Landfall Review Online

New Zealand books in review

Mate atu he toa, ara mai ra he toa! When one warrior dies, another arises to take his place!

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Vaughan Rapatahana

Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E!: Māori in the First World War by Monty Soutar (Bateman Books, 2019), 576 pp., $69.99 

He pukapuka tino nui tēnei. This is a very big book. Nearly 600 pages, a weight of 3kg and measurements of 286 x 210mm. You would need a lectern to hold it up for sustained periods of reading! The rest of the time it relaxes well on any coffee table.

He pukapuka tino pai tēnei. This is a very good book. Well presented, with dozens of maps and diagrams and hundreds of photographs, including many of the servicemen involved, a generous quotient of whom were Pasifika volunteers. It is also important to note that several toa wāhine volunteered to fight and were not happy about being declined. As Soutar says, ‘Given the Māori tradition that women accompanied their men to war, it was not surprising that women showed disdain for the military’s enlistment criteria’ (47).  [Read more…]

The Culture of Concealment

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Lynn Jenner

Chosen Boys by Petra Molloy (Escalator Press, 2019), 340 pp., $30

In the author’s words, Chosen Boys ‘deals with the sexual abuse of a seven-year-old and the effects on him, his family and community. It’s about the culture of concealment in the Church. It’s also about the resilience of a people, when their lives are being destroyed by the betrayal of the Church in whom they trusted.’1

Jack, the boy in question, is abused by Father Bane, whose name is an old English word meaning scourge, ruin, death, plague or destruction, a poison that causes death. (This language play is a typical Molloy touch.) It is made plain in Chosen Boys that there are many layers of concealment in the lead-up to the abuse, and that other abused boys exist in each place this priest has lived.  [Read more…]

Creatures of the Mind

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Elizabeth Morton

Craven by Jane Arthur (Victoria University Press, 2019), 88 pp., $25; The Track by Paula Green (Seraph Press, 2019), 64 pp, $25; At This Distance by Dunstan Ward (Cold Hub Press, 2019 ), 88 pp., $27.50

Craven by Jane Arthur feels effortless, unfiltered – it displays the raw motions of the limbic system, untroubled by social mores or poetic constraints. It is the over-sharer at the party – but one who is artful, engaging. It is the deep-and-meaningful quasi-confessional anecdote told over a punch bowl that commits you to feeling more flawed but also as if you are more of a participant in the human race. Eileen Myles, American poet and judge of the 2018 Sarah Broom Poetry Prize (which Arthur won), said of Arthur’s poems, ‘they don’t have to try so hard’. There is an ease to their pared back conversational honesty. [Read more…]

A Quiet Pooled Intelligence 

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Michelle Elvy

Selected Stories by Vincent O’Sullivan (Victoria University Press, 2019), 592 pp., $40

Grove’s face wasn’t injured, as far as you could tell, but it curved in on one side, so that his left temple and jaw were at least an inch further out than his left cheek. Whether he talked or smiled, his lips on that side stayed straight and together, and the right side of his face moved by itself. And there were two deep lines that ran from beside his nostrils almost to the end of his chin. He wasn’t scarred or hideous or funny. You didn’t want to laugh at his face and you didn’t want to say you felt sorry for him. But I can’t remember being in any company with him when people didn’t tend to look at him rather than at anyone else. They wouldn’t let on, but they were absorbed by his dent.

It’s the best possible opening for this collection, and perhaps the best way to frame a review of Vincent O’Sullivan’s Selected Stories. The opening paragraph of ‘Grove’ – a story taken from O’Sullivan’s 1978 collection, The Boy, The Bridge, The River – sets the tone and progression of this collection, which spans nearly forty years of short stories. It also tells us to pay attention to the obvious and not-so-obvious details of the characters we encounter – that each individual deserves a second, or third, or many-times-more look. Finally, this opening paragraph suggests that looking at characters might mean, also, looking closely at how they look at each other, how they are viewed by other characters. The art of observation highlights our flaws, our idiosyncrasies – also our connections, our warmth. We’re all in this story together, O’Sullivan seems to say.  [Read more…]

A Slow Entanglement

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Arihia Latham

Auē by Becky Manawatu (Mākaro Press, 2019), 323 pp., $35

This is a story of whānau and the ties that bind us beyond life; that hold tight through our whakapapa. It is a story of the sea, of its life-giving and life-taking ability, which spans from a baby rocking in salty water in the belly of his māmā on a boat, to the ocean stealing away what’s left, spitting out reluctant shapes, offering isolation and comfort in its crash and lull. This is Auē.

This novel didn’t initially pull me in, perhaps because the trope of the orphaned boy felt too familiar; or perhaps because of the title, warning me that it could be a difficult read. The suggestion of gangs and violence felt like dangerous territory when telling Māori history. But as I persevered, the characters hooked me in the puku and wouldn’t let go. [Read more…]