive form. Interest of Readers "First of all, the general standard of reading here is high, very high compared with other countries I hbve been in," said Mr. Cape when asked about the standard of reading in New Zealand. "Books do, I think, play quite a part in the lives of the people. I find it confirmed on every hand that the interest of readers to-day is more towards books other than novels. I do not mean that the novel is being neglected, but there is a distinct tendency to read books outside those with a concerted or complete story. "Books of personal experience, whether they tell of physical adventures or adventures of the spirit, are receiving very much more attention than they did. One reason why people are showing more interest in books outside novels is that for the time being we have not any giant writers of fiction. The need to adjust oneself to life is being widely felt, and there is a great desire to profit by the experience of other people as expressed in writing. We have had a great deal of that self-expression writing in recent years. "I am often asked whether I do not think that books are too dear. I have never found them dear. I have always found some money to buy what I required. If you are really interested in books you will prefer to get them rather than other things. If you treat them as a means of entertainment, they are by no means expensive. Cheaper Editions "Of coursej here the price is artificially inflated by the exchange, which is something for this country alone to solve. In any case, if price is a difficulty, worthwhile books always become available in cheaper editions in about two years after first publication. If peqple buy cheaper editions, they can always be sure of getting a book that has become so well known that a wide public for it is fairly certain." Mr. Cape spoke highly of the writings of E. H. Young, and said there was room in New Zealand for several writers of the same calibre with sensitiveness and fineness of perception. People who were writing should have good models before them, and he commended the Russian writers as models of style, both in the short story and in the longer novel. Air. Cape will leave Auckland at the end of the week and visit Waitomo on his way back to Wellington. He will leave Wellington next Thursday for Sydney, passing from there to visit friends in Peiping, and returning thence across the United States, which he visits every year, to England.