“The Growing Child"

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 941, 7 April 1930, Page 8

“The Growing Child"

NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE

AFTER suffering almost 50 years of complete neglect ami 2o years of more or less careless interest, the literature of New Zealand is slowly, very slowly, discovering that it has a right to a place in the world. A recent .number of “The Bookman” devotes its opening pages to an article on New Zealand writers by W. .S. Dale, 31. A., in which the prose and the poetry of past and present generations is reviewed.

Mr. Dale quotes from the introduction to Alexander and Currie’s “New Zealand Verse,” published In 1905, saying that among the early colonists who came direct from England “there existed a tradition that it was a good thing to write poetry.” That tradition, which extends also to prose, seems to he. at the foundation of New Zealand literature. Unlike the Australians, New Zealand writers'have made little attempt to produce a New Zealand “style” or a New Zealand

“school.” They have allowed themselves to be influenced by all the poetry, all the novels, and all the essays of the world indiscriminately, and it may be that here isolation has, in literature, been actually of benefit to the country.

New Zealand, because of distance, has been able to import only'a limited number of books, and it is reasonable to suppose that these importations have been of better quality than those passed Moreover, for the same reason, New Zealand has had the. benefit of the best criticism from England and the United States—criticism that reaches the country before the books themselves and, if this has a tendency to mould and stereotype opinion, it Has at least done so in a reasonably sound form. New Zealand can claim one writer of the first magnitude—-possibly of even a little beyond the first magnitude. Katherine Mansfield, the daughter of a New Zealander and born and brought up in New Zealand, though she left the country as a young woman, undoubtedly belongs to the country. Her short stories have set a standard for the world that is only reached by the Russian writers of the last eentry. Some of her stories have a New Zealand setting, but most were written after she left New Zealand, and whether she could have written them had she stayed in the country is a doubtful point. Samuel Butler, though he lived only for three or four years in New Zealand, yet wrote much about the country. His “Erewhon,” “Beyond the Ranges,” and “A First Year in a Canterbury Settlement” are books as important as they are interesting. He loved the country and wrote while under its influence, so that New Zealand can at least lay a claim to him. Of poets, from the redoubtable Alfred Domett—his “Ranold and Amohia” is probably the longest published poem in New Zealand, and is, in addition, exceedingly dull —to those of our own day, there has been no lack. William Pember Reeves, Bowen, Thomas Bracken, David McKee Wright, Anne Glenny Wilson and many more are now dimly remembered and sometimes read, but they have produced no work to rival that of

Katherine Mansfield or of Butler. In more modern times we have Eileen Duggan, Jessie McKay, Dora \\ ilcox, Arnold Wall, Johannes C. Andersen, A. R. D. Fairburn. Geoffrey de Montalk, R. A. K. Mason, Iris Wilkinson, Peter Brooke, and a number of other writers whose verse, though only occasional in production, is yet interesting and sometimes extraordinarily good.

The latest arrival in New Zealand literature is the novel, and although a genius has yet to be found, a body of work not altogether contemptible is being built up. Jean Devanny, whose ’The Butcher Shop” shocked the censor a few years ago, and who was hailed as the coming writer of the day, has written several novels all showing a continued desire to discuss social questions. Her books are interesting, but one wonders whether the novel, except in the hands of the greatest, is the most suitable medium for social discussion. Jane Mander, who has received little notice in New Zealand, has written several books about the country, particularly “The Story of a New Zealand River,’ *hich deserves a higher place in the public estimation than it has gained. Other woman novelists are Rosemary Rees, G. B. Lancaster, Isobel Maude Peacocke and Elizabeth Milton. Almost the only New Zealand man writing novels (if we except Hugh Walpole, who was born in Auckland and left New Zealand when he was still a child) is Hector Bolitho, whose first novel, “Solemn Boy,” was perhaps one of the best yet written by a New Zealander. His later work has been disappointing. Of essayists there are a number. Charles Wilson’s “Rambles in Bookland” and “New Rambles in Bookland” are sound pieces of work, and in Alan Mulgan’s “Home,” New Zealanders have a book exquisitely written. There is a good deal of newspaper work being done that, of its kind, is extremely good and, though the scope is limited, there are excellent short stories being written by, among others, Winifred Tennant, Esther Glenn, Mona Tracy, C. R. Allen, Iris Wilkinson, Helena Henderson and Will Lawson. New Zealand’s chief trouble seems to be a lack of scope. The writer is compelled to publish his work abroad, the market in the country for short stories and articles being small. This deceives New Zealanders into believing, because they do not see the work continually coming forward, that the country has no writers worth the name. This is not so. New Zealand literature is admittedly still in its in- j fancy, but it is a healthy, hard-kicking infancy. L.W.P.R.