First book a vision of N.Z. society

Press, 14 August 1984, Page 9

First book a vision of N.Z. society

There is nothing about physics in Nigel Cox’s first published novel, “Waiting for Einstein,” which has recently been released. Relativity and a vision of society would be a more accurate description of the content, said Mr Cox in Christchurch yesterday. “Einstein had a vision of society as well as being a physicist. One of the book’s characters had a vision and is waiting for it to happen. He feels it would be appropriate if the vision pulled its finger out and happened very quickly,” he said. Beyond that Mr Cox is not prepared to give much away about the book. “Why write a novel if you can sum it up in one sentence?”

“Waiting for Einstein” was a reasonably serious book. It worked quite hard to try to draw the New Zealand experience out into the world and attempted to universalise that experience, he said.

Mr Cox spent four years overseas, between 1974 and 1978. His experiences while there were reflected in the book.

“It is the experience of being a New Zealander and getting a look at the rest of the world. Like a lot of New Zealanders I tended to think that reality wa.^.overseas. r' !J

“When I got there it was not all that wonderful. I then had to try to find a place for myself in a world full of ordinary proportions, reshape my opinion of reality. A lot of this waSy.fed back into the book.” <

The book, he said, was set in New Zealand, about New Zealanders and written for New Zealanders. He hoped it would make ordinary New Zealanders look at their own lives in another way.

“Everybody needs to keep looking at their own lives. The planet is in a mess, to put it bluntly, and we should all be asking ourselves why that is and what we want to do about it.” Mrl Cox admitted this was

a fairly ambitious task which “could have gone horribly wrong,” but offered a quotation from the book in explanation.

“Towards the end of the book the central character, Ralph, says, ‘lt is time to make the stab that’s life.’

“There is never any guarantee that something is going to work, but eventually you have got to have a

go.” Mr Cox, who is 33, has spent most of the last 4% years writing “Waiting for Einstein.” He works in a Wellington bookshop and is now having the unusual experience of selling his own book.

As a writer he had burst out of nowhere with “Waiting for Einstein,” but this was because of his determination to have a novel published first, said Mr Cox. “I have been writing for a long time. There are two complete novels, a novella, and a trunk full of unfinished works under my bed. It has taken a long time to produce something that is worth showing to other people.” While many authors start by writing short stories and poetry, writing a novel has always been Mr Cox’s aim. “Novels are the literary form that are most important to me by miles. Through a novel it is possible to. give a very full a

world and there is no reason why you cannot do anything in a novel. “The limits of the writer are the only limits,” he said. Reviewers to date have praised the book. One reviewer likened it to the much acclaimed novel, “the bone people,” by Keri Hulme. Sales were also going well and this has delighted Mr Cox who described himself as the most unknown writer in New Zealand.

“Three weeks ago I was walking around on hot splinters, but I am feeling quite relaxed about it all now.

“For 10 years now I have been claiming I was a novelist, but had not yet written a good enough novel. It is wonderful to have proved it at least to a certain degree.” However, the uncertainties and the worries are likely to happen again for Mr Cox.

He has already started writing another novel which he hopes will be a little lighter in tone, rather than in over-all intent, than “Waiting for Einstein.” “The history of literature is littered with people who could not repeat their first success. There are no guarantees for the future, which is a bit scary, but then there is a sense of risk with a lot of things,” he said.