A REFRESHING COLLECTION
NEW ZEALAND SHORT STORIES The Big Game and Other Stories. By A. P. Gaskell. The Caxton Press. 10s. Mr A. P. Gaskell’s short stories published with great typographical skill by the Caxton Press in The Big Game, are a timely contribution to a slowly maturing, distinctly New Zealand literature. It is refreshing to read a collection of stories that is not a pale copy of style and subject affected by overseas authors, but a robust and independent expression of things typically New Zealand. Writing tnroughout with skill and understanding, Mr Gaskell has. perhaps, slightly over-reached himself with his longest story, “ Holiday.” ns complicated narrative losing itself at times in banality. But this is the only adverse criticism I can make. The sketch from which the title of the book is taken, “The Big Game,” is a consummate analysis of the devotion evoked by our national religion— Rugby football. The rambling reminiscences of an elderly man are presented in “ The Pig and Whistle ” with imaginative stylistic skill; the “School Picnic,” as a reflection on pakehaMaori relations, is psychologically mature, and the other stories are, with hardly an exception, of an equally high level. “ The Big Game ” is a “ must ” for New Zealand readers. H. S. K.-K.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ODT19470528.2.8.3
Bibliographic details
Otago Daily Times, Issue 26472, 28 May 1947, Page 2
Word Count
208A REFRESHING COLLECTION Otago Daily Times, Issue 26472, 28 May 1947, Page 2
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