Where Will You Wander?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 932, 21 June 1957, Page 21

Where Will You Wander?

HERE may be some good reason why Book Shop these days has to be opened and closed by "Goosey goosey gander," played on the high notes of the piano in musical-box style, but for the life of me, I can’t see what it is. It gives a vexingly twee air to the session, and should be removed. In a recent session, G. C. A. Wall announced with an indignation which I can only describe as pious, that two of the books to be reviewed were "detestable." This was surprising enough and I pricked up my ears. True enough, both books sounded worthless; one was I Killed to Live, by Eddie Chaplin, an odyssey of brute strength and muscle, and the other The Easter Lily, by Sean O’Callaghan, the memoirs of an officer in the I.R.A. Their reviewers, Gordon Parry and John Moffett, very properly gave them short shrift. But by what strange route had they arrived on Book Shop? Then Margaret Garland spoke, and the rough places were made plain. Her theme was the new brutalism, Mrs Garland made it clear that in her view this preoccupation with brutality for its own sake was degrading and stultifying. Agreed, agreed, but does a theme of such simplicity need such elaborate demonstration? And on Book Shop? I shouldn’t have thought so. Finally, I must be severe. The session ended with this-Q: How do you say farewell to a bishop? A: See you later, button-gaiter. Bishop: In the aisle, crocodile. After which Goosey Gander came as a relief. |

B. E. G.

M.