Busytown: A turn-up for the books
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Also perhaps relevant to our discussion: Tom Ihimaera Smiler, who was Witi's father, recently passed away at a great age.
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I do find his blurt about being at the cutting edge of 'fiction' so using other people's words was not only fine, it was -um - cutting edge, completely & stupidly desperate.
Interestingly, Nicholas Spicer, in his LRB review of Peter Carey's latest book, pegs that author as having done the same thing (see the paragraphs that follow "Carey’s borrowings in Parrot and Olivier in America are intriguing").
Coincidentally, Carey borrows some of the same references that Ihimaera did -- Dickens, the panopticon -- as well as material directly from de Tocqueville on America.
In the end, Spicer gives Carey a pass for artistic reasons -- it certainly helps that he is an exuberantly gifted writer -- and because such patchworkery is consistent with the running themes of Carey's body of work:
What are we to think of this? Well, for a start, it sets one wondering quite how much of Parrot and Olivier in America is derived from other texts – an amusing MA thesis perhaps. And if it turns out that the novel is partly an extravagant patchwork of other people’s writing, why should this matter? Is it faking or making? Forging or forgery? Or is it making through faking – a subtle and playful game of intertextuality from the author of Theft, My Life as a Fake and His Illegal Self? I think your answer to this will depend on the degree of pleasure the novel gives you. I found myself liking Parrot and Olivier in America more and more as I came to know it better, and to recognise its ‘plagiarisms’ as integral to its character.
Spicer wraps up by comparing Carey to that most Australian of birds:
And if we are to think of him as himself a bird, it should not be as a parrot, but as a magpie, and not any old magpie, but as that ultimately virtuoso bird: the Australian magpie, capable of mimicking more than 35 different species of birds as well as dogs and horses, and whose carolling at dawn or dusk in the outback is one of the strangest and most beautiful things in creation. In the words of the narrator of His Illegal Self: ‘The cries of the Australian magpie, like nothing else on earth.’
(To which the only possible reply is "Quardle ardle oodle wardle doodle.")
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For Jackie: Witi's eulogy for his mum. That's real writing.
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Oh, Jolisa. How beautiful. Thankyou for that - I always wondered where the Dream Swimmer came from. And you're right - that's exactly the sort of writing of his I have always loved.
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Witi's obituary tribute to his father Tom Smiler Jnr was published in the Gisborne Herald on Saturday 18 September as a full (tabloid) page under the headline "Our father was the sky", but strangely has not been posted on their web-site. Full of interest, but doesn't seem to carry the emotional depth of that obituary/ eulogy to his mother in January, linked to by Jolisa.
Tom's given birth name - Te Haa O Ruhia (Ihimaera) = The Czar of Russia, no doubt reflects a parental interest in June 1915, but perhaps understandable that usage of the alternative name soon arose, after his father's.
I would think Witi is not at all happy all things considered, is feeling vulnerable and without the oomph to do an adequate job of rewriting Trowenna Sea. Not just addressing the plagiarism but also perhaps (more deeply challenging) the lack of authentic, integrated perspectives appropriate to his characters and their time. Discussed with his editor at Penguin and accepted, and left it to them to announce no version 2 for Trowenna Sea, with an understandable lack of explanation.
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with an understandable lack of explanation.
Honestly, I think if that is the case then it's less understandable that they don't want to make a public statement (couched in more flattering terms of course). Seems like this would be exactly the right time to announce no republish and a stop to any further sales of warehouse stock?
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Jolisa, it is not just the Tasmania part of the story, nor the Whanganui links that need to be told. Few Wellington and Hutt locals know about the injustices that happened in the Hutt Valley. I suppose I am a history populist. Tell these stories in whatever way works for a variety of audiences (using authentic sources).
That's why I like what Te Radar does, and he even sneaked a bit of Wellington settler history into the Wearable Arts last night.
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I would think Witi is not at all happy all things considered, is feeling vulnerable and without the oomph to do an adequate job of rewriting Trowenna Sea.
Meh... so why didn't Penguin say that? Because it would just be adding offensively crass insult to already considerable injury. Sorry for sounding like a broken record here, but Penguin NZ is part of the second largest English language publisher on the planet and does not set publishing schedules -- and their budgets -- on the fly.
As a human being, my condolences and sympathies go out to Ihimaera and his whanau. But they do not extend to the writer or his publisher, who still have a debt of honour and literary ethics to repay.
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And you know something, if Penguin has come to the conclusion that republishing TTS is just not commercially viable why not be honest and say so? I wouldn't like it, but do understand that the Penguin Group is a publicly held company whose shareholders would like a return on their investment in these challenging times for the book trade.
(And, IIRC, in recent years the Penguin Group, like many other publishers, has been vigorously pruning its mid- and back-list for exactly that reason.)
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Jolisa, it is not just the Tasmania part of the story, nor the Whanganui links that need to be told. Few Wellington and Hutt locals know about the injustices that happened in the Hutt Valley.
That's a good point, Hilary. As you say, the novel covered a lot of ground other than Tasmania and Whanganui -- the Hutt Valley and the Highland Clearances, too (not to mention Rhodesia, the least successful part of the novel) -- and like Gillian Ranstead's Girlie, it seemed to be working towards making an argument about the commensurability (or otherwise) of different experiences of historical dispossession.
This is an open-ended project that will continue to be addressed by many of our writers, I hope.
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I hope so too. Let us know if you hear of any.
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Thanks, Jolisa and Chris. Ihimaera losing both parents really changes the context of this latest wrinkle in the tale, for me.
I agree with Ngaire and Craig that it doesn't excuse Penguin not releasing just a tad more information. A respectfully-crafted sentence acknowledging that grief changes priorities and capabilites would have done wonders. Along with some simple honesty about having no intention of carrying through with their earlier public promises.
Witi's beautiful obituary for his mother mentions:
She had a strong moral compass, too: something was either right or wrong and there were no ifs, buts or maybes.
I wonder what she'd make of this?
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it is not just the Tasmania part of the story, nor the Whanganui links that need to be told. Few Wellington and Hutt locals know about the injustices that happened in the Hutt Valley.
True - yet, bizarrely, the fighting that Hohepa Te Umuroa was said to have taken part in, and for which he was transported to Tasmania, is about to be commemorated in the name of a Lower Hutt golf club: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/local/hutt-news/4031143
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Fascinating, Ewan - thanks for that link. I'm struggling to understand the heritage marketing angle, though:
The outcome was not just a name but a story to support it, along with a potential future marketing concept for the club.
[...]
It has already been suggested that the first hole be called The Bugler with an appropriate plaque."On this spot on May 16, 1846, during the Battle of Boulcott Farm, 16 year-old bugler, William Allen, continued to sound the alert, warning his comrades of attack, even as he was hacked to death by tomahawk."
"Blow your own horn at Boulcott's Farm Heritage Golf Club, then get totally slaughtered at the 19th hole"?
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Do you think they will commemorate more than the pakeha history?
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That's what I'm wondering... gets a bit complicated, eh, what with the "friendly Maori" Ngati-Awa lining up alongside the Hutt militia, and the Whanganui crew coming back down for more after the first attack.
It would be really interesting if they can find a way to present all sides of the story. Starting with the New Zealand Company, I guess? Or further back?
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Further back than the New Zealand Company (to pre-contact times?) and then showing how much chaos the NZ Company caused.
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Te whakanui-a-Tara was a very interesting through-lane so to speak...jolly people like Te Rauparaha hung round about, and Kati Awa, having had problems in their rohe were moving south too (as far as Rekohu...)
I think a natural date to begin that take/tale would be the "Musket Wars"...
Will the golf course commemorate more than early Pakeha history? While I dont know, I rather think not, given that the 1st hole is named for the Boulcott Farm bugler-
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That would be Te Ati Awa from Taranaki fighting alongside the Pakeha at Boulcott’s Farm, rather than Ngati Awa from Whakatane way (still less Kati Awa). And how come Te Ati Awa were in the Wellington area in the 1840s? Much to do with muskets, Ngapuhi and Waikato in the 1820s, then the opportunities provided by the NZ Company’s arrival to gain mana and more by “selling” other peoples’ land.
So, several parties all complex, not just heroes and villains, goodies vs baddies, Maori vs Pakeha - a challenging heritage for" marketing", to put across in sound-bites, even if a golf course has 18 or 19 holes/sites to build an overall story. An opportunity perhaps, but somehow I don't feel optimistic.
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Much to do with muskets . . .
Ewart O'Donnell, in Roderick Allan McDonald's Te Hekenga, 1920:
Incidentally it was always said by the Maoris who fought on the British side against Te Rangihaeata in the Hutt campaign, that they had invariably abstracted the bullets from their cartridges, when firing against the Ngati-Toa, using powder only, and that they merely joined the British in order to get muskets. Whether this was true, or merely a policy statement circulated after the King movement had healed the breaches between the tribes, it is difficult to say.
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ChrisW -KaiTahu speak-
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Understood, don't want to argue but perhaps there's a case for suggesting Kati Awa, Hikuraki say, might be culturally insensitive for important words of identity and place outside Kaitahu's rohe?
Edit: Think how much worse it would be trying to write "heritage" texts that really could satisfy all parties! In order to avoid grievous offence, end up saying nothing useful.
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But of course. ChrisW, there was some utterly insensitive intrusion into our rohe- we *unnerstan* (I'm trying for an empathetic urm 'other' acccent.
It's an interesting point you bring up Chris: I personally think the more area/rohe/tribal- and especially hapu- specific stories we bring up, the better.
Everything changes, at ground level.
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Everything changes, at ground level.
So true: a motto for all historiography, eh.
ChrisW, thanks for clarification. I got "Ngati Awa" from here but freely admit to being nothing like an expert. Reading the history though, I think back to walking some of the random bush tracks up behind Naenae - probably wrong side of the valley, but still cool to think that the tracks may have been older than even six-year-old I imagined.
So, several parties all complex, not just heroes and villains, goodies vs baddies, Maori vs Pakeha - a challenging heritage for "marketing", to put across in sound-bites, even if a golf course has 18 or 19 holes/sites to build an overall story.
I am suddenly taken with a vision of a series of historical reenactments of various incidents, one per hole. Like a sort of Stations of the Cross. I'm just not sure whether you'd have to pause to watch the reenactment before teeing off -- or whether they would be sprung on you along the way. That's not just a sand-trap, it's an AMBUSH!
It could provide useful employment for all those Toi Whakaari/ Drama School grads. Not to mention, something for the golf-mad heritage tourist, surely an important and currently under-served demographic?
Seriously, though: heritage sites, where complex but really important things happened - how best to bring them to life?
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heritage sites, where complex but really important things happened - how best to bring them to life?
One way would be 'augmented reality' tech, drawing on the myriad of local stories over our history and using drama and story and art to express rich meaning. That means high-potential creative jobs all over the country and linked into guided tours, performances, marae visits and all manner of local visitor operations.
Truly ambitious Ministers of Tourism and Culture and Technology might be onto that.
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