FIRST YEAR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 451, 13 February 1948, Page 13

FIRST YEAR

LANDFALL: VOLUME 1., No. 4, Caxton Press, Christchurch. [LANDFALL ts holding its own, and no more. This fourth number is as good as the other three, but not quite good enough to rally any considerable number of readers, Revietvs which are only a little better than the best reviews in the daily papers-and sometimes only longer and not better-are clearly not good enough to justify their late appearance. Sometimes, however, they are very good. There is a review by Lawrence Baigent in this issue of Dan Davin’s For the Rest of Our Lives which, though I resisted it all the way, is uncommonly well done. I resisted it because it is so obviously hostile-a pacifist’s refusal to try to understand a soldier-but I can’t help thinking it effective over and above its offensiveness. In another category altogether is Mrs. Morrison Jones’s Breakfast with Liszt, an imaginative reconstruction of a morning in the life of George Eliot immediately after her elopement with Lewes. It is a littlé too close to its sources, and a little too ordinary as a presentation of George Eliot’s inner

problem, but it is sympathetic, intelligent, and competently written. Mr. Dowling’s four poems are pleasing and no mote; Colin McCahon’s paintings unusisl and no more-except perttaps "River and Hills," which Sorsguty arouses a strong desire to see the original. There is a far too long essay by T. H. Scott on "Certain Aspects of Life" in a rural community, and a far too rambling editorial note on the subject of State aid for literature. It is all helping to express ang interpret New Zealand if a sufficient number of people are reading it and talking about it. But so far Landfall has not succeeded in. being, or even appearing, interesting to get itself talked about by anybody who. is not already a subscriber or a contributor; and subscribers can

for two reasons.

O.

D.