Box of Tricks
YPICAL of the fake legend which has synthesised itself round the birth of Christ is The Littlest Angel by Charles Tazewell, which we heard purred by Loretta Young from 2YA on the Monday before Christmas. This tells the story of a four-year-old cherub abruptly translated to Paradise, and unable to tune his infant exuberance to the smooth and lovely rhythms of heavenly life. The first part of the tale concerns his hobbledehoyism, and its reformation, the second jerks in the Christmas motif by telling of the Littlest Angel’s gift of his most treasured possession, his toy-box, to the Christ Child about to be born upon earth, which gift is irradiated by the Heavenly Father’s approbation so that it is translated (inappositely enough) into the Star that glows over the stable at Bethlehem. Victor Young’s musical decorations (arpeggios for falling tears, rising chords for suspense, and kitten-on-the-keys any time Loretta may have wanted to clear her throat) merely emphasised, like underlinings in Victorian correspondence, the archness of the story’s treatment. Theologians would squirm at the author’s failure to distinguish between Heaven and Paradise, pedants at the split infinitives, and even the non-believer in a material heaven might question the decorum of all this juggling with haloes and tripping over of robes.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19470110.2.21.5
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 394, 10 January 1947, Page 11
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213Box of Tricks New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 394, 10 January 1947, Page 11
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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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