ONE MAN'S OTAGO

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 434, 17 October 1947, Page 16

ONE MAN'S OTAGO

THE STORY OF OTAGO. By A. H. Reed. A. H. and A. W. Reed, Wellington, ‘T HOSE who enjoyed The Story of New Zealand will enjoy The Story of Otago, and for the same reasonsbecause it is simple, fresh and clear, and as uncomplicated as Signal Hill. By calling it "the story" of Otago Mr. Reed headed off those critics who might have been troublesome if he had called it the history of Otago, and if he had called it "stories" instead of "the story" he would have silenced everybody. There are as many stories of Otago-and of every community-as there are intelligent observers and accurate reporters, and they could all be true and good stories. Mr. Reed’s is a true story as far as it goes. His dates are right, his sequences are accurate, his summaries of accepted authorities are faithful. Except in the opening chapter, where he uses geological time, and must be forgiven if he drops or adds a million years now and again, there are, I am sure, no positive imaccuracies of any importance. But the negative inaccura-cies-the _things not seen that were plainly there, and things not told either because they were not heard -or not understood can distort a picture just as sharply, and of these Mr. Reed certainly is guilty. The Otago of his book is not the Otago that most of us lived in, but a swept and garnished Otago of his Puritan imagination. He does not go quite so far as to call the golddiggers, for example, God-fearing, but he leaves the impression that he almost thinks they were. His politicians get near to reality, and his explorer-settlers nearer, but those are almost the only sections, missionaries not excepted, who come convincingly alive. He has of (continued on next page)

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course an enormous field to cover, and it was a teal achievement to get so much into 300 pages without overcrowding or ‘confusion. But his Otago is not mine.

O.

D.