Something New

  We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.   

“EMPATHY” by BRYAN WALPERT (Makaro Press, $40)

I have a big problem when I come to Bryan Walpert’s excellent novel. I read and enjoyed Empathy when I was holidaying in Australia, but when I got back to New Zealand I found that I was well behind the pack. Every N.Z. book-reviewer had said what they thought of Empathy, and I was almost at a loss to say anything new. For that reason I will be relatively brief.

 First a synopsis. David Geller is a widower looking after his teenage son Finn and his teenage daughter Gemma. They are bright kids. David is a high-school teacher, teaching science. His father Edward, also a widower, lives with the family. He is a professor dealing especially with chemicals. Edward has gone missing. It seems he is either lost or has been kidnapped, but when David makes enquiries nobody can say where he is – not even the laboratory where Edward works. But in a flashback, we are told that Edward was working on making perfumes. Edward notes: “Olfaction is chemical… The olfactory system is linked to limbic and paralimbic structures. What that means is that smell affects emotions. Empathy has a cognitive side – that is, understanding how someone feels – manifested in what is called the ‘theory of mind’, the ability to imagine what another person might be experiencing and thinking. But scents engage instead the emotional side of empathy – a sense of co-experiencing the feelings of others. Other studies suggest that the link between odour and empathy arises from common neural pathways that involved the amygdala, the orbitofrontal cortex and the madiodorsel thalamus. Smell through the right nostril correlated better with empathy than through the left.” [p.93] So what is empathy? Usually it means understanding, or trying to understand, how other people feel; and wishing to help them. But Edward realises he has created a perfume that could cause harm…. And then he has gone missing.

But this is only part of the dramatis personae. Alison Morris is working for a company, looking for  a new perfume… she has heard of Edward’s findings. Alison’s partner is Jim. Jim and his buddy Eli are into gaming. They are working on a video game called EmPath. Unlike other video games, this one does not revel in violence, but encourages players to negotiate with people in a peaceful way. At first Jim and Eli seem to be on to something and ready to make a fortune… but the game becomes unpopular, Jim’s supposed buddy Eli has done a bunk and Jim is left bankrupt as he cannot pay all the people who had funded his work.  To the close reader, this is an early warning that some people only claim to be empathetic – or that one can be easily be taken in by a smooth talker. Alison sees she and Jim really need money. Alison thinks more about the missing Edward’s findings. She wonders if there is any way she can benefit from them. She is able to find a vial of Edward’s latest perfume, realising that it is dangerous. But more sinister people are interested in the potion. Yes, there are more characters in the novel and yes, there are more twists, some dealing with real violence, but my code is firm: Do not give away all the twists and surprises in a new novel that the author had planned.

If we think this sounds merely a thriller, we are wrong. What makes this novel really sophisticated is Walpert’s being able to present what could be called a thriller, but he has the nous to also deal with real issues – one being the whole idea of empathy itself, and the misuse of science. Here members of corporations jockey for prestige,  often ignoring what is good for the public. What happens to be fashionable is not necessarily good  Consumers are sold supposed novelties as “new” when they rarely are… and when it comes to perfumes, they are concocted in a brew of many drugs of which the public is not aware.

I have only one small quibble with Empathy. After some violence, I think the denouement is a little glib – too easy perhaps. But that is a small matter.  Over the last twelve months I have written about the three best novels to come out of New Zealand. They are Catherine Chidgey’s The Book of Guilt, Becky Manawatu’s Kataraina, and now Bryan Walpert’s Empathy . Walpert’s  novel is informed by science, understands how science can be misused, knows the stresses families go through, and sees the limitations of empathy itself. Certainly a book for grown-ups

Something Old

 

Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published year or two ago.     

“THE SCORPION GOD – Three Short Novels” by William Golding (First published in 1971)

 

Three novelle by William Golding were published together in one volume as The Scorpion God in 1971. They are The Scorpion God, Clonk Clonk, and Envoy Extraordinary. Envoy Extraordinary had been published earlier in a magazine in 1956. All three novelle are set in ancient times and in some way all are fables, as was the case in most of Golding’s earlier novels. However while two of these fables are serious, Envoy Extraordinary is more-or-less jocular. Later Golding turned Envoy Extraordinary into a play called The Brass Butterfly.

The Scorpion God is set in Egypt in very, very ancient times – about 3,000 B.C. Great House, meaning the Pharaoh, has to prove his strength regularly every seven years, or else the great river [the Nile] will not rise and the land will become barren. But he is ageing and is now clearly losing the ability to fulfil his ritual duties. His son, the prince, has to become a God and is referred to as a God. But the prince is very young [not yet a teenager] and does not want to become a God. Nor does he want to go through the ritual of marrying his sister Pretty Flower. Knowing he is ageing, Great House remembers that an earlier Pharaoh poison himself so that he could become immortal in the after-life. Should he do the same? But there is a character commonly called The Liar – a sort of court jester, but far more caustic – who knows more. Others do not believe him when he says that the land in which they live is only a small part of the whole world, and he speaks of mountains covered in snow. The river not only rises but it overflows. The Liar has to escape when he almost takes Pretty Flower as his wife. He is able to get through the deluge. Only on the very last page [p.62 in the copy I have]  does one of the soldiers chasing him gives the title of this novella. He describes The Liar as “Bleeding inside. He stings like a scorpion.” In the skies of ancient Egypt, there was a constellation known as the Scorpion, a violent god.

What exactly is Golding doing in this tale? It is known that he spent some time studying ancient Egypt in order to make his story credible, but there must be more to it than merely giving us an image of an ancient society far away. Like his novel The Inheritors, he is insisting that human behaviour is fairly consistent  - there is always ritual of some sort, there are always people who rebel against the status quo [The Liar] and such people are often threatened for seeing the world in a new way -  and there is always the threat of human violence.  Yet at the same time, there is a yearning for a force greater than human beings. Call it God if you will, but there it is.

            Clonk Clonk is a very different kettle of fish. As in The Scorpion God, Clonk Clonk had a profusion of characters with strange names, but even more so – and sometimes they are confusing, especially when one character is given many names. In Clonk Clonk there are characters with names like Bee Woman, Beautiful Bird, Stooping Eagle, Charging Elephant, Rutting Rhino etc. etc. The time is distant primeval times, hundreds of thousands of years ago. I have checked some pundits who assume that the story is set in Mesopotamia or on an island. But it is clear that the setting is somewhere in Africa, and as the society in question depends on warm pools (where they can clean themselves) it is clear that this part of Africa is in a volcanic area. For food, the men go hunting with their spears. The leopard is the animal they most hate. They pride in wearing leopard skins and putting up on poles leopard skulls. Meanwhile the women look for edible vegetation, prepare meals, and give birth. There are two main characters. The woman Palm is given many names. She is the woman who has the right to give names to new-born children and she has a role almost like a midwife. She longs to have children. She is something of a philosopher. She often refers to The Sky Woman – in other words the Moon – but she is beginning to understand that the Moon is simply another thing in the sky, not all mighty. Nevertheless she is fervent in keeping the right rituals. Much of the story takes place in moonlight. The other main character has become mockingly known as Chimp, because he failed to do well in one hunt and was injured.  In complicated ways, and to Chimp’s surprise, after much mocking him, Palm ritually takes him as her mate…. And she explains how men and women interact… at least that is how I interpret it. Once again, as in The Scorpion God , Golding explains the novelle’s title Clonk Clonk at the very end of the tale when Palm says “My ankle says clonk” adding “And I go clonk inside”. This suggests that she is pregnant, to her delight.

            Naturally Golding is considering the nature of human beings as they were and in many ways as they always will be, even after eons. Palm is acting as one who challenges what is taken for granted, and at least questions the environment she lives in. And the final pairing of Palm and Chimp have a tone of festivity. Human life goes on, harsh or sweet.

            So we come to the last novelle Envoy Extraordinary, which is partly tongue in cheek. As I noted above, this was written some years before the other two novelle. We are in ancient Rome. There are some political problems because the Emperor does not get on with his heir apparent, and this leads to some comedy and rivalry. But this is not the core of the tale. The Emperor’s confidante is an ingenious Greek, Phanocles, who is an inventor. Phanocles has persuaded the Emperor that the foreign idea of cooking in a [sort of] pressure-cooker is the best way to produce meals. Then Phanocles comes up with his brilliant idea of making use of steam to power ships. [At this point, although Golding never discusses it, it is true that in ancient Greece, some savants had worked out that steam could be used to make things move… but they never went further than using steam as a toy.] So Phanocles sets about creating a steam-ship, with paddle-wheels… It more-or-less works. Phanocles declares “I am altering  the shape of the world… there will be no slaves but coal and iron. The ends of the earth will be joined together”. But his hubris over runs him. There are problems, not only in the ship’s structure, and many explosions happen,  but sailors rebel. Even the slaves who row the ships rebel, asking what work will they be made to do if they were not in ships. Phanocles boasts that his ship will be faster than any other ship and will defeat any enemy fleet. But one bright person says “Suppose the enemy gets his own thunder-machine?” Reluctantly, the Emperor has to stop his friend Phanocles from going any further; and steam-ships are forbidden. But they remain good friends, walking in the Emperor’s garden, talking about philosophy and poetry… and [once again] William Golding waits until the very end when he tells us why this tale has its name. The Emperor  - discreetly wanting to get rid of him – he tells  Phanocles “I shall make you Envoy Extraordinary and  Plenipotentiary… I want you to go to China.” [Again for the record, ancient Rome vaguely understood there was a vast country in the Far East, but that was about as much they knew about it.]

            Golding is here basically having fun. There is that matter of hubris which he deals with in his novel The Spire – the man who is arrogant enough to think he knows better than the common crowd and the experts. But equally he is also suggesting that science takes a long time to develop… and science is sometimes misused. “Thunder-machines”, as one character calls them, could be far more destructive than what already existed. And surely warfare as we now know it is far more destructive than it ever was. As for the Emperor’s sending his friend off to China, I am sure Golding is nodding to the fact that in many ways ancient China was more sophisticated than most of Europe.  

            A bad tempered footnote: When I write about books, I read those books carefully. You do not have to agree with my verdicts; but I do not pretend to have read books that I have not read. I say this because increasingly I find students tend to look up precis and “notes” rather than sitting down and reading the book they are supposed to be studying. As you may be aware, “humanity” teachers at universities are finding it difficult to get students to read long books. What such students do not know is that the “notes” they often use are very simplified and erroneous. Example: Last week I ran (on line) into a hack telling students that  Golding’s novella Envoy Extraordinary was about a British official making a mess of things in Africa. Good luck to the students who use such information in an exam.

Something Thoughful

 Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.  

                                                THE LIMITS OF EMPATHY                               

I hate to say this, but it is clear that the word “empathy” has become a buzz-word and often means next to nothing.

Officially empathy means [or is supposed to mean] looking after other people, seeing other people’s point of view, sharing their feelings and perspective, understanding problems other people have, and helping them when they are in need. That is real empathy. Apparently some people seem to think this term is a recent thing, a break-through of understanding and psychology. But the same ideas have been around for centuries. “O wad some Power the giftie gie’ us / to see oursels as thers see us” as Robby Burns wrote. An old Christian prayer says “There but for the grace of God go I”, meaning that we should be aware of other people’s misfortunes and help them out. Others have turned it to “There but for fortune go I”  And of course we are often asked to “Walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes”.

But having noted this, the fact is that the term empathy now is often misused. The assumption is that the whole world will be a wonderful place if we only just agree on everything and be nice – real empathy, right? But that is not how the world works and that is not how human beings behave. Totalitarian states claim to be looking after everybody – so long as nobody disobeys… or else. Smooth politicians say they know what is good for everyone, but of course their opposition says otherwise. People, for all manner of reasons, disagree. Real democracy means allowing for dispute. Empathy might understand how other people are feeling… but their feelings may be nonsense.

Extreme empathy may lead to misjustice. A murderer and rapist may have committed many crimes. His life story may be one of poverty, a bad up-bringing, lack of education and no real understanding of the law. If you have any empathy you will understand why and how this criminal has become what he is. In fact you might begin to side with him [and this has happened in a number of well-known cases]. And here we go down the slope of sentimentality. Your empathy should also extend to the victims of crime. Indeed empathy over used can lead people to lose all proportion of what is not good for you. On top of this, there is the fact that many people are unreliable. XYZ may well be charming, apparently honest, and therefor trustworthy. You believe you have found somebody who is truly empathetic. But XYZ might in fact be taking advantage of you naivete. Good manners, smooth speaking and being agreeable do not necessarily make honesty. It is easy to pretend to be empathetic.

I am NOT therefore saying that we should be suspicious of everybody and always  question their motives. The world would be a very grim place if we did. There has to be faith in others or there would be no society at all. But as the word  “empathy” is now over-used, it has come to mean a vague lovey-ness, wanting to assume there is no real evil in the world.

I suggest that we set the word aside for a while, and replace it with the more robust word “compassion” … when it is appropriate.     

 

Something New

  We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.  

“It’s What He Would’ve Wanted” by Nick Ascroft (Te Herenga Waka Press, $NZ25); “No Good” by Sophie van Waatdenberg (Auckland University Press, $NZ24:99); “The Venetian Blind Poems” by Paula Green (Cuba Press,  NZ$20)

In this sixth collection, Nick Ascroft continues to write ironically, often tongue-in -cheek, sometimes flippant, but usually making acute observations on the mores and habits of  us human beings – as well as sometimes writing autobiographically.  He dedicates this collection to “For all the dead”. Ascroft very occasionally writes in traditional forms, such as the poems “Dire Dairy” and “Pig Magnet”, with their neatly blocked stanzas; but his habitual style is a sort of free-poetry in which he sometimes writes either lists or questions. And once or twice he deliberately writes in doggerel.

There are some major things that preoccupy Ascroft – death and sorrow; the awareness that life is short; the gradual decay of the human body; how the human brain works; and the attractions and pitfalls of sex. Only one poem, “Pig Magnet”, could really be called heroic – a long poem about the difficulties of getting his son to school via bus and the different moods that were felt in the ride  – but even here there is much irony.

How are the pitfalls of love and sex represented in this collection? The poem “The Centaur for Women” is introduced as  “… a 1990s fillum / featuring Al Pacino / as a blind centaur. / Whenever his nostrils / fill with the stench / of Gabrielle he neighs / a wild: Hooh-ah! Hoo-ah…” (the title parodies the Al Pacino’s film “Scent of a Woman”). The idea is that men are predators, easily aroused like centaurs and wildly preying on women…. yet often their conquests leave them. And in the poem “Dire Diary” there is a sense of scepticism about sex and love with lines like “Love is for young people with its / self-deceit and cross purposes. A young man in /  love may make us feel a bit sick, but the crush of / a middle-aged man makes us wince.” Yet the same poem gives us a credible analysis of love is seen by somebody who has had troubles with love. And “Which 1990’s Pin-Up Is Our Future Husband?” mocks teenagers [girls] who used to make a cult of apparent heart-throbs.

Death and human decay are addressed in many ways. “It’s What He Would’ve Wanted” where, tired of this common cliché, Ascroft verbally riots with one-liners about the many ways one could be buried or cremated.  “Fair-Weather Friend” is a kind of elegy for a dear friend; and “Pastiche for Mum”, which Ascroft says he read at his mother’s funeral, is a fond collection of odd things she used to do, presented jocularly. As for “Poem for Your Funeral 5”, it is more than flippant, and it is deliberately presented as doggerel in full thus: “When this guy lived he was a pain. / But now he’s dead and down the drain. / He used to drone, each story long, / how he was never in the wrong. / But now he’s dead, the bucket kicked, / his eyes look like eggs Benedict. / His lips are still. He can’t be heard. / And so I get the final word.”

And what of the general human condition? We are, suggests a poem, the “Beast That Needs to Be Tamed”. Sometimes we know that our mentality may be confused. The poem “Do You Hear Yourself?” has the line “There is something / you are unaware of your unawareness.” The poem “Another Poem with a Feather” could be despairing; and “Another Poem With a Found Father” concludes with the line “Another poem as useless at music as a penny whistle.” But then the body is as trying as the mind and the body gradually decays as it ages. Remembering this, there is a brief comment called “Old Farts” which is literally about old people farting. “Do You Wish to Continue?”, a poem made up of 12 questions, contains such lines as “Do you wish to continue squirming like a mortal?” And as one would hope, Ascroft has sone straightforward satire, as in “Dress Code” and “Opulence” wherein pretentious people try to keep up with what is fashionable; and “Bad Cookbooks”, a collection of 44 one-liners, laughing at, or being disgusted by, revolting meals.

This is a very varied and very readable collection. And though the poems about death could be seen as disrespectful, they are clearly telling us that death is inevitable no matter how we try to ignore it.

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No Good is Sophie van Waatdenberg’s debut collection of poetry, although many of her poems have featured in AUP’s New Poets in 2019. She lived and wrote for much of her lived in the U.S.A. and I believe [I could be wrong] that her parents came from the Netherlands. Her parents feature often in this collection. Waatdenberg’s style is in part almost classical. She writes in neat stanzas, preferring to produce either couplets or 14-liners which are almost sonnets. Her imagery sometimes borders on the surreal. More than anything, though, her No Good is a self-examination, or if you prefer, a psychological journey. Why did Waatdenberg call her collection No Good ? People who are depressed often feel, irrationally, that they are “no good” and much of this collection is built on that mood. Towards the end of the collection, we are given the poem that gives the title, “The Getting Away”. It reads in part “I’m moving out. Everyone does it. / Everyone turns their dining tables upside down/ to remove the legs.  Down the road, far from your life,/ opposite direction: I’m taking the nail scissors / and the best green leaves.   I’m ready for nothing, / smallhanded, tricked.  I’m rotten and roiled / and no good, truly – truly no good at all.”  Yes, there are moments of joy and desire, but the negative mood is always ready to jump out.

No Good is presented in three sections, and I’ll do my usual system of giving you a sort of synopsis.

First section Sophie van Waatdenberg opens with the “Poem in Which I am Good”, in which she asserts that she can be positive about her life, even if people she loved have died or disappeared and “Everybody I love will live forever”. Following this are poems about adolescent awkwardness; about childhood sharing a bedroom with a young man who “knew a lot / about philosophy, and he knew I thought philosophy was difficult / if not unnecessary…” and had eccentric and annoying attitudes.  There is uncertainty about her sexuality in “Hymn to Twee Possibility” as she considers a film about lesbians.  She and the people with whom she consorts are involved in raising crops and living simply where [in the poem “Propagate the ZZ Plant”] “you are doing such a good job for me / green monster of staying alive. All my friends / have left me to grow farms of their own…/…The rain is fat / like a grandmother’s kiss and we can’t go out / to be loved by anybody.”  As in so many of her poems, one has to ask if this is a metaphor for loneliness rather than a literal account of raising crops. Later she says “How can I spend life with myself…I do not want anyone to love me./ But then they don’t, why don’t they?” She seems to commit herself to being a lesbian, but even here she is ambiguous.

Second Section comprises 16 poems called “Cremation Sonnets” in which “my father was beautiful. His tipped chin / and factual smile, his elbow…”.  Her poems are not of rebellion against her parents, but chastises herself, telling us that she “took up swearing, walked home alone at night / with great cowardice” and also “How can it be my fault to get things wrong? / You died and I loved you, my life was over.”  In another context she asks “To where is your body going / and in what vessel?” This lament is not only for her father but perhaps also for others [it is not clear], but surely she is referring to her father when she writes “And every night and I mean every night / you’d tuck me in, grip the steel / of my wobbling bed and kiss me / how the Dutch do, thrice.”  There is much sense of guilt about family and perhaps of having lost their religion.

Third Section is made of ten poems of different moods. “Love Poem” is about her teenaged intimate love with another girl, presented as a happy memory. But also there are poems about being second best (the poem “Love Practice Weekend Four”); self-consciousness about eating (the poem “Doce”) and other showing how difficult it is to navigate personal relationships.

One can’t help admiring how candid her work is, but it is gruelling.

 *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *

 

Written in two halves, Paula  Green explains in her Endnote that the first, “The Venetian Blind Poems” was inspired when she had to be in hospital going through therapy and medicine to right a rare form of blood cancer. The second, “The Open Window”, has to do with how she saw the world when she was once again at home.  Each of these many poems is brief, making a statement, falling into revery.

“The Venetian Blind Poems” get their name from being in hospital where “The grey harbour slips through Venetian slats” and “I invent a sweet soundtrack to match / the harbour stripes” and “the world arrives in skinny bands”. There is the pain of her situation; and the drowsiness and lack of focus that comes with infusions she has to have; and some foods she is given are not really palatable. But in all this she gradually comes to appreciate more language and literature and “Living the moment is my way / of inhabiting the serene Lake of Good Thoughts”. Among other things, she appreciates some of the nurses and staff who look after her. She listens to podcasts of children’s stories. She dreams of plants and flowers and other soothing things; but she does have a “morphine nightmare” and “some days the pain is so / intense, like a clinging dressing / gown..” Yet after much trauma, she can face the day and like it.

“The Open Window” is placed in a very different mood. Here we can “Look at the wildflowers in the long grass / Look at the blue umbrella dripping spring / Look at the green hills and the kereru in the cabbage tree.” We see more clearly what is worth looking at, feeling at, liking at things that make life worth living, especially when we were younger… indeed images of childhood…. Or is this mere a fantasy? There are ideas of climbing mountains and “The mountain sleeps / but soon it will whisper / me awake with comfort chants.” Perhaps this section is dealing with recovery and getting used to the normal, although this is as much revelling in small and even mundane things when “We bake bread and we eat / We breathe and we feel” and “I am thinking after a bone marrow transplant. / I measure the world differently / today I watered the garden for the first time.” Often she refers to New Zealand women she knows who are poets, as she is, and lands where there is “…the sweet Lake of Calm…the rock of Contemplation… the river of Self Awareness… the Ocean of Belonging…”

Could all this be called confessional poetry? Not really. Even though much of this collection deals with very personal things, it looks closely at moods and dreams that are universal and it works towards a sense of calmness, even overcoming prolonged  trauma.

 

Something Old

Not everything worth reading is hot off the press. In this section, we recommend "something old" that is still well worth reading. "Something Old" can mean anything from a venerable and antique classic to a good book first published year or two ago.     

     “THE PYRAMID” by William Golding (First published in 1967)

The Pyramid, William Golding’s 6^th novel, is a single novel written in the first person. Some have suggested that it is really three novellas, because it deals with three separate times in the narrator’s life and each could be read meaningfully on its own. But, read more carefully, you will understand that it is one coherent novel, even if it goes from the narrator’s adolescence to his middle-age. William Golding’s earlier novels dealt overtly with the problem of evil, or how we human-beings came to be very flawed and capable of murder, rape, dishonesty, jealousy, greed and all the other immoralities [or sins if you prefer]. His earlier novels were very much fables or allegories. The Pyramid is not written in that style. It is set in a small English rural town and its characters are not in any way allegoric. It is realistic. One reviewer disliked the novel because its setting – a small English rural town – was too quaint, the cosy sort of place where an Agatha Christie murder-mystery could take place. In fact, among other things, the novel drew on Golding’s memories of the rural town where he grew up, and it was by no means cosy. The same reviewer claimed that the novel was too old- fashioned for a novel published in 1967. But how can you narrate a novel ranging from the 1920’s to the 1950’s without mentioning and examining mores that are no longer with us? And again if you read carefully, Golding is also signalling how flawed we still can be.

FIRST SECTION: In the late 1920’s, in a rural town called Stilbourne, Oliver is aged 18. His parents are middle-class. His father is a pharmacist, who deals with pills and medicines. He is a quiet and thoughtful man but Oliver’s mother is very censorious. She often belittles uncouth people… meaning lower-classes. Oliver is preparing to go to Oxford where he will study chemistry and physics. As a hobby, he enjoys playing the piano. When he was younger he was taught violin by the eccentric Miss Dawlish before switching to piano. Miss Dawlish was wealthy and sees herself as upper-middle-class. But he has other things in mind. He thinks of love and, like any male teenager, he thinks of sex. He admires and dreams about a young woman called Imogen, but she is in her early twenties and is about to get married. As he lies in bed Oliver thinks about Imogen. For this reader at any rate, Oliver’s sexual frustration is one of the best depictions of male adolescence I have yet come upon. Across the road lives Robert Ewan, the same age as Oliver. Robert’s father has more local prestige than Oliver’s father because Robert’s father is a doctor of medicine. Robert has adopted the airs of the upper crust and acts as if he is Oliver’s superior. While Oliver is preparing to go to Oxford, Robert is about to join the R.A.F. at Cranwell.

Crisis comes when the local beauty Evie Babbacombe knocks on Oliver’s door one rainy night. She asks him to help Robert get a stolen car out of a bog in the woods. Oliver helps, but his frustration grows. Here is Robert with a beautiful girlfriend while Oliver has none. Robert goes off to Cranwell. Oliver often walks in the woods. Then news comes that  Robert has been badly hurt in a crash. He will be crippled for life. And Evie now starts walking in the woods. Oliver begins to walk with her. Then he cuddles her. Then he longs to swyve her. [ I only use this medieval term because I really mean f…]. She goes along with his petting and kissing and pawing in other walks. Finally, in the woods, she says “Get on with it” and he does. But then it dawns on him. She has also swyved with the absent, permanently damaged, Robert; and Oliver believes that Evie’s father has been spying on them, setting up Evie to catch another respectable middle-class adolescent boy to marry. And Evie makes it clear she is pregnant. “Thought you’d got something for nothing, didn’t you?” she says later to Oliver. Later still, Oliver sees Evie walking and talking with Doctor Ewan. Then she leaves town. Did she have an abortion (illegal in the 1920’s)? Or did she have a miscarriage and a still-born baby? [The name Golding gave to the novel’s town Stilbourne might possibly be a clue, but I could be wrong.] Or could Evie have never been pregnant at all? It is never made clear. But whatever the truth was, Oliver, as he grows up, understands that he had in effect raped Evie when he forced her to give in and open her legs. And he is more aware that there are different social classes, with Evie’s family being working class. The only prestige her father has is being the town crier dressed up in a costume which is widely regarded as a joke. The part of town where her family lives is almost a slum, even if Evie is cheerful, good-looking and gets on well with people.

Only some years later, when Oliver is studying at Oxford, he bumps into Evie in London. She is apparently as cheerful as usual and has had many men in her life; but when he talks about the “old times” she says “It all began when you raped me… Never stood a chance… I didn’t want you – I was only fifteen.” Oliver finally understands that he had forced her to swyve with him, and that he had in effect raped her, regardless if she was pregnant or not. Who said that small rural towns are cosy and sweet? Evil was here. Snobbery, contempt and lust were here. It has some of the things that Golding wrote about in his first five allegorical novels, concerned with how or why human beings became so flawed.

 

                                                              Goldiing in his prime

THE SECOND SECTION has often been passed over as a mere farce, and in many ways it is, but there is much more to it than only that. Coming home from university during an academic break, Oliver reluctantly agrees to perform in the local amateur “opera” company who are putting on a sugary Ruritanian Ivor Novello-ish operetta. He is annoyed by the fact that Imogen, the young woman for whom he had pined, has been given the leading female singing role. Her husband also has a leading role. Oliver now says to himself that he knows Evie was a better singer than Imogen ever was, and he is more aware that this amateur company is made up of twee, pretentious middle-class people who think of themselves as cultured and would therefore not welcome working-class singers into their caste. Of course, such thoughts could really only be Oliver’s adolescent sour-grapes when he so often sees Imogen with another man.  That apart, there is much real bitchery and back-stabbing among the actors and singers… but then aren’t most actors narcissistic? (And if you know Golding’s Pincher Martin, you will know that the main villain was once an actor.)  This is where the farce in the novel kicks in. Clothing not fitting, people not properly rehearsed, things falling etc. But there is one thing that is not funny. The director who has been called in to direct the operetta is Dr. Evelyn De Tracy. He is very prissy. He calls all the male actors “dear boy” and he flatters Oliver for his performance. Any male adolescent now would quickly understand that Evelyn De Tracy is probably “gay” or homosexual. But remember, in the 1920’s many male adolescents would never have learned about such people. Evelyn De Tracy invites Oliver to a drink during parts of the operetta in which Oliver is not on stage. He speaks vaguely to Oliver of how there are openings for a better place for Oliver. Oliver listens politely, not really understanding what De Tracy is saying. Then De Tracy tries to amuse Oliver by showing him some photos of men escorting men wearing women’s clothes. Oliver identifies one of the men dressed as women was De Tracy and he simply laughs. He clearly has never heard the term “drag”. At once De Tracy snatches the photos back, and very soon he makes himself scarce. Remember, in the 1920s, homosexuals could often be targeted by blackmailers… and innocent though Oliver was, even by talking about De Tracy’s funny photos, he could destroy De Tracy’s whole career.

THE THIRD SECTION is in some ways the saddest. In his 50’s Oliver returns to Stilbourne. He has done well at Oxford. He got through the Second World War working in a chemical plant. He has married and has children. He notices how many things have changed. Long gone are buggies and a smithy. In their place is a petrol station run by and owned by  Henry Williams, working-class, used to board at eccentric Miss Dawlish’s house, and in effect had become her servant. But Henry was an enterprising person, and gradually he knew how to make himself rich and he and his wife moved to another house. Miss Dawlish has long been dead. Henry has kept Miss Dawlish’s antique car – nicknamed “Bounce” – polished and shown outside his petrol station. Oliver goes to the church where there is a plaque for Miss Dawlish. He goes into a long flashback, remembering when he was a little boy and he used to go to her place for first violin and then piano lessons. She was a tyrant when teaching music, severely belittling him when he did something wrong. And when lessons were being taught, the little boy would often hear her verbally chastising her boarders. She acted as if she were a grande dame. Young Oliver hated her. … But later he learns the story of Miss Dawlish’s own childhood. Her father had tyrannised her, forcing her to play music and otherwise depriving her from having friends in the hope that she would become able to perform in public. He would run out into the street if he heard one of those new-fangled gramophones and he would smash it. So, on his own, old Miss Dawlish became more and more eccentric. In her old age, she wanted attention. She would deliberately drive her car into a ditch and then ring up the garage to come and help her. She would go for walks simply to show off her best coat to passers-by. Her mentality declined. Finally, she put on her best shoes and gloves and hat, and she walked off stark naked. She was sent off to a mental hospital and stayed there for some years. Knowing all this, the adult Oliver felts some pity for her… but then he decides he still hated her. No happy ending..

Now how could I say The Pyramid is one coherent novel, even if it is presented in three parts? In some sense it is a Bildungsroman, showing the growth of a young man from adolescence to maturity and in the process changing his attitudes as he grows. Remember that Golding was inspired by what he had learnt in the town where he originally lived. But Golding is also concerned with those primeval problems he examined, in a very different way, in his earlier novels. There is jealousy [Oliver is jealous of Robert as he has a girl-friend; and Oliver, in his mind, belittles Imogen because she is beyond his reach]. There is a lack of charity when Oliver’s mother and other people look down on the poorer working-classes. There is rape [whether or not Evie was pregnant, Oliver committed rape]. And there is hatred – even in manhood, Oliver still hates Miss Dawlish, even though he know how forces beyond her had made her what she is. The Pyramid stands up as one of Golding’s best novels.

Some random thoughts to finish with: Why are there two characters in this novel called Evie and Evelyn? I really don’t know but my guess is that both are meant to be seen as tempters, Evie with easy sex and Evelyn trying to tempt Oliver into his circle. Like Eve tempting Adam in Genesis….. And why did the first publishers of The Pyramid [Faber and Faber] had to have on the front cover an image of a naked old woman walking out? Okay, Miss Dawlish goes gaga and walks out naked, but that is an event in the very last pages. To me it seems a sort of titillation. 

 

 

 

 

 

Something Thoughful

 Nicholas Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree or disagree with him.     

                                               A PROBLEM WITH ART GALLERIES 

                         

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold… by which I mean I have been in Europe enough to have visited many of the great art-galleries – the Louvre, the Prada, the Uffizi, the British National Gallery… and quite a few others. The all have their different protocols. I remember the severity in Amsterdam when I was censured  for taking photos of Van Gogh’s “Crows in a Cornfield”… so I waited until the busybody had moved on then went on photographing.  I did similar deviousness in the British National Gallery when I was told I could not shoot a Gainsborough.

So we come to Australia. We’ve popped a number of times over to Oz – Sydney of course but more often now to Melbourne because one of our daughters lives there now. We have just come back from a fortnight in Melbourne and in Adelaide (simply because we had never been to Adelaide before).

 

So here is a tale of two galleries.

In Melbourne the was an exhibition of French Impressionism from the late 19^th century. We eagerly paid to see this exhibition, which had been loaned by American galleries. In fact we booked for it in advance.

Oh Misery! Yes the paintings were wonderful. All  those works by Corot, Millet, Monet, Boudin, Sisley, Van Gough, Degas and others; but one had to push and jostle through the crowd. The fact was that there were so many people that one could barely stop to admire a painting before one was pushed along. It seemed apparent that the gallery had been grossly over-booked. Without being a snob, I believe that only a limited number of people should have been booked for each viewing… say, two hours for each group. One old man sat down in the midst of the crowd and said, lugubriously, but truthfully “This is not the way to see art.” To make matters worse, the whole time we were in the gallery there was a distressed woman who was pushing a pram with an even more distressed baby in it. The baby was not merely whimpering but was [literally] howling and screaming… for the whole hour-plus that we were in the gallery. I doubt if either mother or baby was enjoying the art work, but, being polite, nobody said that the baby should be put out.  Yes, great paintings but not a great experience.

 

There were no such problems when we, later, were in Adelaide  [very nice and tidy city-centre with many malls and green spaces]. Going to Adelaide’s main art-gallery there were no crowds because no special exhibition was on. Much space was given to selections of colonial 19^th century Australian landscapes and portraits, and much space of Aboriginal works, but as much space was given to classic work from Europe, mainly from the 17^th and 18^th centuries. But one tiny matter did irk me. In two of the galleries, rather than having under  each painting the name of the painter and the name of the painting, title and name were all placed together at the end of their two galleries. One had to puzzle out which painting was which.

I suppose all I have said here is trivial, but small things can ruin a viewing.

 

 

 

 

Something New

 We feature each fortnight Nicholas Reid's reviews and comments on new and recent books.   

“EDGES OF EMPIRE” by Francis L. Collins, Alan Gamlen and Neil Vallelly (Auckland University Press, NZ$49.99); “UNDERWORLD” by Jared Savage (Harper -Collins New Zealand, NZ$39.99)

Edges of Empire deals with the politics of immigration in New Zealand as seen and interpreted by three academics - Collins (professor in sociology), Gamlen (social scientist specialising in migration) and Vallelly (lecturer in sociology). They focus on the years between 1980 and 2020, but naturally that first have to discuss how immigration was dealt with in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. Much of their focus has to do with how different Ministers for Immigration, in changing political parties, dealt with immigration. They interviewed 15 former Ministers for Immigration – they had attempted to interview 17, but two declined to be interviewed.

In its Preface, it is explained that “Edges of Empire” means New Zealand has largely withdrawn from what was once the British Empire. Yes, officially our head of state is still the English Monarch, but that is a mere formality. Since Britain entered what was first called the Common Market – then the European Economic Community -  New Zealand knew it could no longer expect most of its goods to be sold to Britain and hence New Zealand had to find new markets. Up until the 1950s,  many British [and Irish] immigrants came to New Zealand, and at that time New Zealanders were regarded as British subjects [our passports said so]  And, of course, New Zealand law and much New Zealand culture was built on British models. Our populace was mainly bi-cultural  - Maori and Pakeha. But by the 1980s, as New Zealand sought new markets, the country was made more open to Asian immigrants – Chinese, Indian, Filipino and others  - and Pasifika people were settled here. Gradually the country became more multi-cultural, though Pakeha has remained the great majority.  There was an ongoing problem of the large number of New Zealanders who emigrated and moved to Australia. It was also in the 1980s that the Labour Party unleashed neoliberalism and in their policies regarding immigration, they welcomed not only people with skills, but also those who were entrepreneurs and could build money. The National Party eagerly adopted similar ideas when they came to power again. The authors of this book say in the Preface that “from a primarily bicultural Maori and White settler nation until 1980” New Zealand has dramatically diversified ethnically, demographically and socio-economically. They finish their Preface by telling us that they are writing about migration governance rather than migration itself – that is, how over the years the government dealt with migration.     

Having set up the purpose of this book in the Preface, Edges of Empire then moves, in six long chapters, to how different Ministers for Immigration have dealt with their portfolios.

Chapter One “The Imperial Migration Regime, 1840-1980” In the 19^th century, the British Empire approved Europeans – but especially British –  settling in New Zealand. As the century moved on there was grudging permission for some non-British settlers, Croatians, some Chinese and a few others. By the end of the Second World War, the British Empire was falling apart. New Zealand did show much humanity in taking in some refugees after the war. By the 1960s, a great number of Pasifika people were invited into New Zealand, mainly to fill domestic labour shortages. At about the same time, and since the early 1950s, more Maori had moved away from rural arias and settled in the bigger cities. Nevertheless, more British, Irish, Scottish and [by the late 1950s] Dutch settled in New Zealand. But the great loss for New Zealand came when Britain joined the European Economic Community and New Zealand had to find new markets. More Asians were invited to settle in New Zealand. At about the same time, there was controversy about “over-stayers” – that is, workers who had visas to stay in New Zealand for a limited time, but who decided to stay here permanently. The Labour Kirk-Rowling government inaugurated “dawn-raids”, targeting “overstayers”; but it was the in-coming National Party leader Robert Muldoon who ramped up the “dawn raids”, focusing on Pasifika people. Not only did this raise much controversy, but it alerted more understanding that New Zealand was no longer a “bi-culture” country, but a “multi-culture” country.

Chapter Two “The Neoliberal Revolution and the Rise of Economic Multiculturalism, 1981- 1988” On both of the parliament’s aisles, it was decided that as far as immigrants were concerned they should be the type of people who could contribute to the New Zealand’s economy, therefore the most-wanted were those with skills and those who were entrepreneurs. Labourers were not the priority. Neoliberalism was in its prime.. but there was an on-going problem. Every year between 1976 and 1982 many New Zealanders migrated to Australia – meaning a loss of 100,000 New Zealanders. The Immigration Act of 1987 made it clear than New Zealand was no longer an open door for Britain – up until then, Britons were able to settle in New Zealand without going through any formalities. Now those who wanted to settle in New Zealand had to go through the same processes as any other would-be immigrant.

Chapter Three “Globalisation and the New Migration 1989 – 1989” In these years, migration was officially listed in categories as “General Skills” [people who could deal with technology in its varied forms]; “Business Investor” [bringing in money, setting up businesses etc.] “Family” [those related to people who had already become New Zealanders] and “Humanitarian” [refugees]. For all this, however, with many different ethnicities coming in there was a popular backlash. Penalties for those who could not speak English were requested. At the same time many Maori reacted more strongly at the idea that New Zealand was now “multi-culture” country.

Chapter Four “Managing Migration 1997 – 2004” In 1996, parliament adopted the M.M.P. [Mixed Member Proportional] system of voting. This meant new parties were being courted by the established Labour and National parties. Winston Peters ran with what the authors call “a stridently xenophobic  campaign”, but in the outcome the Labour party also suggested that immigration should be tightened; and once he was secure in parliament Peters adopted more moderate ideas about immigration. Bringing in much money now came from international students [mainly Asian].  Between 1999 and 2003, international students in New Zealand who had visas to study at New Zealand universities increased from 30,000 to  120,000, 45% of whom were Chinese.  At the same time, Australia had much harsher attitudes to immigrants.

Chapter Five “Security, Integrity and Modernisation, 2005 – 2011” As Prime Minister, John Key was focused on bringing business to New Zealand, and by this stage Australia, China, America, Britain, and Chile – in that order – were our most important trading partners. But there was sometimes a tension between marketing and dealing with authoritarian states, hence more stronger checking of would-be immigrants. It should also be noted that the global financial crisis always had a huge effect on New Zealand.

Chapter Six “A New Migration Boon and the Politics of Immigration Policymaking, 2012 – 2020” Between 2008 – 2012 there was a net emigration  loss of – 125,718. But by this stage net immigration was being questioned. With so many coming into New Zealand [and especially as in large cities, the largest being Auckland], infrastructure was becoming inadequate, and there was a growing crisis in housing. It is only at this point that the authors examine in some detail the Maori perspective on immigration and how they relate it to the Treaty of Waitangi.   There is a Coda called “The Covid – 19 Interregnum” which reminds us that the prime-minister Jacinda Ardern closed the border for as long as the pandemic lasted. and so to Conclusion, summing up all that has been said so far. It has a passage about “Empire and Colonialism” saying in effect that we are still in some way in the British orbit; and near  the end we are told that “by international standards, the politicisation of migration in New Zealand has been mild and has not disturbed a dominant consensus on immigration policy.” This is more-or-less what I had already understood in reading Edges of Empire in that regarding immigration, different political parties tended to agree, in spite of some grand-standing from a few politicians. By the way, in writing this review, I have emphasised the nature of immigration itself… which is rather different from the migration governance that that authors dealt with.

I have one depressing fact. Some months back, I reviewed Erik Olssen’s The Origins of anExperimental Society  an excellent account of the making of New Zealand. But I cautioned that is was a hard read, more likely to be read by academics than by the general public. With its precise statistics and data, its detailed accounts of shifts in parliament and its length, Edges of Empire will go down best with the academics. But it is a necessary book, informative and giving a detailed account of how our populace has changed.

  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *.  *

            Jared Savage is a journalist working for the New Zealand Herald. He specialises in reporting crime. He wrote two earlier books, Gangland and Gangsters’ Paradise both of which were reviewed on this blog. In his introduction to Underworld, he says that “this is the final book of a trilogy”. For the third time he looks at the most sordid and destructive behaviours of gangs. He does not deal with one-off murders or heists. He deals with peddlers and importers of dangerous drugs, notably methamphetamine (“meth”), and how rivalry between gangs often leads to major violence. He charts the lengths to which the police have had to go to find and destroy “meth” and other Class One drugs like cocaine and heroin. Most of his narratives are based on interviews with both police and some gangsters, notes made in court when a trial is proceeding, as well as looking carefully at files. He notes how crime has changed radically in New Zealand in the last few decades. Where New Zealand had small-time home-grown gangsters, we now have Asian, Mexican and other ethnicities working for syndicates and cartels, finding ways to bring toxic drugs to us. The fact that Australia has deported criminals back to New Zealand has not helped. Then there are the home-grown, patched gangs [Mongrel Mob, Black Power etc.] who do most of the distribution of illegal drugs. Savage notes “impoverished urban areas and provincial townships, with high unemployment rates and social deprivation, were hit hardest by the meth trade, and no more so than Northland”. This is one of the sorrows of this book. It is the impoverished who have been most obviously degraded by the consumption of meth.

            Chapter by chapter, Jared Savage presents us with specific cases. An account of how the police, by careful detective work, reined in the boss of the Head Hunters in Auckland who made millions out of meth. The murders in Tauranga as the Mongrel Mob and the Black Power gangs vied for distributing drugs (the Mongrel Mob is the largest gang and was the first to deal in meth).  The first attempts by Mexican cartels to bring meth into New Zealand was in Tauranga, with its open harbour. The corruption of baggage-handlers at airports who found ways of avoiding police surveillance when bringing drugs in. The grisly death of a Chinese meth cooker who fell foul of his colleagues, was murdered and his body was buried somewhere near the Desert Road. The connection of local gangs with the Hell’s Angels. The impact of imported Australian gangs.  …. and so many other tales.

Obviously it is all very depressing to read, but Jared Savage has the skill to write specifically and in detail. The police are given their due and there are some cases of hope as a few addicts see the light.