The New Zealand Novel 1860-1965
Light Relief
Light Relief. The years 1950-60 were notable in New Zealand fiction for two trends, one the increase in the volume and quality of popular novels, the other the appearance of novels which won overseas recognition at high levels, and which are worth serious critical investigation. No longer does one need to feel apologetic when visitors say, "Now what about your novels?"
The rest of this chapter will deal with the popular exploiting novels up to 1960. (See chapter eight for trends from 1960 to 1965.)
A rough grouping may be attempted. First, and by far the most numerous, there are the novels of love and of domestic life, written exclusively by women, and read probably only by women. This is the tradition begun nearly 100 years ago by our first women writers, Isabella Aylmer, Charlotte Evans, and continued in the nineties by such women as Jessie Weston, Louisa Baker, Edith Grossmann, and Anne Glenny Wilson. In the 1930s and 1940s Rosemary Rees, Mary Scott, Nelle Scanlan continued the type. Today, twenty or more women could be named who are steady suppliers of light romances.
Second, and to some extent overlapping the first, is the group of "historical-settler" novels, which range all the way on a scale from those of quite serious intention to those which are frankly potboilers like John Guthrie's The Seekers.
Third comes a set of stories in the class of thrillers and detective puzzles; the women in this group go in for the puzzles, the men for the horror and the violence.