Posts by Hilary Stace
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
At the risk of offending many people, I would like to report that I have just read and enjoyed The Trowenna Sea. I wanted to make my own assessment (and much my professional life has been in New Zealand history). OK, it was apparently written in haste and a bit carelessly, and there are bits that grate, but the story and the telling is great.
Maybe it was because I recently visited Tasmania and got interested in its history. Maybe it is the theme of dispossession which flows through the novel, encompassing the Highland clearances, child miners robbed of their childhoods, transportation of prisoners from their homelands, genocide of the Tasmanian aboriginal population, civil war in Rhodesia, missing body parts, as well as, of course, Maori from their land. The stories behind the struggle over land in the Hutt Valley, known as the Battle of Boulcott’s farm, and the Wairau ‘incident’, are grippingly retold from a Maori perspective. And for once the New Zealand Company and Governor Grey are the villains, while Governor Fitzroy and the liberalism of the major pakeha characters receive sympathetic treatment.
As the action gallops along The Trowenna Sea takes on colonialism, sexism, racism, able-ism, homophobia and also has some digs at capitalism. And while the main character of Te Umuroa is a bit romanticised, the stroppy female lead would be right at home with some of those early settlers whose letters and diaries we still have. The epilogue of the recent repatriation of Te Umuroa’s remains to Whanganui is very moving.
So I hope it is re-written to address the unattributed sources and then made into a mini-series.
-
Wow Ben - look forward to hearing about the next decade.
-
Guess we should wait for Witi's forthcoming Knighthood then
He got the equivalent in 2004 and was one of the few to turn down Key's knighting last year - not surprising considering the backdrop of The Trowenna Sea is our shameful colonialist history.
-
Any disability activists or awards for services to the disability sector on the list?
-
"...I tried to remember Hohepa's words about the nature of love - or aroha. 'It does not have one meaning,' he had said, 'but many. It cannot be considered by itself in isolation. It has to be associated with other words like awhinatanga, to support, and manaakitanga, to offer hospitality, and whanaungatanga, to honour kinship. When all its qualities are observed, they ensure that we are the in the right relationship with each other and with our world.' "
(W. Ihimaera, The Towenna Sea, p. 464)
-
Best Christmas wishes to all the children's librarians out there, active, retired, and still to be.
-
Yes, webweaver, Mrs Pepperpot, and that strange O with the line through it on the cover. Who wrote the Emil and the detective series? I thought Emil such an exotic name, and often took those books out on our Saturday morning visits to our local library.
For Christmas my grandfather used to take us to Whitcombe and Tombs and we were allowed to choose any book we wanted - which was such a treat. He was the lawyer for Blackwood and Janet Paul, Hamilton publishers and booksellers, and he also kept us stocked with their wonderful children's books. But for my Christmas treat I often chose the Rupert annual, which seemed slightly rebellious.
-
And goodbye to Kim Peek, the man the movie, Rain Man , was based on. Died in the US aged 58. Rain Man was 'the foundational text in the cinematic representation of autism' says Stuart Murray of Leeds University and probably the person who has had the most to say on the representation of autism in movies and literature.
Kim Peek, thank you for the genre and the knowledge.
-
I too loved the Moomin books, and later the Summer Book. Those, plus staunch heroine Pippi Longstocking, made me keen on things Scandinavian, and the top destination for my OE.
My friend, who is also a Moomin fan, visited Japan a couple of years ago. High on her list was seeking out the Moomin shops there and she brought us all lots of nice Moomin-memorabilia.
My favourite character is the aspergic Hemulen, who is also useful if you need word association to remember the word hermeneutics, which is possibly what we are doing here.
-
I think next year is going to be turbulent - but not necessarily in a bad way. A bit like the late 60s. Turbulent, activism, turbulent protest and probably turbulent weather.