[Apart] from its intrinsic merits and continued relevance to enduring human habits, I Saw in My Dream has considerable historical value for those who wish to trace the contours of social behaviour.

Sargeson's 'dream' of a twentieth century, New Zealand pilgrim's progress is no allegory and is less a visionary search for a heavenly goal than a curiously patterned but dramatic portrayal of adolescent deprivation culminating in the pursuit of wholeness and the quest for fulfilment. Christian left the City of Destruction behind him, and at the end of the first part of I Saw in My Dream so does Henry; but neither the destructiveness of the City nor the reason for departure bears much resemblance to The Pilgrim's Progress. They have slightly more relationship to Stephen's leave-taking from Dublin in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Stephen became aware that 'when the soul of...