Volume 29 | Number 2 | Issue 126 | Winter 2019 Stephanie Johnson: Carl Shuker, A Mistake John McCrystal: Owen Marshall, Pearly Gates: A Novel Victor Rodger: John Broughton, Oscar Kightley and Erolia Ifopo, Gary Henderson, and Carl Nixon,…
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Blog Archives
Shocks and conversations, Mark Williams
The Friday Poem: 100 New Zealand Poems
Steve Braunias (ed)
David Bateman, $25.00,
ISBN 9780473450281
Short Poems of New Zealand
Jenny Bornholdt (ed)
Victoria University Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9781776562022
Two new poetry anthologies: one featuring beautifully composed small poems selected across the New Zealand literary landscape from Arnold Wall, born in 1869, to twelve-year-old “Mary”; in the other, poems published between 2015 and 2018 that are various in length, sometimes full of delinquency, and keen to display a spikey newness.
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Tagged with: David Bateman, Issue 126, Jenny Bornholdt, Mark Williams, Steve Braunias, Winter 2019
Posted in Literature, Poetry
Posted in Literature, Poetry
Earnest but elusive, Hannah Newport-Watson
Under Glass
Gregory Kan
Auckland University Press, $25.00,
ISBN 9781869408916
It’s common to talk about the “emotional landscape” of a book. Gregory Kan’s second poetry collection Under Glass transforms that figure of speech into something more – yet not entirely – literal. A series of prose poems unfold in a landscape described as if it were a real place, with a river, a “colossal jungle” and ground that is “dry and sandy”. We move cinematically through the landscape – to a house, to the coast, to a lighthouse like a “tiny finger thrust up against the horizon”. It is an ominous, searching journey into uncharted territory reminiscent of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which Kan cites as a key source of inspiration.
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Tagged with: Auckland University Press, Gregory Kan, Hannah Newport-Watson, Issue 126, Winter 2019
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review
Articulating an alternative, Julienne Molineaux
Government for the Public Good: The Surprising Science of Large-scale Collective Action
Max Rashbrooke
Bridget Williams Books, $50.00,
ISBN 9781988545080
This is an optimistic book that aims to re-set the narrative on collective action and, in particular, how we discuss the role of government in our economic and social life. Author Max Rashbrooke’s previous books were on inequality (an edited collection) and on wealth in New Zealand (a BWB short text). Government for the Public Good: The Surprising Science of Large-Scale Collective Action continues Rashbrooke’s concern with how New Zealand can be a more egalitarian, fairer country. As with his previous books, Rashbrooke mixes his critique of the status quo with suggestions for policy improvements, but the main goal here is to present solutions. His confidence that there is an alternative infuses the book; his critique of what is essentially neoliberalism (a term he rarely uses) is countered in every case study chapter with examples of alternative, successful approaches to problem-solving, many sourced from overseas.
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Tagged with: Bridget Williams Books, Issue 126, Julienne Molineaux, Max Rashbrooke, Winter 2019
Posted in Economics, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
Posted in Economics, Non-fiction, Politics & Law, Review
And on the strangest sea, Paul Moon
New Zealand and the Sea: Historical Perspectives
Frances Steel (ed)
Bridget Williams Books, $60.00,
ISBN 9780947518707
Ocean: Tales of Voyaging and Encounter that Defined New Zealand
Sarah Ell
Penguin Random House, $70.00,
ISBN 9780143772675
Most histories of nations tend to be terrestrial-bound in their focus, and those of New Zealand are no exception. The land, after all, is where people live, where their social, cultural, and political institutions exist and evolve, and into which the roots of their sense of belonging are sunk. Yes, the sea gets a mention at times, usually as having served in an earlier era as some vast aquatic highway bringing migrants to the shore. Yet, even in this context, the sea tends to be portrayed more often as something that separates New Zealand from other countries – a generally bland oceanic backdrop to where all the “real” history takes place. Two books have now appeared which, in different ways, address aspects of the country’s relationship with the sea, and which both serve as antidotes to those many works which depict New Zealand as a place of forests and farms, cities and towns.
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Tagged with: Frances Steel, Issue 126, Paul Moon, Penguin Random House, Sarah Ell, Winter 2019
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review
Finding the way back, Nicholas Reid
Now When it Rains – A Writer’s Memoir
Jeffrey Paparoa Holman
Steele Roberts, $35.00,
ISBN 9780947493776
A boy needs a father, but things can go badly wrong if the father is not good at fathering. This seems to be one of the main ideas implicit in Jeffrey Paparoa Holman’s “writer’s memoir”.
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Tagged with: Issue 126, Jeffrey Paparoa Holman, Nicholas Reid, Steele Roberts, Winter 2019
Posted in Media, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Media, Non-fiction, Review
Galling truth, Megan Dunn
Kaitiaki o te Pō: Essays
John-Paul Powley
Seraph Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9780994134592
I am in two minds about John-Paul Powley’s Kaitiaki o te Pō – this is a good essay collection, even really good. But goodness is also Powley’s Achilles heel. The collection, his first, contains 17 personal essays – some convey his perspective as both a high school teacher and a dean. The best of these, like “Pastoral Scene”, are a wrench. The sentences hit deep and low, and the truth rings out. But the catch? A touch of didacticism.
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Tagged with: Issue 126, John-Paul Powley, Megan Dunn, Seraph Press, Winter 2019
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review
Pressing on, James Hollings
Lasting Impressions: The Story of New Zealand’s Newspapers, 1840–1920
Ian F Grant
Fraser Books, in association with the Alexander Turnbull Library, $69.50,
ISBN 9780994136046
At a time when journalism is in crisis, with collapsing revenues and governments and elites indifferent to and even resentful of its role in a healthy democracy, there is much to learn from this landmark addition to New Zealand’s journalism historiography.
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Tagged with: Alexander Turnbull Library, Dr James Hollings, Fraser Books, Ian F Grant, Issue 126, Winter 2019
Posted in Media, Non-fiction, Review
Posted in Media, Non-fiction, Review
Playing at home, John McCrystal
Pearly Gates: A Novel
Owen Marshall
Vintage, $38.00, ISBN 9780143773153
“Pride goeth before a fall”, so the proverb runs, “and an haughty spirit before destruction”. The prideful one in Owen Marshall’s latest novel is Pat Gates, universally known as “Pearly”. He’s happily married, with two grown-up children, one of whom has made a notable success of her life. He’s a former representative rugby player – he had a few seasons for Otago and might well have gone on to higher honours still, had injury not intervened. He’s co-proprietor of a moderately successful real estate agency. And he’s mayor of a medium-sized provincial town that closely resembles Marshall’s home town of Timaru, on his second term when we meet him and looking quite likely to be re-elected for a third. His private interests dovetail comfortably with his public ambitions: his public profile is good for business, and his prosperity in business is a drawcard for voters. “You’re doing all right, Pearly”, as he says in one of his regular conversations with himself.
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Tagged with: Issue 126, John McCrystal, Owen Marshall, Vintage, Winter 2019
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Posted in Fiction, Literature, Review
Women past and present, Kim Worthington
Women Equality Power: Helen Clark: Selected Speeches from a Life of Leadership
Allen and Unwin, $45.00,
ISBN 9781988547053
Women Now: The Legacy of Female Suffrage
Bronwyn Labrum (ed)
Te Papa Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9780994146007
If there was ever a year in which to publish a collection of Helen Clark’s speeches, 2018 was it. This was, after all, the year in which New Zealand celebrated the 125th anniversary of the granting of female suffrage, the first nation in the world to do so. This not only gave women the right to vote, but ultimately led to women being able to enter parliament (although this took a further 30-odd years) – and finally become leaders of the nation. It was also the year in which one of Clark’s Labour Party mentees, Jacinda Ardern, became our third female New Zealand prime minister, gave birth while in office and, after a very short period of maternity leave, resumed her professional role. This is not irrelevant to both books under review – Ardern writes the foreword to Clark’s collected speeches, is mentioned more than once in Clark’s later speeches, and in Women Now. 2018 was also the year in which the #MeToo movement gained its most traction worldwide, something that is referred to several times in both books under review.
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Tagged with: Allen and Unwin, Bronwyn Labrum, Helen Clark, Issue 126, Kim Worthington, Te Papa Press, Winter 2019
Posted in Essays, Gender, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology
Posted in Essays, Gender, Non-fiction, Review, Sociology