BROKEN THEME
ANGRY DUST, by Norbert Coulehan; the National Press Pty. Lid., Melbourne. 10/6. FTER being wounded at Gallipoli, an Australian, Anthony Carlisle, is "like a twisted gaggle of gas piping, weak in every joint and ripe for the first anvil blow of Plumber Chance." Plumber Chance involves him in a scheme for transplanting 30 delinquent children ong London slums to a new
settlement in Western Australia. As | Carlisle’s soul is now a "broken convol- | vulus," he not unnaturally néeds some help with the scheme. This he gets from Walter Joyce, "a tower of strength," and Mary Devoncourt, whose father "hated politicians with a strange subterranean hatred." These three, dodging among the clichés, eventually get the children to ‘Australia. The theme of Mr. Coulehan’s novel could be interesting. The ~ Carlisle Scheme is to bring out only the worst children, and, in a new land, to treat them as the best. But by attempting to avoid the colonial language and style which we associate with Dad and Dave, the author has become bogged down in .the worst refinements of Victorian
family fiction.
C.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 528, 5 August 1949, Page 18
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182BROKEN THEME New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 528, 5 August 1949, Page 18
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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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