Something New

 

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

     “NEW STORIES” by Owen Marshall (Penguin Books, $NZ38); “WHILE HEARTS COUNT OUR FOREVERS” by Hugh Major (Disjunct Books, $NZ32:99)

Among New Zealand writers, there is a long tradition of short stories. In fact New Zealand’s short stories are often more read than New Zealand’s novels.  Who is the most revered New Zealand writer? Katherine Mansfield, who stuck with short stories and never wrote a novel. Some of our best short-story-writers did also write novels – Frank Sargeson, Dan Davin, Janet Frame,  Patricia Grace etc. But since the recent death of Vincent O’Sullivan (poet, novelist and short-story writer), Owen Marshall reigns supreme as our most-read short-story writer (yes, he has also written some novels). His first collection was published in 1979, and since then he has always been lauded as one of our best and most perceptive writers. Owen Marshall is an unassuming writer. He does not condescend to his audience but [with very few exceptions] writes about ordinary people, mainly middle-class and Pakeha and only rarely involving us with academics or overt politics.

Marshall’s latest collection comprises 27 stories – some short, some long. Interestingly, only six of the stories are written in the first-person. One (Double Whammy) has a narrator telling us how difficult it is to deal with friends when they are about to get divorced. Swansong has a desperate narrator facing old people in a run-down apartment. The Hour of the Wolf  lets us hear the pompous voice of an ex-academic now depressed and hitting the bottle. Up at the Nancy is a strange story of a band of deer-hunters in the mountains who have to look after an odd intruder. Legacy is a sketch wherein the narrator’s memory reverts to childhood. And (opening the collection) there is a longer-than-usual story Fortune’s Whim, told by a young Kiwi who is doing his O.E. by picking up casual jobs around Europe and finds himself being a deck-hand on a millionaire’s pleasure yacht.  This is one in which we seem to be heading to a sting-in-the-tale, but Marshall has the nous to let us work out what has finally happened. In each of these cases, Marshall’s skill is his ability to adopt the exact sort of speech each narrator uses – we are listening to unique voices.

As for the other 21 third-person stories, Marshall rarely takes us outside New Zealand. Jasper Coursey presents a young Kiwi in Nice picking up some money by helping an old English historian around the ancient city… and oddly enough he comes to enjoy the experience. The Enemy Without a Tail is surprisingly about narcotics in Australia. One of Marshall’s finest (and longest) is the closing story Elsbeth and Lloyd George. Charming is its account of a New Zealander, with Welsh forebears, visiting Wales and enjoying the company of an English woman whom he meets. Marshall avoids the clichés that often go with romantic tales of meeting delightful strangers. This meeting is matter-of-fact and real in both its narrative and its denouement.  Dealing with almost “alien territory”, rarely used by Marshall, is Ghost Christmas, where a young man avoids having Christmas with his rowdy flat-mates and heads up to Auckland which he’s barely visited before. He finds some of the unexpected things young Aucklanders do. The fact is, in most of his writing, Marshall tends to stay in his own stamping grounds, far south of the Bombay Hills and usually on the South Island.

Some tales are brief anecdotes – Broderick and Riley, Free Fall, Cloud Drift, Marjorie’s Mushroom and others. One such is almost metaphysical, but I won’t spoil your reading by telling you which one.

At the risk of annoying you, I won’t give any sort of synopsis for all the other stories in this collection, great though so many of them are. But I will say that Marshall deals with very common domestic and public situations known in this country -  a retiree tasked with looking after a blind woman; two women coming to terms with their sexuality; how a man deals with visiting the factory where he once worked; a typical day of a young teenager just looking for harmless things to do; a woman who wants to break from a man who had once been her lover; engaging with people you’ve never met before; the cop who just happens to do the right thing when the wrong thing comes his way; the man who has the skill to move away from his boring job but finds, even with his skill, he can’t get any opening; the parents who are not sure how to deal with the situation when their son gets a girl pregnant; the young woman who is determined to meet the biological father whom she has never seen.

Mundane? Not at all. Marshall makes his characters live, behave like real people, show us what it is like to be a New Zealander and while he steers far from sentimentality he knows what compassion is.

Of course New Stories is a great collection. What else did you expect from Owen Marshall?

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As well as being a skilled painter, Hugh Major is also a well-informed student of philosophy and spirituality, not identifying with any established religion but fighting a good fight against pure materialism. Twice before on this blog I have reviewed his work, first his Notes on the Mysterium Tremendum and later his From Monkey to Moth . I do not agree with everything he has written, but I am always stimulated by his earnest quest and his real insight.

In While Hearts Count Our Forevers, Major moves from speculation and pure philosophy to narrative and history. While Hearts Count Our Forevers comprises three novellas, all set in the 17^th and 18^th centuries and all based on historical fact… but of course in all three of these tales there is much discussion of philosophy and philosophers are among the main characters. 

First novella Zeitgeist – Weltgeist is set mainly near Jena University, with events taking place between 1798 and 1804 [this was, of course, long before Germany became one state]. Romanticism is in its high tide, and the man who calls himself Novalis is writing very romantic poems. Among philosophers there are many discussions on the nature of being and understanding. The aggressive philosopher Fichte believes that everything depends on the Self – we understand the world only through our own and single perception. But the philosopher Friedrich Schelling believes that two people can merge into having the same perception and in effect become one. Or could it be that Schelling believes this because he is in love with Caroline… who happens to be the wife of the philosopher Schlegel? Major deals with this carefully and it is the relationship of Schelling and Caroline that is the main focus. The novella is not only credible [it is based on fact] but it takes these matters seriously. Many characters appear (Hegel and Goethe himself have minor roles… and remember it was Goethe’s novella The Sorrows of Young Werther that was the epitome of romanticism). What is the denouement? Read and find out. Yes, it is a page turner.

Next novella A Material Girl has not quite so much angst, being the story of Margaret Cavendish (nee Lucas) but it does have some frustration for Margaret. Again based on fact, it is set in the years between 1644 and 1660 – that is, the years of the English Civil War and then the Restoration of the king (Charles II). Margaret is a royalist. She (and later her husband – who is 30 years older than her) take refuge in France while the civil war is raging. In Paris she gets to know a number of philosophers – Descartes, the master of rationalism; and Thomas Hobbes, a materialist who believes that everything is physical matter and who has little room for spirituality. Margaret believes there must be some immaterial force that feeds our intelligence. Major takes much interest in Margaret’s book The Blazing World, in which she presents her own radical ideas. What frustrates Margaret? That even the best philosophers tend not to take women seriously and do not really allow her to express her ideas. But she is able to square off with members of the Royal Society. In that respect, A Material Girl is a feminist story, but it is also a galloping tale of a particular era.

Finally comes Undoubtedly, really a spritely verbal duel between two very wilful people. It takes place in the years 1649-1650. Rene Descartes is feeling old, tired and in poor health [for the record, he died when he was 54]. The great philosopher has fled from France and Holland – where he had enemies – and has taken up the offer to tutor Queen Christina of Sweden. He is aged. She is 23. She swears effing and blinding. Hugh Major has researched and found for Queen Christina quaint ancient swear-words that are authentic but will no longer give offence. What is the verbal duel? Descartes believes that the only way we can understand things is by reason. The queen keeps testing him by confronting him with hard – and often foul - physical facts. Major does not use the terms, but this is a battle between rationalism and empiricism. Of course there is much more to it than that – the political manouevering around the queen; the question of who will succeed her; the queen’s sexuality [Major does not sensationalise this]; and Descartes’ memories and dreams.

In these three novellas, Major has not only researched carefully, but he has presented these distant centuries vividly. And believe it or not, given that he deals with such weighty matters as philosophical debates, he has managed to bring a light touch to his narratives. Quite a feat.