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

Sir,- Professor Gordon’s remarks seem inconsistent. He suggests, rightly, that the writer as a creative artist must be true to his own individual vision; that is, that he must look out on life through an independent eye. But has he considered what this entails? An artist’s "eye" is himself; and independence of spirit is not to be had for so much a pound in the market. The reai artist, the creative artist, the artist who moves the ‘world, must first find a place to stand'on; and gradually, by trial and error, he may learn that he can stand on nothing more secure than his own two feet, on himself and his awareness of himself as a person in his own right. This in turn entails that he must be able to make his own decisions and balances and to stand independently from all the mass of accepted conventions and attachments, the easy assumptions and comforting illusions on which the rest of us are happy to rely for our sense of security and continuity and belonging. Once he has found himself he may or may not succeed in moving the world to some purpose. But the achieve- ment of an individual vision in the first place is by no means such a straight line development as Professor Gordon seems to think (e.g., "You don’t understand people by running away from them"), In his blind struggle to find himself as a person the artist of the future can expect no help or sympathy from the rest of us--perhaps in order that we may with. less embarrassment throw brickbats at him later. We consider it perfectly in order that the future leaders of a culture which we think we cherish should be left to find their own way to selfhood-in so far as they find it at all-by groping through unknown country in darkness and alone. The making of an artist today is a haphazard process. It can be deeply painful; and it may leave permanent scars, If, in this case, the writer tends either to write about scar tissue or else to reach back to the pre-scar days of childhood, the, fault-if it is a faultis our own, Professor Gordon cannot have it both ways. If the writer is to be left to find himself as best he may; and if he is to be true to the' picture of life ag he actually sees it through the windows of that self; then it follows that he can pay but scant heed-and that purely as a matter of passing interest-to Pro-

fessor Gordon’s suggestions as to what that picture "ought" to be.

DICK

SOUTHON

(Auckland).

(Abridged,--Ed, )