LOOKING BACKWARDS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 481, 10 September 1948, Page 20

LOOKING BACKWARDS

THERE’S GOLD IN THEM HILLS. By D. Mundy. Simpson and Williams, Christchurch. oe ORE years ago than I now like to remember we 10-year-olds used to tell each other with appropriate awe as we passed Mundy’s shop: "All the Mundys can fight, but Don’s.a champion." Now Don has written an alitobiography. In some ways it is almost incredibly naive, there is no implied literary promise other than a plain unvarnished tale to deliver. Unvarnished certainly, but not wholly unembroidered. The story moves backwards and forwards across the Tasman; once, briefly, to England, but mostly it is a tale of the western portion of the South Island, It concerns coal apd quartz mining, but Don was only a labourer in all of his jobs. In the background there is always boxing and the lure of gold. I think we are all a little wary, of the novel or biography which portrays the hero as being driven to consistency in all he does by one great passion. There is nothing of this in Mundy. He loved to fight. He hed the true "hatter’s" belief in an ultimate lucky strike. But, all his life through, his occupation was what he found to do, his home where he chanced to be. He was as self-sufficient as an egg. Because of this I am glad to hear of the little house he built on his last claim. The book is diffuse, in some places bombastic, in others banal; the grammar partakes of the catch-as-catch-can wrestling which Don loved, yet there is a certain arresting quality about it. Oddly interesting people make brief appearances. Don’s family, his ring opponents, workmates, bosses,. and those (their name is legion)’ who. conspired against him at various times, The narrative is high-keyed. Mundy was himself reputed to be something more than flamboyant in his youth and it can hardly be said that he coyly eludes the spotlight in what is, after all, his own book. One surprising thing among all these brightly illuminated characters is the notable absence of women. An occasional kindly boarding-house keeper or barmaid represents femininity, but certainly not romance. Don, nearing seventy, has not yet married. Years of listening to tales of the West Coast a couple of generations ago convince me that here is the authentic

flavour.

J.D.

McD.