Blog Archives

As if shadows could whisper, Emma Neale

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Dear Neil Roberts
Airini Beautrais
Victoria University Press, $25.00,
ISBN 9780864739735

How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes
Chris Tse
Auckland University Press, $25.00,
ISBN 9781869408183

Both collections under review here act as witness to politically charged historic events. One pivots on a suicide, one on a murder. Despite the way each book edges towards psychological release, the deaths of Joe Kum Yung and Neil Roberts unsettle still, as if shadows could whisper: “Listen: / there’s a hunger in the air. It’s reciting prophecies” (‘(Static, Spool)’, How to be Dead in a Year of Snakes).

Tagged with: Airini Beautrais, Auckland University Press, Chris Tse, Emma Neale, Issue 111, Spring 2015, Victoria University Press
Posted in Literature, Poetry, Review

Tangata ora, Matariki Williams

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History

Atholl Anderson, Judith Binney and Aroha Harris
Bridget Williams Books, $100.00,
ISBN 9781927131411

The final chapter of the weighty Tangata Whenua is titled “Tangata Whenua, Tangata Ora”, and the book could just as easily have been called that. Throughout the three millennia that are chronicled, an overwhelming theme of the book is that Māori endure, adapt, and live. Any student of New Zealand history will have heard the unfortunate phrase uttered in 1856 by physician and politician Dr Isaac Featherston, that it was the duty of Europeans to “smooth down … [the] dying pillow” for Māori. His was a viewpoint brought forth by the belief that the indigenous population could not withstand European conquest and disease. What more of a testament to Māori endurance can there be than the release of a book detailing the way in which Māori live, nigh on 150 years after that phrase was uttered?

Tagged with: Aroha Harris, Atholl Anderson, Bridget Williams Books, Issue 111, Judith Binney, Spring 2015
Posted in History, Māori, Non-fiction, Review

The magic between the panels, Adrian Kinnaird

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Sam Zabel and the Magic Pen
Dylan Horrocks
Victoria University Press, $35.00,
ISBN 9780864739759

The Bitter Sweet Philosophies
K K Jart (text) and Nick Fedaeff (paintings)
Eunoia Publishing, $40.00,
ISBN 9780692215630

As the superheroes wage their endless battle in the sky above, Alice reassures Sam, “But what does it matter if it’s not real? It’s a Fantasy. The idea is to enjoy it!” But Sam is unconvinced: “I know it’s a fantasy, but it’s not mine.”

Tagged with: Adrian Kinnaird, Dylan Horrocks, Eunoia Publishing, Issue 111, K K Jart, Nick Fedaeff, Spring 2015, Victoria University Press
Posted in Fiction, Graphic novel, Literature, Review

Captions and context, David Littlewood

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

The Anzacs: An Inside View of New Zealanders at Gallipoli
Auckland War Memorial Museum
Penguin, $45.00,
ISBN 9780143572336

Brothers in Arms: Gordon and Robin Harper in the Great War
Jock Phillips with Philip Harper and Susan Harper
NZHistoryJock, $40.00,
ISBN 9780473308773

One of the more encouraging historiographical developments of recent times has been a greater willingness to prioritise alternative sources. Instead of producing blocks of text with a few pictures thrown in for embellishment, scholars are increasingly using images as a central part of their efforts to communicate the “experiences” of the past. Both The Anzacs and Brothers in Arms demonstrate the potential of this approach for studies of New Zealand soldiers during the Great War. However, one of them manages to structure and balance its various elements more effectively than the other.

Tagged with: Auckland War Memorial Museum, Gordon Harper, Issue 111, Jock Phillips, NZHistoryJock, Penguin, Philip Harper, Robin Harper, Spring 2015, Susan Harper
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, War

Cultural mobilisation, Philippa Mein Smith

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Calls to Arms: New Zealand Society and Commitment to the Great War
Steven Loveridge
Victoria University Press, $40.00.
ISBN 9780864739674.

Impressed by the Blackadder account of WWI when he was a child, Steven Loveridge grew up to write a PhD thesis followed by this book, whose aim is to explore not WWI as it was fought, but the relationship between the local war effort and New Zealand society. Loveridge argues that there was a broad cultural mobilisation in New Zealand in support of the war effort. This mobilisation was not imposed by elites but swelled from the ground up, buoyed by a suite of generally accepted cultural values, beliefs and sentiments. To make his case, Calls to Arms is organised into six chapters, supported by illustrations that survey selected areas where New Zealand society and culture intersected with mobilisation for the Great War.

Tagged with: Issue 111, Philippa Mein Smith, Spring 2015, Steven Loveridge, Victoria University Press
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, War

Hitting the mark, Matthew Wright

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Desert War: The Battle of Sidi Rezegh
Peter Cox
Exisle, $35.00,
ISBN 9781921966705

Mention Sidi Rezegh to most New Zealanders today and there is a good chance they will look at you strangely. A few, probably, will nod and perhaps name a relative who was lost there. This is predictable: in many ways, the New Zealand battle for that bleak North African ridge – part of the Crusader campaign of November-December 1941 – stands in the shadow of better known 20^th-century battles such as Gallipoli, Passchendaele, Crete, El Alamein and Cassino. This status as poor cousin has been rectified in Peter Cox’s Desert War: The Battle of Sidi Rezegh. The book emerged from his earlier work on his father’s war experience at Sidi Rezegh, and covers the wider New Zealand experience in the Crusader operations of November-December 1941.

Tagged with: Exisle, Issue 111, Matthew Wright, Peter Cox, Spring 2015
Posted in History, Non-fiction, Review, War

History lessons, James Norcliffe

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Monkey Boy
Donovan Bixley
Scholastic, $16.50,
ISBN 9781775431862

Trouble in Time
Adele Broadbent
Scholastic, $19.00,
ISBN 9781775432265

Monkey Boy opens with a prologue designed, no doubt, to catch its intended audience of younger, and not so young, boys. It’s 1804 and our hero, Jimmy Grimholt, needed “to do more than pee. He was full to busting, so that he was afraid he would muck himself if he didn’t go soon”.

Tagged with: Adele Broadbent, Donovan Bixley, Issue 111, James Norcliffe, Scholastic, Spring 2015
Posted in Children, Fiction, Literature, Review

The courage of her convictions, Rebecca Rice

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Grace Joel: An Impressionist Portrait
Joel L Schiff
Otago University Press, $45.00,
ISBN 9781877578861

Miss Grace Joel displays the courage of her convictions. The work is obviously not a pot-boiler; obviously not the product of a lady “who does a little painting now and again”. The artist is working on right lines leading to success. Evening Post, 12 October 1907.

Tagged with: Grace Joel, Issue 111, Joel L Schiff, Otago University Press, Rebecca Rice, Spring 2015
Posted in Art, Non-fiction, Review

Culture wars, ancient and modern, Hugh Roberts

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

The Critic’s Part: Wystan Curnow Art Writings 1971-2013
Wystan Curnow
Adam Art Gallery/Victoria University Press, $80.00,
ISBN 9780864739322

Then It Was Now Again: Selected Critical Writing
Murray Edmond
Atuanui Press, $44.00,
ISBN 9780992245368

The editors of The Critic’s Part tell us that Curnow’s prolific but scattered art-critical writings (reviews, catalogue copy, journalism, essays etc) together reveal the “arc, progression, and continuity of Curnow’s thinking” and deliver a “general, ‘big-picture’ account of New Zealand art”. If there is some truth to the first of these claims, the second cannot be said to bear much examination. Nonetheless, anyone interested in the history of New Zealand art in the late 20th century will be grateful to Christina Barton and Robert Leonard for making these pieces available.

Tagged with: Adam Art Gallery, Atuanui Press, Hugh Roberts, Issue 111, Murray Edmond, Spring 2015, Victoria University Press, Wystan Curnow
Posted in Essays, Non-fiction, Review

A sector disrupted, Jacinda Adern

Posted on August 31, 2015 by NZ Books

Byline

Jacinda Adern, the Labour Spokesperson for Arts, Culture and Heritage, assesses the literary sector from the left of the political spectrum.

Tagged with: Issue 111, Jacinda Adern, Spring 2015
Posted in Byline