LISPING IN NUMBERS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 787, 20 August 1954, Page 5

LISPING IN NUMBERS

Sir,-May I comment on the surprisingly irate lisping about Numbers in a recent editorial which restricted itself solely to a criticism of that quarterly’s first editorial? It was most disappointing to find that you could not appreciate’ the desire to usher in another "small magazine" with a certain amount of banner-waving and trumpet-blaring. One's degree of exhibitionism at such times is usually in direct proportion to the weight of indifference, It may be "q little late in the day #er this sort of juvenile nonsense,"~but surely it is a little early for writers in this countrywhere the words "literary traditions" are used only when referring to something on the other side of the worldto welcome the first signs of senile decay? It was also disappointing to find you niggling over a minor grammatical slip in the handbill, which can be corrected by the simple insertion of the word "and," an insertion which anyone with average intelligence or goodwill would be prepared to make on the spot. It came as a shock to be told by some one who must know, if anyone does, the long sad story of publishing in New Zealand, that there are people here who can afford to "play at publication"; as though printers and publishers called at the door for orders, offering discount. But you are correct on one point: the luxury is certainly too expensive. Finally, you warn us against imagining that "a few more poems, parables and short stories" can save the arts. Only "hard thinking and good writing" offer any salvation; but this leaves us with the job of inventing some entirely new and unheard-of literary forms of composition in which to present them. The success of such a herculean task would require a good deal more tolerance and less impatient conservatism than Numbers has encountered in the editorial column of The Listener.

J. C.

STURM

(Wellington).