Kiwi couture: some books I’ve read

I’ve finally read Oooooo……!!! by Hone Tuwhare, and it is such good fun… I don’t read a lot of poetry, but this is far from the staid stereotype. Mostly about sex and seafood, with a fair few mentions of Tangaroa (sea god) and jazz musicians; full of unpretentious grammar and spoonfulls of onomatopoeia, every second poem ending with “Yea!” or “ooooo” or the like. I’m probably missing all the subtleties and what but who cares? What I’m gettin’ is great.

Also on the local literary front, Patricia Grace’s Tu was also excellent. It’s about a soldier in the 28th (Māori) Battalion in WW2, fighting through North Africa and Italy, and about life back home, New Zealand, Māoridom, and Wellington in the ’40s, and various family and personal drama. Somehow mixing all those things into quite a short novel seems to fit and it is of personal interest since my grandfather fought in the same battles described in the book, and I’ve even visited some of the places. The sacrifices and struggles of Māori fighting in a very foriegn war on behalf of British New Zealanders – who still treat them badly at home – in the hope of acceptance is one of the novel’s themes, and an important one.

Completing my trifecta of good New Zealand novels lately was Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones. (For the record I also read some books I don’t like so much, but don’t feel so inclined to write of them now.) It’s not really a New Zealand novel in that it has little to do with New Zealand, except for a surprise guest appearance of Wellington for about two pages, but it’s written by a kiwi so it counts here. It’s won some prizes and is about a teacher who reads Great Expectations to his class on a Bougainville during a civil war in the ’90s. Again a mix of themes, about love, and childhood, and the escapism of storytelling, and other stuff besides. Interestingly Jones narrates the story from Matilda, one of the student’s, points of views… while the teacher character Mt Watts, the only white man, who he could know best, remains largely unknown. But it works, and seeing both Dicken’s London and the developing civil war through the innocent child’s eyes is mysterious and enthralling.

On a separate front, I finally showed me the Monet the other day by visiting the Impressionists exhibition at Te Papa. Seems like the rest of NZ decided to too because there was a big queue from opening time and apparently it’s been like that every weekend for weeks. People even came from other cities to see it. Worth the wait for me, it was excellent. I’ve seen a few other Monet paintings around and about but to see a whole stack of them together here was cool, even having to fight through the elbows to see each one. I also restarted French lessons a few weeks ago, so I’ll be able to raise this blog to whole new levels of pretentiousness starting soon. Everyone knows that if you want to be cool and write in English you use as many French words as possible. Watch this space.

Weekends

Been having a bit more tramping fun lately, in a frantic rush to complete the three trips required to join the local tramping club before winter. A good excuse to get out there. Two weekends ago in the Tararuas. Night-time chill was explained by the morning snow, but skies stayed blue all Saturday and we even took the river-walking wet-feet route by choice. So it wasn’t too cold. We spotted a couple of deer by the river and didn’t even use the luxurious bridge in the photo below. Bridge? Psssh. This is a medium-rated trip. Medium as in hard core. We don’t need bridges.

The forecast storms arrived on Sunday and we avoided walking in the hail but there was nowhere to hide from the rain. Doesn’t matter so much though when you’re walking out, towards to cosmopolitan delights of SH2 Wairarapa towns.

Then last weekend was one to stay in Wellington. You know what that means: getting drunk at night and going out for brunch in the daytime. To celebrate a few birthdays and an unwarmed flat we had a little bit of a party, attracting a world record 19 guests on facebook. It’s hard to believe, but you can actually get 19 people in one appartment at one time, but, well, just wait till they start drinking. But be warned: people talk to strangers, don’t wear shoes, sleep on the couch at 930pm, and assorted other madness ensues. Party aside I spent an inordinate amount of time around upper Cuba St with my hipster weekend guests, and it was fun.

Abel Tasman NP in kayak

Way back at easter time went down to the Abel Tas National Park on the mainland, and paddled promptly off it. I’ve heard from endless foreigners who’ve visited NZ how great the park is so it was time to see it for meself. It did seem a bit silly that they’d circled the globe to find it, and I’d never been. Luckily all them strangers were right; it is great. We kayaked for four days in this tropical slice of the South Island, camped over in idyllic bays at night, spotted lots of seals and birds, swam, walked, played the usual beach sports, and it was fun. Was not a wilderness experience, with trampers and kayakers and watertaxis and whatnot (even giardia) all over the place, but still outside, peaceful and beautiful. Here are some photos of Dan’s, shamelessly stolen: