DIGNITY WITHOUT DULLNESS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 546, 9 December 1949, Page 17

DIGNITY WITHOUT DULLNESS

GRAND HILLS ‘FOR SHEEP, by Georgina McDonald; Whitcombe & Tombs. Price 11/6. NOVEL which is already out of print induces a certain awkwardness in a reviewer. This Otago Centennial prize novel has other titles to respect besides its evident popularity, It is careful and accurate in its historical detail. The writer manages a full quiver of characters with judgment and skill. Inevitably in a family scene which tends to be crowded some people are little more than names. The covering of a large span of time also makes it difficult to see enough of all the people. The family itself, the Gaelic-speaking McCallums who emigrate to early Otago, is the theme rather than the individuals. Shona, the heroine, is, like most of the people in the book, pleasant and dutiful. Georgina McDonald seems better at portraying the minor incidents of family life (which she does very well) than at handling major emotional crises; her attention is wholesomely absorbed by the work of household and farm in which private emotion tends to be overlaid and discounted. It is not intended as denigration to say that this is the sort of novel Americans describe with pleasure as "folksy." (continued on next: page)

OKS (continued from previous page)

The atmosphere of an Otago Calvinist household,’ strictly sabbatarian, founded almost literally on the Bible, is firmly established. The idiom of the older generation is rendered faithfully, rising at times to almost oracular heights. The appearance of this book shows the place that exists for the regional novel in New Zealand; it shows it is possible to recreate the local historical epoch with dignity and yet without dullness and make of it something which has a distinction independent of the charm of the local echo and familiar incident.

David

Hall