New Zealand Literature
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New Zealand Literature
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Of course, the amateur author would spend her library time on the cool foreign authors she can't read at home :) Herewith, a literary travelogue of my encounters with NZ books. 5) After Robert by Sarah Quigley: This is another I would classify as 'literary contemporary' but I did not enjoy her novel as much as the Fiona Kidman one. Fiona Kidman is a little Margaret Atwood-ish: established, quite respected and often anthologized. Sarah Quigley would be more like Anne Michaels or Gail Anderson-Dargatz. She has potential, and she's decent, but she is not quite as polished. I also found her main characters both a little unappealing, and I am not sure the surprise ending was enough of a payoff to mitigate that. 4) Ricochet Baby by Fiona Kidman: This author came highly recommended to me as a literary contemporary writer, and although I am not quite sure this book was my thing, I would recommend her and try others in her oeuvre. The novel concerns Roberta, a young woman whose life spirals out of control following the birth of her first baby. It was a somewhat gloomy tale, it had a subplot involving an eccentric woman which does not quite fit, and I felt some of the secondary characters (e.g. the parents) were slightly better developed than than Roberta. But she does write well, and it was nice to read a novel that was New Zealandish but in a natural way: she eats Moro bars, says carpark and uses local place names, but does not beat you over the head with the 'exotic' bent some other authors here seem to favour. 3) Daylight by Elizabeth Knox: And they told me there were no modern, urban writers here :) I think Elizabeth Knox might be my new discovery. Every book of hers seems completely different. This one was about a caver who wanders around through Europe chasing after a mysterious woman who might or not be dead. Or undead. Or something. 2) Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera. This was the basis for the movie of the same name, and I hate to say it, but I prefer the movie. The book's POV character is the uncle, not the little girl. I think I preferred her story when she was telling it directly :) I also might have enjoyed the book a little more if I had been more familiar with the Maori customs than I was at the time I read it. I'm not sure I would suggest this as one's first NZ novel. 1) The Penguin History of New Zealand by Michael King. Michael King was a local author and respected historian and professor who died last year in a car accident. This book was allegedly his crowning achievement. It's a quite accessible and readable account of New Zealand from pre-history to now. A few of the chapters were kind of dull (the one with all the politicians and the one with all the farmers spring to mind) but most of it was interesting. I was fascinated to read about how the geographic isolation of New Zealand protected the Maori from discovery for full centuries past the colonization of North America. One can't help but wonder how the North American Indians might have developed and advanced if they had an extra couple hundred years to evolve before colonization hit :) |
