Prize consequence of alienation

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 6

Prize consequence of alienation

By

BRAD TATTERSFIELD

Mr David Carson, aged 20, feels alienated from society. But his ability to translate those feelings into words has won him first prize in a competition for young writers. Mr Carson’s winning entry was selected from 43 in the prose section of the 1984 New Zealand Poets, Essayists, and Novelists (P.E.N.) awards. His entry, an extract from a novel he is writing, is autobiographical, dealing mainly with his sqhool days in Rangiora. , A self-confessed dismal'

failure at school, Mr Carson said he did not get on with either teachers or fellow students. “The teachers said I was bright and lazy, but I wasn’t interested in the things they were teaching. I gave up after the primers and had to repeat Standard 1. The pupils disliked me too — they thought I was odd, which led to a weakening of my self-image.” Mr Carson persevered until half-way through the seventh form, although he began to seek an outlet by writing poetry and prose. He entered material in last

year’s P.E.N. awards, and his winning entry this year is based on a dream, with rhurder as its central theme. “I used murder to express the mood of unpleasantness and oppression I had been subject to. I tried to conjure an atmosphere, rather than use a logical sequence of events.” The main character in Mr Carson’s story is obsessed with the idea that a murder has been committed, and this suspicion produces nausea and unpleasantness. • “I fcfit psychological pres-

sure from people around me, and a basic feeling of maladjustment and alienation from ordinary people. I feel that life ought to be lived on a more intense level.” Mr Carson’s novel will be called “The Orchardist.” The title being intended to describe the situation of the main character. He compares his situation with that of an orchardist, surrounded by his orchard, and searching out fruit in it Mr Carson, who still lives in Rangiora, writes under the pen-name of David Eliphas Leo, derived frfim his

interest in astrology and the occult. Eliphas comes from Eliphas Levi, a nineteenth century magician considered to be the founder of modern occultism, and Leo is used because Mr Carson feels he has characteristics of that sign of the Zodiac. Mr Carson is unemployed, and paints and composes music as well as writing. He won $125 and a one-year subscription to P.EJL, although he says the prestige and encouragement the award gives to young writers outweighs its monetary value.