The People of Many Peaks, 1769-1869 Claudia Orange (ed), Bridget Williams Books and Department of Internal Affairs, Wellington, 1991, $35.00 This book contains the biographies of 161 notable Maori leaders between 1769 and 1869 who appear in the first volume…
Bonfires in the Rain Lauris Edmond Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 1991, $27.95 In outline, the story Lauris Edmond has to tell in this, her second volume of autobiography, would be typical of many New Zealand women who married about the…
The Concept of Music Robin Maconie Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1990, £22.50, $91.95 The broad scope of Robin Maconie’s conjectural inquiry into music is succinctly expressed in his first chapter: ‘Music is an information process working simultaneously on many different levels,…
Winter Walk at Morning Iain Lonie, Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1991, $16.95 The cover of this posthumous collection shows a pair of dividers resting on a chart, which on closer examination turns out to juxtapose Western Scotland and an unidentified…
The Oxford History of New Zealand Music John Mansfield Thomson Oxford University Press, Auckland, 1991, $69.95 This eagerly awaited book will take a high place in the company of recent reference works. The only cause for regret is that the publisher…
Selected Poems 1940-1989 Allen Curnow Viking hardback, $49.95 (Penguin paperback, Auckland, 1990, $27.95) When Allen Curnow published Continuum, his collected poems 1972-1988, he organized the book back-to-front: most recent poems at the beginning, earliest at the end. The selection, a career summary…
Grievous Bodily Craig Harrison, Penguin Books, Auckland, 1991, $24.95 Grievous Bodily, subtitled A Very Funny Novel, has been written with the film in mind. Not any old film, but a very funny film with enough references, cross-references and sight and sound gags to…
Forging a political language, Tony Simpson
In his 1946 essay ‘Politics and the English Language’ George Orwell remarks that ‘one ought to recognise that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting…
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