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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 2 (June 2, 1930)

Among the Books. — “New Zealand Short Stories”

page 30

Among the Books.
“New Zealand Short Stories”

This, the first collection of New Zealand short stories, is quite a noteworthy production that testifies alike to the enterprise of the publishers (J. M. Dent and Sons, Ltd., London), and to the catholic taste and genuine industry of the editor, Mr. O. N. Gillespie.

In a provocative preface the editor ventures to explain his assertion that, by contrast, the stories lack “any National outlook or distinctive atmosphere,” by a statement (already combated in the New Zealand Railways Magazine by “Tangiwai”) that our country lacks much romantic material usually found in a new land, and, as an alternative, that our story-telling activities are hindered by the prevalence of higher education in our Dominion. It is difficult to decide whether the assertion or the explanation is the more far-fetched. The three Maori legends so happily Englished by Sir George Grey, Johannes Andersen, and A. A. Grace respectively, surely illustrate a heritage unique as descending from a people absolutely immune from the deadening effects of higher education, and redolent with the romance of which the editor has so tritely disposed. Coming to tales of a later date, the stories by Arthur H. Adams, C. A. Jeffries (“Driver Bruce's Walpurgis Night”), and “Maori Mac,” could surely have been set in no other country, and, further, indicate an outlook or frame of mind that is as distinctly New Zealand as the tui, the totara, or the totalisator. More subtle, more polished, but no less distinctive of New Zealand, is the elusive and yet pervading atmosphere in the stories by Noel Abbott, Eleanor Kent, and Iris Wilkinson, these being stories, beautifully told, that are constructively only variants of the “vicarship” theme which Cabell declares, citing Cinderella and Folk-Lore stories in support, is the basis of all romantic literature, but that, through their technique, achieve a “local habitation and a name” that is as indubitably New Zealand as the pohutukawa. If Mr. Gillespie wants further refutation let him consider Pat Lawlor's story of “The Nag Nincompoop” and hide his diminished head in shame.

The type of story that is conspicuous by its absence from this collection is the story of action and adventure. No cavalier ruffles, no cowboy rustles, no strong right arm is up lifted, either to strike or to caress, in these (must I say it?) somewhat listless pages. Even Hinemoa does virtually all her swimming “off the stage,” and the only “close-ups” show her resting on a snag or trembling with modesty at the thoughts of meeting Tutanekai. Certainly Dulcie Deamer unfolds a strong man who sets out to cow his half-tamed woman in a sure-enough cave, where they devour their half-cooked meat, and kill, with clubs and spears, alike the lordly lion and the lioness “that was infinitely more dangerous than the lion.” The woman was duly impressed, and came to heel, but this critic detected a somewhat exotic, nay an actually foreign atmosphere in only this one tale in the book. Not only are none of the various characters that we read of in the stories “robustious,” few of them are even robust. This, I am convinced, is the lack of “national atmosphere” which the editor gropingly deplores; and this, too, is the groundwork for the Bulletin's vague and formless criticism which is summed up in the half-admiring adjective “glossy.” I will come back to “glossy,” but hasten to express my own surprise that a collection of New Zealand short stories contains only one or two wherein “the native hue of resolution” is not “sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.” In this land of mountains and torrents, of wild winds and tumultuous waves, of Rugby football and fiercer Soccer, of Bob Fitzsimmons, Randolph Rose, and Dick Seddon, surely the reverse might have been expected.

Still more unexpected is the admirable “technique” of nearly all the stories in this collection. It may be objected by a captious critic that many of the authors have very little story to tell, but no one can dispute the beauty, finish and artistry of the telling. A striking page 31 proof may be cited by considering the story of Katherine Mansfield. Here is an authoress of accepted genius represented by a story which does display at its highest pitch her special talent of creating the “atmosphere” by those subtle yet crystal-clear phrases that are at once the essence of simplicity and the final most intricate and laboured forgings from the white heat of the writer's brain. To put it less turgidly, I know that you will accept with me that this story is one which shows the high technical skill of the professed word-painter. And yet I am asking you to believe, as I believe, that in her own special quality of technique, the story of Katherine Mansfield is probably surpassed by one or two others in this collection, and certainly that some half-a dozen are not overshadowed. If you are, as I hope you are, interested enough to doubt me, read and consider (in their alphabetical order to avoid comparison that is odious) the stories written by Noel Abbott, B. E. Baughan, Eleanor Kent, Katherine Mansfield. Helen Glen Turner, and Iris Wilkinson. It will then be seen why even the usually definite and outspoken “Bulletin” could find no harder word than “glossy” to apply to the collection, and why the majority of the English critics have extolled the admirable “finish” of many of the stories.

There are thirty-two stories in the book, all readable, four or five undoubtedly poorer than the others. The stories contain farce, humour, wit, tenderness, and pathos, and we are indebted to Mr. Gillespie for his siftings. The pre-eminent virtues of the best stories in this book are (following Cabell again) distinction, clarity, beauty, symmetry, and truth; but that quality which is salt to all the others is. I fear, missing—that quality is “gusto.”

That explains why I have reviewed this collection with such gusto. The plain truth is that this collection of New Zealand short stories is a very striking anthology, and that its literary merit goes far towards making it an outstanding book, even in an age which suffers from an “embarras des riches” in this direction. One may cavil at the editor's choice here or there; one may be disappointed that New Zealanders are not writing a more robust type of story; but no one can deny that this book proves that New Zealanders are writing a certain type of story superlatively well.

Through the Southern Alps, South Island, New Zealand. (Photo, W. W. Stewart.) A goods train near the Otira tunnel, on the electrified section of the Midland Line.

Through the Southern Alps, South Island, New Zealand.
(Photo, W. W. Stewart.)
A goods train near the Otira tunnel, on the electrified section of the Midland Line.

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