The Search for Gold
NCE, standing beyond Perth, I felt the presence of the vast continent lying before me. In that sage and dusty landscape I thought of rivers that run into lakes or are swallowed by sand, and of explorers dying to chart this waste. But that any should have come as close in time as Lassiter, who in the 1930s discovered his own fabulous reef and died with his secret, came as a surprise. It was an interesting yarn, though in some ways a dreary one, which the BBC gave us over 3YC, replete with the Australian twang, the revving of trucks and planes, and the steady, relentless wind which emphasised the hostility of Gibson’s Desert. Gold, necessary as it may seem, never ceases, for me, to be the most arbitrary form of wealth. Consequently the fanaticism and cynicism it can generate are dull. Gold in fertile ranges, gold whose search causes us to inhale a landscape making a legend of Arawata Bill I can understand. But no one, not even Lassiter, loved the land they wished to plunder. And as for him, it clipped his wings, tore off his halo, and left him alone to die; a man it would be hard to love and whose courage wins
but a grudging respect.
Westcliff
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19540611.2.18.7
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 11
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216The Search for Gold New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 777, 11 June 1954, Page 11
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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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