The Critic as Schoolmaster

This is the fourth issue of NUMBERS; and the time may be ripe to reconsider its function and its possible future. In the capacity of editor I have become convinced that the gamble of that group (of which I was one) who firstpage 260 considered launching NUMBERS, with little finance and no certainty of contributions except from the junk-pile of accepted writers, has been justified to the hilt. Money is always hard to find. Yet comparing NUMBERS with the great echoing morgue of pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-liberal, pseudo- humanist verbosity, ENCOUNTER, stamped with the dollar sign on every other page, a nuisance committed in the name of art, one sees that only the willing whore can be sure of financial assistance – she gives away more than she gets, her potential creativity. We believed that editors and critics were becoming too exclusive in New Zealand, that even our best writing tended to sameness, and that fresh work remained unpublished or even unwritten because of a cramp in the weight-lifting muscles, an over-attention to past achievement on the part of established writers, and fear of the critic’s yard-rule on the part of the unestablished. It was a hunch, a gamble, no certainty, that we would find a vigorous, growing literature, varied and atypical, where Mr Holcroft stated, Mr Brasch implied and Mr Curnow austerely lamented that none could exist. I suggest that the material in this fourth issue, in particular the poems by Louis Johnson, the short story by Maurice Shadbolt, and the poems by Leon Phillips, fully justifies the continuance of NUMBERS. We have greater need of the vigorous and imaginative work of the new man or woman than the illusory pursuit of ‘greatness’ which feeds on its own bowels.

Once I believed what my schoolmasters taught me – that critical standards determine all. I did not ask the relevant question – ‘Whose standards?’ Year by year I become more distrustful of my own ability, and that of others, to deliver final literary judgment on any work. Entirely contradictory yet plausible judgments on books of prose and verse are made every week in our periodicals and newspapers. My own experience as a reviewer has led me to the conclusion that the best one can expect from any critic is informed opinion, though what one often gets is uninformed prejudice. The value of criticism lies mainly in the interaction of two minds, that of the writer and that of the reviewer. If one cannot judge with certainty the value of a given work, how much less can one judge the possible development of a writer not yet mature? To be entirely frank – I believe (heretically) that the fructifying influence of criticism, by editor or reviewer, is negligible upon writers established or unestablished. Nor does Mr Curnow’s suggestion that we should all ‘raise our sights higher’ impress me at all. Mr Curnow falls too readily into the pose of the lonely survivor celebrated in Anglo-Saxon poetry, who sits on a rocky beach and sees the shapes of vanished greatness in the sea mist – ‘Alas! the byrnied warriors; Alas! the gold-giver; Alas! The mead-benches . . .’. The vital problems of our literature lie elsewhere.

A meteorologist, pre-occupied with statistical data of wind-direction and rainfall, may eventually delude himself to the point where he considers that he controls the weather. His public also have a natural inclination to magical belief, and listen anxiously to the weather forecast, as to the voice of a tribalpage 261 wizard. Similarly an editor or critic, intoxicated with the very real power of his position, may consider himself the literary mentor of a nation. Certainly Mr Curnow has shown signs of this delusive state; with Mr Brasch the disease is less acute, but he has been led to a false position by the solitary eminence of Landfall as light-bearer in the dark antipodes. I have no violent quarrel with the opinions expressed by either person, nor with those of Mr Holcroft. They have each on occasion talked horse sense. But I consider the potential freedom and fertility of New Zealand writers a far more important matter than the final accuracy of their opinion or my own. The processes of literary composition are largely uncontrollable and inaccessible to critical intelligence. One can meddle with a writer but one cannot make him or her. The chief factor which inhibits the growth of the younger writer and prevents the rejuvenation of the exhausted veteran is lack of trust in their own powers, lack of fidelity to their own unique situation, and above all, anxious dependence upon the opinion of critic and editor. The spring must run muddy before it can run clear. We may provide a channel. We do not govern the spring.

1955 (122)