NEW ZEALAND AT SPEED
ROAMING ROUND NEW ZEALAND, by Frank Clune; Angus and Robertson, Australian price 25/-. HE prolific Australian writer in this book describes his three months’ sojourn in New Zealand at the beginning of 1956. Clune saw a great deal, by car, and poked into many odd corners of both islands, besides visiting all the well-known resorts. He writes with zest, in a lively hard-hitting style which hardly suffers from some of the blows failing to connect with reality. He recounts local legends and history wherever he goes, but a book which was conscientiously conceived is marred by mistakes in detail-the other side of the brisk self-confidence which is its chief charm. We can bear up when Frank Clune writes of Katherine Mansfield as a parasitical remittance-woman and her work as "empty, tedious and scarcely Worth reading," for he is entitled to his opinion. But we do totter a little when he tells us that Sir Harold Beauchamp, by giving money to help establish the war memorial art gallery in Wellington, "did more for the cultural life of New Zealand than his runaway daughter." How far he can stray from fact we see when we learn from him that Samuel Butler’s "grandfather, the bishop, was the author of a well-know satirical poem, Hudibras," or that Oamaru was the first port in New Zealand or Australia from which frozen mutton was shipped to Britain, "in the steamer Dunedin in 1884." But it is more often the interpretation which goes awry. Clune gives us a fairly good idea of what it feels like to belong to that
oppressed minority, the overseas tourist; the picture is reasonably reassuring. He met only one snooty receptionist (in Christchurch) and one really poor hotel. The constant comparison with Australia will interest New Zealanders, and I have no doubt that this book will bring Australians to New Zealand. The maps and photographs are useful. The errors are due to haste and could be corrected in a new edition-which might be recom-
mended to visitors.
David
Hall
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, Page 13
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341NEW ZEALAND AT SPEED New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 920, 29 March 1957, 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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