Elephant and Castle
R. SIMMANCE spoke the other night from 3YA of his boyhood’s passion for the works of Harrison Ainsworth and proceeded to read some extracts from The Tower of London by way of proving his case. One was convinced,; as much by the humorous as by the blood-curdling passages. Why is it that Ainsworth’s very Walter Scott style, ponderous and polysyllabic, is entertaining? Presumably for the same quality that gives something, comic to the appearance of an elephant, the solemn, rolling gait, the long swaying appendages, and the small bright vulgar eye in the midst of all. Dickens got some of his best effects by this same fourwheeler style, but the difference from Ainsworth is immense; Dickens was being funny by the use of a mock-pon-derous manner, but to Ainsworth ponderosity was bred in the bone, and he went about a joke exactly as he would go about arranging buckets of blood or maiden tears. He also frequents that weird borderland between the gruesome and the comic-between Sawney Bean the Scottish Cannibal and Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber-with fine traditional skill. One must particularly commend Mr. Simmance for his reading of the Headsman’s Song, with its concluding comment: "Ill write a new verse tomorrow night!"
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 301, 29 March 1945, Page 8
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207Elephant and Castle New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 301, 29 March 1945, Page 8
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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