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High quality artwork

27/10/2020

Hare & Ruru
by Laura Shallcrass

The cover of this book is striking. There’s no doubting that, and it’s what drew my attention first.
And it doesn’t stop there; the artwork throughout is of the same vivid, high quality.
It’s a book that any children’s library shelf would be proud to display.
When I first saw the title, I thought it was a book with a Maori focus but soon realised Hare is the long-eared animal strongly resembling a rabbit.
The storyline is how Hare sets out to find quiet.
At the end of the book there are teaching notes to perhaps help the reader find their ‘quiet’.
The font is rather small if this book is aimed at younger readers. My experience is that children prefer the larger print in order to follow the story more clearly. Also if the child is not actually holding the book the print could be a little larger. But having said that, this is a book for anybody, as written by the author -
‘Hare lived in a quiet corner, but there was still noise...
This is the story of Hare, who struggles to find quiet even in peaceful places.
Hare goes on a journey to try and find a solution.
This gentle heartwarming story is for anybody who suffers from noises, anxiety or loud feelings.’
There are a couple of minor editing bloopers but overall this is a book that is beautifully presented.

Review by Susan Tarr

Title: Hare & Ruru
Author: Laura Shallcrass
Publisher: Beatnik
ISBN: 9780995118058
RRP: $30
Available: bookshops

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Between a personal memoir and a biography

19/10/2020

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Bill and Shirley, A Memoir
by Keith Ovenden

The really good books are, perhaps, those in which the second reading provides the real insight. If so, Keith Ovenden’s ‘memoir’ of his parents-in-law, Bill Sutch and Shirley Smith, certainly qualifies. Even for those familiar with the Sutch saga in the 1970s, and his infamous spy trial, there is more detail here. More importantly, Shirley now receives equal billing; and though her memoir is separate, it is not secondary.
Having completed a first reading, it is essential to then read the author’s excursus: ‘Between memoir and biography’. For this book is somewhere between a personal memoir and a biography, as it includes some very intimate details. This is because of Ovenden’s inclusion of new revelations in the book that would otherwise be personal secrets, found in private letters between other family members not in the public eye.
One has to have a major reservation about the memoir, where both Bill and Shirley’s late siblings are being exposed. Ovenden states that “a choice of privacy is worthy of respect,” referring to his previous biographical work. But those choices are not made by the deceased who happened to have had more illustrious older siblings. I have to say that the choice to include these secrets is potentially dubious. With regard to Bill, it primarily involves his infidelity, with a woman that is clearly identified; but there is also a further twist to the tale, as evident in her personal letters to Sutch’s sister.
There is also an issue with regard to the memoir of Shirley Smith, and, in particular, her relationship with half-brother Allan. This tends to be based less on documentary evidence, and more on actual experience, but it has now been made public. It’s hard to say if this exposure is really necessary. Shirley was already the subject of a biography, and this information was either not available to the author, or she omitted it.
Nevertheless it seems that Shirley, and her sister-in-law, Helen Smith, had to do a ‘stand by your man’ routine. Shirley could have stayed in England, having received another marriage proposal; and Bill could have remained in New York with his lover, but chose to return to New Zealand. The confirmation of infidelity does not help his cause, and nor does the tolerance of it by Shirley, even if she was always faithful.
It is Shirley that is portrayed as a path-breaking woman, from her move to Oxford University for under-graduate studies at 18, to her career as a lawyer and advocate.
Yet it is the memoir of Bill at the beginning that requires the close reading, before the new revelations of his personal issues, and consideration of his final dénouement. His O.E. was even more prestigious, in gaining a scholarship to do a PhD at Columbia University, and also a greater strain for a working class boy from New Zealand. As Ovenden puts it: “it may be difficult – though I saw it very clearly in the early 1970s – to understand what an immense transformation this was.” He says it created a range of key characteristics, both his sense of insecurity, and an ‘immoderate self confidence’.
But apparently this achievement also enhanced Sutch’s sense of place, and feeling of nationalism, as evidenced in his books. Maybe. But it is worth noting that Sutch was able to combine being part of an intellectual elite, with an enduring left wing perspective; as did Shirley Smith, whose legal practice helped the poorest people in New Zealand. It was their intellectual milieu that disintegrated after Sutch’s acquittal.

Review by S A Boyce

Title: Bill and Shirley, A Memoir
Author: Keith Ovenden
Publisher: Massey University Press
ISBN: 978-0-9951318-3-5
RRP: $35.00
Available: Limpbound, available from your local bookshop and online

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Wealth of wisdom in poems

14/10/2020

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Body Politic
by Mary Cresswell

This is a slim book, just 68 pages, nicely presented, with a wealth of wisdom to be gleaned from the 51 poems.
Mary Cresswell has been in New Zealand for 50 years so much of the content is rooted in the bones of this country – the rocks, volcanoes, streambeds, coastlines, flora and fauna. Yet an earlier influence breaks in from time to time in allusions and word-use, providing a broader, more universal aspect to her work.
This book will be shelved under ‘poetry’ in any system, and rightly so. Yet there’s much variety in the 51 entries, some set out as prose and even two as numbered lists. At times this poet is creative in layout to spark our subconscious to add meaning. Others employ a variety of verse forms – so much so, that there’s no one form that suggests it is the norm from which others depart.
Prevalent themes are the natural environment and human relationship to it, the sea, faith and, right-up-to-date, virus. Here again, there’s not a single approach. Mother Nature is not always nurturing, as seen in Song to nature –
You rip the ground open, toss hillsides and buildings into
rubble. You crush my sisters and brothers beneath, and
they die too fast to cry.
And while a deep concern for the environment and conservation is very evident, this is challenged in the most delightful Moa’s advice to the kākāpō, which could be read as a cautionary tale.
Me? I’ve been there, done that, got
the T-shirt. It’s not extinction I mind –
it’s what they do to you on the way …
Classical references and lines inspired by other poets add to the depth and skill of Mary Cresswell’s verses, with several of her titles being a response to their works. It is clear that here is a poet who reads other poets; who is intelligent, perceptive, and worthy of reserving a place on the international stage.

Review by J.M.

Title: Body Politic
Author: Mary Cresswell
Publisher: The Cuba Press
ISBN: 978-1-98-859522-1
RRP: $25
Available: https://thecubapress.nz/shop/body-politic

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Argument for political reform

7/10/2020

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Who Dropped the Ball? Democracy in Crisis
by David Chapman

In a nutshell this is a unique polemic with a clear analysis of recent political history, and an argument for reform. However, it is not the actual case for reform that is compelling, but the economic analysis that precedes it that is so cogent. Although it was probably written before the Covid crisis, and the sweeping measures that resulted from it, the most important thing is the historical context that Chapman provides.
     This is in fact a collection of short chapters that can be read quickly, and the book as a whole in one sitting. It also relies on readers being familiar with the political context, especially pre-MMP politics. Chapman is obviously an older New Zealander, with a good memory for anecdotes and examples that help his argument. And, unlike most older citizens, he is not very conservative (as in right wing). Despite being in business, Chapman actually seems to prefer the current Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, and even has a soft spot for Metiria Turei, the former Green Party leader.
   This is one of the more interesting points he makes, it is not that we have got the wrong person in the job, it is just the way that it happened that concerns him. I think this is mostly because it singles out an individual and whether they are liked in the opinion polls, which are a construction of the news media. But Chapman seems to think the main problem is with the political parties. So basically he wants to outlaw political parties, and then have a benevolent elite of public figures work out who the best representatives should be, and allow Parliament as a whole to govern. This would also end the role of the Executive in the governing process, something which he does not really consider, as with other obvious aspects of a constitutional democracy.
   The removal of political parties comes despite the impact of the new electoral system, MMP. However, it has to be said that the MMP system would allow for many more independent voices in Parliament if we used the electorate vote to put them in there. Chapman came to his views on parties as a satirical one, but plays it out anyway.
   In terms of ‘Who dropped the ball’, this goes back to politicians in the 1980s, especially Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble, who said one thing then imposed a whole other agenda. It does not help the analysis that Chapman continually refers to ‘neo-liberalism’, a term that was not used at the time, but at least he does not use the phrase ‘Rogernomics’. This may seem old hat, but the economic analysis is very good. It simply remains to find fault with the individuals, or the institutions involved.
   Essentially, Chapman’s position is that elected politicians allowed foreign capital to come in with little ongoing scrutiny, at the same time as the public assets were given away in a fire sale. The questions remain over the latter, and who really forced the political parties into it. Chapman makes the point that one of the beneficiaries of privatisation, the Fay Richwhite company, appears to have been insolvent the whole time it was involved in the asset sales. The real culprits must be who knew about this at the time, but ignored it.
   Chapman’s overall message is about the loss of economic sovereignty, and the fact that unemployment never got back below what it was in the mid 1980s. But in the end the case is a moral one, when society is reduced to economic self interest and greed.

Review by S A Boyce

Title: Who Dropped the Ball? Democracy in Crisis
Author: David Chapman
Publisher: Copy Press and David Chapman
ISBN: 9780473517328
RRP: $20
Available: https://whodroppedtheball.co.nz/

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High quality artwork

Between a personal memoir and a biography

Wealth of wisdom in poems

Argument for political reform

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