History or Not
[VE heard only two of Sarah Campion’s Good Reading talks in Feminine Viewpoint’s The Admirable Criterion series, but I have enjoyed their calculatedly provocative character. Miss Campion’s brisk, commonsensical manner, her neat turn of phrase, and her high standards all appeal to me. Her talks have clearly been directed not so much at the selective reader, as at the reader-for-leisure, the libraryborrower, the "something decent for the weekend" type; and in such a context (YA rather than YC) this seems appropriate. In her last talk, she dealt trenchantly with period fiction, the hip-thigh-bosom school of fake-historical novels, written with one eye on Hollywood and the other on readers waiting to be titillated with sex and sadism in fancy dress, This was admirable, but, by contrasting this school with only Victorian novelists, she left, I felt, the unfortunate impression that there are no good historical novels being written today, and that readers should go back to Thackeray and George Eliot for the dinkum stuff. In the face of Alfred Duggan, Hope Munz, H. F. M. Prescott, the early Robert Graves, Marguerite Yourcenar (whose Hadrian I'd back against Romola any day) and Zoe Olden- bourg, to name a few, this was unfortunate. But, at least, this talk must
have pricked many consciences.
J.C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570906.2.12.4
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 943, 6 September 1957, Page 8
Word count
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215History or Not New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 943, 6 September 1957, Page 8
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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.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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