SOURCE: "A Sense of Place," in New York Herald Tribune, August 25, 1963, p. 10.

In the following review, Elman assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Frame's writing in The Reservoir and Snowman, Snowman.

These short prose works by the New Zealand writer Janet Frame are curious mixtures of memoirs, parable, and nearly uninhibited fantasy.

In the pieces she has labelled stories [The Reservoir], Janet Frame uses a variety of characters to bring to our attention the private aches, fantasies and self-doubts of a particular young girl coming to maturity in rural Southern New Zealand.

In a separate volume [Snowman, Snowman], specifically marked "fables and fantasies," she departs from a strict narration of emotional autobiography to make what are presumably more—philosophical statements (but in a fictitious, impressionistic style) about our common mortality and our common and uncommon deformities.

Many of these pieces have appeared in national magazines in this country...