A WASTE OF TALENT
A BROKEN ENGAGEMENT, by Betty Askwith; Victor Gollancz. English price, 8/6, ESLEY ARKWRIGHT, a young, attractive and efficient Director in the Ministry of Propaganda has three mén in her life: an Oxford professor, married to an extraordinary Russian; a_ fellow worker who is anxious to seduce her; and Colin, an ex-Major and her junior at work, with whom she enters into the engagement which becomes=-simply be-comes-broken. The book describes Lesley’s reactions. Minor characters are clearly drawn. Among them are Colin’s
mother, cleverly possessive, his stepbrothers (one addicted to homosexuality and the other to normal living), and her friend Ann, illegitimate daughter of a Lord. It seems a pity that an author who can sustain interest with this collection should not have devoted her considerable powers of characterisation and a gift for neat description and attractive quotations to a sturdier theme. The book cannot be recommended to those who object to abnormalities being treated as normalities, nor to those who prefer the orthodox in grammar and punctu-
ation,
C.M.
B.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19510525.2.23.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 24, Issue 621, 25 May 1951, Page 13
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173A WASTE OF TALENT New Zealand Listener, Volume 24, Issue 621, 25 May 1951, Page 13
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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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