reviews and essays

Pat White

Extraordinary Anywhere: Essays on place from Aotearoa New Zealand edited by Ingrid Horrocks and Cherie Lacey (Victoria University Press, 2016), 222 pp., $40

Extraordinary Anywhere consists of sixteen essays, a ten-page introduction jointly signed by the editors, and a response essay by Martin Edmond: 222 pages of prose in all.

Edmond writes that in order ‘to investigate something properly we need … archives, dreams, memories’. That was expressed in another way some decades ago by the American author Wendell Berry, who suggested that ‘we have to know where we are before we know who we are’ – in other words develop a sense of deep culture, human or otherwise. An individual, he is saying, needs to explore the physical, historical and ‘storied’ environment of a place before he/she can truly place themselves there. We can use either of these statements as parameters with which to consider the contents of the volume, because they suggest a movement beyond the superficial from the essayist. [Read more…]

Denis Harold

Shelf Life: Reviews, replies and reminiscences by C.K. Stead (Auckland University Press, 2016), 452 pp., $45

C.K. Stead’s latest collection of ruminations, Shelf Life, is illuminating about what has driven and drives this venerable, multi-award-winning author. He states in an interview that what is important to him is observation: ‘It’s the escape – the relief! – from the ego. The world around you is what matters.’ The back-cover blurb tells the reader that ‘the guiding voice’ is ‘clear, incisive’. One is offered the image of an author polishing his prose and verse to transparency.

This is Stead’s fourth selection of assorted literary criticism and related prose, the last appearing eight years ago. He claims this is a milder, less controversial selection than the previous three. The retired don calls this non-fiction his ‘afternoon work’; ‘morning work’ is writing verse and fiction. [Read more…]