NEW ZEALAND PEOPLE

Southland Times, Issue 24237, 21 September 1940, Page 9

NEW ZEALAND PEOPLE

Frank Sargeson’s Short Stories

A MAN AND HIS By Frank Sargeson. The Caxton Press, Christchurch. Price 6/-.

Reviewed by M. H. HOLCROFT

When Frank Sargeson was awarded first prize (equal) in the short story section of the Centennial Literary - petition, those who had studied Ins work during the past few years were able to feel that recognition bad. been given to an impressive talent. His short stories are unlike anything else that has been done in this country. A quick or inattentive reader might decide that his innovations are superficial, that they begin and end with an attempt to reproduce the New Zealand idiom m literary terms. It is true that Mr Sa - geson catches the tricks and turns ot casual speech: he knows better i-ha l } most people the verbal amalgam tha includes fragments of slang imported from England, Australia and America, and he knows their local variations. To a certain extent, also, he may have drawn his earlier influences directly from the more robust American writers. Even here, however, it would be unsafe to dogmatize. The trick of dispensing with inverted commas, for instance, was used by George Moore, no doubt to remove impediments from a smoothly flowing prose. It is also affected by some of the younger writers whose work flows anything but smoothly. Mr Sargeson probably has his reasons tor the habit: he may feel that it helps him to suggest the closer interactions ot thought, speech and action. Whether it is a mannerism or part of his method, however, is less important than the tact that the inner quality of his work is strong enough to survive its experimental tendencies.

ESSENTIAL VALUES Tlie value of compact fiction can never depend on absolute standards of style. It does not matter if a story is told in a back alley idiom or m a meticulous prose: the ultimate criterion is the force and reality of its total effect. A short story must present a character or an event, and if it is to approach its full nature it must catch some reflection of universal meanings, some suggestion of beauty, goodness or evil within a segment of circumstance. At its best it is closer to poetry than to the novel. Mr Sargeson’s work satisfies these requirements more noticeably than the short stories of any other-present-day writer in New Zealand. He can, if he wishes, develop a plot with a beginning, a middle and an ending, according to the formula of magazine fiction. “A Great Day” is the one piece in the collection which comes near to that type of story, and it is cleverly written. But he is at his best when he takes a moment or an episode of individual experience and allows it, even while it is separated from the larger context, to retain the feeling and the deeper movement of life. STUDIES IN FRUSTRATION “The Making of a New Zealander,” which won the Centennial prize, is mostly about a conversation between a farm hand and a young Dalmatian settler. It suggests with considerable insight the frustration of men who seem to feel, in the pressure of their environment, a larger indifference of the universe. But there are better stories in this book. “A Man and his Wife” tells of a relief worker in the depression, and of the important parts played by a dog and a canary in separating him from, and reuniting him to, his unhappy wife. To outline the theme in a synopsis would give no indication of its inner strength, or of

the way it draws the threads of individual and social experience into a situation which distils the mood of a grey period of New Zealand’s history. “Good Samaritan” is merely a brief dialogue in a city bar; but it gets beneath the skin, and is a reminder that inarticulate men fumble after ideas which also elude the philosophers. But “Old Man’s- Story” appeals most to this reviewer. Its materials are anything but promising: in ungentle hands they would invite ridicule. The middle-aged man who loves, and is loved by, a young girl is the prototype of men who have figured in ugly court cases. He is also a symbol of the wonder that tugs at the hearts of all men and women on a thousand occasions, until a day comes when it fills and overflows a single life, arid the beauty becomes a kind of tragedy. Mr Sargeson indulges in no straining after effects. There are no loud notes of passion in his stories, no elaborate backgrounds, no obvious or painful tricks of suspense. He writes casually, even roughly, and he has discovered that under-statement is a useful way of projecting drama. Above all, he understands the people, and if he sees them with a sharp clearness, he sees them also with pity and kindness. When he has imitators (as he must, in the days to come) it is to be hoped they discover that it is this quality of insight, and not the little tricks of style, which makes him an original writer in the true meaning of the term.