HOME AGAIN

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 217, 7 May 1932, Page 6

HOME AGAIN

MR NORMAN LINDSAY , GREATEST INTELLECTUAL POWER AUSTRALIA POSSESSES. Norman Lindsay's return home last week was an event of immense importance to Australia, but there was i)0 decoration of the city, no public parade of welcome. Instead of aeroplanes, four seaguTs in formation circled above the Mcngolia; instead of bunting, a coppery smoke-haze hung on the silent town, writes Collin Wills, in the Sydnoy Sunday Sun. An incredible sun of liquid orange bubbled ovier the sea's edge, and sprayed the suburbs and headlands with the ^clear Australian light that Lindsay loves. The artist, however, was at fhat moment surveying a landscape of lather, while his wife, who manages his affairs, from sleeve-links to ci^stoms duties, laid -out his clothes for him. Between strokes of the razor he had significant things to say — staccato sentences flung out in his rapid, incisive style, paragraphed by flashing side-glances from his penetrating blue eyes. Noi'man Lindsay has come back to found a publishing scheme that wiT give the world the literature of modern Australia. By this means alorTe, he declares can the truth about our life, oui spirit, and our asnirations be madr known to other peoples. And those peoples want to know us, Lindsay avers. America particularly. Vitally eager to face life, to study it. the American takes a keer interest in th© mysterious white nation across the Pacific. He realise: our political importance to America. ajid he senses our psychological kin- j ship.

accepted a legend of Australia as a land of free souls. Social experiments here, odd books that have filtered through England, and the glamorous reputation of the Australians as magnificent fighters have all contributed to this. And now, to contradict that legend, they have the stories of outrageous censorship here, and .of political muddle so grave as to qmbroil State and commonwealth. Lindsay believes, and always has } believed, that Australia is a spleni did country, peopled by a race with tremendous possibilities. Now, after seeing what prose is doing in America towards expressing and adjusting social problems, he is convinced that prose ' must lead Australia out "of obscurity. After all, the cultural life of a nation is what guides its destinies, and until we have an intelligent literature we cannot even understand each other, let alone make ourselves understood to the world. Lindsay's Powier. If any man can bring that literature to fruition it is Norman Lindsay. Modestly, he says, My Job is to paint pictures; I am an intruder on the novel/' But he is a welcome intruder, and a valuable one. He has never written a dull line. With the deepest undestanding of humanity he combines a delightful style that is, before all else, enter.aining. Which is, of course, what s wantad. Literature that is not entertaining is worthless. And besides being a fine novelist himself, Lindsay is the ideal man to select, encourage, and bring out other novelists, of whom, he is cer>ain, we have a sturdy stock. Lindsay is an intellectual dynamo, the most potent Australia possesses. He flings off ideas like sparks, and a constant stimulus to thought, to action, to high, courageous spirits, flows from the mind of this little, alert man with the faun-like locks on his