A guide to alternatives

Press, 27 May 1978, Page 17

A guide to alternatives

The Third New Zealand Whole Earth Catalogue. Published by Alister Taylor. 218 pp. $9.95. (Reviewed by John Wilson) The message that most readers will take from this volume is that the “counter-culture” lives — for certainly the most interesting parts of the catalogue are those in which people who have stuck with alternative ways of living, making a living or getting by, recount their experiences in the years since the last catalogue appeared. A wise editorial decision placed the best of these pieces, in which Peter Lusk describes life on his 80-acre “spread” on the West Coast, at the beginning of the volume. The essay is sobering to those who support people with the stamina to persevere in pioneering alternatives to the dominant life-styles in New Zealand; but also, in a quiet, deep way, the essay is greatly encouraging. Peter Lusk sets the style and feeling for the number of other accounts of personal experiences which are distributed throughout the book — locally there are pieces, for example, on Peter Brown’s efforts to recycle

scrap and make compost and on the Tamariki School, to pick two at random. The third catalogue will probably be Of less practical help to people thinking of committing themselves to alternative ways of living, fully or in part, than the earlier catalogues (1972 and 1975). Although these earlier catalogues are out of print, the third, to some extent, assumes that for practical purposes the first two will be available. This was, however, probably a price worth paying to ensure that new interests and problems which have arisen since the two earlier catalogues appeared could be dealt with fully. And there is still much of practical help in the catalogue, from activities such as animal husbandry to building a house in stone. Numerous book reviews will point readers to other sources of practical information. When the promised collection of “the very best and enduring articles and material from all the catalogues” (including a projected fourth) is published the inadequacies of this catalogue as a practical guide to people coming “cold” to alternative ways of living may seem less important.