N.Z. novels reappraised

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 20

N.Z. novels reappraised

A variety of New Zealand novels are being reprinted by Oxford University Press in its New Zealand Classics series. Here, a reviewer, Diane Prout, reflects on three recent offerings: Coal Flat. By Bill Pearson. 421 pp. Acclaimed as a classic when first published in 1963, “Coal Flat” 20 years later seems laboured in style, and heavy on exposition, compared with more recent novels which seek to capture the character of a particular New Zealand region. Anyone familiar with the West Coast would still recognise the entrenched prejudices, the pettymindedness of local bureaucrats, and the occasionally volatile nature of politics typical of small communities. The particular issues that involve the postwar inhabitants of Coal Flat before the coming of Sid Holland have a decided period flavour — the miners’ strike, the beer boycott, and the general social hypocrisy of Coasters, who would, for all their sniping, carping and backbiting, uphold the Coast motto: “United we stand, divided we fall.” Bill Pearson’s novel is constructed on

a broad social canvas and he knows his characters well. But for all its fidelity to life, the characters remain stereotypical — virtuous, high-class Maori heroine, wastrel publican’s son, virago mother, failed Catholic priest — colourful but static stitches in the rich tapestry that is Coal Flat. Compared with Ronald Hugh Morrieson, whose rich vernacular, comic invention and sprightly if bizarre characters leap brilliantly from the pages, Pearson’s New Zealand microcosm seems full of dour, humourless creatures who hang in because of economic rather than social reasons.

The Growing Season. By Joy Cowley. 208 pp. Like many another New Zealand writer, Joy Cowley’s novels have been more acclaimed overseas than in her own country. "Nest In A Falling Tree” and “The Silent One” have been made into films; “Man of Straw” and “The Mandrake Root” have hot received the attention they deserve. Possibly because she is a woman writer and therefore concerned with the nature of human relationships, her books transcend geographical and political boundaries, appealing to a wider audience. Where Pearson’s West Coast is everything, Cowley’s rural characters could be set in any North Island dairy farm country. Her concern is emotional impact on a tightly knit family who learns that its head has a few months to live as the result of cancer. The problems of running the farm, the strains of coming to terms with terminal illness, are related in a gentle, easy-flowing style where violence is registered more in terms of human pride than in angry factions taking arms against one another. The climax is prepared for and the ending cathartic rather than explosive, with the quiet rhythms of seasonal change providing a natural counterpoint to the shifting pattern of family dynamics. Games of Choice. By Maurice Gee. 170 pp. “Games of Choice” is a taut little tale of a family in the last processes of break-up. Unlike earlier offerings such as “Plumb” and “Meg,” the author brings the reader into the final act where the seeds of youthful reaction and revolt have been long since sown, and the final reckoning is about to be made. It is hard to say where one’s sympathies lie, since each individual character has long since been moulded through earlier conditioning. The story works on three generations. The grandfather, with his grubby personal habits and traditional values, cannot reconcile his pre-war sentiments to those of his grandchildren, whom he sees as vicious and immoral. The parents, caught between conflicting generations, are in turn torn apart by their own unsatisfied demands. Ultimately the middle-aged Kingsley Pratt, failed father and husband, is left to support his father into the twilightzone of old age. Gee’s black comedy of manners is more of a long short story than a novel proper, and is all the more frustrating and sketchy as a result.