SHEEP AND FAITH
; BREAKFAST AT SIX, by Mary Scott; Hurst and Blackett, English price 9/6. WIND MAY BLOW, by Jean O. Hill; New Plymouth, 12/6. ) "THE familiar level of farcical comedy provides Mary Scott with uneasy | ground for this soméwhat coltish novel | about country life in Néw Zealand. The | story is told by Susan Russéll, the bride of'a shéepfarmeér on a Government Rehabilitation block in the King Country. | Susan is a town girl from a fashionable | suburb, but she isn’t surprised to find | that her husband’s old homestead hag ‘an outdoor pNvy and no electricity. In | near by housés are his war-time friends | Sam and Tiny; Sam's wife Larry be- | comes Susan’s companion in a number | of escapades; and Tiny, unmarried when the story opens, is eventually matched | with Année Gerard, the daughter of the | local squatter, Colonél "Cholly" Gerard. | But having paired off Anne and Tiny | half-way through the book the author | has to resort to a wholé séries of amusing calamities to keep them apart unti! the last chapter. Susan and hér friends also put on a one-act play to raise funds for the Red Cross, and towards thé énd Susan writes a few articles for the local newspaper and gets invited to do a seriés of radio talks on backblocks life. The novel provides a shallow but transparéntly honest picture of country lifé as séen from the distaff sidé, and it is worth reading despite the forced gaiéty of somé of the humorous passages. Sarah Fortifer, the heroine of Wind May Blow, is the héiréss of an estate near London who must lose her inheritQuits 2~0~0~ dudd-atnden
ance if she marries. By the end df the story shé has givén it up and come to New Zealand as the wife of a sheepfarmer whom she met during the war while he was serving with the R.A.F. Mrs. Hill is well skilled in the craft of fiction, and her story involves Sarah’s two sisters, Edwina and the pianist Antonia, and a talkative set of tennis-play-ing, party-going people. But. the book's main theme ig one of Faith. Sarah has the gift of healing, having beén vouchsafed, when suffering from scarlet fever as a child, a momentary viéw of heaven: "That's the real world, not this world at all. Here, in this life, we’re only standing in a dark lobby waiting for
the world of release."
P.J.
W.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540205.2.22.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 759, 5 February 1954, Page 14
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398SHEEP AND FAITH New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 759, 5 February 1954, Page 14
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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.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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