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JOY, 1913, from 3YC, was one out of the bag. R. C. Scriven’s voice with its passionate vibrancy was well suited to recapture youth’s intensity and wonder. There was something remarkable in the prose used, too, although how much this depended upon the interpreting voice I could not say from a single listening. The transition of the voice of the present to the scenes of the past, including the roaring of an animal when one of the boys opens a doof on an
imaginary dén of wild beasts, was very good. Sentimentality dogs the footsteps of anyone writing of his youth, but despite his passion Mr. Scriven avoided that, too. One point, however, did arise. George Orwell, I think it was, commenting on the English Public School system suggested that the Englishman’s school life was so overwhelming that in after life he often suffered from an arrested development, his mind _ enslaved in the circumstances of his youth. The past can be overvalued in rélation to the present and despite his assurances that all is well if the boy lives on in the man, I felt that Mr. Scriven was struggling back a little too earnestly.
Westcliff
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19510824.2.19.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 634, 24 August 1951, Page 10
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199Back to Childhood New Zealand Listener, Volume 25, Issue 634, 24 August 1951, Page 10
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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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