THE GOOD LIFE
MORE FOR TIMOTHY, by Victor Gollancz; Victor Gollancz, English price 12/6, N the second volume of his autobiographical letter to his grandson, Victor Gollancz continues the lengthy examinacion of his conscience and his past from where he left off in My Dear Timothy. His theme, which he states as "the relation between God and man, good and evil, politics and religion," is one of the most important that can occupy the human mind, and his preoccupation with it shows that he is going through a profound mental crisis. In large degree the interest of the book lies in the parallel between his personal crisis and the crisis of Western civilisation in general, and it is significant that on the second page he says, "I now declare myself a pacifist." He considers that individual conscience is our only real weapon in the battle against the "unnaturalness" of a society which "ends in atom bombs and Nazi gaolers," and he condemns equally Russian society because it failed to ensure that the building of a political and economic socialism was matched by a similar building of a "spiritual social- " ism. A large part of the book deals in detail with an experiment in political education which the author carried out with David Somervell while he. was a master at Repton School from 1916 to 1918. This story of youthful idealism (the experiment ended in failure and the teacher’s dismissal). is still provocative to read. Gollancz’s theories about the good life often give his thought a flavour reminiscent’of the ageing Tolstoy. "We must purify our hearts," he says, and he looks forward to the day when we (continued on next page)
BOOKS (continued from previous page) can say, "To whatever evil, we will oppose only good." His book is a spiritual document of unusual value.
P.J.
W.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 766, 26 March 1954, Page 13
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306THE GOOD LIFE New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 766, 26 March 1954, 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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