Oceania Books

The premise of this book is fantastic: it aims to be an introduction to New Zealand culture geared toward the educated but non-specialist American. By explaining dominant trends in NZ literature, describing some of this literature's historical context, and relating it to American culture, William Schafer outlines some answers to the questions of what it means to live in New Zealand, and how that nation has structured its unique identity. On a more basic level, this book gives its readers a sense of what NZ lit and film is available, and thus provides a spring board for an independent exploration of NZ culture. Schafer's quotes and discussion of the fiction of Witi Imihaera (author of the novel The Whale Rider, upon which the 2003 film is based), for instance, were particularly attractive to me and, as a result, I have since read several of his works. Mapping the Godzone opened a new world to me, and I look forward to continuing to explore NZ culture under its guidance.
While the book's aims are laudable, its execution is not quite as impressive. Schafer tries to avoid the jargon and heavily theoretical analysis of contemporary literary criticism, but at times he slips up and his prose drags. At other times, he is somewhat too summary in his discussions--particularly when he relies on series of lengthy quotes by other critics. The quotes from literary sources should be well appreciated, since they provide a window into the style of many authors; the quotes from scholars simply seem to point to laziness on the part of the author. Could he not sum up the material himself? Besides these (not too grave) issues of style, the content of the book could have been improved. Clearly Schafer (an English professor) was mostly interested in the literary achievements of New Zealand. However, he does intend his book to be a primer on culture as well, and to achieve this end he would have done well to include more of popular and visual culture in hi
s book. He does write a short section on film, but it consists mostly of a list of movies that the reader might find interesting.
Despite its flaws and shortcomings, Mapping the Godzone is a unique resource for the American reader curious about New Zealand, and it seems to be an excellent overview of that country's literature. I am glad to have found it.

By today most British Commonwealth leaders in 1941 have had their history rewritten to fit into a more political desirable form. As such we are given very little about the conflicts and doubts that must have gone though their minds at this time when it looked like Hitler had won.

Two great leaders Churchill and Menzies in the British conflict appear to have come into conflict over the conduct of the war. To Churchill, WW2 became a crusade that he was willing to give all, in an attempt to defeat Hitler. To Menzies the British empire was both incompetently being led by Churchill which as the book shows is probably correct in the gross failure of the British handling of the war in Greece and getting involved in a conflict that it could not win. He felt that the British Commonwealth should make terms with Hitler.

In an attempt to replace Churchill, Menzies lost his position as prime minister of Australia.

Mixed in with their respective egos and ambitions it makes fascinating reading.

I recently picked this book up while visiting Hawaii. It is very interesting and it is nice to learn about such new additions to Hawaiian history are becoming available. Dukas makes an excellent presentation of Hawaii's military past from its days before Kamehameha the Great's Unification of the islands, through the troubled years of the Kingdom and ending in brief years of the Republic. Extensive bibliography. Hopefully this will be the first of many historical works that will shed more light onto the years of the Kingdom of Hawaii and show it in a far more positive light than critics continue to portray it.

It is the turn of the twentieth century and science promises to explain many of the wonders of the world. Walter T. Goodwin is an eminent scientist who has just finished a field study of the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. At Port Moresby, in Papua New Guinea, he boards a ship headed for Melbourne, in Australia. From there he intends to travel further to his home in New York. Having boarded the ship he finds to his surprise that his old friend Dr. David Throckmartin is also a passenger. But Throckmartin seems strangely distant and changed. His face wears an expression of both extreme ecstasy and horror weirdly co-existing. Throckmartin tells Goodwin that he has discovered the ruins of an extremely ancient city on an island of the coast of Papua. In these ruins he discovered a strange door, which led to an underground pool. From this pool, during the rising of the full moon, an apparently supernatural creature emerges. This creature steals away people, turning them into zombie like creatures who then disappear underground never to be seen again. Throckmartin's wife Edith has been taken as well as two other members of the scientific party. Throckmatin, however, has a plan to travel to Melbourne, collect some necessary scientific equipment and return to the 'moon pool' to rescue his wife. All this of course seems too much to believe, but then the 'creature', the "Dweller", arrives and steals away Throckmartin before Goodwin's very eyes. Goodwin decides the only thing he can do is to try to compete Throckmartin's rescue plan.

Just about everything in this story is given a 'scientific' explanation by Goodwin, the die-hard-rationalist narrator of the tale. The story is thus technically science fiction, however, these 'explanations', at least to the modern reader's mind, seem so thin that the tale in fact has the feel of fantasy. Merritt seems particularly taken with the then new field of nuclear physics and this gives the story interesting depth. Merritt is aware of the possibility of nuclear science promising great benefit, but also great harm. The luminous "Dweller" is thus a predecessor of Godzilla, the radioactive movie monster that destroyed Tokyo, though Merritt, of course, wrote well before the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped.

Of course this book, like all others, takes its place in the history of literature and owes some of its details to earlier novels. The phosphorescent walls of an underground kingdom is highly reminiscent of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (Unabridged Classics) (1864). The discovery of a lost civilization which is ruled by a totally amoral, iron willed woman is straight from Rider Haggard's She (Oxford World's Classics) (1887).

I must warn that this is not an easy book to read because of the complex writing style. Merritt uses long and winding sentences that are difficult to keep track of. I found myself sometimes going back and rereading what I had just read to understand it. Also Merritt at times uses a super-profusion of adjectives, most of which are little used in common language. I at first ran to the dictionary, but soon gave up, letting the worlds roll over me in a strange, hypnotic, half-understood, poetic spell that added to the weird atmosphere of the book.

I don't mean to be overcritical of the book. is in fact a rip-roaring read full of high adventure. Merritt certainly manages to keep you turning the pages. The ending is great, keeping you on the edge to the last page. No anticlimaxes here.

It is the turn of the twentieth century and science promises to explain many of the wonders of the world. Walter T. Goodwin is an eminent scientist who has just finished a field study of the flora of the volcanic islands of the South Pacific. At Port Moresby, in Papua New Guinea, he boards a ship headed for Melbourne, in Australia. From there he intends to travel further to his home in New York. Having boarded the ship he finds to his surprise that his old friend Dr. David Throckmartin is also a passenger. But Throckmartin seems strangely distant and changed. His face wears an expression of both extreme ecstasy and horror weirdly co-existing. Throckmartin tells Goodwin that he has discovered the ruins of an extremely ancient city on an island of the coast of Papua. In these ruins he discovered a strange door, which led to an underground pool. From this pool, during the rising of the full moon, an apparently supernatural creature emerges. This creature steals away people, turning them into zombie like creatures who then disappear underground never to be seen again. Throckmartin's wife Edith has been taken as well as two other members of the scientific party. Throckmatin, however, has a plan to travel to Melbourne, collect some necessary scientific equipment and return to the 'moon pool' to rescue his wife. All this of course seems too much to believe, but then the 'creature', the "Dweller", arrives and steals away Throckmartin before Goodwin's very eyes. Goodwin decides the only thing he can do is to try to compete Throckmartin's rescue plan.

Just about everything in this story is given a 'scientific' explanation by Goodwin, the die-hard-rationalist narrator of the tale. The story is thus technically science fiction, however, these 'explanations', at least to the modern reader's mind, seem so thin that the tale in fact has the feel of fantasy. Merritt seems particularly taken with the then new field of nuclear physics and this gives the story interesting depth. Merritt is aware of the possibility of nuclear science promising great benefit, but also great harm. The luminous "Dweller" is thus a predecessor of Godzilla, the radioactive movie monster that destroyed Tokyo, though Merritt, of course, wrote well before the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were dropped.

Of course this book, like all others, takes its place in the history of literature and owes some of its details to earlier novels. The phosphorescent walls of an underground kingdom is highly reminiscent of Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth (Unabridged Classics) (1864). The discovery of a lost civilization which is ruled by a totally amoral, iron willed woman is straight from Rider Haggard's She (Oxford World's Classics) (1887).

I must warn that this is not an easy book to read because of the complex writing style. Merritt uses long and winding sentences that are difficult to keep track of. I found myself sometimes going back and rereading what I had just read to understand it. Also Merritt at times uses a super-profusion of adjectives, most of which are little used in common language. I at first ran to the dictionary, but soon gave up, letting the worlds roll over me in a strange, hypnotic, half-understood, poetic spell that added to the weird atmosphere of the book.

I don't mean to be overcritical of the book. is in fact a rip-roaring read full of high adventure. Merritt certainly manages to keep you turning the pages. The ending is great, keeping you on the edge to the last page. No anticlimaxes here.

In this era of google image searching, might it be possible to read a book about visually striking architecture, without photographs? I read Antipodean Structures with the assumption that it could be done, and my assumption was confirmed. In any case, this book goes well beneath the shiny exteriors of buildings like the National Museum of Australia, Federation Square, even The Sydney Opera House. These and five other buildings are examined in terms of societal aspirations in the millennial period, and I'm not sure that could have been done so convincingly in a book that pandered to the market's appetite for archi-sexual imagery.

All of the essays are good, but I will make special mention of Davina Jackson's engaging commentary on Federation Square (it presents as a relatively catchy read in an otherwise dense volume), and Philip Goad's very detailed discussion of the National Gallery of Victoria (this too is an enjoyable read, and a thorough piece of history writing). But I most enjoyed Ostwald's and Fleming's Introduction and Conclusion. These gave me the clearest sense yet of the cultural and geographical factors behind the phantasmagorical architecture of this region. The authors don't say it quite so bluntly as I'm about to, but: ideas received from the Northern hemisphere, breeding within isolated colonies of architects are amplified in this region, leading to buildings as strange as the region's wildlife.

A scholarly and probing analysis of a subject too often broached via imagery. Four Stars. I'll save the fifth star for the reprint, if it includes black and white images.

I happened to come across this book while actually in Koror, Palau (Koror was the capital of the Nan'yo, the Japanese governing body for Micronesia) during a vacation and read it while I was there. In general, it is worth reading if you are are a student of Japan's occupation policies of southeast asian countries during the war. It is very detailed but could have focused more on military strategy, but the book is not really about that, its about how Japan built up, governed, then lost its colonies in Micronesia-- colonies which would most likely be in a much better economic state than there are in now, arguably, if the Japanese were still there running things.

I just recently finished reading this little book, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who doesn't know much about NZ. It is indeed a "quick guide" but it has a surprising amount of information packed into a few pages. My only "complaint" is that the author doesn't mention any negatives--I'm willing to believe it's a wonderful place, but there must be SOMETHING less than fabulous about it. All in all, it was worth the purchase.

Gorgeous photographs with a brief commentary in English and German. Fun to look at. Great to show people "professional photos" when you return from your trip.

Hardback, 2007, 11.25" x 8.5", 353 Pages, 198 Objects illustrated in full color, 2 maps, numerous color & B/W illustrations. (Note : For some unknown reason, the book I purchased new from Amazon features a figure on the cover which is different than that shown in the Amazon entry, although both figures are included in the book.)

An very worthwhile effort with an eclectic and consistently interesting selection of art from New Guinea, Australia, Island Melanesia, Island Southeast Asia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The only rerason it doesn't get 5 stars is because the artifacts are mostly illustrated in 1/4 or 1/3 pages, and the small size dsoes not do them justice. In spite of this limitation, the book is still highly recommended for anybody who appreciates Oceanic Art.