Posts by Jolisa
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Connections and leads that would have been completely invisible before the internet are now, as you say, just magically there. For a book historian, it’s like manna from heaven.
It is magical, isn't it? And yet methinks A.S. Byatt's Possession would be a different (and perhaps poorer) book if it were written today. There is something ineffable about obscurity.
(I say that having googled for the picture of Islander's library mentioned above, only to discover I will have to go and get my hands on a hard copy of the book, which is, I think, a good thing).
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Caleb D'Anvers,
Caleb, that's a great resource, thank you! The opening chapter of the Web of the Spider is promising indeed:
"...As for the women, they are wonderful. How can a man know their ways?" said the Maori philosophically.
And I love that you've preserved even the clippings that people tucked into books. I have always done that, and often wonder whether subsequent readers will keep them or toss them.
One of the exciting things about e-books, for me, is the chance to rediscover all sorts of treasures as these rare old gems, once digitised, become magically available.* (Also, most of them are out of copyright and thus more or less free, which is hard to argue with!).
I’ve got a piece on gothic themes in these novels coming out soon in Journal of New Zealand Literature which I’d be pleased to send to anyone who’s interested …
I'm interested :-)
* well, magically, inasmuch as someone spent hours and hours making it possible. I hope you are compensated for your work!
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Jacqui Dunn,
a picture of Fleur Beale and sister Marilyn Duckworth.
Fleur Adcock, probably? In any case I must look that book up. I have a vague memory of reading it, but not for ages.
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to webweaver,
perhaps The Borrowers or Swallows and Amazons or The Secret Garden. Sadly, again (apologies Jolisa) not Kiwi
Oh, never apologise for books like those! They're are part of the imaginative landscape, no matter where you grew up.
I missed S & A as a child but got to enjoy discovering them with my oldest son. I have a fond memory of him reading aloud the bit in Secret Water in which Bridget begs to be allowed to be a human sacrifice; we were in a fast-food joint in Salt Lake City at the time, drawing looks of horror from nice clean folk at neighbouring tables...
You know what else: if we all hold hands and say "Arthur Ransome" three times, backwards, I believe David Haywood will manifest in this thread.
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to Craig Young,
Perhaps we need ‘mashed up’ NZ classics with added zombies, werewolves, vampires or other such beings
Craig, you may have just inadvertently kicked off Public Address Books’ new fiction line-up… I am already making notes for Zombie Alone.
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Moving overseas, funny Jackie should mention The Pregnant Widow. I was fully prepared – indeed, planning! – to hate it. And then enjoyed it immensely, as the tale of a short, ugly, old man mourning his short, beautiful youth. Yes, yes, it was sexist and improbable and too long and just silly, and basically another splenetic, rude, misanthropic bulletin from AmisWorld. But it made me laugh ( with it, as well as at it) and I think it’s important to read books about other cultures :-)
Glad to know I’m not the only one who couldn’t make it into or through Byatt’s The Children’s Book. Its gorgeous cover rebukes me from the bookshelf, but alas, I can’t get into it. Purchased at the same time: Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger. I love and have read and re-read everything else she’s written but this one presented a brick wall. Funny that.
Robyn’s point about non-fiction is a good one, too – it’s so easy to privilege fiction Above All, when really it’s just one genre, and there is TONS of great non-fiction writing out there (see Christopher D’s reading list, above!). And “literary” fiction is one genre among many, as well. If it’s good stories you’re looking for, you’re just as liable to find them elsewhere, as on the Booker list.
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On specific books mentioned: I loved, loved, loved The 10pm Question (reviewed it in Landfall, alas not online). Its shifting geography baffles any attempt to pin down its location. But maybe that will help it travel: I passed on a copy to our pediatrician, on her retirement, and she's passed it on to her child psychologist daughter.
Just read Fleur Beale's Juno of Taris - very cool indeed - and am now halfway through the sequel. (Ooh, which, not to be spoilery but: I literally *jumped* at the mention of Christchurch. OMG! It's just a tiny moment in passing but if you're read it you will know what I mean).
Hicksville is weird and wonderful, and the moving island haunts me still.
Patricia Grace is a genius hiding in plain sight, full stop. And I loved Tina Makereti's book of short stories , Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa, some of which were breathtaking. I'm really looking forward to her novel.
Emma mentioned The Warrior Queen by Barbara Else - I loved that, and Gingerbread Husbands. I wish for more warm, funny social tragicomedies of manners! And I miss the novels that, for example, Sue McCauley used to write, about ordinary people doing mostly ordinary things and thinking about them in unordinary ways. Come to think of it, Paula Morris's Queen of Beauty is a good, strong contemporary novel about cities and travel and art and love and people doing things - going to work, even.
Who's writing a novel about the housing market? I'd kill to read a local equivalent to Jane Smiley's Good Faith.
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Busytown: A new (old) sensation, in reply to George Darroch,
[I've] long stopped reading the Listener, so its books pages are gone to me. Does Metro have review pages that illuminate, dissect and inspire?
It does (she said modestly). And so does the Listener, if you can bear to pick it up again -- it's won "Best Books Pages" several years running, and its reviewers often capture the reviewing prizes as well.
Booknotes is reliably great, Landfall has just started a new online review database, and I believe NZ Books is still in print.
The Good Word on TVNZ7 is fantastic (although alas still geo-blocked online for anyone outside NZ). Check out this year's Good Word Debate, on the subject of whether New Zealand literature deserves special treatment.
And most of our major newspapers still devote space to book reviews, unlike the shrinking book pages elsewhere.
It's heartening to me that book culture in NZ is such a rich and passionate thing, despite or because of our small & far-flung population. This place was covered in stories almost as soon as the first waka arrived, and from the early days of the colony, we devoured any reading matter we could get our hands on, whether homebaked or imported. I reckon e-books and sources like the Book Depository will continue to feed that urge, even as we drift away from the traditional novel form, perhaps...
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ChrisW, love that story! (There is vitamin B in beer, right?) It made me think of this, too.
Kia kaha with the treatment, and I hope you are feeling better every day.
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Up Front: Where You From?, in reply to Danielle,
I am now utterly terrified to visit Canada, the land which apparently makes New Zealand seem 'not very outdoorsy'.
In support of both this and Dyan's contention, I am reminded of a winter visit to Ontario during which I thought I might die of being frozen to death on the walk between the car and the B&B (a distance of about ten feet). For a very long week it was my job to find ways to entertain a three year old without either of us losing any digits to frostbite.
Flipping through a Canadian parenting magazine, I found a letter from a mum who was worried about her children's health: try as she might, she couldn't get them to play outside in sub-zero weather for more than an hour at a time.
I wish I had transcribed the reply, for moments such as this. But the gist of it was that, as long as the liquid in their eyeballs wasn't actually frozen solid, it was not just normal but desirable to spend 2-3 hours a day snow-shoeing, playing backyard ice hockey, and generally being a yeti. And if your children tried to go inside after a meagre hour, you should drag them back out there to harden up. Because, the assumption was, you should be out there with them anyway.
(I knew then I could never be a Canadian.)