SELF-REVELATION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 918, 15 March 1957, Page 13

SELF-REVELATION

A GALLERY OF MIRRORS, by Richard ve Ward; Victor Gollancz, English price JRESUMABLY in order to prove his critical awareness, a reviewer is inclined to indicate the faults and failings of a work under consideration rather than the merits, With the exception of an occasional involved sentence where a moment of reconsideration or an extra comma might be desirable, A Gallery of Mirrors seems to me a flawless-a superb piece of autobiographical writing. It is good; it is very good; provocative of jealous admiration, extravagant superlatives, and affectionate respect.

Richard Ward has evolved a fascinating and unusual form of self-revela-tion. He makes no attempt to describe himself, his personality, his family, his background, nor to recount his life. Factually he gives meagre details, profoundly and unreservedly he gives himself. He is reflected, variously, through the mirrors of the eighteen characters in his gallery, the people who had formative influences on his early life. The drawing of each of these characters is masterly. There is in the writing something of Katherine Mansfield’s understatement; of Colette’s nostalgic revealing detail; of Claudel’s aloof generous charity. Ward still remains, uniquely, himself. It is not possible to describe the characters or to indicate which of them were the more important in his life. All of them are fascinating. There is a grand, squalid, intellectual old lady; a gardener redolent of fresh-cut lawns and sweat; a stodgy schoolmaster with hidden sensitivity; an errand-boy whose revelations were sexual but sound; two eccentric poseurs who may have been something more; an actress who may have been less than an amateur prostitute; a dream-like encounter with a girl in a wood that introduces him finally to physical completion, though another pastoral interlude has already revealed to him the ecstatic beauty of the human body. He reveals people and himself obliquely, with a poet’s sensitivity and the simplicity of a mystic. A Gallery of Mirrors is a book that will bear rereading without losing its charm, perception and revelation. It is _the most completely satisfying, stimulating and enjoyable book I have read in twelve months at least.

John V.

Trevor