SHORT STORIES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22350, 22 February 1936, Page 35 (Supplement)

SHORT STORIES

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN The quality of Mr. O'Brien'B annual collection of English and American short stories has been on the wane for some time. There is undoubtedly a keen demand for Bhort stories and evidently very little that is satisfactory to feed it. The English writers, except for a few notable exceptions, fiddle away at their technique without having very much to write about, while the Americans are apt, boldly, and with true American seriousness, to dally with some form of abnormality in the mistaken idea that they are being original. Mr. O'Brien's 1935 collection —English and American all in one volumehas little that is outstanding. In his preface he says, "he has sought to select. . . those stories which have rendered life imaginatively in organic substance and artistic form"—which might easily be that which tho reader objects to. There are, however, stories by Malaehi Whitaker and H. E. Bates, that leave nothing to be desired and several new writers who are interestinn. Miss Jonn Jukes', "On the Floor and "The Wayside Spring," by Mr. Oliver Gossman, show a promising mixture of both imagination and technique. The American section stories are very little better than the usual popular magazine type .of thing. The Best Short Storiee 1935: English and American edition, by E. .0 Brien. (Cape)*