Love in a Post-Cultural Ditch: Janet Frame

Over the years the work of Janet Frame has been subjected to appraisal and appropriation by critics of the most diversified political persuasions. Frank Sargeson's early reception of The Lagoon testifies to his readiness to incorporate the younger writer into the mainstream literary tradition in New Zealand and to attribute to her the prevailing monocultural, univer­salist sensibility. He heralds the book as an unprecedented mapping of Pakeha culture: 'There is very little of what is common experience for every New Zealander that hasn't found its way into the twenty-four stories: it is all there - soil, sea and sky ... all seen and felt as though with dazzled wonder and delight for the first time in human history.'