Further Comment Unnecessary

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 396, 24 January 1947, Page 19

Further Comment Unnecessary

E have had many and varied radio accounts of the life and work of those two masters of nonsense, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll; but one BBC speaker recently lumped them together in one of the Book of Verse series. I liked this speaker; his dry-as-dust voice seemed eminently suited to the mild irony of his manner, and contrasted well with the other voices reading the quotations, of which there were plenty. Pointing out that the fate of satire is to lose its sting and become a centre of affection, he mentioned briefly a few forerunners of Carroll and Lear, and followed up with a generous helping from the works of both these delightful writers, who came as a joyous antidote to the insufferably priggish "children’s writers" of their day. (I wonder if the quotation from Lear, "a serene and sickly suavity only known to the truly virtuous," might be regarded as a reflection on some of Lear’s contemporaries?) With regard to Carroll, one can’t. help agreeing with this speaker that too much has been made of Alice by epicures, psychologists, and searchers after the social and religious significance of Carroll’s works; the best and only way to approach Alice is with a childlike innocence and the fullest affection. I would add, as a remark of my own, that too much has been said on the radio by way of commentary on such authors as Lear and Carroll. It is time now to present complete readings of their books, and let the listener do the commenting" (mentally).