OTAGO IN FICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22126, 2 December 1933, Page 4

OTAGO IN FICTION

NOVELIST’S UNFLATTERING PICTURE “ Broken Pattern.” By Prudence Cadey. Foreword by Stephen Gwyhn. London: The Fenland Press. (7s net.) A somewhat chastening opportunity of seeing'ourselves as others see us is offered in Prudence Cadey’s novel, “Broken Pattern,” which gives a picture of New Zealand life as seen through the eyes of a young English couple. We meet Rupert and Phoebe as boy and girl, the children of comfortably-situated, gentle parents. Rupert’s Weakness of character is suggested from the first page, and Mrs Cadey receives full opportunity of delineating the development of this streak when the two young people, after the financial debacle of Rupert’s father, emigrate to the Dominion as man and wife. They have no money, and no friends in New Zealand save a Central Otago sheep fartner who proves, in his natural environment, to be less of a polished gentleman than when Phoebe’s father met him in India. Life on Baker’s station means hard and' uncongenial work for Rupert, and a lonely lite for Phoebe, who can make few contacts with the farmers’ wives in the district. Rupert is fond of company and popular with his fellows. He finds compensation in a poker school in the local hotel, and it 1 is a relief to bis wife when they move into Dunedin, which they regard as the fairest of New Zealand cities. But as a travelling salesman Rupert has the greater opportunities for making easy and expensive contacts with kindred spirits, and the author describes with a literal but sympathetic straightforwardness the incidents that bring this marriage to the verge of disaster. In the final pages we are given, through a not unmitigated tragedy, the opportunity to hope that Phcebe’s future will contain .more of the brightness which this sterling young woman deserves. So much for the story, which is conventional, but well told. But it is with Mrs Cadey’s pictures of New Zealand life that readers in'this country, and particularly in this district, will be intrigued. It must be said . at once that New Zealanders "will not, for the most part, discover the representation flattering. Whether it be true, only a searching of the heart and a weighing of the facts will tell them. Mrs Cadey believes, for instance, that over-indulg-ence in liquor is a habit that menaces many New Zealand homes. New Zealanders, she suggests, are hard-drinkers, and those of weak will are likely to bring distress to themselves and their families by not knowing when to cry “ enough! ” She is, be it said, no prohibitionist, and holds the “wowsers,” with their intemperate attacks ,on the liquor trade, in part responsible for encouraging drinking. Then Mrs Cadey has a very poor opinion of hotels, and indeed of service in general, in this country. Her suggestion that Wellington contains no ; better hotel than a “hash-house” in which the food is thrown at visitors by a slovenly girl cannot be sustained, but there is something in her general contention that in New Zealand a “take it or leave it” attitude exists among those whose duty it is to serve the public. The inference that a low code of morality exists in New Zealand _ is difficult to answer, but it may be said that the standard of behaviour here is no lower either in a country town or at a not necessarily typical Dunedin after-cabaret l“ party ” than elsewhere in the world, 'while there is more than a hint of venality on the part of the country police that will be resented. But these charges, if they are read ns such, are not . applied in a sweeping sense, for the novel is more concerned with particular individuals than national attitudes. What one can discern from an examination of this book is that its author, viewing New Zealand life dispassionately to the extent to which it came within her experience, found it so

far from the idealisation of the tourist publicity as to be disillusioning. _ She found the people, too* afflicted with,,a rather smug satisfaction in their land and with no capacity to accept realistic criticism. To judge from at least .one vituperative notice of “ Broken Pattern ” which'appeared in the north, her suspicion may not be lacking, confirmation if her book is widely read—as it certainly deserves to be. i ■■■ ■■ . ' - f J..M.