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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 11. September 6, 1951
No £75 Fine for these Bad Books
No £75 Fine for these Bad Books
We don't read enough bad books. Education authorities, I know, shelter the young plant, though a few comics, cowboys, Oracles, Crystals, and Ambers get by. But the really bad is an invaluable experience,—a "touchstone" as Arnold would say—and after a Conscientious Course no student of English should fail in a discrimination test.
Naming names is difficult—Salient is widely read. Fortunately we have a library collection of early New Zealand writers, safely deceased, and monumentally bad. Let me recommend—
- L Aylmor: Distant Homes, or The Graham Family in N.Z. (when dressed at 6 o'clock Lucy went to feed the poultry; Beatrice to milk the cows and make the butter for breakfast).
- C. Evans: A Strange Friendship. (I felt his heavy moustache on my cheek for a moment, then I pushed him away and slowly rose to my feet. I was trembling violently.)
- A. A. Fraser: Raromi. (Don't go with the drunken gang at Barrett's Bar.)
- Vincent Pyke: Wild Will Enderby. (Drama on the Dunstan.)
- B. Marriott-Watson: The Web of the Spider. (The Maori swung through the pepper trees with the tread of the accustomed bushman.)
- Jessie Weston: Ko Meri (The venter of civilisation fallen off and the Maori blood surging wildly through her veins.)
Several contemporary names also come to mind, but—
—XYZ