Consider Mount Egmont
MOUNTAIN OF MAORILAND by A. B. Scanlan; Thomas Avery & Sons Ltd., New Plymouth. Price, 25/-. HOUGH an indifferent title gives the key to an occasional weakness in the text, this book must primarily be judged on the excellence of the 49 plates that show Mount Egmont in all seasons. Mr. Scanlan has considerable ability as a photographer, and to judge by the exciting photographs of the summit in winter he is also a very competent mountaineer. He has the imagination to use his camera to record a
| diversity of moun- . tain impressions, and | with them to do full | justice to the attrac‘tions of ~ height, depth and distance. | Whether his moun- | tain rises from pasture lands in winter, or is crowded on its : summit with summer trippers. it holds
attention. Accessories to its beauty, such as Bell's Falls, the effects of shadows on ice, gradations in tone on the snowy crater floor, or a truly magnificent long shot of New Plymouth from high levels, are all photographed with a sense of the dramatic worthy of alpine photography at its best. The pages of introduction are adequate without being distinguished. Some interesting history is omitted, such as ‘the feat of three men who in 1907 walked from New Plymouth to 8,000 | feet on Egmont and back in under 20 hours. The captions are the weakest ! links; those such as "Nature’s Barrier,’ "Castles of Ice," "With Winter Coat" ‘have a banality that is belied by the fresh vigour of the illustrations. Though "unthinking exuberance may condone phrases like "the placid utilitarian touch" or "a screaming maelstrom," these ugly or purple passages should have been left to conventional tourist literature. Mr. Scanlan will have no need to glance back if he applies to his writing a mental self-discipline as essential to success in literature as to the fusion of courage and endurance in mountaineering under. conditions when the rocks are glazed with ice and the wind rises to the force of a gale. The process engravers and printers have given their best to the plates, and the publishers are to be commended for producing a book of dignity unoffended by ornament. Even more strength could have been achieved by placing all the blocks so that the book need not be turned sideways to examine the illustrations. It is a pity that no map is in- : : : | | : .
cluded.
John
Pascoe
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19491118.2.28.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 543, 18 November 1949, Page 16
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397Consider Mount Egmont New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 543, 18 November 1949, Page 16
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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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