FICTION LUCKY DIP
THE NEW TOWN, by Mervyn Jones; Jonathan Cape. English price, 15/-. JEFFERSON SELLECK, by Carl Jonas; Jonathan Cape. English price, 15/-. BURY ME IN LEAD, by I. Goodwin; Win-. aa 9 English price, 10/6. "HE modern novel is indeed a lucky dip, with one or two good prizes and many others not so good. Mervyn Jones has. constructed, with both feeling and ability, a documentary novel illustrating a phase (a moment of pause, to be more accurate) in the postwar English revolution. Harry Peterson, the hero, is an earnest goodie, selflessly devoted to the ideal New Town, to whom all sorts of misfortunes happen. The frustrations, like Harry’s virtue, are piled on a bit thick. Doctrinaire considerations do not altogether inhibit the author (like H. G. Wells) from writing good fiction. The life and times of Jefferson Selleck are meant to be a satire on the typical mid-western businessman. We get the hatred ’ of the New Deal, but many of the thrusts are so subtle they will escape us. Of course, one of the functions of caricature is that the caricaturist also delineates himself. Bury Me in Lead gruesomely exploits the theme of Edinburgh medical stud- ents’ body-snatching near the beginning (continued on next page)
BOOKS (Cont'd) of last century. It has little merit beyond its efficiency in making the flesh creep.
David
Hall
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530619.2.23.6
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 727, 19 June 1953, Page 13
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227FICTION LUCKY DIP New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 727, 19 June 1953, 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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