New Zealand Books

Thompson does a fine job in writing an overview of Australian Church History which leaves you wanting to dig deeper into the subject. Fortunatly, Thompson also provides a very detailed bibliography for future study. I recommened this book to any one remotly interesting in the little known Church in Australia

My students call this book "boring" but I think that is because it's their first exposure to Maori history and the book is very dense. It assumes a certain amount of knowledge about New Zealand, so I recommend Phillipa Mein Smith's Concise History of New Zealand or Michael King's history of New Zealand as an introduction. The book is has Maori language text that is then translated into English. Even if you don't speak or read Maori the rhythm of the language comes through and it's possible to see the formality of their greetings and the stylized, elegant cadence of Polynesian. The relationship of the Maori to the newspapers is interesting, since most were not edited by Maori even though they were produced for Maori. It is clear how important literacy was for Maori, who readily took to the written word, even though they were and known for spectacular oratory.

Robert Menzies was a conservative Australian politician who served as Prime Minister from 1939 to 1941 when he surpringly resigned. At this time the Australian Labour party won office and dominated politics for the next eight years. Menzies built up a new party to regain power which he called the Liberal Party. He also developed an ideology to appeal to the forgoten people. That is he positioned his conservative party to appeal to the middle class rather than having it to closely aligned with big business.

Volume one of this biography concerns his early years and his career up to 1941. He was born in a country town and came from a poor family. He was able to get a university eduction and became a succesful lawyer and state politician before moving to the federal sphere. He did not serve in the first world war although his brothers did.

The book is actually by an author who has more sympathy with the labour side of politics rather than the conservative. Never the less it is a reasonable portrait of the man and also the period. One of the better Australian political biographies.

New South Wales colony was the original British colony in Australia, and several books have already been written about its beginnings. But this text offers a fresh and different perspective. The author explains how Sydney started as a colony where often the permanent residents were convicts who had served their sentences but were forbidden to return to Mother Britain. Under such circumstances, the prospects for a normal society seemed dim indeed.

Yet in those early decades, through the local courts and local case law, the backbone of such a society emerged. Probably helped by the fact that most of the convicts were not homicidal maniacs. Those would have been already hung in Britain, instead of being transported to Sydney. Most convicts had committed fairly minor infractions, that were severely punished by British law, which was mostly to protect the upper classes.

For Gary Paulsen fans, here's a new twist on an old scenerio. When a teenager finds herself in the wilderness of New Zeland, (for different reasons than Paulsen's Brian,) Alexa searches for the otters that she knows are not just a myth.

Went throught the whole book in one take. The photographs are so amazing, they instantly transport you to New Zealand and the words just reiterate the beauty of that luscious land. Great for anyone who is just merely curious or planning a trip to NZ. You feel the love the author has for his homeland - he is not only talented, he is gifted. His pictures are 'the stuff' dreams are made of. Great buy. PS: the pictures on his website will also take your breath away.

In this memoir, Kate Grenville provides some insights into both the drafting of her novel `The Secret River' and her search for her family history. Ms Grenville is a descendant of early settler Solomon Wiseman. She had grown up knowing the outline of his story: his arrival in Sydney as a convict in 1806, the establishment of his business on the Hawkesbury River (from which Wiseman's Ferry takes its name).

The first part of this book is Ms Grenville's personal quest for Wiseman through the records of the Society of Genealogists and the Public Records Office. Identifying the `right' late 18th century Solomon Wiseman is not easy and ultimately Ms Grenville supplements her search through the formal records with her own sense of Solomon Wiseman's presence at Three Cranes Wharf.

Ms Grenville also seeks to obtain a sense of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the Hawkesbury at the time they were dispossessed of their land by Wiseman. She does this through returning to the river, which she had first visited as a short-sighted child. Now, as an adult she is able to see and to sense the past more clearly. Some of Ms Grenville's most vivid writing is of the landscape, especially of the river itself. In many ways, it is this description of the landscape which joins the novel to this book more than the people and the history.

In the second part of the book, Ms Grenville describes the process of creating her novel: describing the struggle involved in blending fact, fiction and physical description to bring the characters and the period to life.

I enjoyed reading this book for the insights into the writing of `The Secret River'.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

"You need to read," they told me. "Find out what others are doing. You cant expect to produce a workable manuscript unless you have some idea how good writers go about it."
Read? Finding a name in the phone book is hard enough!

One day I saw this book by Stead.

The literati talk about him a lot, don't they? Professor of English I heard. Poems and novels published, (yeah, published). Renown critic too. Insightful and spirited stuff, they reckon. Not afraid to get up other writers' noses.

`The Secret History...' Wow! Look at all his other stuff listed next to the title page...

Maybe I'll see what he's on about?

Took me two weeks before I could pick it up, steeling myself for the BIG UNDERTAKING. Dyslexics are like that - need space and time to make the effort, so when both were present I added the resolve. "Might get a third of the way through in four hours. By then I'll have the gist of it, enough momentum to complete it."

Friday night, and I got to P.81 in one hit. First page only four sentences, but with such meticulously particular punctuation - precision structuring to essentially doubtful attempts at a beginning. All this kind of broken consciousness stuff, or elements at word impressionism in prose. Might work in poetry. Here seems strangely unconvincing, then brilliant at turns. Finally found a convincing section (chapter 2) that flowed cogently integrating nice blend of social/personal history (accomodation of Rajiv and Lazlo) with literary interest. Then 3 follows with a sense of hard effort (discordant as a cockatoo's call) before finally settling easily into Sammy's meeting with Goldstein. Same with 4 - something tentative and unconvincing about it. Suddenly it comes alive in 5, then sparkles P.60-66 with discussion/anecdote on Sammy and T.S.Eliott

Why does this writing seem so laboured when pastiching backgrounds to personal recollections, but so gripping and immediate when dealing with literature and its personalities? Why is it that even at his age, his youthful relationships and experience still suggest inner resistance to presentation, whereas the prose becomes direct, compelling and full of lively interest once Lazlo is not (even indirectly) part of the picture? Jack and Jill? Well, getting better but still too close to the author for any sense of effortless flow.

And this guy is famous...?
Some kind of awkward distillation of late youthful.... well, life and loves?
Maybe best titled, `Pirouettes in the Mirror' ?

Next day, back at work, beginning with The Goldstein story. That is good! The whole chapter. But P.86-99 especially is powerful writing. In fact all three chapters on Goldstein. How does this guy achieve such compelling interest to what is essentially just details to well known historical fact? Is it the continuation of drama surrounding that family's history, as compared to the episodic nature of the personal material (Heather, Margot) or other events (Suez, Hungry)?

Finished at P.162 that day, then off to bed.

Funny thing. When I awoke the book was still with me. Surprised me how intrigued with it I was now. Couldn't wait to finish breakfast and go off to some quiet place to complete it.

Suddenly all these disparate things: Literary anecdotes and insights, political events, Sam's affair and her lovers family, and even (yes even) Lazlo's oddly distant and awkward experiences of love. Whoops! Not love - rather, Coupling. (coupling as adjunct to literary discussion, coupling to poetry - emotion distilled through literature). Suddenly all integrated. Did it themselves, tied the pieces together while I slept.

Recollections of Lazlo Winter. Biographical episodes, political hard edge of Modernism, wistful recollections of winter caught at the antipodes of spring...

And then the ending. Boy, I wish I could produce endings like that. But even before, see how it all tied up! This is one clever writer. Maybe I will read some more of him? Even look up some of those names to see if they really exist, like Mendel Hand (Michael King?), or Dick Flinders.

Wonder if he will read my Manuscript? Lance its boils over lunch maybe...
Might call him.

Sent Forth a Dove provides an insight into the first European ship recorded in history to visit Australia and the work by a team of people in Fremantle, Australia to build a replica of the ship. This book brings together little known parts of the Duyfken story, including background history of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). A good read for students of maritime history, shipbuilding and the Aboriginal history of Australia.

This detailed and well researched book outlines the disgraceful behaviour of the Australian government, towards a smaller impoverished neighbour.