NEW ZEALAND WRITING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 228, 5 November 1943, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND WRITING

Sir-In your review of New Zealand Writing No. 2, you say: "Most of this writing is new, but not much of it is good," You even seem to grudge conceding that the writing is promising and very good reader-value, In accepting the work of Isobel Andrews, David Hall, and Roderick Finlayson, you consider they have something to say, which, I suggest, is valueless to those of us who "have not yet arrived," unless you _ specifically state what sort of condition one is in when one has something to say. I personally have a lot to say, on economics, on the philosophy I accept, but I find it impossible, as yet, to put it all into a short story written for the entertainment of others. And you can also explain, perhaps, how any writer can arrive if he is not published by reliable magazines, like New Writing, and by people like Ian Gordon, and the members of the Progressive Publishing Society. We cannot tell our faults by what we have printed in popular magazines. Even Saroyanapparently popular with boys and girls -felt his way up, as has every short story writer, whether he was Jack London or H. E. Bates. You have said nothing either, about the youth of the book, not that I’d wish to build up an argument on the basis of youth. But I would point out that this New Writing is something new in the land, new, and to judge from the folks with ideas about writing whom I meet, stimulating. Faults are inevitable. You generally find faults where there is youth. I for one agree that I have a good way to go (my piece in New Writing was written when I was 18) and think other New Zealand writers, published and unpublished,. would confess as much, too. But we still feel entitled, if we are reviewed at all, to an appraisal of our worth as it is and not as it might be. Not all writers are thick-headed egoists, oblivious to drastic criticism,

D. W.

BALLANTYNE

(Auckland).

(We refer to this letter in our leading article.-Ed.)