The Forerunners
ECAUSE New Zealand literature is not widely read one tends to think that there is even less of it than there isg an illusion dispelled by "The Novel in New Zealand," heard from 3YC. So far the first talks given by Joan Stevens have proved most informative and thought-provoking, partly because they dealt with early work and gave reasons for its comparative failure. Verne and Henty both passed this way in their work, leaving even less of a wake than their New Zealand contemporaries. This indicates that they, at least, did not fail because they had wanted to inform distant readers about New Zealand; or to show them how to succeed as Christian Pioneers. The question is whether the superficial motive which leads a man to write is really very important if he has the imaginative impulse and understanding. The record of» the literal amount of. gold taken from a mine in Bains’s story might as easily have found a place in: Balzac, Defoe or Hugo as in a New Zealand writer. The real problem is the irtractability of new material; the literary past, too, is filled with the blackened stumps of burning and felling which precede the more pastoral era. fore
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 734, 7 August 1953, Page 10
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204The Forerunners New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 734, 7 August 1953, 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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