THE WRITER AS OUTCAST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 669, 2 May 1952, Page 5

THE WRITER AS OUTCAST

Sir,-You recently printed Professor Ian Gordon’s advice to writers in New Zealand, who are told not to adopt seclusionist or resentful attitudes towards people with whom they live. There is some. suggestion, too, that English writers set a good example in (a) being Business Men as well as writers, and (b) looking at the Simple Life of the Common Man with unclouded eyes. Will you permit me to offer to your contributor a low bow, together with the remark that English professors of English are also worthy of emulation. They make a name for themselves by encouraging people to read good books. Of the labours into which Professor Gordon throws himself with such welcome energy, this is still by far the most

urgent. The promise. of New Zealand writers is better than their opportunity, The poets are right and the chiders wrong. The community that cannot tolerate, provide the solace for, and eventually applaud the bitter effort of its young men will get no Shelleys and no Disraelis and--before long--no young men, This is no time to press for separate inspiration in literature, or anything else. We’re in a world-age, and the poets are not alone in wanting to explore many moods and far-away places before they come home, It’s very probable that those who expect to have masterpieces placed upon their desks-like those who, a few years ago, had the habit of waiting audibly for The Great New Zealand Novel to appear-must .always be disappointed. What they eagerly look for, of course, is the masterpiece that they themselves have never written, When someone else writes it, it’s never quite the same.

ERLE

ROSE

(Wellington).