NEIGHBOURS' HISTORY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 660, 29 February 1952, Page 12

NEIGHBOURS' HISTORY

UP THE COUNTRY, by Brent of Bin Bin; Angus and Robertson. Australian price, 14/6. SINGING CORAL, by Sverre Holmsen, translated from the Swedish by Joan Bulan, decorations by Douglas Woodhal!; James Barrie. English price, 12/6. [N the interval. between its first publication in 1931 and the date-of the present reprint, Up the Country has been described more than once as an Australian classic. The first 10 or 15 pages of the book do not bear this out. Characters pile .up like sheep in a pen before dipping and the sentences are overloaded and amateurish. Then quite suddenly such faults cease to matter to the reader, perhaps cease to exist. The garrulous story has the casual authenticity of district gossip; there is melodrama and sentimentalitv, there are detours and asides-not the truth possibly, but a lively version of it. Up the Country is what was claimed for it on the dust-jacket, an Australian classic. From Australia to the islands. Singing Coral is a novel about early Polynesian voyages in the Pacific, complete with a glossary of 12 pages and a list of characters, 36 in all. The author

of this "epic narrative" is said to have "shared the life of the Polynesian island people and studied their history and culture." The print is clear and attractive, and the "decorations" decorate. Ail this might and could add up to a book, but it doesn’t. Singing Coral is almost unreadable. Who is to blame for the extraordinary prose, the purple patches from’ Polynesia-author or translator? Such a problem in communication this: ancient Polynesia through Swedish eyes and English glasses, devious like a book on Zulus by a Japanese translated into Dutch. One simple Pig-island reviewer was at a loss.

D. N.

W.