tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72544105901578390562024-03-13T23:03:40.207+13:00Best of 3One foot in the art world.Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.comBlogger1747125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-46982763739770507752024-03-06T16:04:00.004+13:002024-03-06T16:04:58.445+13:00Books of Summer<p>I had intended to do an end-of-2023 wrap of the books I read and went so far as to run my eye over them all on Goodreads and start to extract some themes, but in the end I just needed a break this summer. Instead, I've decided to try to do a seasonal wrap, so here is my first: books finished in Summer (between 1 December 2023 and 1 March 2024).</p><p>If so inspired, you can <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3209040-courtney-johnston">follow me on Goodreads</a>.</p><p><b>Stats</b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>16/34 books were published in 2023</li><li>2/34 published 2020-22</li><li>16/34 published before 2020</li><li>18/34 are ostensibly children's or YA literature</li></ul><p></p><p><b>Top 6, if you made me pick:</b></p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>A Touch of Mistletoe</i></li><li><i>North Woods</i></li><li><i>Lanny</i></li><li><i>The Windeby Puzzle</i></li><li><i>The Grimmelings</i></li><li><i>Bird Life</i></li></ul><p></p><p><b>Notation</b></p><p># a book I own (if you want to borrow)</p><p>% a book that's ostensibly children's or YA literature</p><p><br /></p><p><b></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjH3f18n6NAxlCstcyy6zvuI3yQDnIIIsjPH_mo-ICS39x43S4769tvyMtjdrpelfKBh8xx7_o1bfTCHAVrN6O3xWzRjW0ZNLtbKMpIOfGkPmF6UZJ-xgLIlkA2SAeMydLIJ0tDoALwPNK8TuS9f1z-K1vjLhbGBAMKXfC7YlyEBL_XY6qOZojpq-b_jWM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="788" data-original-width="597" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjH3f18n6NAxlCstcyy6zvuI3yQDnIIIsjPH_mo-ICS39x43S4769tvyMtjdrpelfKBh8xx7_o1bfTCHAVrN6O3xWzRjW0ZNLtbKMpIOfGkPmF6UZJ-xgLIlkA2SAeMydLIJ0tDoALwPNK8TuS9f1z-K1vjLhbGBAMKXfC7YlyEBL_XY6qOZojpq-b_jWM=w243-h320" width="243" /></a></b></div><b><br />% # Elizabeth Warren, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2271636.The_Wandering_Wombles">The Wandering Wombles</a></i>, 1970</b><p></p><p>This list would have started a bit more impressively if I lied and brought forward Benjamin Myers highly respected <i>Cuddy</i> (a book I'm still thinking about regularly) which I finished on Nov 30. Instead - Wombles.</p><p><i>Read because</i> I had been backreading a lot of books from my childhood prepping to interview Christchurch author Rachael King at the Writers Festival at the Aotearoa NZ Festival of Art. I was thinking a lot at the time about "tropes" (unkind word) - perhaps "building blocks" - of children's lit: absent parents, portals between worlds, magical transport. </p><p><i>The Wombles</i> is Beresford's 1960s/70s series about ambulant, pointy-nosed, furry, human-language-speaking creatures who live around the world but most famously on London's Wimbledon Common, and "making good use of things that we find", upcycling and rehabilitating the things humans throw away. The series was adapted for an animated tv series which might have been how I first encountered them? Unsure. </p>
The Wombles are classic world-within-world: secretly occupying spaces around humans, building their lifestyles around what humans discard, and negotiating those times when the two systems overlap (I did not recall at all from childhood that Wombles only come out at night). In the biographical statement at the end of the book it’s noted that Beresford wrote quarter of a million words per year. Maybe that’s why this book felt a tad perfunctory— the prose isn’t really any better than it needs to be, in order to get you through the book. Did I notice as a kid that the only female characters are a teacher and a cook? Possibly not. And all the commentary about weight — Wombles are meant to be sturdy but the acceptability of this is tightly patrolled, with many a condemnation of the ones who get too tubby. But series like this probably rely on repeated motifs, catchphrases and features that become instantly familiar, which is how reading this book felt.<div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDqqu4qFnARBnrNlMRMDnAVNg6sOQYiMTFaDEz2yZ8Ap_HEcyL0hZCZ5_jiYylw76SZl_jxVk_k3WuoYOE9a0jWq99l1B0gapOmmJjmXPMQuz_EHP4bxQ13p4qW_ZHLMm5zwgYPzoy4Qamgjkms_yGkKekTWDNrISfgtt4Z7GpcykleAMDHEd3nSGCEQs" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="336" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhDqqu4qFnARBnrNlMRMDnAVNg6sOQYiMTFaDEz2yZ8Ap_HEcyL0hZCZ5_jiYylw76SZl_jxVk_k3WuoYOE9a0jWq99l1B0gapOmmJjmXPMQuz_EHP4bxQ13p4qW_ZHLMm5zwgYPzoy4Qamgjkms_yGkKekTWDNrISfgtt4Z7GpcykleAMDHEd3nSGCEQs=w216-h320" width="216" /></a></div><br />% # Scott O'Dell, <i><a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-archaeologists-and-historians-are-finding-about-heroine-beloved-young-adult-novel-180967401/">Island of the Blue Dolphins</a></i>, 1960</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> as above - revisiting childhood reading. I went back to this book with trepidation and emerged from it soothed by the familiar shape of a story that soaked deeply into me as a child, but still questioning. </div><div><br /></div><div>O’Dell’s book — the 1960 Newbery Award winner — is based on the true and tragic story of “Juana Maria” or “the Lone Woman of San Nicolas Island” (her Native American name is unknown), a Native Californian woman who was the last surviving member and last language speaker of her tribe, the Nicoleño.
She lived alone on the island from 1835, when the rest of her community was removed by an American schooner (the motivation for their removal is somewhat unclear). The community has been decimated about 20 years earlier, when a ship full of otter-hunters managed by the Russian-American Company had arrived to hunt and then (perhaps provoked, perhaps not) attacked the island’s inhabitants.
In 1853 she was found / tracked down / removed from the island and taken to the mainland, where she was thought to be around “middle-age”. Accounts from the time describe her as lively, fascinated by horses, engaging and engaged. She died of dysentery after 8 weeks. </div><div><br /></div><div>O’Dell gives her the name “Karana”. Karana is 12 when a ship of Russian otter hunters arrive on her island. Her father, the village's leader, negotiates and agreement with the captain which is later broken, leading to a fight where many of the island’s men are killed. The next leader departs by canoe to find support; shortly after an American ship arrives and all Karana’s community gathers to board the ship. Karana is onboard when she realises her brother has been accidentally left on the island — she dives overboard to retrieve him but the ship, threatened by a storm, departs. Karana and her little brother are left alone on the island. </div><div><br /></div><div>If you’ve not read the book I’m not going to spoil it for you. It is simply told, intensely imagined, almost anti-lyrical in the exactness of its language, but closely observed and utterly centred on Karana’s resilience, resourcefulness, and ability to exist in her isolation.
I can remember being entranced as a child — do all bookish kids prepare for that rare chance that they too may one day be abandoned / forced to become a knight / find themselves on a quest? As an adult, I’m conscious O’Dell is telling a story of colonisation, as sensitive and non-judgmental as it is. I wonder if the simplicity of the language and lack of reflection awarded to Karana is meant to indicate some kind of noble savage, unspoiled innocence. And yet I didn’t get the squicks so many books from earlier times give rise to: I would happily read it again.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgS0EEK0QPCHSgaCmuVd0FGSbWYExxg-XGPMBD0EY30Vj51lIVPgkwGwlZp8WB1gR4KhJMvE2PJuS6cqsM86z038qcwh75I8cNKoFP6ZLyVb7AOAPo1EYKXq_V9eGuBO9G69tnQt_UpJYTnO3OgFG-goh8xCYu1B4b3-q7bDvBYtbS9sBSeuvAM6Hkv0p4" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="705" data-original-width="589" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgS0EEK0QPCHSgaCmuVd0FGSbWYExxg-XGPMBD0EY30Vj51lIVPgkwGwlZp8WB1gR4KhJMvE2PJuS6cqsM86z038qcwh75I8cNKoFP6ZLyVb7AOAPo1EYKXq_V9eGuBO9G69tnQt_UpJYTnO3OgFG-goh8xCYu1B4b3-q7bDvBYtbS9sBSeuvAM6Hkv0p4=w268-h320" width="268" /></a></div><br />% Lex Croucher, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/61885131">Gwen and Art Are Not in Love</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> it was on the recommendations display at Unity.</div><div><br /></div>Thoroughly competent and charming queer YA that plays to the historical romcom genre. Would make a great gift for a teen in your life.<div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCFaN8byeeU6r5tMJHxjEU-KaCSHqDXDZv3ObM9RuMpFm8dq5WvAQIeoI_r8vU7IA1f_RD1fAPaExjGBRcthsJKvfgJyEGlfQHQRyFKZWQZdvPWiKYbb8_6qTrQJWSUgqNsEAItHbHqWTc6zyji9-3_P6v2AAhDrjV4HVTqejImo2cqrAANh5apfBXHcM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="878" data-original-width="695" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiCFaN8byeeU6r5tMJHxjEU-KaCSHqDXDZv3ObM9RuMpFm8dq5WvAQIeoI_r8vU7IA1f_RD1fAPaExjGBRcthsJKvfgJyEGlfQHQRyFKZWQZdvPWiKYbb8_6qTrQJWSUgqNsEAItHbHqWTc6zyji9-3_P6v2AAhDrjV4HVTqejImo2cqrAANh5apfBXHcM=w253-h320" width="253" /></a></div><br />% J.M. Barrie, <i>Peter Pan</i>, 1911</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> inspired by listening to the <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/5zzKPExHrBhXiS263ZyOqn">Bookwandering episode</a> where Anna James talks to Nikita Gill about the book. </div><div><br /></div><div>Okay. The book is definitely racist. The "be my mother" storyline around Wendy is disturbing when you note it's being played out by kids younger than her (acceptable), kids her age (hmmm) and adults (Barrie had a complex family history). But if you can get past those factors (and I don't blame you if you can't set it aside, not everything needs to last forever) my god, is there some fantastic writing and some truly surreal stuff in here. It is utterly a book for adults to read with a noticing eye. I'd love to have time to read this more deeply and write about it to understand it better.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEU0odzOH5x4g7fjVB7D3lU3bnV_XDopbx5vj272V6DkX8qLYpKqSr50uAZru8y9RmfxWjG2Nqqe03HEK_WUAjlzg5fnSHfaSFTl0XWZryoe-LxwV9UA97-A00jgAKS5hqPT0YvyO_fiW7FnUI49QJ8nuiBKiT5p5FiAsT3vpXcF2wnfuDzqZKiPcjvyk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEU0odzOH5x4g7fjVB7D3lU3bnV_XDopbx5vj272V6DkX8qLYpKqSr50uAZru8y9RmfxWjG2Nqqe03HEK_WUAjlzg5fnSHfaSFTl0XWZryoe-LxwV9UA97-A00jgAKS5hqPT0YvyO_fiW7FnUI49QJ8nuiBKiT5p5FiAsT3vpXcF2wnfuDzqZKiPcjvyk=w184-h320" width="184" /></a></div><br /><b style="text-align: left;">Penelope Lively, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/oct/29/life-in-the-garden-review-penelope-lively-green-fingers-silver-trowels">Life in the Garden</a></i>, 2017</b></div></b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> was mentioned by a person whose reading I admire when I asked her what was on her pile at the moment.</div><div><br /></div>Charming, quite beautifully structured but also (unsurprisingly, really) quite pot-bound by the then-83 year-old author’s class and life experiences. Really beautiful cover though.<div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL3QSHzz1_tXfJ5mgVD4x_3qGLxEMaZ8fLr8xIE9vUD3kc_yY1eOSOx1NorJtdRgZPdcAJsSgrYNpeRtxIYH0_gmUauQSrJpThnCJU1IiwHrt8vgtvTNxFg_FXdFaa5AcvRij4zsUt8jvolJDcgwGKVqeoSPt7YXgb261G9Zs8GtbbNGs_y8dh0gxDo2E" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="876" data-original-width="682" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL3QSHzz1_tXfJ5mgVD4x_3qGLxEMaZ8fLr8xIE9vUD3kc_yY1eOSOx1NorJtdRgZPdcAJsSgrYNpeRtxIYH0_gmUauQSrJpThnCJU1IiwHrt8vgtvTNxFg_FXdFaa5AcvRij4zsUt8jvolJDcgwGKVqeoSPt7YXgb261G9Zs8GtbbNGs_y8dh0gxDo2E=w249-h320" width="249" /></a></div><br />% Astrid Lindgren, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19314.Ronia_the_Robber_s_Daughter">Ronia, The Robber's Daughter</a></i>, 1981</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> earlier note about childhood re-reading</div><div><br /></div><div><div>Utterly as wholesome as I recall it being. From the first page I remembered it all — black-eyed Ronia, the treasured only daughter of the adoring, emotional, bellowing robber chief Matt, his unflappable wife Lovis, the 12 dirty loveable robber rogues in their band, their stone fortress in the woods, the rumphobs, the harpies, the gray dwarves, the wild horses — and the rival band of robbers led by Borka and his gentle, brave son Birk … </div><div><br /></div><div>There’s not a lot of plot to the book — some fairly gentle action but the real focus is on the emotional growth Ronia experiences along with her father. Really quite beautiful.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEju3ZPUZdz8A4Lyx2IDsTGPOoOheIwHNOKUKcDtwPDooTWaWN8vjqvSd76YGH5vAz-d42yq5eNYZUNzHSRX7VFqFrDSIoZ8mQ7Z-qZtra-1TST7F46O1nh6VKUWUBdZq7DdT73jZJ6_Jg4PccFv4NNk3-i2ql1iACzKyKjqSuCst-x0Loe5-h_voc5S200" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="413" data-original-width="258" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEju3ZPUZdz8A4Lyx2IDsTGPOoOheIwHNOKUKcDtwPDooTWaWN8vjqvSd76YGH5vAz-d42yq5eNYZUNzHSRX7VFqFrDSIoZ8mQ7Z-qZtra-1TST7F46O1nh6VKUWUBdZq7DdT73jZJ6_Jg4PccFv4NNk3-i2ql1iACzKyKjqSuCst-x0Loe5-h_voc5S200=w200-h320" width="200" /></a></div><br />Maru Ayase, <i><a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2023/08/12/books/maru-ayase-forest-brims-over/">The Forest Brims Over</a>, </i>2023</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> I noticed the cover on the new books shelf at Good Book Shop.</div><div><br /></div><div>The concept was intriguing: a novelist's wife turns into a garden on the second floor of their home. I read very little in translation (something I should probably work on) and I struggled to mesh with the tone of this book.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizVq7diH-V_1g2f3RLRa-AVMfAoqMgXIAoAC13SPoeWPHXk9_5SttkKIn0RkG2lgyPe-nq7QwnbtP6WMV2wsDzWFsAbgCT__jonBzAoFNJR0WxHUqda440OmbM85f_jjWDpWXkqAZEgyplFkn9tr0MpjUc2t_paKPSUZHBaR4BVqbQU_5C-SjL9Y--m9o" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="778" data-original-width="627" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEizVq7diH-V_1g2f3RLRa-AVMfAoqMgXIAoAC13SPoeWPHXk9_5SttkKIn0RkG2lgyPe-nq7QwnbtP6WMV2wsDzWFsAbgCT__jonBzAoFNJR0WxHUqda440OmbM85f_jjWDpWXkqAZEgyplFkn9tr0MpjUc2t_paKPSUZHBaR4BVqbQU_5C-SjL9Y--m9o=w257-h320" width="257" /></a></div><br />Jeanette Winterson, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/07/books/in-short-fiction-030888.html">The Passion</a></i>, 1987</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> someone whose reading I admire recommended a more recent book by Winterson to me, but this was just lying around at the library so I grabbed it.</div><div><br /></div><div>The first two chapters filled a Hilary Mantel-shaped hole in my heart with their historical setting and characterisation, but my interest waned towards the end.</div><div><br /></div><div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgvzk9yODBSRr-Y-9N7RWFCokZP3FF1QrNbdMRj9oI6qYzAOcTCom833dlOCJ9EXBEk-6CzWqFcuNq4aER2uE6FS3cWZZLa0MfWuFo7jioOsB7qqXVxsDJyIRBGWfxj_8_3ELxLABgRljj5aFJVJVVwLBNZuRt8bAIz9ERpMSRmVt_9uDJBx79Hvr4S4U" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjgvzk9yODBSRr-Y-9N7RWFCokZP3FF1QrNbdMRj9oI6qYzAOcTCom833dlOCJ9EXBEk-6CzWqFcuNq4aER2uE6FS3cWZZLa0MfWuFo7jioOsB7qqXVxsDJyIRBGWfxj_8_3ELxLABgRljj5aFJVJVVwLBNZuRt8bAIz9ERpMSRmVt_9uDJBx79Hvr4S4U=w256-h320" width="256" /></a></div><br />% # Philippa Pearce, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/543086">Tom's Midnight Garden</a></i>, 1958</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> I think it was mentioned on a <a href="https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/127-susan-cooper-the-dark-is-rising">Backlisted podcast episode</a> - probably the terrific one about <i>The Dark is Rising</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Terrific time-slip fiction. I've been aware of this book since I was kid, but never got around to reading it. The tension Pearce keeps up between which of the main characters will turn out to have the 'real" timeline is so well done.</div></div><div><br /></div><div>And speaking of such topics - over Christmas I also listened to the wonderful <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvp7">BBC adaptation of <i>The Dark is Rising</i></a> which I can't recommend enough. Gloriously read, and with a beautiful soundscape. Save it up and listen when it's cold - it sat weirdly with hot windy days in the Wairarapa.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw8jqd-bbDxEY8LFn3PmejCAqUW8ovSyCYp4QUblEzWeXyb1U4rQjVznk-J6fwoqo_7wt8ORXwQDTSX6nNQ08us-4NjEF8YJpWYGr7Z1BnJgxGkYrEC_yI3XP95aNcvZvFR3OehSM6CTpER8WHQUV-A2mJ77Gs0zD9f1JTDN8BYVDLZhnR8HvifDIMqSQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="867" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw8jqd-bbDxEY8LFn3PmejCAqUW8ovSyCYp4QUblEzWeXyb1U4rQjVznk-J6fwoqo_7wt8ORXwQDTSX6nNQ08us-4NjEF8YJpWYGr7Z1BnJgxGkYrEC_yI3XP95aNcvZvFR3OehSM6CTpER8WHQUV-A2mJ77Gs0zD9f1JTDN8BYVDLZhnR8HvifDIMqSQ=w320-h240" width="320" /></a></div><br />% Donna Barba Higuera, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/books/review/donna-barba-higuera-the-last-cuentista.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aE0.bHOH.w-Y_GQFn-zMm&smid=url-share">The Last Cuentista</a></i>, 2021</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> another recommendation from the Unity Books staff picks display</div><div><br /></div>It’s 2061, and a solar flare has knocked Halley’s Comet off course and directed it head-on into Earth. 12 year-old Petra Peña’s parents, renowned botanist and geologist, have secured spaces for their family on one of three shops that will leave Earth and travel through time and space to a habitable planet. Some travelers will be placed in stasis & plugged into Matrix-style learning programmes to be the first settlers on the new planet: others, the Monitors, will carry an intergenerational responsibility to care for them until that time.
Except Petra’s programme doesn’t work properly, and when she is wakened from her stasis and encounters the totalitarian Collective that now runs the ship, she will have to draw on all the wisdom of her parents and especially the folklore her abuelita taught her to survive … <div><br /></div><div>It’s a gripping set-up and very cinematic, moving between spaceship drama and magical Mexican folklore. As an adult reader though you can feel Higuera just trying a bit too hard with it all, and over-playing the sentimentality.</div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></b></div><b>Janina Ramírez, <i><a href="https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/femina-janina-ramirez-book-review-irina-dumitrescu/">Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages Through the Women Written Out of It</a></i>, 2022 </b><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> I noticed it on the shelves at Good Book Shop but know better than to buy myself non-fiction books I'll only read once (if I even make it to the end of them).</div><div><br /></div><div>The last year or so of my reading has had a semi-intentional medieval(ish) thread: Haven, Matrix, Hild, The Beatryce Prophecy, Eleanor Parker’s calendar of the Anglo-Saxon year. That’s meant a lot of people’s research re-absorbed, some lightly wielded and some rather heavily apparent. </div><div><br /></div><div>Ramirez’s book starts strongly with an introduction looking at some Suffragettes who were also medievalists, a field of study that exposed them to the silencing effect of the Victorian “great man” style of history-making.
It then moves through about 6 centuries of women’s lives — some identified, like Julian of Norwich and Jagwida of Poland, and others stubbornly anonymous, known only by their burial sites (the Loftus Princess, a black African woman buried in a London plague pit) or the work they left behind (the Bayreuth Tapestry). </div><div><br /></div><div>Throughout, Ramirez argues for a history of the medieval period that’s less binary, more compassionate, more complex and more comical than our received tropes would suggest. It became a bit of a slog towards the end (I think I'd just had enough of this particular plate of pasta) but a million more instances of historical fiction could bloom out of this one.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6efQn5gmWahcAutCStFQLRqWLswWwmf2bp1EsYKd4fxnecHagsoKMQxlnfFop8-1FJGaU7RwGMyltbAKA6h90isgm8iQFvxpiRdKfgqD5tu2ec06gBWBGdousyxEAugrNblFdZSAs-LohmmRsXDDyfAOpDhdAq5ASDCJvigFT-9C-IThxwuYyFMde-GY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg6efQn5gmWahcAutCStFQLRqWLswWwmf2bp1EsYKd4fxnecHagsoKMQxlnfFop8-1FJGaU7RwGMyltbAKA6h90isgm8iQFvxpiRdKfgqD5tu2ec06gBWBGdousyxEAugrNblFdZSAs-LohmmRsXDDyfAOpDhdAq5ASDCJvigFT-9C-IThxwuYyFMde-GY=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /># Barbara Comyns, <i><a href="https://granta.com/best-book-1967-touch-mistletoe-barbara-comyns/">A Touch of Mistletoe</a></i>, 1967</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I brought a couple of Comyns' books home from me from a trip to London last year: Daunt Books editions picked up at Hatchards. Part of a few years now of back-reading steely mid-20th century British women novelists.</div><div><br /></div><div>I loved this. I love the slightly chaotic nature of Comyns' writing: she just throws everything at it. <i>A Touch of Mistletoe</i> had me thinking about my all-time favourite book, <i>I Capture the Castle</i> - it's like Comyns took Rose and Cassandra out of that book, made them over into Blanche and Vicky for this one, and then threw life at them. Highly recommended. </div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1fTiw2mQHYWERW-RPLjps-CJqk_Qsz1AeBZ0k0fzQpZ52Aaa-q9s93LkZFNnwxTXCZ6b1QEjEg8hhBoSqGlBKxxsFnSRLTgCfh9iRsjiUqAEZZjFim0Nxfr77piOh6IT-JhITp2u65Po09xzsVyxFjMSEeLIo8U5EQgGkIOMy781ZcEy9mjCWNBFCLq8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1fTiw2mQHYWERW-RPLjps-CJqk_Qsz1AeBZ0k0fzQpZ52Aaa-q9s93LkZFNnwxTXCZ6b1QEjEg8hhBoSqGlBKxxsFnSRLTgCfh9iRsjiUqAEZZjFim0Nxfr77piOh6IT-JhITp2u65Po09xzsVyxFjMSEeLIo8U5EQgGkIOMy781ZcEy9mjCWNBFCLq8=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /># Ann Patchett, <i><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/08/07/tom-lake-ann-patchett-book-review">Tom Lake</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> this was me getting stuck into my summer reading, and the pile of books I'd been building, like a beaver with its dam, over the second half of the year.</div><div><br /></div>A peaceful, contented book full of love — love of place, of cherry trees, love of a grandmother, of three beautiful grown daughters, love for one’s young self and love for one’s middle-aged, fulfilled self. In other hands such a story could be cloying, but Patchett draws you in close with her storytelling. It’s like the authorly equivalent of lowering your voice to reel listeners in.<div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6Kgwknm_JveYjtZAUIr6zQIn8VlukgQ05TV4CnSPvRReUxr-TXCtS837fbD-cPEDM4iAM7mk5vYbJObwIeQW4ARRIPzg03IuVFmrJot67oRen3qlaY1S_1Egj0_QjT8NzP-uBA__vo-m-w3uVWtca0FWUdxQyliNlglKMIZDhbBOl8wWfEtKXfN8a1AQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6Kgwknm_JveYjtZAUIr6zQIn8VlukgQ05TV4CnSPvRReUxr-TXCtS837fbD-cPEDM4iAM7mk5vYbJObwIeQW4ARRIPzg03IuVFmrJot67oRen3qlaY1S_1Egj0_QjT8NzP-uBA__vo-m-w3uVWtca0FWUdxQyliNlglKMIZDhbBOl8wWfEtKXfN8a1AQ=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br />% # Kiran Millwood Hargrave, <i><a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/2018907049/in-the-shadow-of-the-wolf-queen-by-kiran-millwood">In the Shadow of the Wolf Queen</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because </i>I'd heard Hargrave on the Bookwandering podcast and really enjoyed her episode about Garth Nix's <i>Abhorsen</i> sequence.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Wolf Queen</i> was hyped on a bunch of end of year lists (the British kids / YA author community is social-media-tight) and I have an interest in the green magic genre. I wanted this to be a bit deeper than it was though - the world-building could've been pushed a bit further out. I found myself thinking of Frances Hardinge's <i>Gullstruck Island</i>, another book where a nervous second sister has to step up into the leading role, which has an incredibly satisfying environment for the story to play out in.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjR2ewMY7ZOBa_apGCMJMurPQ-0Po3LONIP5efj5vHBpzwnAKxnGzXCg5HscLDKWqJNVGVmFAq-ONg9BQn8aYpJU94z9CAaCZaFGxPB5tReIPM8U4LgiMuUwhda1W4mISLIABkop8OqVd3kRi3WSQJqrHrq-XMN--aQ__d0Ocgf9BM0ZL2VNijcXM_pUTQ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjR2ewMY7ZOBa_apGCMJMurPQ-0Po3LONIP5efj5vHBpzwnAKxnGzXCg5HscLDKWqJNVGVmFAq-ONg9BQn8aYpJU94z9CAaCZaFGxPB5tReIPM8U4LgiMuUwhda1W4mISLIABkop8OqVd3kRi3WSQJqrHrq-XMN--aQ__d0Ocgf9BM0ZL2VNijcXM_pUTQ=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /># Max Porter, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/08/lanny-max-porter-review">Lanny</a></i>, 2019</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I bought this in Oxford on that same trip, after listening to a podcast with Porter while walking around the township.</div><div><br /></div><div>The bliss, after reading a few too many over-determined YA novels, of <i>not knowing</i> what the author is doing, and just being swept along in it. Reminds me of <i>The Owl Service</i> in that way. Like <i>Cuddy</i>, it's amazing contemporary British storytelling. You should just read it.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7_bv48MCL_OBwo5rmUjiZPOkUdshzmo0rVoYhKb5TFYaSRIXrqVEcFbVoc37Z3f0awekehLEY1JpCoG80rCrAp921nyI6_-GzXyfTROO56wxib4UQw7isQgXgRmaBQgnJOwWf9DOTvm5NjxjoeZP1RjWuP_4-dqSRmnHAQVI4D3x-kFM2pJvolXKyKxM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh7_bv48MCL_OBwo5rmUjiZPOkUdshzmo0rVoYhKb5TFYaSRIXrqVEcFbVoc37Z3f0awekehLEY1JpCoG80rCrAp921nyI6_-GzXyfTROO56wxib4UQw7isQgXgRmaBQgnJOwWf9DOTvm5NjxjoeZP1RjWuP_4-dqSRmnHAQVI4D3x-kFM2pJvolXKyKxM=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /># Daniel Mason, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/19/books/review/daniel-mason-north-woods.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aE0.ZDOU.W_YX7qaYNyCc&smid=url-share">North Woods</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> plucked from the NYT books of the year list for the aforementioned summer reading pile.</div><div><br /></div><div>Stonkingly good sweeping historical fiction, set in the woods of New England and following generations of colourful characters living in a single homestead.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEOzQ_BdUnGSEYUuSY1j_xlCcRC_xYZpLOWBwtfHIfyZsUOJScrU7QqUUTWHaoPoOtpTlXHlNvlV-MSWq1txGGNgomCztciZnzZ1MDEHVDeNpcKId5L4bJv5dTn396SlLnliZrYh_fsl2dIXA3cJzN5kwKN43iC5Y3bCRqkWPii6yOU77omL506Y4-twA" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgEOzQ_BdUnGSEYUuSY1j_xlCcRC_xYZpLOWBwtfHIfyZsUOJScrU7QqUUTWHaoPoOtpTlXHlNvlV-MSWq1txGGNgomCztciZnzZ1MDEHVDeNpcKId5L4bJv5dTn396SlLnliZrYh_fsl2dIXA3cJzN5kwKN43iC5Y3bCRqkWPii6yOU77omL506Y4-twA=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>% # Kelly Barnhill, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/12/books/review/the-men-sandra-newman-when-women-were-dragons-kelly-barnhill.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aE0.afgg.euuvTB5mExOh&smid=url-share">When Women Were Dragons</a></i>, 2022</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> another from the Unity Books display.</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>The premise and set-up for this book were SO GOOD (in 1950s America, women start spontaneously combusting into dragons because their restricted lives are just too frustrating - shades of Naomi Alderton's <i>The Power</i>: that link above leads to a review of the book by Alderman, which I hadn't read before putting this list together) that is made up for the last 10% of so being a bit pedestrian / too pat.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKfBY1uB36s6gO6cqms_vEjGCvTbAS_kBb7gOjBnTPToI1qfQ6lE1doa5MAa7o_alwdUS3BJkkml_TDx7tu3aKC-f6pf0LhL44cwGS-qUYTfdXsOivpX3pDR2oshgh7sv0MxPjXYuvrUXcEq331-DY75q3DKyzR4feH-BPna0CdXvXe2-SDQ0py7mTvmM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="497" data-original-width="368" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgKfBY1uB36s6gO6cqms_vEjGCvTbAS_kBb7gOjBnTPToI1qfQ6lE1doa5MAa7o_alwdUS3BJkkml_TDx7tu3aKC-f6pf0LhL44cwGS-qUYTfdXsOivpX3pDR2oshgh7sv0MxPjXYuvrUXcEq331-DY75q3DKyzR4feH-BPna0CdXvXe2-SDQ0py7mTvmM=w237-h320" width="237" /></a></div><br />Robert Vennall, <i><a href="https://www.ketebooks.co.nz/all-book-reviews/forgotten-forest-vennell">The Forgotten Forest</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> another book reserved at the library after spotting it at Unity Books. </div><div><br /></div>Canters along merrily and delivers a great deal information although the “we’re on a bush walk” narrative style gets a bit tiresome.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8KEwAd4CYxYOh3NYcBcS1MFokS2ol0cAOtWHXlHxY0NY-o6tTIYUsAFoEio8Bo_2v5wL9QH1xpm_v_coHpUuPT-ORU-391xthVTaWWca-5kBA8PTUerQbpOlUHqxalnZEb5vGyPY4ngwKBkzo1uzb_bSM8RyrhxWlgTeqAvqa3y-VxhYyxxKJUCt3za0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj8KEwAd4CYxYOh3NYcBcS1MFokS2ol0cAOtWHXlHxY0NY-o6tTIYUsAFoEio8Bo_2v5wL9QH1xpm_v_coHpUuPT-ORU-391xthVTaWWca-5kBA8PTUerQbpOlUHqxalnZEb5vGyPY4ngwKBkzo1uzb_bSM8RyrhxWlgTeqAvqa3y-VxhYyxxKJUCt3za0=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><div><b>% Zohra Nabi, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/62919236">The Kingdom Over The Sea</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> ordered at the library by virtue of the NYT 2023 books list, I think. Either that or a recommendation from the tight British kids lit community.</div><div><br /></div><div>I struggled to finish this one. Maybe it’s pitched a little younger than I prefer, and therefore every challenge is easily resolved. The core issue for me as a grown-up reader was the emotional tell-not-showing: characters resent each other then two sentences later they’ve resolved their differences & are friends; two adult characters are depicted as unwilling to engage with & support the lead character — which could be interesting — but the dynamic isn’t given enough room to mature and then also just gets tidily resolved at the end.</div></div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzFHmhidNLdFS7C3FI74Sjiia_bQz5miWm_x9xpIe7twELmsU2UkHSgNNUaRHQdZ8-r6CHBJmYShPlV5uLhgjSMCTUOm0Tbkybe7vVcRxLsgHOOQqSnK0d2wcv0-DcvbZwhftaULfITO7dVzoWSEcMS-N6UEXUqV40a9MyZjD6woJk7Q5zDwXN5j5WIzw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhzFHmhidNLdFS7C3FI74Sjiia_bQz5miWm_x9xpIe7twELmsU2UkHSgNNUaRHQdZ8-r6CHBJmYShPlV5uLhgjSMCTUOm0Tbkybe7vVcRxLsgHOOQqSnK0d2wcv0-DcvbZwhftaULfITO7dVzoWSEcMS-N6UEXUqV40a9MyZjD6woJk7Q5zDwXN5j5WIzw=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /># Anne Enright, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/26/the-wren-the-wren-by-anne-enright-review-the-female-gaze">The Wren, The Wren</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I read everything Enright publishes.</div><div><br /></div>There’s a certain breed of book, I find, that is a hard read - uncomfortable, unlikable - throughout most of it, then when you reach the end you enter at state of fulfillment, contentment: you become fond of the book in immediate retrospect. <i>The Wren, The Wren</i> is one of those books.<div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQvU2y1_MZhoGWqepfzrXeFbM8m8WhPj_tZAee3n_H2q7PP2KGZcIbH9LpD70ktBwjMu4gdKoeq1NSP54KnhAhnUhQwfx4OLnpiJdzuI6dd_PW3N8xUX_-7XynSLEXosN8fw8jfx4iAxvlNjTTu58n-S-3O8gG67FrCuHaCGj6nWycSaR2o4SsqCa-su0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiQvU2y1_MZhoGWqepfzrXeFbM8m8WhPj_tZAee3n_H2q7PP2KGZcIbH9LpD70ktBwjMu4gdKoeq1NSP54KnhAhnUhQwfx4OLnpiJdzuI6dd_PW3N8xUX_-7XynSLEXosN8fw8jfx4iAxvlNjTTu58n-S-3O8gG67FrCuHaCGj6nWycSaR2o4SsqCa-su0=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br />Karen Maitland, <i><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/2761171">A Company of Liars</a></i>, 2008</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> recommended by a colleague.</div><div><br /></div><div>As noted, books set in the medieval period have been a feature of the past few years' reading and this tale of a band of travellers in plague-struck England, each practicing their own deceptions, fits in there. Kind of like a good stew - chunky, with a satisfying set of ingredients.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnehXQ8_hNpyUz8mgJLc21mYsj3hQ5Pmpy6DiBiBYxMyP4MnMb-Ra18-IDi0QdDsgcIC7D3MNEc2l4heNEQgBHKp5MvoCO_f2Pa3jVEKw_QuZdRiWAqAPaCbjLYc2crxwfSawUBY4roc4XgJrclB1ZZB7P8yUn6k7ZHW2MzCU3qeHkMh6KK0dpdC8X7dI" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgnehXQ8_hNpyUz8mgJLc21mYsj3hQ5Pmpy6DiBiBYxMyP4MnMb-Ra18-IDi0QdDsgcIC7D3MNEc2l4heNEQgBHKp5MvoCO_f2Pa3jVEKw_QuZdRiWAqAPaCbjLYc2crxwfSawUBY4roc4XgJrclB1ZZB7P8yUn6k7ZHW2MzCU3qeHkMh6KK0dpdC8X7dI=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br />% Roberto Piumini, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/17/books/review/roberto-piumini-glowrushes.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aE0.fwrW.-2s2BLLS4NpZ&smid=url-share">Glowrushes</a></i>, 1987</b> (recently translated from the Italian)</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> picked up from a NYT review along with the Lois Lowry below</div><div><br /></div>There’s an unprovable theory that the distinguishing line between writing for children and writing for adults is that writing aimed for children does not stray into the emotional realm that (typically) only adult experiences make accessible to us.
In that case, Piumini’s book, while centred on a child and very simply told, is not a children’s book, because if deals in the matter of adult transformation. <div><br /></div><div>A king calls a painter to his palace, to decorate the rooms of his eleven year-old son, who has a deadly allergy to sunlight and air-borne dust. Together, the painter and the prince create three linked environments of mountains, sea and meadow. As the boy’s health fails the stories become ever deeper, and the shared love of him between the painter and the king ever more poignant. </div><div><br /></div><div>Half-way through the book, I was thinking “No kid would ever want to read this, it’s boring”. At the end that didn’t matter. Not a book for kids, but a beautiful emotional experience nonetheless.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWq8LtxIVaQm5ZDNBTgxF76PK1o2IYP3P5yeehxmjDhP8pU8G6Gjhn5WPSxkF2DkkBJdAYwwmO9L9XoKh1EEIbQwZ6Dcv1fRl6MiHpC6FYUDODFcNdGiwQQCREoUL8MsOZXEffmkUm1C3t4JoWlcDgu_LHJKF1qpSPdS4JVbMKzP95cJSJwAYTLc3QfAs" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjWq8LtxIVaQm5ZDNBTgxF76PK1o2IYP3P5yeehxmjDhP8pU8G6Gjhn5WPSxkF2DkkBJdAYwwmO9L9XoKh1EEIbQwZ6Dcv1fRl6MiHpC6FYUDODFcNdGiwQQCREoUL8MsOZXEffmkUm1C3t4JoWlcDgu_LHJKF1qpSPdS4JVbMKzP95cJSJwAYTLc3QfAs=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>Nicola Griffith, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/03/books/review/nicola-griffith-menewood.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aE0.7FJQ.NXQqGaA-x1bh&smid=url-share">Menewood</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> I really enjoyed the first in this series, <i>Hild</i> - an imagining of the early life of the 7th century English saint, Hild of Whitby. (Did I mention the medieval thing?)</div><div><br /></div>The depth of research outstrips the pace of the narrative at times, but you can feel how the author lives and breathes the character of Hild and the pain she endures in this novel. <div><br /></div><div><b><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNoeuwoc7TutoOuM7Cuq3-t_PmmRz7OlYgt_GLnhqWt-kjEqZvVYxTIT26mAVxxDGXy6qfYeCygbpbxNz2dFgwNtXgeV_D8Tum57LqyG4xMGdD-lqoXbj-iWkmvsxP3EgYNB-s1LPkFXUvjM_QaOysQXpQZUIaVAjIHEp6llschThse7KBQGpDKue456o" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNoeuwoc7TutoOuM7Cuq3-t_PmmRz7OlYgt_GLnhqWt-kjEqZvVYxTIT26mAVxxDGXy6qfYeCygbpbxNz2dFgwNtXgeV_D8Tum57LqyG4xMGdD-lqoXbj-iWkmvsxP3EgYNB-s1LPkFXUvjM_QaOysQXpQZUIaVAjIHEp6llschThse7KBQGpDKue456o=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br />Muriel Sparks, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jul/26/classics.fiction">The Girls of Slender Means</a></i>, 1963</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I have no idea why. Maybe it was on the recently-returned shelf at the library?</div><div><br /></div>A cuttingly elegant little book that starts off as a satire of youth and morality, set in 1945 London between VE and VJ days at the May of Teck Club, a hostel for young women of in need of “Pecuniary Convenience and Social Protection”, and ends as a small tragedy. I've read a lot of mid-20th0century British women writers over the past few years (Claire Mabey has been a real reading inspiration in this space) and I rather love their style, all perfectly formed sentences and brutal emotional denouements. I was gratified to hear Patrick deWitt extoll their graces at the recent Writers Festival in Wellington.<div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhM4zPtrvAJAwQZ9-MEjDQAYdpoSjMZJmH9zd98CB_d1Hmo9Rzw5QtEaozQINmig6p0vmcousTLOEhafPX9YgNXkK8OAV6OgRTJvftzcGnZiBx6opxXA85xkEl2ePYcbQ2JN6RMK2we0ZF_lLnMLLPMNUVb8jdzFeL9zjYYplx968uFGizaEQetGic-T6w" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhM4zPtrvAJAwQZ9-MEjDQAYdpoSjMZJmH9zd98CB_d1Hmo9Rzw5QtEaozQINmig6p0vmcousTLOEhafPX9YgNXkK8OAV6OgRTJvftzcGnZiBx6opxXA85xkEl2ePYcbQ2JN6RMK2we0ZF_lLnMLLPMNUVb8jdzFeL9zjYYplx968uFGizaEQetGic-T6w=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>% Lois Lowry, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/10/books/review/lois-lowry-the-windeby-puzzle.html?unlocked_article_code=1.aE0.fZ6g.IXqupsv6n4pC&smid=url-share">The Windeby Puzzle</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because </i>of an NYT review (above)</div><div><br /></div><div>A totally unexpected master class in what it is to be a writer, exploring and crafting a story from hints of history. </div><div><br /></div><div>I love a good bog story (Margo Lanagan, <i>Treacle Walker</i>). When I read about this book — inspired by the Windeby Child, an Iron Age adolescent found by German peat-cutters in 1954 — I was immediately excited. I expected something immersive, folkloric, atmospheric, sad. </div><div><br /></div><div>Instead, Lowry delivers a brilliant and generous explanation of what it is to be a writer, who picks up the bones (sorry) of an idea from history, and then crafts it into a narrative. She shares two interlocked stories about the Windeby Child, framed by a series of direct addresses to the reader, explaining what she is doing in each story, and why: what us or isn’t possible in each story, and how it makes her feel. The book lays open the process of writing and, tacitly, of reading. I can imagine if I were 11 or 12 I would be blown away by this laying bare of magic. </div><div><br /></div><div>Interestingly, the first third of the book I was deeply resistant to this approach (I wanted that folkloric magic!). And then I was gripped, and impressed. And today I'm still thinking about it.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJ_eHUuKZRReAsPahGsTwdSPbw8qzjmljTfVbTegdZkejBw2T-HXqDnoKflQjOTeKb3jXd5U1Uk2KxRzKMgO9iixbVord9WNVQMRtzyFSh7CnhWMd-k04cOYYRbkAwhImpLGf0Qg-TNYufHvT4LYaflFHpHfase2_QXXSw0gsWhY6Cqf_SBomx4db9nww" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgJ_eHUuKZRReAsPahGsTwdSPbw8qzjmljTfVbTegdZkejBw2T-HXqDnoKflQjOTeKb3jXd5U1Uk2KxRzKMgO9iixbVord9WNVQMRtzyFSh7CnhWMd-k04cOYYRbkAwhImpLGf0Qg-TNYufHvT4LYaflFHpHfase2_QXXSw0gsWhY6Cqf_SBomx4db9nww=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b># Anna Smaill, <i><a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/30-11-2023/what-emily-perkins-said-at-the-launch-of-bird-life-by-anna-smaill">Bird Life</a>, </i>2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> Anna works with us at Te Papa, plus also keeping an eye on NZ writers.</div><div><br /></div><div>I always feel dorky telling authors what I think about their books, but this is what I sent to Anna after finishing <i>Bird Life:</i></div><div><br /></div><div><i> Congratulations on your longlisting for the Ockhams. I was reflecting on this last night while reading your book. There are some absolute barnstormers on the list – Emily, Eleanor, Catherine. I was thinking about how gung-ho they all are – so pacey, and with some quite broad characterisation (in the case of Birnam Wood that feels satirical of course; Pet carries its recent-past research really lightly and with Lioness, it’s the cringey moments that bring the book into high definition for me). </i>Bird Life<i> is more like a watercolour – not in the sense of being delicate at all, but that it feels like there’s no room for mistakes. Every word, very evocation feels so carefully weighed and placed: like those stories you read about beautiful mosaics, where the tiny stones are laid just right, so as best to reflect the light.</i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjc_YgJa0mD7b5S1DsNyhyX5vNkZi5de2yyo8Ujp9v6rUY_JCKhDcc_OVbbiijZeG4o4bQDHXXHO2aZZbpi1vEKRr45PBfao0iffYyhiZzXP8Lxts8dCBds3MpkMxXRLJ1rScvv_VrCzMdegXMSXyEJu6RtXUHC4V_yLUMoxh3So39GmKqEGkx-SKeS4Kg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjc_YgJa0mD7b5S1DsNyhyX5vNkZi5de2yyo8Ujp9v6rUY_JCKhDcc_OVbbiijZeG4o4bQDHXXHO2aZZbpi1vEKRr45PBfao0iffYyhiZzXP8Lxts8dCBds3MpkMxXRLJ1rScvv_VrCzMdegXMSXyEJu6RtXUHC4V_yLUMoxh3So39GmKqEGkx-SKeS4Kg=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b># % Rachael King, <i><a href="https://www.nzreviewofbooks.com/the-grimmelings-by-rachael-king/">The Grimmelings</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I was always going to, and because I got to interview Rachael about this at the Writers Festival in Wellington in Feb.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm working on a proper article about this. For now: what a satisfying book. It's eerier than I expected (King gets her love of folk-horror in here). Finishing it for the first time, I was struck by how comfortable some of the familiar forms of the storytelling are, and then how fresh other aspects of the book feel. There is a missing dad, for example - quite common in kids and YA lit - but there's also a closely described real-life setting, a detailed depiction of a South Island horse-trekking business. There's a love of words and the emergent power of language that if you're a "bookish" kid you respond to so strongly at this age - and there's also a thoughtful consideration of what it means to import a foreign mythology into an Aotearoa New Zealand landscape. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiwLPDmKqrY_cxtMRIRVUTo5TdzGrwr3-C9pmHdCimk3OztvrWCrvMTHZJnt51HQmkHpcgas_waRlTrwMwVrtKYTIHNx-TdNYBGqVOzOcy9MnC_clGmnW9WXX_oCI92cQ_7timcJkH5VdD5qa6ShPxVylVKlYnnn5NlN3VkMOVRZdQ-k4KrwrSY511wMY" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhiwLPDmKqrY_cxtMRIRVUTo5TdzGrwr3-C9pmHdCimk3OztvrWCrvMTHZJnt51HQmkHpcgas_waRlTrwMwVrtKYTIHNx-TdNYBGqVOzOcy9MnC_clGmnW9WXX_oCI92cQ_7timcJkH5VdD5qa6ShPxVylVKlYnnn5NlN3VkMOVRZdQ-k4KrwrSY511wMY=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>Lydia Davis, <i><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/03/1200166716/book-review-our-strangers-lydia-davis">Our Strangers</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> the fact that it's a new Lydia Davis is reason enough.</div><div><br /></div><div>I tweeted while I was reading this that Lydia Davis feels like memes for poetry lovers. I made the mistake of borrowing this from the library and trying to read it like a book. That's not how you should read Davis, you're meant to sip not skull. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3kcAwf5tCXgHndTZXpyzeqkPIUfRmxi_ENmDsrgpdntPbzLgGJTABa80Yx_crSpoG9iE1jSH_Z-kVBcjRt7VYSB-k_PfXV_kTR7Lk2QjEUk53kZ1ppFQMUSqXGYwZNflRty-fwnXl4ujiEraiNqhpqVLjsEcTANdq8mLv54id7V3vQSi-FXVaqauk-Cs" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh3kcAwf5tCXgHndTZXpyzeqkPIUfRmxi_ENmDsrgpdntPbzLgGJTABa80Yx_crSpoG9iE1jSH_Z-kVBcjRt7VYSB-k_PfXV_kTR7Lk2QjEUk53kZ1ppFQMUSqXGYwZNflRty-fwnXl4ujiEraiNqhpqVLjsEcTANdq8mLv54id7V3vQSi-FXVaqauk-Cs=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>% John Masefield, <i>The Midnight Folk</i>, 1927</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> another book linked to <i>The Dark is Rising</i> on the Backlisted podcast, I think.</div><div><br /></div><div>This was a conundrum. <i>The Midnight Folk</i> is a quest tale: a lonely little boy stuck on a country estate with his distant guardian and mean governess is sent on a treasure hunt, assisted by the night creatures, including Nibbin (the good cat) and Rollicum Bitem Lightfoot (the local fox). Some gorgeous set pieces and fancies are packed into a "narrative" that seems almost willfully wandering and obtuse. Would make a gorgeous animation.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxaEt43Fvu09FPv1gYOCxc1bIswMRQOjFz7G78gUcyayqJccCOJSLOkgREmR7-dOSXRzbOypZICmOJftlPSXlNs6IJIZodj1SclW7lmfqc094P3faWFkDlBtxPFDFJFO38QJRaRkyod4PcHdwdgOWI58Xrn0G4QhDAeR0Lzy0RiaGblJGLBzbUHgA6044" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhxaEt43Fvu09FPv1gYOCxc1bIswMRQOjFz7G78gUcyayqJccCOJSLOkgREmR7-dOSXRzbOypZICmOJftlPSXlNs6IJIZodj1SclW7lmfqc094P3faWFkDlBtxPFDFJFO38QJRaRkyod4PcHdwdgOWI58Xrn0G4QhDAeR0Lzy0RiaGblJGLBzbUHgA6044=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>Alix Harrow, <i><a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/10/04/1203421254/book-review-alix-e-harrow-starling-house-gothic-fantasy-novel">Starling House</a>,</i> 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> spotted on the shelves at Good Book Shop</div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>A two hander, this one. The set-up and first half were a propulsive delight, perfect for a Netflix series, all spiky characters, hidden motives and back story. The second half though was overly convoluted and lost the fun pace.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_VylFKQ0YK4bERJM0jgWaH5lwFMGTjCFnim5To3QrX0TgrMh4WeRDABMqxv_TZfJVT9erEHifuWdRzZx7wX5xgBSDs2BobqicEGUpUlOld3XTdkZwOK_blq21RhrhzBCdMVlA5ycPCegYtKN0TNiyKGcHmzFmx5aY05gAkKd0HamzOTZpFaBJmSLZK3I" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg_VylFKQ0YK4bERJM0jgWaH5lwFMGTjCFnim5To3QrX0TgrMh4WeRDABMqxv_TZfJVT9erEHifuWdRzZx7wX5xgBSDs2BobqicEGUpUlOld3XTdkZwOK_blq21RhrhzBCdMVlA5ycPCegYtKN0TNiyKGcHmzFmx5aY05gAkKd0HamzOTZpFaBJmSLZK3I=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b># % Ann Scott-Moncrieff, <i>Auntie Robbo</i>, 1940</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I picked this up at Hatchards in London because the blurb was so appealing.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ann Scott-Moncrieff died at just 29, leaving behind her author husband and three children. Her short writing career took place mostly over the Second World War. <i>Auntie Robbo</i>, rejected by her English publisher as “too Scottish” was then published in America but all the comp copies were lost when the ship they were traveling in was torpedoed in the Atlantic; most copies of an earlier book were destroyed when her publisher in London was bombed. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's a truly delightful book. Auntie Robbo (81, energetic, hedonistic, “totally transparent” by which the author means completely obvious in her motives and her pleasures) and her orphaned great grand-nephew, 11 year-old Hector, are living a very contented life in their home Nethermuir, twelve miles out of Edinburgh. Their happiness is suddenly imperiled by the arrival of Hector’s long-forgotten stepmother Merlissa Benck, who lands upon the household and rapidly decides Auntie Robbie is mad as a hatter and Hector would be much better off at public school. So Auntie Robbo and Hector do a runner, launching themselves on a rollicking adventure in the Scottish highlands, picking up three extra (largely homeless - this was a really interesting detail, kind of like the Fossil sisters in <i>Ballet Shoes </i>or Sara in <i>A Little Princess</i>, an example of how often kid's lives were depicted as precarious in earlier children's lit) children and a tinker’s wagon along the way. Much food is eaten, scrapes squeaked through, weather endured, talents discovered and good sense expressed until we reach a happy ending with Miss Benck happily dealt to and Auntie Robbo and Hector’s happy way of life restored. </div><div><br /></div><div>It’s like a much less cruel Roses Dahl, with an eccentric old lady who expects the world to confirm to her expectations and a gaggle of children who joyfully bob in her wake. The Scottish setting is lovely, and the scattering of Scottish words a pleasure. It sits in that genre of children's books where the key adult character, rather than enabling the action through their absence, enables it with their presence (see also The Explorer in Katherine Rundell's <i>The Explorer</i> below).</div><div><br /></div><div>I do have to make a dash of racism warning. A great pity, because the book otherwise stands up so well.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjR0Ji38rtxuextNcJgpHPFxrRsNjS1Cn7XgGeTDzsAU2pyGwrAPcEWqaY-kD4p0QchLo7u-EijXFdrbKl8uslCwIIZT2WwcQBhWkhuL1adSZiZH75RzLXG4oGYocifixjD0vsBHR4t_3a74n5vqNmHzXyC7XSTPIewhrvJ1H6lsQHVksOpIzvdiTza9mM" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="388" data-original-width="382" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjR0Ji38rtxuextNcJgpHPFxrRsNjS1Cn7XgGeTDzsAU2pyGwrAPcEWqaY-kD4p0QchLo7u-EijXFdrbKl8uslCwIIZT2WwcQBhWkhuL1adSZiZH75RzLXG4oGYocifixjD0vsBHR4t_3a74n5vqNmHzXyC7XSTPIewhrvJ1H6lsQHVksOpIzvdiTza9mM=w315-h320" width="315" /></a></div><div><br /></div><b># Hilary Mantel, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/17/-sp-hilary-mantel-profile-adaptation-wolf-hall">Vacant Possession</a></i>, 1986</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> a Mantel I hadn't read! I have a policy of not being upset by the deaths of people I don't actually know, but I made a selfish exception for Mantel and A.S. Byatt, I would've liked both to have had another 50 years of writing life.</div><div><br /></div><div><i>Vacant Possession</i> is grimy, funny and malevolent. It feels like a blueprint for <i>Beyond Black</i>, one of my five favourite Mantels: it has all the sensuousness detail that makes the Wolf Hall series so seductive, but set in the grim environs of 1980s Britain. A wonderful black comedy.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhij4F9NsqZH_Bo_keFkU2d2x62PNk4EYi5IdFFKTJRXKhxpm6JF9OiYLP657opVNEQuI3-RGWyKz9qf-KWQBJp9m_A1VGgpLV6ynq0415Q_YW8DzRYd8yYIkX1V-FX-umiYCECiUlASIicPYIAyVj-l84fbcR2MoPVYDxLtOdUWVzx2PpmWhZ2YNeSN2I" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhij4F9NsqZH_Bo_keFkU2d2x62PNk4EYi5IdFFKTJRXKhxpm6JF9OiYLP657opVNEQuI3-RGWyKz9qf-KWQBJp9m_A1VGgpLV6ynq0415Q_YW8DzRYd8yYIkX1V-FX-umiYCECiUlASIicPYIAyVj-l84fbcR2MoPVYDxLtOdUWVzx2PpmWhZ2YNeSN2I=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>Emma Cline, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/09/the-guest-by-emma-cline-review-strange-depths-arresting-originality-the-girls">The Guest</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> glowing review in the NY, I think.</div><div><br /></div><div>A frictionless book. I’m interested that it’s received so much attention and praise. I think it’s very “American” — it’s a kind of examination of class which is actually of wealth. It runs on themes of risk, precarity and social manipulation but with a curiously distanced, numbed tone. Compulsively readable though, I very rarely achieve an “all in one sitting” but I polished this off on a Sunday morning. Reminded me of R.F. Kuang's <i>Yellowface</i> in that I felt a bit icky for swallowing it down so fast.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEguV7llAA3y5B9HbO2Sdr7naq4X0qKwEQ3v93bvlcnQTiRdmSZSf4rcHDfqGzy-G-EAP1ggGJ-wh1rbmCU58DkYjFktbmNGfPWdsSj9wjZXZo05nFosqW5gA1ia1pB2cuYACtF-acLgwikpGjayvcz3ap-wlDNZpOVMpxRlY_mve-In1VTHheQTpQfZDe0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEguV7llAA3y5B9HbO2Sdr7naq4X0qKwEQ3v93bvlcnQTiRdmSZSf4rcHDfqGzy-G-EAP1ggGJ-wh1rbmCU58DkYjFktbmNGfPWdsSj9wjZXZo05nFosqW5gA1ia1pB2cuYACtF-acLgwikpGjayvcz3ap-wlDNZpOVMpxRlY_mve-In1VTHheQTpQfZDe0=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>% Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass, <i><a href="https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/rebecca-stead/the-lost-library-stead/">The Lost Library</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I'll read anything by Rebecca Stead, <i>When You Reach Me</i> lives in my forever top 10 books. </div><div><br /></div><div>Can you read too many children's books that hinge upon a burgeoning love of reading and writing and libraries? Perhaps. Nonetheless, this is a charmer. It's a mystery for middle-grade readers and while the "mysteries" become clear quite quickly, the gentle exploratory tone, the easy likability of the characters, the charm of the ghost story and the creation of Mortimer the cat - a great addition to the canon of animal narrators - make up for that. A good book to read as an adult if you're thinking about how children's books are constructed for their readers. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjGqqelQumZaB30a_U6GY3hM2WWQbmOViOrojfrhsNiTCLpe2BLXSxw6alYDYKBPxtjUjMI4E413KUOL7XDmMaMu5Qt6hFqxqOY8mDj69r59DAhXe1JXkUjD4E2X6L63dJVsdg9_qN8XRHr2Sh4qrhENKX9YHZLnp9jUrk6rnYnL0DvsN0zUCGfLDw93ns" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="680" data-original-width="510" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjGqqelQumZaB30a_U6GY3hM2WWQbmOViOrojfrhsNiTCLpe2BLXSxw6alYDYKBPxtjUjMI4E413KUOL7XDmMaMu5Qt6hFqxqOY8mDj69r59DAhXe1JXkUjD4E2X6L63dJVsdg9_qN8XRHr2Sh4qrhENKX9YHZLnp9jUrk6rnYnL0DvsN0zUCGfLDw93ns=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>Brandon Sanderson, <i>Tress of the Emerald Sea</i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> another recc from the Unity Books display. </div><div><br /></div><div>I've never read Sanderson and I don't really know how he fits into the fantasy world. <i>Tress</i> is an obvious homage to <i>The Princess Bride</i> with touches of Neil Gaiman's <i>Stardust</i> and some Pratchetty punnery. Inventive, touching in places, a bit obvious. Having said that, at this time I needed something unchallenging and this fitted the bill. </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7IYz67F8MTnhP38IyNAClPcZkkDZdvlQ9s22Wa4i37FzItR6LDMBSZqcVhJ6Gs4f1rAWlIadZs7tyOvWN-VN7LzamuZEXYlltVx6tL69GCFB7OazHSxPzMM4Jk-pQsMa2xMsB06GjDU1XjKpSpCH3KU1DmFXTSH_322TaAEi4sXuEl8_6NhIJUvrd44c" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg7IYz67F8MTnhP38IyNAClPcZkkDZdvlQ9s22Wa4i37FzItR6LDMBSZqcVhJ6Gs4f1rAWlIadZs7tyOvWN-VN7LzamuZEXYlltVx6tL69GCFB7OazHSxPzMM4Jk-pQsMa2xMsB06GjDU1XjKpSpCH3KU1DmFXTSH_322TaAEi4sXuEl8_6NhIJUvrd44c=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>% Kate DiCamillo, <i><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/06/books/review/kate-dicamillo-the-puppets-of-spelhorst.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ak0.aYql.MyA7m1DcOl07&smid=url-share">The Puppets of Spelhorst</a></i>, 2023</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><i>Read because</i> I don't devour Dicamillo instinctively but I read and listened to some wonderful interviews with her last year, and I did really enjoy her previous book, <i>The Beatryce Prophecy</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>This is the first of a projected trio of novellas, short contemporary fairytales. It is one of those deceptively deep little books, a beautiful piece of writing, sad and gratifying.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtMP7ygACOjK4b9jhVqkIBuKrT_IkUicAimbrKDTBAcoNFaUwdXOOyG7QmoAQGAbgdKaS_gLe7kIRuxVXGTu22MkInBfJJ6BYQ3U-bsfUiZACfg0rL_xdkvQWRlEWmklG6XTqL-rtLWXWYCk-J77hk9KNuFx9-AmQg5-QtKKgojJ0rKYw5_-hurs-QWW0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgtMP7ygACOjK4b9jhVqkIBuKrT_IkUicAimbrKDTBAcoNFaUwdXOOyG7QmoAQGAbgdKaS_gLe7kIRuxVXGTu22MkInBfJJ6BYQ3U-bsfUiZACfg0rL_xdkvQWRlEWmklG6XTqL-rtLWXWYCk-J77hk9KNuFx9-AmQg5-QtKKgojJ0rKYw5_-hurs-QWW0=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><br /><b>% Katherine Rundell, <i><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/06/the-explorers-by-katherine-rundell-review-exciting-adventure">The Explorer</a></i>, 2017</b></div><div><br /></div><div><i>Read because</i> Rundell is all the rage and her latest <i>Impossible Creatures</i> is still on my to-read stack, but I found this on the library shelf recently.</div><div><br /></div><div>Rundell is immensely respected & popular as a children’s book author (this is only my second book of hers, following the bio of John Donne). I’ve heard her speaking on podcasts more than I’ve read her. </div><div><br /></div><div>The book is charmingly old fashioned in some ways (four kids crash land in the Amazon, have to overcome their own fears and their uncertainties and assumptions about each other in order to survive & plan their escape). There is a mysterious and irascible adult who has to be compassionately unpacked. Rundell is very good at the animals of the Amazon — as friend, food and foe. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are several heavily delivered themes in the book. There is “confront your fears, with kindness”. There is “colonial exploration is colonial exploitation”. There is “paying attention is a your duty to the vast and beautiful world”. There is “wizened hearts can be rehydrated”. There’s maybe a bit too much tell-not-show going on. </div><div><br /></div><div>The writing though is wonderfully lucid, by which I mean it generally stays out of the way but is occasionally also quite beautiful. I did get a bit misty-eyed at the end though so you know — <i>The Explorer </i>definitely does the job.</div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-42192973374551699942023-04-01T19:03:00.002+13:002023-04-01T19:05:53.777+13:00Alan Garner, The Owl Service<p> I wonder if I would've loved <i>The Owl Service</i> the way I just have, if I hadn't (a) only just read it now, as a 43 year-old and (b) it wasn't only my second Garner, after <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2023/01/alan-garner-treacle-walker.html">reading <i>Treacle Walker</i></a> over the summer break?</p><p><i>The Owl Service</i> is one of those childrens' books I've always had a shadowy, but baseless, perception of. Whenever I've seen the book mentioned, I've had a mental plot picture of a group of plucky children (pre-teen), out in the night in the English country-side (shading into the wilds of the forest) and a flight of owls streaming through the dim sky, back to their hollow oak (do owls hang out in groups? also that hollow oak is totally sourced from the owl in <i>Mrs Frisbee and the Rats of N.I.M.H.</i>). </p><p>Naturally, it's not anything like that. Nor is it anything like the rather bitter <i>Guardian</i> reader-contributed review that pops up when you google "Owl Service reviews" which opens "The Owl Service tells the story of Alison, Roger and Huw who discover a mysterious dinner service in the loft" and concludes "Not one of the best reads ever, but take a look anyway. Preferably get it from a library not a bookshop, as you probably won't read it again."</p><p>Instead, it's an elliptical collision of ancient Welsh legend and 1960s youth culture and class war, set in an isolated Welsh valley, played out largely through dialogue and potentially deeply frustrating if you're not content to pass by all the things Garner leaves unsaid, and instead hone in on what <i>is</i> given to you.</p><p>What I loved about <i>Treacle Walker</i> was the timelessness of it: not in the sense of being a story for all time (<i>The Owl Service</i> is pointedly more than) and more in the sense of it being very hard to allocate a time period for it. <i>The Owl Service</i> is thoroughly located in the 1969s however, and Garner makes no attempt to disguise technology (phone booths, portable record players) or slang.</p><p>It <i>is </i>the story of Alison, Gwyn and Roger (though arguably just as much so of Roger's father Clive, who has married up by virtue of his bank account to Alison's mother ("her people were surprised"), and Gwyn's mother Nancy, hired on to return to the valley as cook and housekeeper for the family's summer holiday, and Huw Halfbacon, the mysterious man of all jobs who maintains the property). And it is the story of how they are drawn without volition - by the power of the valley - into playing out an ancient legend of love and jealously, of Lleu Llaw Gyffes and Blodeuwedd, the wife made for him out of flowers, who fell in love with his friend Gronw Pebr. The lovers murdered Lleu, who was brought back to life by magic, and then slew Gronw by casting a spear through him and the boulder behind which he was sheltering, at which point Blodeuwedd is turned into an owl to punish her. </p><p>Garner doesn't go into anything as crass as a time-loop or time-travel (although time <i>is</i> allowed to loosen in the narrative); instead, we watch as the three lead characters both detect the lines of the story and are compelled to play it out. At the same time they are detecting the traces of the story as it has played out before in the generations before them.</p><p>The aspect of the book I loved though - which I doubt every much I would've appreciated if I had read it as a young teen - was the class battle that plays out through it. Nancy, with direct spite, and Huw with more humble misgivings resent and dislike Clive and his wife, who play lord and lady of the manor - at the same time, Clive talks Nancy down, pays her off, and belittles Huw. And Nancy's son Gwyn is that class-breaking striver, the smart kid sent to the grammar school, who secretly buys elocution records to help pull himself up through the social classes and out of Welsh rural life. The battles between Nancy and Gwyn over his aspirations, the code-switching and anger played out between Gwyn, Roger and Alison, are in some ways the truly timeless aspect of the book, the time capsule you pull out to understand other people's lives.</p><p>In his postscript, Garner repeats his career adage: that he does not devise stories, but unearths them "the sensation of finding, not inventing". While the story may have been gifted to him through years' of experience, acquaintance and chance, Garner's spare language, incredible ability to create a tautly compelling environment out of air and rocks, his comfort with leaving chunks of the story unexplained (what <i>is</i> going on with Alison's invisible mother??) bring the book into being. I don't think kids today would like it at all. I absolutely loved it. </p><p><b>PS</b></p><p>For a recent riff on similar subject matter but with a more lush, 1980s-inflected delivery, I love and continually recommend Garth Nix's <i>The Left-handed Booksellers of London</i>. </p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-22620822680037610452023-01-19T14:09:00.005+13:002023-01-19T14:19:27.618+13:00Alan Garner, Treacle Walker<p>In her extended essay <i>Why You Should Read Children's Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise</i>, Katherine Rundell writes:</p><p></p><blockquote>When you read children's books, you are given space to read again as a child: to find your way back, back to the time when new discoveries came daily and when the world was colossal, before your imagination was trimmed and neatened, as if it were an optional extra.</blockquote><p></p><p>Rundell also cites W.H. Auden: "There are good books that are only for adults, because their comprehension presupposes adult experiences, but there are no good books which are only for children."</p><p>The first time I read Alan Garner's <i>Treacle Walker</i> (to my shame, my first Garner ever), I read it not as a children's book, but <i>as a child</i> - placing my trust entirely in the author and the world they had created. Under this kind of reading the book was full of wonder, its world self-contained yet depthless, and the journey of the child Joe mythic and magical.</p><p>In my second reading, I came armed with recordings of book festival talks and online reviews, details about archaeology, particle physics and the philosophy of time. The mythic resonances of the first reading faded into crossword puzzle solving. It was like those moments in children's literature where one character outgrows the pluripotent world of childhood, and trades off imagination and make-believe for membership of the adult world, as if they'd sacrificed one of their senses in order to access the privileges of being grown-up. </p><p>The first reading was eminently preferable to the second. It was a return to the reading of my childhood - <i>Puck of Pook's Hill, The Sword in the Stone</i>, the Narnia series (before my evangelical uncle ruined them) - when I read with the hope that one day, maybe, <i>just maybe</i>, something magical would happen to me. And even at that age I absorbed the lesson that magic comes with a price, that this is the justice of magic: you will have to choose between your old life and the new life you are offered, between safety and adventure, between being part of the story, or living out your little life ignorant that a story is even happening. A child's life does not usually feature many meaningful decisions: children's literature empowers children to practice decision making that might affect the whole universe.</p><p><i>Treacle Walker</i> is the story of Joe, who has an improbable existence: he appears to live alone in his ancient-sounding home (his bed is on top of the chimney cupboard, the windows are mullioned, when his head aches he reclines on the settle - I still don't know exactly what a "settle" is and in honour of my childhood reading I'm not going to google it, but instead wait for another book to tell me one day), with little to occupy his time aside from marbles and archaic comic books ('Stonehenge Kit the Ancient Brit' being his favourite). He tells the time by the daily passing of a single train at midday. He is something of an invalid - he's not meant to be out in the sun, distances tire him, and he has a lazy eye, and must keep a patch over his strong eye to make his weak eye work harder.</p><p>The story is set in motion by the arrival of a rag and bone man, the eponymous Treacle Walker, in Joe's yard, who trades Joe his choice of pot and a stone for a pair of worn pyjamas and a lamb's scapula from his museum of natural history oddments:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The chest was full. Bedded in layers of silk, there were cups, saucers, platters, jugs, big and small: coloured, plain, simple, silvered, gilded, twisted; scenes of dancing, scenes of killing; ships, oceans, seas; beasts, birds, fishes, whales, monsters, houses, castles, mansions, halls; cherubs, satyrs, nymphs; mountains, rivers forests, lakes, fields and clouds and skies.</p><p>'Choose,' said the man. 'One.'</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Joe chooses a plain china pot, adorned with blue writing: the least, the smallest, the cheapest of the wares on offer. It was previously home to some kind of ointment called 'Poor Man's Friend'. In exchange for his clothes and bone, Treacle Walker gives him the pot and a stone - a donkey stone, palm-sized, incised on one side with a simplifed figure of a horse, used to polish a doorstep. Two talismans thus enter Joe's story, and from here the adventure - not physical, but in place and time and knowledge - unfolds.</p><p>I SUGGEST YOU STOP HERE TO AVOID SPOILERS IF YOU'VE NOT READ THE BOOK</p><p>For those who <i>have</i> read the book. <i>Treacle Walker</i> left me tingling on my first reading, all my deep-housed childhood reading synapses firing. I was thinking about Kipling, and children being educated by ancient English beings; about T.H. White's Wart, who is taught about the world by the ancient and elemental Merlin, for whom confusion and not-knowing is simply part of the learning process; about Ursula Le Guin and children's introductions to the mysteries of time, space, and emotional justice. About Susan Cooper, who I came to late, and those writers, like Garth Nix in <i>The Left-handed Booksellers of London</i>, who pull on the elemental magic of the British Isles. </p><p>I read <i>Treacle Walker</i> as the story of a child coming into his fate: of being prepared by two guides to take up his role in an ancient system of caring for time, place and the old stories. It touched a fundamental romanticism I didn't even quite realise I still held so deeply from my childhood. The book is filled with motifs - the sickly child, the magic ointment, the bewildering guide, the dewy grass and silvery moon - that are less tropes and more the ingredients for a magical spell, and powerful, magical storytelling. There are touches that feel utterly Garner: the bone flute is one (and the subject of a very beautiful lyrical passage), the battle between contemporary science and magic in a visit to the optometrist (workaday science loses) another, and the comic book sequences which are my least favourite part of the book, which feel like they're there to clunkily manifest a thesis about the nature of time and space.</p><p>I read the story first as a legend where a child must sacrifice their innocence and their small comfortable place in the surface world, in order to become part of the deeper world beyond, which holds that unseeing surface world together. My second reading came cluttered with experts' insights about Garner's interest in particle physics, his restoration of a centuries-old medicine house, theories about time. Maybe that reading comes with more admiration for the book and Garner's work, but it sucked out all the wonder. I'm going to discard that second reading, and hold instead on to that first.</p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-45236501026875665362023-01-16T13:55:00.005+13:002023-01-16T16:00:16.857+13:00Catherine Chidgey, The Axeman's Carnival<p>Is <i>The Axeman's Carnival</i> the great New Zealand novel? I know it's not a question we ask but for me - Pākehā New Zealand, child and grandchild and great-grandchild of farmers - maybe it is.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgwBE-jF6npEkzCrYIVkCSOcAKjBEhs3MZEM4brQK8ArWINngM1qtQkK0Zx4R7vHBT-rE6OpxsN26980pZfSH8JpfoqFIAreOPTb5a0hkyDVMIJw2_yiBQ2Y9hYcVV4tGy5uajMx00S48qq0GvFhE5jzhOwSyDJWzdYvT2jcWoLxOoUwdaF_ZM71pMX" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="842" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgwBE-jF6npEkzCrYIVkCSOcAKjBEhs3MZEM4brQK8ArWINngM1qtQkK0Zx4R7vHBT-rE6OpxsN26980pZfSH8JpfoqFIAreOPTb5a0hkyDVMIJw2_yiBQ2Y9hYcVV4tGy5uajMx00S48qq0GvFhE5jzhOwSyDJWzdYvT2jcWoLxOoUwdaF_ZM71pMX=w263-h400" width="263" /></a></div><br />One review I read located <i>The Axeman's Carnival</i> in the canon of literature written from an animal's perspective, which had me puzzled. <i>Watership Down, White Fang, Charlotte's Web,</i> Dick King-Smith's <i>The Sheep-Pig</i> (all books I adored as a kid / teen) and Ernest Thompson Seton's <i><a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/25023/pg25023-images.html">The Biography of a Grizzly</a> </i>(the very first book I remember having an emotional reaction to) are all told in the third person. Try as I might, I cannot think of any other adult novel with an animal first-person narrator apart from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Beauty">Anna Sewell's <i>Black Beauty</i></a>:<p></p><blockquote>The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water-lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; at the top of the meadow was a grove of fir trees, and at the bottom a running brook overhung by a steep bank. </blockquote><blockquote><div>While I was young I lived upon my mother's milk, as I could not eat grass. In the daytime I ran by her side, and at night I lay down close by her. When it was hot we used to stand by the pond in the shade of the trees, and when it was cold we had a nice warm shed near the grove.</div></blockquote><div><p><i>The Axeman's Carnival</i> also opens from first memories, first sensations, with Chidgey's incantatory tone sucking you straight into the not-human world:</p><p></p><blockquote>A long long time ago, when I was little chick, not even a chick but a pink and naked thing, a scar a scrap a scrape fallen on roots, and wriggling, when I was catching my death and all I knew of sky was the feel of feathers above me, the belly of black as warm as a cloud above me, when I was blind, my eyes unsprouted seeds, my eyes dots of gravel stuck under skin, when I was a beak opening for nothing nothing nothing she lifted me into her pillowed palm.</blockquote><p></p><p>The pillowed palm belongs to Marnie, wife of Rob, the young farming couple trying to force a living from the ungiving landscape of a Central Otago sheep station. On the block of land next to them is the cherry orchard owned by Marnie's sister Ange, her husband Nick, with their new baby and the sisters' acid-tongued mother Barbara. </p><p>Marnie raises the fallen chick, who she names Tamagotchi (Tama for short). From a box pierced with airholes in the laundry, Tama graduates to Marnie and Rob's own empty nest, the vacant nursery that sits potently in the centre of the foundering old villa, of their marriage, and of the story that Chidgey unwinds. </p><p>Tama lives in both world, absorbing all the language of his human household (song lyrics, Marnie's endearments, farm talk, talkback radio callers, the dialogue from the crime shows Rob watches on the telly to unwind) and listening to his original family too:</p><p></p><blockquote>From the windowsill I could see my flock in the distance, and hear them, and I tried to tell which birds were my mother and father: little bits of black and white, dark and light, too far away. One day I thought I heard them singing for their lost chick, but every family lost half their chicks, and all parents sang for them, and the voices might have been the voices of of someone else's parents.</blockquote><p></p><p>While Marnie falls for Tama, for Rob he becomes another target for the seething resentment that lies under his skin at all times. Pressured, Marnie releases Tama back to his family, and his father swoops in to reclaim him - <i>There is my son. My son has come back from the dead. He fell from the nest and he did not die. My son is alive. Come to me. Come come come.</i></p><p>So Tama is brought back into the nest: the emptier nest now, his brothers and his mother both gone - <i>death by car, death by cold</i>. His father raises him and his sister, the surviving nestlings, teaches them to stab grubs in the ground, to wipe the sting from a wasp, to smash snails from their shells. </p><p></p><blockquote>I learned how the wild worked: where to take shelter, and what voice the adults used when another flock tried to invade. I learned to behave. I learned my place. I learned to leap octaves and to sing two notes at once.</blockquote><p></p><p>But Tama "belonged and did not belong, and I was bird and not-bird". He gazes down on the yolk-yellow house he had been raised in. And he feels the pull of Marnie, his mother, his only mother: he choses to return to her. And from his bird throat he brings forth the first of his human words: her name.</p><p>Changeling, foundling, child-narrator, jester: Tama is our eyes and ears and voice throughout <i>The Axeman's Carnival</i>. Two storylines intertwine: Tama's rapidly growing grasp of English and eventual social media stardom (from a few casual posts on Twitter of Tama's cute outfits and catch-phrases springs a cottage industry of merch and sponsorship opportunities), alongside Rob's pursuit of his tenth golden axe at that year's woodchopping competition. These stories are played out across a fraying marriage, the harsh life of farmers, the intensity of at once living too close to your family and being surrounded by empty space but - for Marnie - having little space or safety of your own. Through this Chidgey weaves the drama of Tama's original family: his dominating and cold-hearted father, his curious and selfish sister, his father's next set of nestlings, better than those who preceded them.</p><p>Although the story is often troubled (Rob is jealous, suspicious, and free with his hands when he's had too much to drink) Chidgey is also frequently hilarious. Tama as narrator reports to us what he sees and hears, without judgement or interpretation, whether that's Barbara's sniping or the adulation of the foreign tourists who start searching out the farm to meet their Twitter crush. It's a truly rollicking story, both High Country gothic and pop-culture parody. </p><p>But what I found myself appreciating most about <i>The</i> <i>Axeman's Carnival</i> - perhaps enhanced by reading the book whilst staying in rural Hawkes Bay, in a house on dry hillside under a stand of pines occupied by its own magpie families - was the portrait of farming life, so familiar to my ear even though I've not lived on the farm since I was 18.</p><p>The book is a striking and evocative portrait of the pressures and isolation of farming life, and I found myself following Rob in the book with a welling of empathy for all those farming men I've ever known. Victim to the weather, to the regulators, to those buggers in the city. Falling meat prices, falling wool prices, threat of drought: Rob is watching his own life play out in the same worn tracks as those of his parents, farming the same resistant land, searching for rain, searching for a break on the global markets, the sheer unfairness of busting a gut from before dawn to after dark every day of the year and still living on a knife's edge of liquid cash. The hardness this breeds, the inarticulate resentment of a life that feels so out of your control, the shackling responsibility for this bloody piece of land, and yes: the love and the fierce pride also. </p><p></p><p>There are a couple of set pieces which are pitch perfect to my ear. There's the description of docking season, when lambs' tails are severed with a cauterising iron, rubber bands are applied to testicles to strangulate the blood supply until they drop off (we used bands on the lambs' tails too, and the image of lambs bucking on the ground then scrambling to their feet, spronking off in uneven leaps and bounds, bawling for their mothers, is still so vivid in my mind). Not just the work, but the latent anger at townies and their privileged obliviousness:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>"And now the overseas supermarkets are complaining about the meat." </p><p>"What's wrong with it?" said Ange.</p><p>"Nothing," said Rob. "Nothing's wrong with it. But their customers have decided they're a bit upset about tailing."</p><p>"They don't want to buy meat from docked animals," said Marnie.</p><p>"Why on earth not?" said Barbara.</p><p>"Apparently it's cruel," said Rob. "Apparently we're monsters. They'd prefer to eat lambs slaughtered with their tails still attached."</p><p>Barbara laughed. "Ludicrous!"</p><p>"There's a lot of pressure," said Marnie.</p><p>"well," said Nick, "it's important to listen to the voice of the consumer."</p><p>"You know what's cruel?" said Rob. "Leaving a lamb with a tail so long it gets caked in shit, and then the blowflies come and lay their eggs, and then the maggots hatch and eat the animal alive."</p><p>Barbara shuddered, pushed away her bread roll.</p><p>"Sorry," he said. "It gets me worked up."</p></blockquote><p></p><p>And also the descriptions of the work and care of lambing season, where paddocks are patrolled, small hot bodies fished slithering and steaming from their mother's vulvas, prolapsed uteruses pushed back in and secured with plastic anchors, motherless lambs brought home, warmed in front of the fire, fed by hand. In my house they were kept in cardboard boxes or the wood basket, until they were big enough to be moved to the crate in the basement (once home also to a litter of piglets whose murderous mother kept squashing them). Or the creation of more changelings - dead lambs skinned, then the crinkled yellow jackets of their hides tied around the bodies of orphaned lambs, to fool the bereaved ewe through smell and taste to mother them on. (Who wouldn't take a second chance, if they could make themselves believe in it?)</p><p>Another set piece comes late in the book, a crowd of men yelling as Ange and Marnie take to the stage to perform in a kind of talent show during the woodchopping competition:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><blockquote>But the men were in full voice now, calling, carolling. 'I like your dresses - they'd look awesome on my bedroom floor. Wanna see my baby elephant? Wanna see my hairy canary? I've got some wood for you, girls. Hey! I said I've got some wood for you! My name's Justin - remember that so you can scream it later. How do you like your meat? Hey girls!<span> </span><i>Girls!</i> What's your favourite - standing or underhand? Nice legs, what time do they open? Are you free tonight, or will it cost me?</blockquote><p>"Show us where the axe hit ya" was a favoured catch-phrase of my teenage years. And yet still, "Nice legs, what time do they open?" made me giggle.</p><p>As other reviewers have noted, <i>the Axeman's Carnival</i> sits within New Zealand's tradition of the cinema of unease, that gothic haunting of the settler imagination. It's full of symbol and threat and tension. But the utterly unique voice of Tama, his two-spirit storytelling: this is brilliantly developed and delivered, with a depth of reality that a film could never give you. One of the greatest works of storytelling I've read in such a long time, effortless and memorable. </p></div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-36482942279190966582023-01-11T14:14:00.009+13:002023-01-12T15:33:32.997+13:00Elizabeth Strout, Oh William!<blockquote>I would like to say a few things about my first husband, William. </blockquote><blockquote><div>William has lately been through some very sad events - many of us have - but I would like to mention them, it feels almost like a compulsion; he is seventy-one years old now. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>My second husband, David, died last year, and in my grief for him I have found grief for William as well. Grief is such a - oh, it is such a <i>solitary</i> thing; this is the terror of it, I think. It is like sliding down the outside of a really long glass building while nobody sees you. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>But it is William I want to speak of here.</div></blockquote><div><div>I'm not surprised people described themselves as "obsessed" with Strout's writing. Plain spoken and determinedly anti-atmospheric, Strout's writing has an obsessive tone, like a person who can't stop scratching their sores. The "compulsion" mentioned in these opening lines of <i>Oh William!</i> crops up over and over again: <i>I need to say this though. I wrote about it in an earlier book, but I need to explain it more...</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The voice is that of Lucy Barton, the title character of Strout's earlier book <i>My Name is Lucy Barton,</i> who also features in several stories in the collection <i>Anything is Possible</i>. </div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>My Name is Lucy Barton</i> is set in a New York hospital where Lucy, the narrator, recovers slowly from a routine operation that has somehow become complicated. She is married, with some difficulty, to William, has two young daughters, and is visited for five days by her estranged mother, leading her to reflect on her painful, isolated and abusive upbringing in rural Illinois. <i>Oh William!</i> picks up several decades later. Lucy is now mourning her second husband, David; she is a successful author, still living in New York City; her daughters are grown and comfortably married; her mother and William's mother, Catherine, have both died and her first husband William is now married to his third wife, Estelle, and has a 10 year-old daughter, Bridget. Lucy and William remain companionably close, and lean upon each other.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://cdn2.penguin.com.au/covers/original/9780241992210.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="521" height="400" src="https://cdn2.penguin.com.au/covers/original/9780241992210.jpg" width="261" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div><div><i>Oh William! </i>is narrated by Lucy, but the book's plot and her movements in the story are driven by her ex-husband William. Indeed, the question of whether we <i>really</i> make any decisions about our lives, or more slide almost imperceptibly from the mental imagining of a path of action into its physical enactment is a core theme of the book:</div><div><blockquote>I was thinking about the year before I left William how almost every night when he was asleep I would go out and stand in our tiny back garden and I would think: What do I do? Do I leave or do I stay? It had felt like a choice to me then. But remembering this now, I realised that also during that whole year I made no motion to put myself back inside the marriage; I kept myself separate is what I mean. Even as I thought I was deciding.</blockquote></div><div><i>Oh William!</i> centres on two things that happen to William: his third wife first gives him a gift that accidentally cracks open his family narrative, and then she leaves him. These events draw him and Lucy even more closely together, as she and their daughters support him through the grief of yet another marriage ending, and then a trip to research his mother's early life. While the action may not be determined by Lucy, it is her flow of consciousness we follow, as she weaves together the present moment and memories of her life, and her life with William and her mother-in-law. </div><div><br /></div><div>Lucy as narrator explicitly addresses us as reader, or witness, throughout the book - "I have already mentioned this ...", "What you need to know is ...", "What I mean by this is ...", "I have told you this before ...". Lucy's career and success are central to the unsteady sense of self-worth she has developed in her adult life, yet Strout keeps her career resolutely off-stage: while Lucy gives us details about the public life of an author - an unsuccessful event, being stranded on a book tour - at no point does she engage in the writing life in the book, say sit down to write something, talk to her agent. This contributes to the dislocated, or obscuring, or even wilful tone of the book:<i> </i></div><div></div><blockquote><div>There is this about my own mother. I have written about her and I really do not care to write anything else about her. But I understand one might need to know a few things for this story.</div></blockquote><div>Perhaps Lucy here is a writer off duty, able to tell stories not with the cleanliness and consistency needed for publication, but with the uncertainty and gropingness of real life communication:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Throughout my marriage to William, I had had the image - and this was true even when Catherine was alive, and more so after she died - so often I had the private image of William and me as Hansel and Gretel, two small kids lost in the woods looking for the breadcrumbs that could lead us home.</div><div><br /></div><div>This might sound like it contradicts my saying that the only home I ever had was with William, but in my mind they are both true and oddly do not go against each other. I am not sure why that is true, but it is.</div></blockquote><div>I find Lucy's voice to be deeply discomforting. "This is a delightful novel," one review I read concluded, "It rattles along so easily and agreeably in Lucy’s voice ...". There is no ease or agreeableness in Lucy's voice for me, but rather a combined relentlessness and panic. Lucy exists in a web of unearned pain from her childhood, and carefully nurtured hurts from her adult life. Every situation is picked over for the possible harm or slight embedded in it - only her daughters are spared. The massive shift in her life, from rural poverty to urban affluence, destabilises Lucy, and even in success and happiness she is plagued by a deep sense of her own invisibility:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Please try to understand this: </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>I have always thought that if there was a big corkboard and on that board was a pin for every person who ever lived, there would be no pin for me. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>I feel invisible, is what I mean. But I mean it in the deepest way. It is hard to explain. And I cannot explain it except to say - oh, I don't know what to say! Truly, it is as if I do not exist, I guess is the closest thing I can say. I mean I do not exist in the world. It could be as simple as the fact that we had no mirrors in my house when we were growing up except for a very small one high above the bathroom sink. I do not really know what I mean, except say that on some very fundamental level, I feel invisible in the world.</div></blockquote><div></div><div>It is deep-set trauma and insecurity, to be sure, but traumatised people are hard to be around. Like a gimbal holding a moving camera, Lucy is constantly adjusting her viewpoint and her statements with almost a paranoid energy: as a result, there is no relaxation for the reader. The strength of the first person narrative is almost suffocating - Lucy expresses little curiosity and little joy: most characters are assessed according to her likes and dislikes, trust and distrust, and they disappear from the story once they exit her view. </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Oh William!</i> is a short book, about many things - grief and loneliness, secrets and family life, social mobility and poverty, marriage and aging. It is at times almost brutally insightful. It suggests that deep love and great resentment are quietly normal states of any close relationship, neither remarkable nor contradictory. It is told in one of the most distinctive and accomplished tones I have read recently. It is not a book that gave me easy enjoyment, but it has lodged under my skin and got me thinking harder than anything else I've read this summer.</div></div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-13880756624209538522023-01-03T11:55:00.005+13:002023-01-03T19:47:22.054+13:00Zana Fraillon and Bren MacDibble, The Raven's Song<p><i>We started up, all the ordinary evening songs for putting babies to sleep, for farewelling, for soothing broke-hearted people - all the ones everyone knew so well that they’d long ago made ruder versions and joke-songs of them. We sang them plain, following Mumma’s lead; we sang them straight, into Ikky’s glistening eyes, as the tar climbed her chin. We stood tall, so as to see her, and she us, as her face became the sunken centre of that giant flower, the wreath. Dash’s little drum held us together and kept us singing, as Ik’s eyes rolled and she struggled for breath against the pressing tar, as the chief and the husband’s family came and stood across from us, shifting from foot to foot, with torches raised to watch her sink away.</i></p><p>Margo Lanagan, "Singing My Sister Down", 2004, from <i>Black Juice </i>(<a href="https://www.dentonisd.org/cms/lib/TX21000245/Centricity/Domain/630/Singing%20My%20Sister%20Down%20by%20Margo%20Lanagan.pdf">pirated copy available online here</a>)</p><p><i>They turn her to face the crowd, they display her to her neighbours and her family, to the people who held her hands as she learned to walk, taught her to dip her bread in the pot and wipe her lips, to weave a basket and gut a fish. She has played with the children who now peep at her from behind their mothers, has murmured prayers for them as they were being born. She has been one of them, ordinary. Her brother and sisters watch her flinch as the men take the blade, lift the pale hair on the left side of her head and cut it away. They scrape the skin bare. She doesn't look like one of them now. She shakes. They tuck the hair into the rope around her wrists.</i></p><p>Sarah Moss, <i>The Ghost Wall</i>, 2018</p><p><i>The bog skin is becoming her skin, the heavy-earthed water cool against the burning tight of the rope. The cold bog blood surges and flows in her, around her as her own seeps and blends. Voices are whispering in her ears now, on her tongue now, filling the night sky with warbled callings and seeings, with the knowings and tellings of those gone before. The stick twisting the collar tight around her neck loosens, just enough to keep the veil between the worlds open for a little more ...</i></p><p>Zana Fraillon and Bren MacDibble, <i>The Raven's Song</i>, 2022</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyYfWKxXIiPAGKY9klY_aM4DB0QyRvSwtmXGWHI7rEj1AkKBgvb5yZCloHO4RpHhhHDrciGwGFerRqJZGLBXy14JNuc5o8dhVIRn_q-RB75Vh3LaLe7KjpvDY9e9iTc5LU6vroTc7xPZLmEr2wD2pGHncsYzS97ApTSfm_SazhnJvgVqgSp9QUkQ2E" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img data-original-height="770" data-original-width="498" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyYfWKxXIiPAGKY9klY_aM4DB0QyRvSwtmXGWHI7rEj1AkKBgvb5yZCloHO4RpHhhHDrciGwGFerRqJZGLBXy14JNuc5o8dhVIRn_q-RB75Vh3LaLe7KjpvDY9e9iTc5LU6vroTc7xPZLmEr2wD2pGHncsYzS97ApTSfm_SazhnJvgVqgSp9QUkQ2E=w258-h400" width="258" /></a></div><br />In her <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/readingroom/book-of-the-week-a-masterpiece-for-young-readers">truly excellent review of <i>The Raven's Song</i></a>, Rachael King observes that she came of age in an era when cultural production was dominated by the threat of nuclear war: <i>Z for Zacariah</i>, <i>Children of the Dust</i>, even Raymond Briggs’ <i>When the Wind Blows</i>. With today's children facing an arguably even more terrifying future of climate catastrophe, King asks: "How do you write about this stuff for children without subjecting them to the nightmares we experienced as kids?".<p></p><p>King then recaps the thinking of several leading children's writers (honestly, this essay is a reading list, a writing treatise and book review all wrapped into one, Rachael's Newsroom reviews last year were just killer and I sincerely hope 2023 brings more of them): Patrick Ness's observations about the dark emotional worlds teenagers already live in themselves - </p><p></p><blockquote>darkness is where teenagers dwell, and if you ignore that “you’re leaving a teenager to face that by themselves,” says Ness. “I think that’s immoral.”</blockquote><p></p><p>- Joan Aitken's advice that if characters in a children's book <i>must</i> dwell on some lesson, make it snappy; Katherine Rundell -</p><p></p><blockquote>"children’s fiction necessitates distillation: at its best, it renders in their purest, most archetypal forms hope, hunger, joy, fear. Think of children’s books as literary vodka."</blockquote><p></p><p>Or as Margo Lanagan <a href="https://www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/interview-margo-lanagan/">said in an interview</a> about her tender and brutal book <i>Tender Morsels</i>, which centres on incest and rape:</p><p></p><blockquote>When it comes down to it, an explicit sex scene takes as much calculation and care as a restrained one. With either story [the interviewer had asked her about <i>Tender Morsels</i> vs a short story written for adult readers], I’m thinking more of the demands of the story than those of the audience. It wasn’t so much the YA audience that made <i>Tender Morsels</i> take the form it did. If I’d made all the rape and incest explicit, it would have become a rape-and-incest book; those events would have overwhelmed the story that I wanted to tell, which was about Liga hiding from the world in her personal heaven, and the effect that had on herself and her daughters. Suggesting that she had been through hell was enough; I didn’t need to put the audience through hell with her, whatever age they were.</blockquote><p></p><p><i>The Raven's Song</i>, then, as King concludes, "a masterclass in writing dark, difficult material for a child reader" and "a complex middle grade novel about terrible things, at once sad and joyful, foreboding and hopeful, and a lot less devastating than some dystopian books for older readers".</p><p>The book weaves together three timelines; an ancient moment, in which a girl is sacrificed in a bog, setting the chain of events into Long Time motion; an around-now, when a boy named Phoenix and his siblings are mourning their mother on the brink of a pandemic outbreak; and a near-term-ish future, where Shelby Jones and her best friend Davey are two of exactly 350 people living on exactly 700 hectares of fenced-off land: in reverse of our contemporary conservation moment, to allow the earth to regenerate human populations have (following a massive pandemic-related culling) been placed into closed communities, living 'kindly and ethical" low-tech lives, in zero-pollution conditions, so that the "honoured and natural world" can recover.</p><p>A hole in the perimeter fence leads Shelby and Davey out of their cloistered environment (and cloistered world view) and exposes them to their society's history, a massively expanded reality, and danger. In the tradition of the best child heroes, they are brave and curious, straining at the limits of what they know and what adults have told them is necessary for their own - and the communities' - good.</p><p>You could class <i>The Raven's Song</i> as an eco-thriller, I guess: it also has moments that have enough horror to reach my (admittedly, very low) tolerance. Phoenix has hallucinations that cross over into the real world ("Emotional reactivity to trauma," the doctor calls it. ... "Your sixth sense!" Gran calls it, and she talks about the great gift passed down through generations of their family.) and there is one recurrent motif that frankly gave me the shits:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Phoenix looked but there weren't any angels at all. Just a bunch of small, raggedy people with floppy, torn cardboard wings tied on with string, and little toy trumpets in their hands, all lined up with their snotty noses pressed at the windows waiting to get in. That was the first time Phoenix had seen something so strange that he knew it couldn't possibly be there. <i>They aren't real</i>, he told himself over and over as the angels banged on the window, louder and louder. <i>They aren't real</i>, and he ran around the house locking every window and pulling every curtain closed and when he got back to the kitchen his mum had just ... just stopped.</p></blockquote><p><i>The Raven's Song</i> is complexly plotted and the co-authors land the ending in a way that has all the satisfaction of nailing a tricky beam dismount. There's a rewarding set of detective-like clues that are resolved in the final pages, which I imagine would give attentive young readers that righteous sense of pay-off. Genuinely scary, transporting and empathetic. </p><p>The book is also causing me to depart from <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/12/summer-reading-list.html">my summer reading stack</a>. Last night I re-read Lanagan's <i>Singing My Sister Down</i> which is just a perfect piece of writing, and I've returned today to <i>Ghost Wall</i> (it's almost impossible not to). I've added Mal Peet's <i>Life: An Exploded Diagram</i> as a re-read to my sub-stack of books to take on the road at the end of the week - not because it bears any resemblance to <i>The Raven's Song </i>but because of King's discussion of those Cold War era children's books, which it <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/251588240?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1">so masterfully riffs off</a>. It's a joy to have the time to let reading spool out like this, opening up the exploratory areas of my brain again after a working year of solving problems.</p>
<p></p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-37671290836030025042023-01-02T19:32:00.006+13:002023-01-02T19:32:57.639+13:00Books of 2022 - an incomplete list <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja1Et2DkXksmWECJTWMFlXg8BvXvEZdxox_BIKUW-x0dPBGsjeo8tnKtY4hAtYguOHe8Px7KOmMeEj8fk_v_RSx1HCz94Yz_qrDKg5V2liohS5WOYTnatRfJtvFsTj3FVfciSg2hbP79ouG76QZei7NzTozetRPW7bdmvCC54NAG1tsPd6D5Yyw86M/s1472/7C29B311-9706-46C7-9165-E7C0D17A0299.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1472" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja1Et2DkXksmWECJTWMFlXg8BvXvEZdxox_BIKUW-x0dPBGsjeo8tnKtY4hAtYguOHe8Px7KOmMeEj8fk_v_RSx1HCz94Yz_qrDKg5V2liohS5WOYTnatRfJtvFsTj3FVfciSg2hbP79ouG76QZei7NzTozetRPW7bdmvCC54NAG1tsPd6D5Yyw86M/w225-h400/7C29B311-9706-46C7-9165-E7C0D17A0299.jpeg" width="225" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; 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margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1472" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPk80ti8fagFTC7PK-epn-WEiWlEaw8MBnSEQr5-vSy5b0zWw89B3vNGRpKrHybDnGJ1Y9ZhRPfUaJnZKjduP5oReRLtkloFNknAJ0g-DGoej21FVoY7ruXeEzheSqTbDHHuiQNtKW45pc3cHq98f5fIU03sQupxt0j_uU4cQXYsEpb7QTzNs8kuOL/w225-h400/D7ADC834-7D72-45BE-B808-5E3821E8E6D1.jpeg" width="225" /></a></div><br />Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-70091175889337384212022-12-30T23:16:00.005+13:002023-01-03T07:52:25.639+13:00Ted Chiang, Exhalation<p></p><blockquote><p>He’s not necessarily interested in how human beings interact with one another (a few of his stories contain romantic subplots, and they are noticeably less compelling than anything else he writes). Instead, he focuses on how human beings interact with and are shaped by their technologies ...</p><p><a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/5/10/18563409/exhalation-ted-chiang-review">Constance Grady, <i>Vox</i></a></p></blockquote><div>I remember being thunderstruck by the two major stories in Ted Chiang's first collection, <i>Tower of Babylon</i> and <i>Story of Your Life</i> (later made into the film <i>Arrival</i>). Looking back on <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/177669649?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1">my review from the time</a>, I noted that I found the rest of the stories in the book 'interesting as exercises' but that they didn't seize my imagination or leave my brain more open, as the top two did.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtYUEF1vZNE6kts2mKzZhh2FWocqiar6IVCQJXbBCPMh39ofWVCbjr9GPDV-75Odb2VmdmVejG58VnF7sbk5YMNBAr1ymE8Ub0P8r_4MQda3J0dXYCt3aHc4Zi5A7oifh-dOKkT3KySt0fPywdGRS5DVD6DEP8a-VNFVzsQMntxl4bRIRywyqqeuep" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="753" data-original-width="501" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtYUEF1vZNE6kts2mKzZhh2FWocqiar6IVCQJXbBCPMh39ofWVCbjr9GPDV-75Odb2VmdmVejG58VnF7sbk5YMNBAr1ymE8Ub0P8r_4MQda3J0dXYCt3aHc4Zi5A7oifh-dOKkT3KySt0fPywdGRS5DVD6DEP8a-VNFVzsQMntxl4bRIRywyqqeuep=w267-h400" width="267" /></a></div><br />Reading through <i>Exhalation</i>, I really wanted to love it as much as I did that first book. I kept embarking on each story, hoping it would be "that one" - the <i>Story of Your Life</i> of this collection. None of these stories however come near its level of intricacy of content and form.</div><div><br /></div><div>The strongest story in the book, for me, is the longest - like <i>Story of Your Life, The Lifecycle of Software Objects</i> is a novella-length story, given plenty of room to develop. It centres on Ana and Derek, two employees at Blue Gamma, a software start-up making "digients" (digital organisms) for people to take into virtual worlds. Derek is an animator; Ana is a very new coder, but she's actually brought onboard at Blue Gamma for her earlier job experience, as a zoo-keeper. Blue Gamma's digients take the form of baby animals - pandas, tigers, chimpanzees - and the company is trying to tune them perfectly for the market. The older-tech equivalent would be Tamagotchis, those needy little devices that required the owner's regular attention or they "died". The digients however are AI and therefore can build a different kind of relationship:</div><div><blockquote>[Derek] subscribes to Blue Gamma's philosophy of AI design: experience is the best teacher, so rather than trying to program an AI with what you want it to know, sell ones capable of learning and have your customers teach them. To get customers, to put in that kind of effort, everything about the digient has to be appealing: their personalities need to be charming, which the developers were working on, and their avatars need to be cute, which is where Derek comes in. But he can't simply give the digients enormous eyes and short noses. if they look like cartoons, no one will take them seriously. Conversely, if they look too much like real animals, their facial expressions and ability to speak become disconcerting. It's a delicate balancing act, and he has spent countless hours watching reference footage of baby animals, but he's managed to design hybrid faces that are endearing but not exaggeratedly so.</blockquote></div><div>The digients are created then "hothoused" - run 24 hours in simulators to see how they develop and to winnow out the best products - then Ana's role is to work with them, teaching them and learning alongside them, so that Blue Gamma understands thoroughly the product they're taking to market, and future customers can be supported:</div><div><blockquote>... this is not what she envisioned for herself when she went to college, and for a moment she wonders how it has come to this. As a girl she dreamed of following Fossey and Goodall to Africa; by the time she got out of grad school, there were so few apes her best option was to work in a zoo; now she's looking at a job as a trainer of virtual pets. In her career trajectory you can see the diminution of the natural world, writ large.</blockquote></div><div>Blue Gamma does well for a time, and establishes a steady business model (a razors & blades model: the purchase of the digient isn't the big outlay, it's through the regular purchase of food treats where the company make their money). Customers are entranced, and user forums spring up with owners comparing notes and sorting issues. But after a couple of years, people start to lose interest. The pets become too demanding, or other life matters take over. Accounts (and digients) are suspended, or digients are dropped off at "shelters" for re-adoption. Competitors spring up. Eventually, Blue Gamma winds up:</div><div><blockquote>Many of the other employees have been through company collapses before, so while they're unhappy, for them this is just another episode of life in the software industry. For Ana, however, Blue Gamma's folding reminds her of the closure of the zoo, which was one of the most heartbreaking experiences of her life. Her eyes still tear up when she thinks about the last time she saw her apes, wishing she could explain to them why they wouldn't see her again, hoping they could adapt to their new homes. When she decided to retrain for the software industry, she was glad he'd never have to face another such farewell in her new line of work. Now here she is, against all expectation, confronted with a strangely reminiscent situation.</blockquote></div><div>However, Blue Gamma makes an offer: the dozen "mascots" (first-generation digients) are available for the outgoing employees to take with them, and both Ana and Derek take up this offer.</div><div><br /></div><div>The rest of the story plays out as an examination of both what it takes to keep aging software alive, and what it takes to keep relationships alive: the answer seems to be <i>constant maintenance</i>. While <i>The Lifecycle of Software Objects</i> is ostensibly about the parameters of the rights of AI entities (and is the most interesting examination of that question I've encountered) its also a very, very good story about software products and companies: how they work, how they fail, how users are left behind.</div><div><br /></div><div>Chiang feels like a tech optimist, or maybe a humanist. The stories in <i>Exhalation </i>examine some of the long-standing tropes of "technology" and the human mind: the possibility of time travel and our ability to influence our past or future; the relationship between intrinsic human memory and technological aids that let us externalise memories; the Sliding Doors paradox of what it would be like to see the branching multiverses that roll out from our life decisions. Some are duds, IMHO (the steampunk story, the parrot story). One - <i>Omphalos, </i>the story of a women's faith being fundamentally challenged - is surprisingly tender and affirming. </div><div><br /></div><div>Overall, I leave <i>Exhalation</i> wanting to move back into the world of action, not contemplation. Reading this book in one sitting is probably not advisable. If you pick it up, I suggest you spool it out, take your time, mix it up with other things, and let Chiang work his skills on you more slowly and perhaps more effectively than I did.</div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-27669402938404813182022-12-29T14:45:00.003+13:002022-12-29T16:27:36.157+13:00Tamsyn Muir, Gideon the Ninth<blockquote>In the myriadic year of our lord — the ten thousandth year of the King Undying, the kindly Prince of Death! — Gideon Nav packed her sword, her shoes and her dirty magazines, and she escaped from the House of the Ninth.</blockquote><p>As a fast but often forgetful reader ('Read a lot, forget most of what you read', as Montaigne said*) a good fantasy series can quite easily earn a place on my bookshelves. Over the past 20 years I've amassed a core collection that I return to regularly to sink back into the world-building, reacquaint myself with the characters and appreciate the plot-twists anew: Megan Whalen-Turner's <i>The Queen's Thief </i>series, N.K. Jemisin's <i>Inheritance </i>and <i>Broken Earth</i> trilogies, Melina Marchetta's <i>The Lumatere Chronicles, </i>Patrick Ness's <i>Chaos Walking</i> trilogy, Lev Grossman's <i>The Magicians</i>, Paulo Bacigalupi's <i>Shipbreaker</i> trilogy, Laini Taylor's <i>Daughter of Smoke and Bone</i> and <i>Strange the Dreamer </i>books, Maggie Stievater's myriad series (though her best book is undoubtedly the stand-alone <i>The Scorpio Races</i>). </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZYLi32Si8lpyu3oVYj2sS5yPJFmUEb8JPhxebJnwHmi5sYjxubXe_b0s97osiPr2FTSBivJxvc9Io49DwNEtH7H6u6RXlG9Mi-55FB2eIWAjLVTgqFuJWd5mfllJBem-Tg6alMcYMQ3ka0u6I9kXwMIRN08LLkBHDjtrVsNavxy74B5DIcHLo5wS/s392/37C8BFDE-E584-4F94-AEC4-9D7B45493336.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="392" data-original-width="254" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLZYLi32Si8lpyu3oVYj2sS5yPJFmUEb8JPhxebJnwHmi5sYjxubXe_b0s97osiPr2FTSBivJxvc9Io49DwNEtH7H6u6RXlG9Mi-55FB2eIWAjLVTgqFuJWd5mfllJBem-Tg6alMcYMQ3ka0u6I9kXwMIRN08LLkBHDjtrVsNavxy74B5DIcHLo5wS/w259-h400/37C8BFDE-E584-4F94-AEC4-9D7B45493336.jpeg" width="259" /></a></div><p><i>Gideon the Ninth</i> - the first in Tamsyn Muir's <i>Locked Tomb</i> trilogy - wasn't on my <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/12/summer-reading-list.html">official summer book stack</a>*. I'd actually been picking the book up & putting it down for a while - it was Charles Stross's blurb on the cover that put me off: 'Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace<i> in space</i>!'<i>. </i>Not the lesbian bit, not the necromancy bit, and not that gothic palace bit - the <i>in space!</i> bit. My husband dislikes "fantasy" because <i>wave-your-hands-around-magic</i> can constitute a plot solution: I dislike "science-fiction" because I find generally find the science tedious, anything with robots and AI generally boring and space opera specifically is one of my least favourite genres (see also Star Wars and Star Trek).</p><p>However. I kept seeing <i>Gideon the Ninth</i> popping up in people's recommendations and then Muir took out a couple of places on the Unity Book's sci-fi & fantasy best-sellers for 2022. I asked Twitter what I should do, and Twitter said <i>buy it </i>(which is, basically, why I am still on Twitter). And while the book is not perfect it's still a hell of a lot of fun. </p><p>The book opens with a ornate cast of characters, divided into the Nine Houses of the Emperor: it reminded me of Alexandra Bracken's <i>Lore</i> which I read last year, which also opens with nine houses, based on Greek mythology. We are dropped straight into the story and the narrative point of view of the lead character, as 18-year-old Gideon Nav embarks upon her latest attempt to escape her position as an indentured servant of the Ninth House and leave the planet to sign up for the Emperor's troops. We get a bit of context via her interactions with two retainers of the House, and then in glides the teenage heir to the House, "wearing black and sneering":</p><p></p><blockquote>Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus had pretty much cornered the market on wearing black and sneering. It comprised 100 percent of her personality. Gideon marvelled that someone could live in the universe only seventeen years and yet wear black and sneer with such ancient self-assurance.</blockquote><p></p><p>To describe the plot is to give the book away, so I won't do that. Three things I did notice though.</p><p>One is the number of genre tropes Muir pulls upon, and weaves together successfully. There is the central adversarial co-dependent relationship that provides much grist for colourful jibes, familiar from a legion of teenage rom-coms. There's a solid training montage with a grizzled and grudgingly respectful older mentor. There's a group of disparate characters thrown together in a mysterious environment and a subsequent contest of arms and wits, with the accompanying alliances, betrayals and crushes. There's a murder mystery, of the isolated country house full of guests/suspects variety. And there's a series of reveals at the end which are both satisfying and affecting (even if the horror / fight scenes surrounding them go on a bit - they'd translate well to screen but feel almost as if written for that). </p><p>The second is that while it's kind of set in space, that's also not really a factor, and while there are zombies, they're not really presented as such. Two things of great relief to me.</p><p>The third is how often I thought of Taika Waititi's screenwriting tone while reading the book. Muir is also a New Zealander, and there are throw-away phrases (douche-bag, old as balls) that feel very New Zealand to me. There's a dead-pan tone throughout that could be described as sass, but to me feels more like the self-deprecating Kiwi humour we like to see in our cultural products:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>As they pulled themselves into the shuttle, the door mechanism sliding down with a pleasingly final <i>whunk</i>, she leaned into Harrow: Harrow, who was dabbing her eyes with enormous gravity. The necromancer flinched outright.</p><p>"Do you want," Gideon whispered huskily, "my hanky."</p><p>"I want to watch you die"</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Muir does a good job of showing rather than telling: the different kinds of necromancy, for example, are demonstrated through action rather than through loads of exposition. If you need to understand the backstory in order to enjoy the action, this probably isn't the book for you - having read all 475 pages, I still don't know exactly how the Houses emerged or what's really going on in the Emperor's affairs that he needs armies and champion for. And sometimes the story-telling is a bit too clever. Because of the show-don't-tell approach we meet the characters through their interactions with Gideon rather than in an orderly way (there's no run-down of the pairs from each House, in the style of, for example, <i>The Hunger Games</i>). Characters are often referred to by appearance rather than name (the terrible teens, the mayonnaise uncle) and even half-way through the book I was still repeatedly getting lost trying to reference them back to their correct Houses. In some ways this was appealing (contrast it to the pages and pages of heraldry in G.R.R. Martin, say) but it also got in the way of the reading a bit.</p><p>Having said this, I'm sufficiently intrigued to move on to the second book, and be glad I invested my summer time here.</p><p>*The quote ends "and be slow-witted" and I'm not so keen on that bit, unless you frame it as a kind of slowly percolating thought, in which case ka pai.</p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-86959818272844565152022-12-28T12:42:00.001+13:002022-12-29T16:32:13.891+13:00Noel Streatfeild, Ballet Shoes<p><i>"It's to do with happiness. It means hard work."</i></p><p>I came back to <i>Ballet Shoes</i> yesterday after listening to the <a href="https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/177-noel-streatfeild-ballet-shoes">Christmas episode of the Backlisted podcast</a>. I went into the podcast worrying that a feature of my childhood was about to be ripped apart - I came out of it curious about the author, and wanting to go back into that world.</p>Streatfeild trained at RADA as an actor after working in munitions factories and army canteens in First World War. After the death of her father she decided to become a novelist - in an interview played on the podcast she says she made the switch because she needed a more secure career option, then scoffs at her own naivety. She began writing for adults, and then in 1931 for children. Her publisher asked her to write a children's book, capitalising on the craze at the time for ballet. "The story poured off my pen, more or less telling itself ... I distrusted what came easily and so despised the book," Streatfeild later recalled: published in 1936, <i>Ballet Shoes</i> has never been out of print and has sold millions upon millions of copies. Streatfeild must have felt both gratified and trapped by its success: it led to a litany of follow-up books - <i>Theater Shoes, Skating Shoes, Party Shoes ...* </i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0h0gjwOU54QcGO9VIdJ5mWAR2fcToi1MeN1S_wSKaJ0SV8Kkj6lo-ieA_7e_RkUV-bYGokDjwFqatXGzOdvVOHlirYpLYC7UbTmpMVtuXTCR_bFS_DBsyx5RztO-QI_7y47cUPeQ-Qn4pHNJrJppqFrvAUGXHX6xZnfSyWJujZ9He4UKPhB_K1fiY/s920/2089262B-60E6-4AEB-9E71-1A9600DFC028.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="920" data-original-width="600" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0h0gjwOU54QcGO9VIdJ5mWAR2fcToi1MeN1S_wSKaJ0SV8Kkj6lo-ieA_7e_RkUV-bYGokDjwFqatXGzOdvVOHlirYpLYC7UbTmpMVtuXTCR_bFS_DBsyx5RztO-QI_7y47cUPeQ-Qn4pHNJrJppqFrvAUGXHX6xZnfSyWJujZ9He4UKPhB_K1fiY/w261-h400/2089262B-60E6-4AEB-9E71-1A9600DFC028.jpeg" width="261" /></a></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div>I inhaled <i>Ballet Shoes, </i>and many other Streatfeild titles, as a child; while I recall the beat-up Puffin editions with their 1970s orange-yellow-green covers, I cannot remember how I came upon them - the library, hand-me-downs or acquisitions from the secondhand book store in New Plymouth. Her books were wholesome, the language sparkled, the tone was often appealingly knowing, the child characters had flaws that were treated as natural and normal, but still to be reined in. But I think the thing that appealed to me most (as with so many great books aimed at pre-teen readers) was that Streatfeild showed the tough realities of her child characters' lives, but also gave them the tools and abilities to pull through them and create their own destinies.</div><div><br /></div><div>For the uninitiated: <i>Ballet Shoes</i> is the story of the three Fossil sisters, set in London between the wars. The three girls - Pauline (pink and white and platinum-blonde), Petrova (dark-haired and sallow) and Posy (the red-head) - have been "collected" by Great-Uncle Matthew (known as 'Gum'). A 'legendary figure' to the girls, he had been a 'very important person' collecting outstanding fossil specimens around the world. Having collected them, he needed somewhere to put them, and hence secured a large six-storyed house on London's Brompton Road:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>Naturally, a house like that needed somebody to look after it, and he found just the right person. Gum had one nephew, who died leaving a widow and a little girl. What was more suitable than to invite the widow and her child Sylvia, and Nana her nurse, to live in the house and take care of it for him? Ten years later the widowed niece died, but by then his great-niece Sylvia was sixteen, so she, helped by Nana, took her mother's place and saw that the house and the fossils were all right.**</div></blockquote><div>Gum then loses a leg in spectacular fashion: undismayed, he and his new wooden leg give up fossil expeditions in favour of exploration by sea. One night, the ship he is travelling on is struck by an iceberg and sinks (this is 1936, remember, the <i>Titanic</i> sunk in 1912)***:</div><div><blockquote>... all the passengers had to take to boats. In the night one of the boats filled with water and the passengers were thrown into the sea. Gum's boat went to the rescue, but by the time it got there everyone had drowned except a baby who was lying cooing happily on a lifebelt.</blockquote></div><div>Gum takes charge of the baby, and when she cannot be traced to anyone on board, returns with her to London, 'fusses and fumes' as the adoption papers are made out, presents her to Sylvia, then promptly fucks off on another journey. This time he winds up in hospital next to a Russian, "a shabby, depressed fellow who yet somehow conveyed he hadn't always been shabby and depressed, but had once worn gay uniforms and had swung laughing through the snow in his jingling sleigh amidst rows of bowing peasants." The Russian and his wife fled during the revolution; they 'tried to train themselves to earn a living' but failed; the wife died, then the husband dies, and their little girl gets scooped up from the children's ward and taken back home to Sylvia.</div><div><br /></div><div>"The last baby Gum did not deliver himself". She turns up in a basket, with a letter and a pair of ballet shoes: </div><div><blockquote>... yet another Fossil to add to my nursery. The father has just died, and the poor mother has no time for babies, so I said I would have her. ... I regret not to bring the child myself, but today I ran into a friend with a yacht who is visiting some strange islands. I am joining him, and expect to be away for some years. I have arranged for the bank to see after money for you for the next five years, but before then I shall be home.</blockquote></div><div>Thus, Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil ("P.S. Her name is Posy. Unfortunate, but true."). To begin with, the girls had "a very ordinary nursery life". There are few toys, because they have no relations to give them any, and clothes are handed down (clothes are a SIGNIFICANT feature of <i>Ballet Shoes</i>), but the two older girls are sent off to a nice school and all is well. But then Gum shows no sign of returning, the girls are pulled out of school, and Sylvia resorts to taking in boarders to help pay the bills.**** The boarders are all lovely, however, and effectively form a team to assist Sylvia in the children's upbringing. Two retired lady doctors, used to coaching children for exams, take over the older girls' education (with Dr Jakes introducing Pauline to the beauties of speaking blank verse). Mr and Mrs Simpson arrive with their Citroen, much to the delight of car-mad Petrova. And Theo James is a dancing instructor at Madame Fidolia's famed stage and dancing academy, and it is her idea to have the three girls taken on as fee-free students, on the basis that when they are twelve they can get their stage licences and start performing, paying back a fee to the Academy and supporting the household.</div><div><br /></div><div>None of this is a secret from the children. They are full participants. They create a vow - to make something of themselves, to put the Fossil name into the history books (as self-made sisters, 'nobody can say it's because of their grandfather') and to make the money to alleviate Sylvia's concerns. </div><div><br /></div><div>And from there we launch into the story, of the household's continuously precarious financial position, and the children' training and entry into working life. There are pages and pages of financial calculations (how to scrounge together the money to make the audition dresses, in order to get the parts, in order to pay back the borrowed money). There are pages and pages of clothes - the lovingly detailed list of required items for the Academy, the "whipped frills" of organdy frocks, the shame of aged velvet and straining seams. And there are pages and pages of stagecraft - while commissioned to write a book about ballet, it is her own background Streatfeild evidently draws upon:</div><blockquote><div>Pauline would be fourteen in December, and not only had the sense to see how much she was able to pick up from watching other people, but she had sufficient technique to follow the producer's reasoning. She understood 'timing', she was still apt to time wrong herself, but she was learning to hear when somebody else timed a line wrong. She was beginning, too, to grasp the meaning of 'pace' The producer of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was a great believer in 'pace', especially for Shakespeare. Pauline, listening to the rehearsals, could feel the pace of the production and going home on the tube she and Doctor Jakes would have discussions about it - how this actor was slow, and that one had good 'pace'.</div></blockquote><div>So, Pauline is beautiful, and a natural actress; Posy is a great mimic, and born to be a dancer; Petrova is "technically proficient" but hates the whole thing - however, she sticks at it, because that's what the sisters do. Petrova was always my favourite, as the odd one out - she is the Jo of this set of sisters. Petrova's saving comes in the form of one of only two real male characters in the book. Gum is the catalyst but he creates the action by disappearing. Mr Simpson, the garage owner / boarder, exists to keep Petrova's hopes up by enabling her to explore the world of mechanics and engines that she is drawn to. Mr Simpson is an intelligent, kindly, <i>noticing</i> sort of man, engaging in the Fossil's world of frills and nervous anxiety without demeaning it. There is one beautiful passing observation about his and Petrova's friendship that summarises Streatfeild's knack for describing the kind of adults that kids want to be around:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>'Hullo, Petrova!' he would call up the stairs sometimes on Sunday afternoons, 'having a bit of trouble with the car. Come and give me a hand.'</div><div>The most gorgeous afternoons followed; he was not the sort of man who did everything himself and expected you to watch, but took turns fairly, passing over the spanner, saying 'Here, you take those nuts off'.</div></blockquote><div>It all works out well in the end, because - and this is one of the great lessons of <i>Ballet Shoes</i> - hard work and a good attitude almost always pay off. After the glorious detail and many moments of honesty in the book, one is somewhat jolted by how quickly it is wrapped up in the closing pages. </div><div><br /></div><div>I went into the book with trepidation - it's hard going back to the classics and measuring them up against today. Aside from Gum's "what's the point of keeping a pack of women about the house if they're never there when you want them" (a statement that bookends the novel and which I think on re-reading might be Streatfeild being mocking about self-important men?), the thing that knocks you back about the book is the focus on appearances. Prettiness is both desirable, and unfairly distributed, and this is personified in the character of Winifred, a peer (and thus competitor) with Pauline:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>There was one other child waiting, who had her mother with her. Her name was Winifred, and she was very clever. She was the child who would have played Mytyl if she had not had measles. She had acted really well, she was a brilliant dancer, she had an unusually good singing voice, but she was not pretty. She had a clever, interesting face, and long, but rather colourless, brown hair. She was wearing an ugly brown velvet frock; not a good choice of colour, as it made her look the same all over. </div><div>... All the time Winifred was talking people who walked by called out, 'Good luck Winifred, good luck Pauline'. Pauline could see from the way that they looked at her that they thought she looked nice, and from the way they looked at Winifred, that they thought she did not. She wished that she had some money and could buy Winifred a new frock; she was so nice and she looked so all-wrong.</div></blockquote><div></div><div>You have to wonder what the character of Winifred is there to <i>do</i> in the book, if not simply to teach the Fossil sisters some relativity. At 12, Winifred is the oldest of 6, her father is an invalid, and her mother needs her to get work to support the family. Pauline reflects "Of course she needed the money too, but somehow, although there was not any for new clothes, and the food was getting plainer and plainer, nobody had ever said what a help it would be when she could earn some, and certainly she had never been as worried about it as Winifred." But Pauline beats Winifred for the role of Alice, and then Petrova beats her for a role because Winifred is late to an audition, and Winifred exits the story without any relief beyond a nice cup of tea in their nursery. The lesson I took out of this as child was that smart, plain, hardworking girls have to work that much harder - and perhaps that's just what Streatfeild intended. Her short biography at the front of the book, written for the child audience, includes the phrase "Noel was born in Sussex in 1895 and was one of three sisters. Although Noel was considered the plain one, she ended up leading the most glamorous and exciting life!"</div><div><br /></div><div>The other thing that struck me on this re-read was that Streatfeild gives her child readers considerable insight into adult lives. Mr and Mrs Simpson cannot return to Kuala Lumpur because the markets have slumped and their rubber-tree plantations have been outstripped by other means of producing rubber. Nana often speaks crossly, but it is because she cannot see solutions to the pressing problems that confront them. Sylvia is worried and thin and explains to the children that she feels guilty and embarrassed to be taking money from them, but can't see an alternative. One passage particularly stood out, for teaching me to see layers of emotion when I was young:</div><div><blockquote>Nana never could remember that though she had been Sylvia's nurse, her child was now a grown-up woman, and the sound of the sort of crack in the voice people get when they are miserable brought all her nurse instincts to the top.</blockquote></div><div>And the final thing I learned about myself in this re-read was how much Streatfeild's writing conditioned me. I used words like "amidst" in my primary school journals because of her; I knew what a 'game leg' was, had the phrase 'Satan finds tasks for idle hands' stuck in my head forever, knew way too many names for different fabrics because of her. And I retain a deep fondness, a kind of comfort, for 1930s writers because, I think, I grew up on this diet. Streafeild was my entry drug for Mitford, Waugh and Taylor and for that - as well as some of the dubious life lessons - I will always be grateful.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><p>*I quite vividly remember <i>Skating Shoes</i>, better known as <i>White Boots</i>, because of the morbidness of the plotline: the story revolves around two girls, Harriet and Lalla, one rich, one poor, who meet at the ice-rink. Harriet has been set to skating to build up her strength (building up one's strength and putting on weight are two strong Streatfeild themes) whereas Lalla is training because both her parents <i>died in a skating accident and her Aunt Claudia has decided therefore she too should become a world-renowned figure-skater</i>. WTF.</p><p>**This paragraph comes on the second page of the book, in the romping set-up to the story. Reading that Sylvia took over domestic responsibilities at the age of 16, after the death of her remaining parent, sat me back as an adult. It is a lot like my experience reading <i>I Capture the Castle</i> repeatedly over the past 25 years, where in my 30s the character of Topaz, the young stepmother, came into focus after years of ignoring her in favour of teenage Cassandra.</p><p>***When I was at primary school in the 1980s we regularly sung <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Titanic_(song)">a song about the <i>Titanic</i></a> in assemblies: the chorus went "It was sad (<i>it was sad</i>) / Mighty sad (<i>mighty sad</i>) / It was sad when that great ship went down (<i>...to the bottom of the ocean). / </i>Husbands and wives, little children lost their lives, it was sad when that great ship went down". It is so weird how these nuggets of culture get passed down from generation to generation. </p><p>****As noted in the podcast, <i>Ballet Shoes</i> has tinges of the boarding house novels of the 1930s; people thrown together in reduced circumstances and their lives subsequently intertwining. Effectively, <i>Ballet Shoes</i> is the story of a household of women abandoned by the male figure who was meant to provide for them, having to make their own way in the world - for pre-teen girl readers.</p></div></div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-77381805680144884602022-12-26T08:53:00.001+13:002022-12-26T09:08:19.760+13:00Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne, by Katherine Rundell<p>"It's traditional", writes Katherine Rundell at the outset of her biography of English Renaissance writer <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/john-donne">John Donne</a>, "to imagine two Donnes - Jack Donne, the youthful rake, and Dr Donne, the older, wiser priest, a split Donne himself imagined in a letter to a friend". In <i>Super-Infinite</i>, Rundell describes a man "infinitely more various and unpredictable", who "reimagined and reinvented himself, over and over: he was a poet, lover, essayist, lawyer, pirate, recusant, preacher, satirist, politician, courtier, chaplain to the King, dean of the finest cathedral in London". She introduces a writer "whose work, if allowed under your skin, can offer joy so violent it kicks the metal out of your knees, and sorrow large enough to eat you". And she sets herself a high task: "This is both a biography of Donne and an act of evangelism."</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMdlT1wHnNp_ZC9tMkTKarGJogrT3WouwFH9YCKOclsWAXKUsy6Oes-lgtupknxzxvE0SvP5t4UV6F8jTZP8vrWw_sSFnBsa5_68Vjr4UfryKw2RgdgzdBiXHqLLK18-yBtviiMhgyW9vW7j41kCqQ2FnHG6b_lciQlqsu2xkEoZ_VHUOEpQbfKnXq" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="479" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgMdlT1wHnNp_ZC9tMkTKarGJogrT3WouwFH9YCKOclsWAXKUsy6Oes-lgtupknxzxvE0SvP5t4UV6F8jTZP8vrWw_sSFnBsa5_68Vjr4UfryKw2RgdgzdBiXHqLLK18-yBtviiMhgyW9vW7j41kCqQ2FnHG6b_lciQlqsu2xkEoZ_VHUOEpQbfKnXq=w248-h400" width="248" /></a></div><br />I came to Rundell's life of John Donne straight off my memorial re-read of Hilary Mantel's <i>Wolf Hall</i> trilogy, finishing <i>The Mirror and the Light</i> (which I still find grueling and upsetting, despite the fact the ending can come as no surprise, not only because it is well known that Cromwell is dead, but because I've read the book three times now). Within one page of <i>Super-Infinite </i>the two timelines unite. Sir Thomas More, Cromwell's great antagonist during his rise to power and his ghost as Mantel tracks his downfall, is Donne's maternal great-great uncle: Donne's life is shaped by his family's adherence to the Catholic faith and subsequent loss of fortune and precarious present. <p></p><p>The transition from Cromwell's Henrican era to Donne's Elizabethan period was very smooth, with the residual tastes and smells and textures of Mantel's writing fleshing out Rundell's book, which does not linger on world-building detail. Donne left behind no diaries, no household account books, no treasure trove of poetry drafts: his poetry was written for a limited audience, and little was published during his lifetime. Letters he wrote remain, collected and published posthumously by his son (who removed dates and changed names to burnish his father's reputation, attempting to make his social circle seem higher than it was and thus epically frustrating later researchers), but the letters he received he would burn after the writer's death ("a letter was, for him, akin to an extension of a living person, and should not exist without its parent"). Some of his surviving work Rundell admits to being unreadable even for his greatest fans - one religious treatise Rundell describes as "so dense it would be swifter to eat it than to read it". There is a sizable body of sermons, again largely published after his lifetime. During an extreme illness Donne smashed out and hurriedly published a collection of 23 essays on the human condition, part of the fashion for deathbed meditations - he lived another eight years. </p><p>About 200 poems are today attributed to Donne. Again, very few were published during his lifetime, or even remain in his own handwriting. They have been pieced together from collections and manuscripts, painstakingly compared line by line, word by word, for variations. Few can be accurately dated, so close cross-referencing between his poems and his life events can be tricky; one tends more to illuminate the other than to pinpoint. Donne's poems were written to celebrate marriages and mourn deaths; there are "satires, religious verses, and about forty verse letters, a tradition he loved: poems of anything from twelve to 130 lines, carrying news, musings on virtue and God, and declarations of how richly he treasures the friends to whom he is writing."</p><p>And then there are the love poems and erotic verses - the ones many English readers have come across one way or another - even without the scaffolding of an education in literary history. "To call anyone the best of anything is a brittle kind of game", writes Rundell, "but if you wanted to play it, Donne was the greatest writer of desire in t he English language. He wrote about sex in a way nobody ever has, before or since: he wrote sex as the great insistence on life, the salute, the bodily semaphore for the human living infinite. The word most used across his poetry, apart from 'and' and 'the', is 'love'."</p><p></p><blockquote><p><i>
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
<br />Did, till we loved?Were we not weaned till then?
<br />But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
<br />Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
<br />’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
<br />If ever any beauty I did see,
<br />Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee. </i></p><p><i> And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
<br />Which watch not one another out of fear;
<br />For love, all love of other sights controls,
<br />And makes one little room an everywhere.
<br />Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
<br />Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
<br />Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one. </i></p><p><i>My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
<br />And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
<br />Where can we find two better hemispheres,
<br />Without sharp north, without declining west?
<br />Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
<br />If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
<br />Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die. </i></p><p>The Good Morrow</p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">Good poetry and bad poetry are matters frequently debated in Mantel's <i>Wolf Hall </i>trilogy. The courtier poet Thomas Wyatt plays a significant role in Cromwell's life and times, and the books illustrate the power poetry held at court and in political life. Wyatt's poems eddy around the court, passed swiftly from hand to hand, copied into commonplace books; verses that say sotto voce that which cannot be explicitly pronounced. Wyatt's lyrical powers are contrasted to those of "Tom Truth", the nom de plume of Lord Thomas Howard, whom Cromwell exposes in his illicit marriage to the King's niece Margaret Douglas through the revelations of his execrable love poems. Poems can be a matter of life and death - Howard died while imprisoned in the Tower of London, but at least was not beheaded or hung drawn and quartered; a very real threat in the machinations surrounding the crown. I remember the first time I walked through London's National Portrait Gallery, and the astonishing portraits of this era: men with their finely-turned stockinged legs and lustrous pearls, men executed at the age of 26 or 32 or 45 because they threw the wrong dice in the game of courtly life.</p><p>In an era when the stakes were so high and the politics so personal, writing was used to gain favour or redress fortunes. Donne had to dig himself out of one colossal hole earlier in his life, when he secretly married Anne More without the knowledge of her father Sir George More. Love matches were verboten: marriages were social and financial contracts and Donne had broken this violently. He wound up jobless and in prison and had to dig himself (and his young wife) out through a combination of groveling letters and an ecclesiastical court case. Later in life Donne undertook one of his most important transformations - a turn towards the Anglican church, not only personal but also professional, and for this he had to earn the King's trust and lay to rest both his Catholic origins and the lingering gossipy recklessness of his marriage. In a chapter titled "The Flatterer" Rundell lays out how Donne worked his way towards the security of a well-paid religious position, a route that was "byzantine, labyrinthine, often unpredictable", one that required talent, luck, strategy, and above all contacts. Ritual flattery, through letters and dedications, was oil that greased the social wheels, and Donne could be outrageously oily - although as Rundell points out, he blandished his compliments both upon those in positions to enable his rise, and recipients without any power whatsoever, suggesting he simply enjoyed making language work in this way.</p><p>The greatest courtship was that of the King. Donne's <i>Pseudo-Martyr</i> ("swifter to eat than to read") was dedicated to King James and distanced Donne far from the Catholic rebels who had recently attempted the Gunpowder Plot, by arguing in favour of James's newly instituted Oath of Allegiance. Donne's book is dedicated to the King, a text of "white-hot ingratiation" but, writes Rundell, this was not "purposeless fawning"; rather, "it was a way Donne could signal unambiguously his allegiance to James's religious policies, and flag his devotion to serving the King." James loved the book, and had Donne made an honorary MA at Oxford. Donne's next book, <i>Ignatius his Conclave</i>, came hard on the heels of <i>Pseudo-Martyr</i>, and directly tackles political flattery. Ignatius of Loyola (founder of the Jesuits) is in hell and in conversation with the devil, whom he quickly proceeds to abase himself before, larding him with compliments. </p><p>Donne runs this parable two ways: </p><p></p><blockquote>whomsoever flatters any man, and presents him those praises which in his own opinion are not due to him, thinks him inferior to himself and makes account that he he hath taken him prisoner, and triumphs over him</blockquote><p></p><p>but also, the flatterer</p><p></p><blockquote>(at the best) instructs. For there may be, even in flattery, an honest kind of teaching, if Princes, by being told that they are already endued with all virtues necessary for their functions, be thereby taught what those virtues are, and by facile exhortation excited to endeavour to gain them.</blockquote><p></p><p>This statement tingled in my mind, and the bell it rang was Cromwell's <i>Book of Henry</i>, the guide Mantel has him writing for the instruction of his favoured young employees, of how to move and influence in the dangerous radius of the King. Flattering those attributes you wish your prince to exercise is, if I remember correctly, a tactic Cromwell learns from his beloved patron Cardinal Wolsey in the books: when you hold a mirror of words up to the King, you show him a picture of his grace, his mercy and his temperateness as well as of his strength and god-given right to power. And hopefully you will hold on to your head for another day. </p><p>The other book that <i>Super-Infinite</i> made me think of is Sarah Bakewell's <i><a href="https://sarahbakewell.com/books-3/how-to-live-a-life-of-montaigne/">How to Live, or, A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts At An Answer</a>. </i>Both books, I think, are brilliant: both are literary biographies of Renaissance men, and bring a twist to their structuring. Bakewell organises her book roughly chronologically, but uses the themes of Montaigne's essays as the jumping off point for each chapter (Question everything, Guard your humanity); Rundell hews closer to the chronological path, using the stages or transformations of Donne's life - The Hungry Scholar, The Anticlimatically Married Man, The Suicidal Man - as her organising principle. The scope of Bakewell's book is wider, and she spends more time on the philosophy and writing that influenced Montaigne, and how in turn he has been interpreted throughout history: Rundell's in contrast is focused and moves at a quick clip, but with sufficient diversions to not make you feel rushed as a reader. While not given to extraneous detail, Rundell's scholarship occasionally colours in the narrative in delightful ways:</p><blockquote><p>The physical world was made up of symbolic meaning, and could, through relentless attention, be decoded. Your own body, stretched out in the water, could become a reminder of the crucifixion. He wrote:</p></blockquote><p><i></i></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote><p><i>Who can deny me the power and liberty</i> </p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote><p><i>To stretch mine arms, and mine own cross to be?</i></p></blockquote><blockquote><p><i>Swim, and at every stroke, thou art thy cross </i></p></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><p>(It's hard to picture exactly what stroke he's doing here, to mimic the cross. The first English treatise on swimming, in 1587 by Everard Digby, describes something akin to breaststroke with intervals of doggy-paddle: presumably not that.)</p></blockquote><p>Donne, like Shakespeare, is known for inventing or embellishing words ("I knew that to have given any intimation of it [his wooing of Anne More], had been to impossibilitate the whole matter", he wrote to his unwilling father-in-law; "I have cribrated [sifted / reviewed], and re-cribrated, and post-recribrated the sermon" he wrote in a panic to a friend after the new King Charles took amiss at something in the first sermon Donne delivered to him). In <i>Super-Infinite</i> Rundell likewise jinks with language: "A grim truth", she observes of one of Donne's own observations about the nearness with which we live with death at all times, "and one which makes our modern attempts to avoid the topic of death look malarially unhinged"; the useful little prefix "un" gets coupled to unusual words - "uncharming", "unshining". While I've not read any of Rundell's writing for children I wonder if those books too share this playful use of language; I can remember as a child myself relishing the ways bits of words can click together and transform each others' meanings, the plasticity of English that makes it both infuriating and delightful. One small quibble - as wonderful a word as "waspishly" is, I think it is such a strong spice that it can only really be used once in a book.</p><p>My one true regret with this book however is that it felt about 25% too short. Rundell doesn't hustle us through the story, and her scholarly asides (about fashions for moustaches, or the appalling conditions of a besieged Spanish city) add texture as well as enhancing our understanding of the many layers of Donne's writing. It's not necessarily even Donne who I want to spend more time with - it's Rundell's own company, her thoughts and observations that I want more of. Highly recommended.</p><p><br /></p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-41013114745529564372022-12-14T17:43:00.008+13:002023-01-24T07:47:40.564+13:00Summer reading list<p>I was going to say, it's that time of the year that I start getting excited about my summer reading pile. But that's a lie - I start getting excited in about September, stockpiling books I want to enjoy over the break, each addition a promise to myself for relaxation and world exploration.</p><p>Will I read all these? No. Will I pick up old books from my shelf and re-read those instead? Inevitably. Do I feel buoyed every time I look at this promise to the future though? Most definitely.</p><p><i>Before you start - I have to recommend <a href="https://rachfking.medium.com/my-year-of-reading-2022-b8470b8b9077">Rachael King's write-up of her year in reading</a> - a complete joy </i></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3Ls57TxXz-2nPxyBLycuPOXiiH7WmOqgr2MmuW6wMIHKmYJMHphIVrLbfPxFIHxma-CQgK6VPC40rXw21FCsy3-gynwn0qwAJBWvZhaYElI6FP_RpgNZvWHKmMECarojO00EM0IHia24e_-li3TzMqrjTrCAOgnU7uq5UP9qk2gMNI59b7OZlQDL/s2000/Book%20stack%202022%20A.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK3Ls57TxXz-2nPxyBLycuPOXiiH7WmOqgr2MmuW6wMIHKmYJMHphIVrLbfPxFIHxma-CQgK6VPC40rXw21FCsy3-gynwn0qwAJBWvZhaYElI6FP_RpgNZvWHKmMECarojO00EM0IHia24e_-li3TzMqrjTrCAOgnU7uq5UP9qk2gMNI59b7OZlQDL/w300-h400/Book%20stack%202022%20A.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br />Rebecca Solnit's <i>Wanderlust</i> (<b>abandoned) </b>and <i>The Faraway Nearby</i>. I enjoyed <i>Orwell's Roses</i> very much this year, and (shallow reasoning, but still) these new books are from the same design family (though slightly squatter). Solnit is one of the few people who I don't know IRL that I follow on Twitter, for her trenchant and roundly-considered views.<p></p><p>Zana Fraillon and Bren MacDibble's <i>The Raven's Song</i>. The only YA, which is unusual for me. Bought on the basis of <a href="https://www.newsroom.co.nz/readingroom/book-of-the-week-a-masterpiece-for-young-readers">Rachael King's review</a>. <b>Read and <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2023/01/zana-fraillon-and-bren-macdibble-ravens.html">reviewed</a>.</b></p><p>Claire Keegan's <i>Small Things Like These</i>. An impulse buy, one I kept picking up & putting down at my local, Good Books, and finally walked out the door with. I've not read anything by Keegan before. <b>Read.</b></p><p>Ted Chiang's <i>Exhalation</i>. I really enjoyed Chiang's previous collection, <i>Stories of Your Life and Others</i> and am looking forward to sinking into his imagination again. <b>Read and <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/12/ted-chiang-exhalation.html">reviewed</a>.</b></p><p>Elizabeth Strout's <i>Oh William!</i>. I read my first Strout, <i>My Name is Lucy Barton</i>, this year, and I am fascinated by (but not yet sure if I enjoy) her chilly voice. <b>Read and <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2023/01/elizabeth-strout-oh-william.html">reviewed</a>.</b></p><p>Maggie Shipstead's <i>Great Circle</i>. I think I was feeling blue a few months ago and got a dopamine hit by ordering a bunch of Booker-nominated novels I hadn't yet read. This was one of them. <b>Read.</b></p><p>Catherine Chidgey's <i>The Axeman's Carnival</i>. One of two books that everyone has been talking about this year. <b>Read and <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2023/01/catherine-chidgey-axemans-carnival.html">reviewed</a>.</b></p><p>Coco Solid's <i>How to Loiter in a Turf War</i>. The other book everyone has been talking about this year. <b>Read.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_1c0NkSHSbC8rcUve0IHqJlYcs20ewpIxwJ7xC4L5F0ERhfZbhQ2nQOeR4HmoDjH1WoIzv4JOEma7lrGdGM7RYTetfoU4IXJyOh-aa0RQJCNDL6qq77jXBX6FKfdOFADLVBsCLl0XWai8QsMoWJNOS3kLifLyUtmTzlE5UMv14Djgzky2PbuQrkvu/s2000/Book%20stack%202022%201.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="1500" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_1c0NkSHSbC8rcUve0IHqJlYcs20ewpIxwJ7xC4L5F0ERhfZbhQ2nQOeR4HmoDjH1WoIzv4JOEma7lrGdGM7RYTetfoU4IXJyOh-aa0RQJCNDL6qq77jXBX6FKfdOFADLVBsCLl0XWai8QsMoWJNOS3kLifLyUtmTzlE5UMv14Djgzky2PbuQrkvu/w300-h400/Book%20stack%202022%201.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><p>Paul Diamond's <i>Downfall: The destruction of Charles Mackay</i>. I adore Paul and I'm excited to read his take on this (in)famous story. Check out his interviews about the book <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/129804884/connections-and-collections-paul-diamonds-lifetime-of-storytelling">with Andre Chumko</a> and <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018865627/paul-diamond-the-remarkable-fall-of-charles-mackay">with Kim Hill</a>. <b>Read.</b></p><p>Julian Aguon's <i>No Country for Eight-Spotted Butterflies</i>. I started by noticing Alice Te Punga Somerville retweeting Aguon and then read his essay, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/01/on-guam-there-is-no-birdsong-you-cannot-imagine-the-trauma-of-a-silent-island">On Guam there is no birdsong, you cannot imagine the trauma of a silent island</a>. Layering this on top of Robin Wall Kimmerer's <i>Braiding Sweetgrass</i>, which I finally read this year. <b>Read.</b></p><p>Kate Atkinson's <i>Shrines of Gaiety</i>. I read every Atkinson that comes out. Reliably good holiday company. <b>Read</b>.</p><p>N.K. Jemisin's <i>The World We Make</i>. I've gotta say the prequel to this book, <i>The City We Became</i>, was my least favourite Jemisin to date, but I'm such a stan, I'll buy every one. <b>Read.</b></p><p>Orhan Pamuk's <i>Nights of Plague</i>. I've never read Pamuk but I wanted a thick historical fiction addition to the stack, so there you go.</p><p>Rachel Buchanan's <i>Te Motunui Epa</i>. I loved Buchanan's <i>Ko Taranaki Te Maunga</i> and as with Paul Diamond, I'm excited for her style of <a href="https://e-tangata.co.nz/history/george-ortiz-and-the-motunui-epa/">telling this tale</a>. </p><p><b>Plus one for luck</b></p><p>Again via Rachael King (with Claire Mabey, my two chief reading inspirations) the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/w13xtvp7?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile">BBC have adapted Susan Cooper's <i>The Dark Is Rising</i> as an audio drama</a> and I might give that a whirl.</p><p><b>Unscheduled reading</b></p><p>There's always going to be some.</p><p>Katherine Rundell's <i>Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne</i>. Added to the reading stack late because literary Twitter was so positive about this book. <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/12/super-infinite-transformations-of-john.html">Reviewed here</a>.</p><p>Noel Streatfeild's <i>Ballet Shoes</i>. Read after listening to the <a href="https://www.backlisted.fm/episodes/177-noel-streatfeild-ballet-shoes">Backlisted Christmas episode</a> about this book. <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/12/noel-streatfeild-ballet-shoes.html">Reviewed here</a>.</p><p>Tamsyn Muir's <i>Gideon the Ninth</i>, added after realising I needed some levity in the stack. <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/12/tamsyn-muir-gideon-ninth.html">Reviewed here.</a> And then <i>Harrow the Ninth</i>.</p><p>Sarah Moss's <i>Ghost Wall</i>, after reading <i>The Raven's Song - </i>couldn't resist the bog-sacrifice connection.</p><p>Alan Garner's <i>Treacle Walker - </i>continuing that bog people theme. <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2023/01/alan-garner-treacle-walker.html">Reviewed here</a>.</p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-54264093823594679722022-12-04T19:17:00.000+13:002022-12-04T19:17:07.295+13:00Want to try me on as a mentor in 2023?One of the absolute best things I did in 2020, in the height of the first phase of the Covid-19 pandemic in Aotearoa, was open up <a href="https://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2020/05/an-experiment-want-to-try-me-on-as.html">an opportunity for people to try me on as a mentor</a>.<div><br /></div><div>I took on three people; one was a so-so relationship for both of us, I think; two were just <i>fantastic</i>, and I got to be part of the working lives of two women who I massively admire and from whom I learned so much.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm now just about 3 years deep in my current role and have found my footing (knock on wood). So I think I have the capacity in 2023 to work with 2, maybe 3 new people. </div><div><br /></div><div><b>How this works</b></div><div><br /></div><div>I'm going to take the same approach as I did last time. Further down this post is a link to a short form for people who are interested in this opportunity to fill out. From those applications (last time I got nearly 60, which just blew me away) I'll pick about 4-5 people to have an initial meeting with (in-person or online). This is a chance to get to know each other a bit, and see if we fit at this point in each of our working lives. Afterwards, we'll decide together whether there's value in continuing to meet longer term. I'm envisioning mentoring relationships that last between 1 and 2 years.</div><div>
<br /><b>Who I work best for</b></div><div><br /></div><div>The areas where I know I can offer the most value are:<br />
<ul>
<li>Transitioning into a leadership role</li>
<li>Adjusting to people management roles (either when you're new, or working through something like a looming restructure / change of leadership)</li><li>Adjusting to working with a board</li>
<li>Taking care of yourself as a leader / people manager</li>
<li>Working with a board </li>
</ul>
The public cultural sector is my home base and site of most experience, and I know I'm of most service to people who are in that zone. I will be upfront and say I respond best to optimistic, proactive people who are looking to grow. I know from past experience that I'm not good for people who are feeling lost or dismayed in their careers. That kind of career period needs something more like career coaching, and that's not my skillset. </div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>How to apply</b><br />
<br />
If you're interested, please fill out the short form below by <b>22 January 2022</b>. I'll review applications (please let there be applications this time!!) over the summer break, write back to <i>everyone</i> at the end of January, and set up those initial meetings for the start of February (depending on people's availability).<br />
<br />
<b><a href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUghA5JbR5aQoKtbMnQD43z-OL0onIV5whiPackyi3T9chgQ/viewform?usp=sf_link" target="_blank">Expression of interest form</a></b><br />
<br />In the spirit of disclosure, one of the things a fantastic mentor once advised me to do to take care of myself was to carve out time at work to do things I find restorative and joyful. As an endlessly curious person, immersing myself in people's professional lives and ambitions is one of my happiest things. So, if this is an opportunity you're interested in, know you're doing me a favour by pursuing it.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>An extra, please read with care</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>When I was 32, I was widowed when my husband committed suicide. That was a long time ago, and it feels like another lifetime - or even someone else's life. While I won't give advice to people about mental health, what I will <i>always</i> make time for is supporting people who are grieving and returning to work, or whose job is to manage a person who's going through this. I can't provide professional support but I can share my experience, what I found I needed, what surprised me. Please don't use that form to approach me for this - but do reach out if you need to, I'm pretty easy to find.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>About me</b><br />
<br />
Oh, also! If you don't know who I am: I'm Courtney Johnston, Tumu Whakarae | Chief Executive of Te Papa. You can read a bit about my background & experience in <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/118967615/national-portrait-courtney-johnston-youngest-te-papa-boss">this profile by Nikki Macdonald</a> (from when I was appointed in 2019) or <a href="https://shows.acast.com/the-fold/episodes/te-papas-courtney-johnston-on-how-museums-are-slow-journalis">this 2022 interview with Duncan Greive</a> on his epic podcast, The Fold.</div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-63782686148197633392022-07-28T18:26:00.001+12:002022-07-29T10:55:38.814+12:00Letter to my unfulfilled ideaThis week, I was invited to speak at the <i>In Your Dreams: Letters Aloud </i>salon. In these monthly events, being run by Pirate and Queen, five people are asked to write a letter and read it aloud for the first time in front of a live audience. For the July event, the theme was <i><b>Letter to my Unfulfilled Idea</b></i><b>.</b><div><b><br /></b></div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>* * *</b></div><div><br /></div><div>Years and years ago, I was acquainted with the idea of a “manager’s manual” – a guide for your new staff on how to operate you, their new boss. I took on this idea, and one of the statements in my manager’s manual is: I am an ideas fountain. <div><br /></div><div>My 30s seemed to be a particularly rich period for generating ideas. </div><div> </div><div>I went through a stage of riffing on a range of condiments enriched with alcohol, which I never pursued: peanut butter and rum, cheese whizz and tequila. </div><div><br /></div><div>There was a time there where I was promoting the idea of a week-later newspaper: a newspaper that re-presented stories from the previous week, edited down the ones that had turned out to actually be important. </div><div> </div><div>I invented a product where you could upload your Powerpoint file to an online provider, who would turn them into analogue 35 mil slides, and send them back to you with a slide carousel, so you could give pretentious illustrated lectures. </div><div><br /></div><div>Then there was that period when everyone was doing "My year of X, Y, Z". You remember - you set yourself a daily task or development challenge, blogged it, then turned your blog into a book and the book into a speaking career, fame and glory. In that period, I had the idea I'd spend a year training as an adult gymnast. That idea definitely remains unfulfilled. </div><div><br /></div><div>And my best, worst, unrealised idea: a service where your order personalised statement condoms. You go online, design your condom logo - days of the week, happy 21st, be my Valentine - and get the printed item delivered to your door. I never took that idea anywhere, and deservedly so. </div><div><br /></div><div>On the other hand, I have some ideas from that period that I'm still very fond of. The Museum of Emotions is one of these. </div><div><br /></div><div>It was inspired by my job, and my life, and a poem titled 'William and Cynthia' by Charles Simic: </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Says she'll take him to the Museum </i></div><div><i>of Dead Ideas and Emotions. </i></div><div><i>Wonders that he hasn't been there yet. </i></div><div><i>Says it looks like a Federal courthouse </i></div><div><i>With its many steps and massive columns. </i></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i> Apparently not many people go there </i></div><div><i>On such drizzly gray afternoons. </i></div><div><i>Says even she gets afraid </i></div><div><i>In the large exhibition halls </i></div><div><i>With monstrous ideas in glass cases, </i></div><div><i>Naked emotions on stone pedestals </i></div><div><i>In classically provocative poses. </i></div><div><br /></div><div> I had been thinking at that time about how the English language felt impoverished. How we had a dwindling number of words for love, for friendship, for our feelings. How words have become watered down over time - words like melancholy or chivalry once had entire schools of thought built around them, rather than meaning ‘a bit depressed’ or ‘holds doors open for women’. And how when our language is impoverished, our ability to describe or share or face our emotions is likewise diminished.</div><div> </div><div>The Museum of Emotions was not about collections, civic pride, or community involvement. It would be a place that you could go to, to experience emotions that have fallen into disuse, emotions that are foreign to your everyday life, or emotions that have not been part of your life yet. </div><div><br /></div><div>It’s not a place to <i>learn about</i> emotions. It’s a place to <i>feel them</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>I had a conversation at the time with a friend about my idea. He talked about a museum where you programmed exhibitions and performances explicitly designed to elicit emotional responses. I talked about a room that you went into where someone would <i>radiate an emotion towards you</i>, like perfume rising off warm skin. Where you could, as the kids came to say a little while later,<i> catch feelings</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Say you'd never had a broken heart. Say you'd never held a baby you'd given birth to. Say you'd never gambled a pay cheque away. Say you'd never punched your bully. Say you've never cheated. Or been cheated on. Say you'd never lost a job. Or an election. Or a parent. Say you could go somewhere, and try those feelings on for size. Say that’s a Museum of Emotions </div><div><br /></div><div>Let's go back to Simic’s first line: <i>Says she'll take him to the Museum / of Dead Ideas and Emotions.</i> </div><div><br /></div><div>I never noticed that 'dead ideas' bit until last Friday, when I sat down to write this letter. I had always focused on the emotions. </div><div><br /></div><div>This idea might be unfulfilled, but it's far from dead. It's more like its simmering on a back element in my brain, a pork bone in a stock pot, flavouring my thinking. It was originally presented in a conference keynote lecture. It lives on in a couple of blog posts I wrote at the time. I occasionally go back and visit those posts, just to remind my idea that I still care about it. This last week, I’ve brought it forth, and played with it some more. </div><div><br /></div><div>So let's not say "unfulfilled" ideas. Let's say: <i>still cooking</i>.</div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;">* * *</div><div><br /></div><div>My letter was a challenge I set for myself in trying to write something good, without reaching for easy emotions (a crutch I lean on too readily when trying to connect with audiences). In the (very, very good) Q&A after the event, run by organiser and impresario Claire Mabey, I got into a lot more of the background behind this piece of writing:</div><div><br /></div><div>I wrote up that powerpoint / slide carousel idea in <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2012/10/bring-back-ker-chunk-ker-chunk.html">November 2012</a>. A lot of my thinking that year was shaped by things like the <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2012/12/flip-flop.html">digital/analogue flip-flop</a> (eg via <a href="https://revdancatt.com/2012/11/30/dancing-the-flip-flop-going-by-the-new-aesthetic-playbook-and-devaluing-art/">Dan Catt</a>) and experiments like <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/07/little-printer/">Berg's Little Printer</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>The Museum of Emotions was written towards the end of 2012 too. That was the year my husband died. I was stripped bare that year. Art meant something very different to me. The Museum of Emotions was especially inspired by a <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2012/09/emotion.html">particular visit to Michael Parekowhai's <i>On first looking into Chapman's Homer</i></a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>The Museum of Emotions was a small part of a keynote talk given in late 2012 at the National Digital Forum conference, titled <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2012/12/going-back-to-gallery-land-presentation.html">Going back to Gallery Land</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Here's the final stanza of that Charles Simic poem</div><div><br /></div><div><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Says she doesn't understand why he claims</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">All that reminds him of a country fair.</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Admits there's a lot of old dust</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">And the daylight is the color of sepia,</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Just like this picture postcard</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">With its two lovers chastely embracing</i><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Against a painted cardboard sunset.</i></div><div><br /></div><div>The next Letters Aloud event is <a href="https://www.pirateandqueen.co.nz/events-list/in-your-dreams-august">on 31 August, is on the theme 'Letter to the Future'</a> and features Karlya Smith, Clementine Ford, Paddy Gower, Emily Writes, and Anthonie Tonin.</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Anna Rawhiti-Connell was part of the first Letters Aloud event, 'Letter to my Biggest Failure'. <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/26-07-2022/a-letter-to-our-biggest-failure">Her letter about not becoming a parent is published on The Spinoff</a>, who are partners in the series (thanks for the tote team :)</div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-10067504230658590262022-07-21T11:30:00.002+12:002022-07-22T12:46:16.816+12:00Finding your audience<p>I felt really vulnerable starting my blog up again.</p><p>Now I realise I needn't of worried. No-one's going to read it. Unless I make them.</p><p>I started blogging in December 2006. Fun fact: I registered <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/">my blogspot account</a> because I wanted to leave a comment on another blogspot site, Jim and Mary Barr's <i><a href="http://overthenet.blogspot.com/">Over the net</a></i> (2006-2016). Over the net - <i>Best of 3</i>. It was a table-tennis reference; one that I've lived with now for 16 years. </p><p>Once I had the blog, I used it as a way of documenting all the internetty things I was learning about, as the newly crowned Web Editor at the National Library of New Zealand. It was auto-didactic: I was self-training, I was practicing, and I was self-consciously surfing the breaking wave of Web 2.0.</p><p>My first post was on Tomma Abts winning the Turner Prize. Don't know why - probably, that was the big international art news that day. I think I was practicing making text into links? The formatting is all fucked up, but I think it's important to leave it that way. Posterity and all that.</p> <p>In that first month I <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2006/12/reliably-good-read.html">drew attention to other NZ art blogs</a>, like Peter Peryer (miss you, Peter, online and IRL). You can see me there following the web writing precepts I'd been taught: break links out on a new line, tell readers where you are sending them. No <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickrolling">rickrolling</a> just yet.</p><p>I also shared the things I was learning about. <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2006/12/bear-with-me.html">Like posting about social tagging</a>. That entry references del.icio.us. Remember that? Del.icio.us was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking">social tagging website</a> - a place where you described and shared links, like a public folder of your best photocopied articles. Personally, I became a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnolia">Ma.gnolia</a> user and also fooled around with <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StumbleUpon">Stumbleupon</a>. <i><b>Web content was so precious that we turned cataloguing it into a social activity.</b></i></p><p>This was the time when the big search engines <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2006/12/zeitgeist-take-2.html">released the year's top search terms</a> at Christmas time. When people wrote <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2006/12/seven-rules-for-corporate-blogging.html">rules for corporate blogging</a> (we wrote <i>so many rules</i> during this period). When Time's Person of the Year was - <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2006/12/its-all-about-you-baby.html">us</a>. I posted about my <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2006/12/id-really-like-to.html">desire to attend</a> a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_O%27Reilly">[Tim] O'Reilly</a> conference. </p><p>God we were nerds.</p><p>Anyway. My point. In 2006 you could start a blog, and it would be a rare enough beast that people would read it. In fact, <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2006/12/museum-blogs.html">I posted about</a> how <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technorati">Technorati </a>searched 29.6 million blogs and less than one in a million was a museum blog. People read what I posted. Me and the small number of other NZ art bloggers linked to each other, and developed and shared a readership. </p><p>For years, my blog had one foot in the web world and one in the art world, and hung out a lot where the two converged. I was also one of the OG bloggers at NLNZ, where we wrote our hopes and dreams into the <a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/categories/library-tech">LibraryTech blog</a>. I've just discovered they ported that content over into the current site, and you can still find my old posts with this utterly endearing bio statement:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuh9WL2JMa3OvcyuakLO60LjY7Pw-k2XVP219M7U8EW5_G3msMZONwKgVpFaMWdZoUEMu8iywTbXY6-P0HK5ry7aJWpAjfhbCee8917Up_oihfJCKWl9y8bh1Da31mGpMcyPoewuYvUSWtPJ8L5p6ywmu6L3VmOMnBVikT-SdI1zlmQkygBR-jBOc7/s1103/Courtney%20is%20in%20charge%20of%20everything.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="195" data-original-width="1103" height="71" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuh9WL2JMa3OvcyuakLO60LjY7Pw-k2XVP219M7U8EW5_G3msMZONwKgVpFaMWdZoUEMu8iywTbXY6-P0HK5ry7aJWpAjfhbCee8917Up_oihfJCKWl9y8bh1Da31mGpMcyPoewuYvUSWtPJ8L5p6ywmu6L3VmOMnBVikT-SdI1zlmQkygBR-jBOc7/w400-h71/Courtney%20is%20in%20charge%20of%20everything.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p>There's actually a post on that site that shows how blogs slid into the emerging social media world. It's about one of the "tbreaktweets" we sent from the <a href="http://www.twitter.com/NLNZ">Library's Twitter account</a> (set up on Jan 2009, first in .govt.nz <i>thank you very much</i>). Tbreaktweets was me and my friend Chelsea; we sent out tweets linking to stuff we loved in the collections twice a day, when our middle-aged colleagues headed off to the pyramid (the Library's then-staff kitchen) for morning and afternoon tea. The blog post was about <a href="https://natlib.govt.nz/blog/posts/t-breaktweets-hits-the-big-time-with-lobsterotica">how a PapersPast article about a hyponotised lobster that we tweeted</a> got picked up by BoingBoing and went viral. </p><p>[Remind me sometime to tell you about running the NLNZ blog when we did the 2008 web harvest and received death threats from enraged sysadmins. Good times.]</p><p>Like most people who spend a lot of time online, I've flirted with a bunch of platforms, some that have been long-lived, many that haven't. I've created reams of content and lost them to the ether . Through it all, I've kept this blog. It's a treasure trove for me, of talks and magazine articles and radio appearances that I have faithfully archived here. It's also, inadvertently, a kind of unedited memoir, hundreds of diary entries that might not be <i>about</i> me but are <i>from </i>me<i>. </i></p><div>I've come back to the blog this winter. It pretty much went on hiatus when I started at Te Papa in 2018, and went fully quiescent when I became Tumu Whakarae at the start of 2020. </div><div><br /></div><div>Partly this was because blogging (where I have always been deliberately candid) felt too risky. Partly it was because in this role I communicate <i>all the time</i> but don't often have time to <i>think of new things</i>. And partly was just that I was on a <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/06/emerging-submerging-sinking-or-swimming.html">massive learning curve</a> and had no spare puff for it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now I do have mental space - but I'm not sure I have an audience.</div><div><br /></div><div>A friend DM'd me about my re-emergence:</div><div><blockquote>I have very mixed feelings about the idea of public writing again. I don't know if I feel more vulnerable about it now or if I'm just less willing to tolerate the anxiety it always produced. Maybe it's also that the conversations I'm able to have in the classroom can stand in for some of the kind of responsiveness I used to get when writing/podcasting. But I have lots of things I am thinking about now, so it would be nice to find a space for them.</blockquote><p>And I wrote back:</p><p><b></b></p><blockquote><p>The thing I've found funny about it is that your "audience" is so fragmented now. I've found that in order to bring something to people, I'm sharing it over a plethora of platforms. Which makes me feel so attention-seeking! But then I figure if you're publishing, you want it to be read, so you might as well put that last little extra bit of effort in. </p></blockquote><p></p><p>The first long form piece I wrote in this comeback, <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/06/emerging-submerging-sinking-or-swimming.html">on career cycles and trajectories</a>, I shared on Twitter (4621 followers), LinkedIn (over 500 connections), and via the weekly pānui I write to all staff at Te Papa (this week, that email list has 614 addresses). It's had nearly 1100 views.</p><p>The second was <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2022/07/on-kate-camps-you-probably-think-this.html">a reflection on Kate Camp's memoir, <i>You probably think this song is about you</i></a>. That one I tweeted, and shared via email with a couple of non-social media users. And (having talked to Duncan Greive about it <a href="https://open.spotify.com/episode/6xVzSxVzJ6KFrvuqLMvFzV?si=b37300af94fc4bf7&nd=1">on The Fold recently</a> and simply remembered that I had it) I revived my <a href="https://tinyletter.com/auchmill">Tiny Letter</a> and sent it out there too. On my blog it's had 164 hits; on Tiny Letter it went out to 195 subscribers, and I've had about 10 sign ups since then. Tiny Letter seems to reach people who have abandoned Twitter; no-one, it seems, just visits blogs any more. </p><p>I don't know how to feel about those stats. I write to be read, after all: I'm making an effort to be seen (shouty as that seems at times). I have the luxury of wanting an audience but not needing it (I've listened to a lot of Duncan's interviews with Substack writers, after all).</p><p>So, is this a lament for the wide-open spaces and close communities of the pre-2010 internet? Not really. I'm more just curious about how my own publishing history has changed, as a online content creator now for more than 15 years. I've been publishing online, about my work and my life, for almost my whole working life. I've experimented with loads of platforms, and usually I've followed or found a community on them (the absolute nicest was probably that intense few years of reviewing on <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/3209040-courtney-johnston">Goodreads</a>). I am nostalgic for peak-blog (and Google Reader - miss you mate). But you can't lament change. Instead, you just keep writing about it. </p></div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-39227624738452804692022-07-17T11:58:00.004+12:002022-07-17T18:26:31.639+12:00On Kate Camp's 'You probably think this song is about you'<p>[Note - all text in quotes comes from Kate's book]</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif72hMA6H4_O5ztt_fXxiZ6OP3n2794B66_ERh5wQuauEjbXiaNoO-YmUeG1sCvdr_7iMz5cmvnmp95fsupNbccRwSiBrCsSOwnI2tOlsCY4LJt8Nxbt2zfkrrh-uUyfMmVQd7HahuKfNX74sA2JALTn9Z1A8k-88W1WN0Ukt_tP3RRDbW7amQo6aT/s1200/You_Probably_Think_This_cover_for_web__98833.webp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="789" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif72hMA6H4_O5ztt_fXxiZ6OP3n2794B66_ERh5wQuauEjbXiaNoO-YmUeG1sCvdr_7iMz5cmvnmp95fsupNbccRwSiBrCsSOwnI2tOlsCY4LJt8Nxbt2zfkrrh-uUyfMmVQd7HahuKfNX74sA2JALTn9Z1A8k-88W1WN0Ukt_tP3RRDbW7amQo6aT/w263-h400/You_Probably_Think_This_cover_for_web__98833.webp" width="263" /></a></div><br />Kate Camp - Wellingtonian, poet, comms professional - has just released her memoir, <i><a href="https://teherengawakapress.co.nz/you-probably-think-this-song-is-about-you">You probably think this song is about you</a></i>, through Te Herenga Waka University Press. I read it all in one go yesterday.<p></p><p>In her <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018849688/playing-favourites-with-poet-kate-camp">interview yesterday with Kim Hill</a>, Kate talked about the process of writing the book: of selecting a topic, and then writing and writing and writing until she hit the nugget. Then starting from that nugget, and writing all the way back.</p><p><iframe frameborder="0" height="62px" src="https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/remote-player?id=2018849688" width="100%"></iframe></p><p>The memoir could be classed as a story of growing up female, from 1972 to now. It moves between personal nostalgia (the close cataloguing of the contents and smells of her grandparents' home in Hastings; school assembly song choices), coming of age drama (drinking, smoking, sex), revelations of the kind we have become familiar with in women's writing (<a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/03-07-2022/no-miracle-baby-to-see-here">fertility battles</a>, the small casual cruelties of childlessness) and revelations few would ever be frank enough to admit (a chapter on wetting herself, as child and adult). Threaded through this are long-running storylines: a long-term relationship characterised by addiction and abuse; the suicide of a close friend; a loving family; an abundance of close shaves and second chances. </p><p>Kate and I work together - she's the Head of Marketing and Communications at Te Papa. I have only known her since I joined Te Papa, so many of the aspects and history of Kate that come through the memoir are, to me, just that, <i>history</i>. The memoir largely cuts off before the time I met her, and the smoke-soaked Kate of the book is understandable, but not quite familiar. She reminds me a lot, actually, of my older cousin Kim, who would be Kate's senior by a couple of years: another over-achieving uni drop-out, another Greenpeace canvasser, a head girl gone rogue, a pot smoker with lung-choked gurgle of a laugh, a wry accepter of everybody's foibles and flaws</p><p></p><p>Aspects of the book horrify me - in the sense of a horror movie, of watching circumstances mount up in such a way that you just know how they will play out. A young teen who can dress up in her mum's clothes and blag her way into Courtenay Place pubs. A young teen who's hanging out a 41-year-old pot-dealer's house. A young teen who doesn't value her body or her beauty, trading them off for the things she wants, which become the things she needs. A teen who enters into an abusive relationship and then stays there, a teen who bad things are happening to and who's being bad herself, being the baddest version of herself. A kid who can even then apply what I know of Kate today, the relentless logic of risk-management and a superhuman ability to manage a situation through to an acceptable conclusion:</p><p></p><blockquote>I spent ten years of my teens and twenties with an one-again-off-again boyfriend, and we used to fight like that all the time. I remember our downstairs neighbour saying to me one time, <i>When I hear you guys fight, and I can hear things smashing and breaking, and I hear you screaming, when should I call the police?</i> And I didn't skip a beat, didn't think, <i>I wonder if that's a rhetorical question</i>. I just said, <i>I'll call out to you. If I ever call your name, go straight next door and call the cops</i>. He didn't have a phone.</blockquote><p></p><p>The thing I find remarkable about the book - knowing Kate well, but not to the point of intimacy - is that while she has learned and been taught to be compassionate with herself, she does not let herself off the hook. There is an honesty that is not seeking approbation or thrills: it has just been tracked down, drawn forth, and written to the point of inevitability.</p><p></p><blockquote>Even though it's the truth, it feels unfair and somehow cheap for me to write about Jimi's anger, his violence. It's like playing a card that changes the meaning of everything, makes it black-and-white. And it wasn't like that. I did so many things in that relationship that I'm ashamed of. I lied and stole and cheated, and I was cruel, and most of all I'm ashamed of how I used him, of how, over those ten years, I went back time and time again, always for the same reason. He said to me once <i>I don't think you really want to have sex with me, you're just trading sex for intimacy</i>. And I thought <i>No, I'm trading sex for drugs and intimacy</i>. </blockquote><p></p><p>I'm familiar with that card. For me, <a href="https://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2017/02/on-widowhood.html">it's my widowhood</a> - ten years old this year. "My first husband died. He killed himself." It's a statement that absolves me of all responsibility. I'm not at all responsible. And yet, of course, I am.</p><p>Another point of similarity is that we're both under-reactors: </p><p></p><blockquote>The fertility doctor had been asking me if I'd been feeling any side-effects from the hormones, any breast tenderness, night sweats, strange emotions, and I'd been happy to report I hadn't felt a thing. Now I was coming to realise that was a bad thing, my body's stoic insensibility. I was under-reacting, just like I always did. </blockquote><p></p><p>Some of this is having thick natural buffers, a capacity to keep your head while others, etc. Part of it (for myself) is what I think of as burnt-off emotional nerve-endings, meaning I spend a lot of time observing my emotions rather than feeling them. There's a bit of Scottish parsimoniousness (even though emotions are free), of it <i>not being worth the effort</i>, and some distaste for making a fuss, being a mess. At 12 or 14 I can remember trying to get a good crying jag up over some teenage injustice, standing in front of the mirror to watch myself sob, and giving up because <i>I just wasn't that into it</i>. Two men have left me (one to suicide, one to another woman), because, they said, in their different ways, <i>I know you'll cope</i>. Which is another way of saying <i>I know you won't make this hard for me</i>.</p><p>Kate writes about going to a doctor for abdominal pain, and being told there's a chance she has ovarian cancer:</p><p></p><blockquote>At some point he said that I was very calm, and I remember thinking, I don't really see what the alternative is, were there patients who would burst into tears or shriek <i>No no no</i> or say <i>well that's just fucking brilliant isn't it</i>. I said something like <i>Well there's not much point getting upset at this stage</i>. I had a therapist at this time - she was a Scandinavian of some kind - and I remember her saying to me once, in her northern European accent, <i>I find it interesting that you say there is 'no point' in feeling a certain way. Do you believe that emotions should serve a utilitarian purpose?</i> It was the kind of annoying question you pay good money for.</blockquote><p></p><p>Many many years ago I watched a tv series called something like <i>Child of Our Times</i>. It was probably a turn of the millennium thing. In it, a jovial child development expert tracked the progress of a group of kids all born at the same time.</p><p>One episode has never left me. The kids would've been about four. They were testing the kids' ability to recognise and describe emotions. They set up a test where the kids listened to a taped recording of a voice actor reading recipes, in Italian, with exaggerated emotion in her voice: great sadness, great happiness, great fear. The kids were given printed sheets of cartoon faces to hold up, matching the smiley or crying face to the emotion in the recording.</p><p>The kids by and large did fairly well, but one child - a little blonde girl - failed spectacularly. She kept holding up the smiley face whenever the voice actor's rendition ached with sadness. And this was odd because this kid was preternaturally attuned, an <i>old soul</i>. Her family was under some form of stress (perhaps the parents were on the fringe of breaking up?) and she shuttled around, settling things down. So the jovial child development expert delved in, and asked her about the face/voice mis-match. And she said <i>It's important people think you're happy, even when you're sad</i>. The tenderness, sadness and self-recognition I felt in that moment still haunt me.</p><p>Kate writes:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>I have always observed but am still surprised by the fact that, when you pretend to be OK, most people think you are. You're expecting at least some of them to see through you, but they almost never do.</p><p>I have a recurring dream that I am being held hostage, or in some dangerous situation, some threatening men are there who I know mean me harm, Whatever the situation, I know instinctively that the only way to survive is to pretend I don't know they are a threat. I need to behave as if everything is fine, while calculating my escape. In one version of the dream, I am lying in bed with an intruder next to me, crouched by my face; I pretend I think he's a family member and tell him, groggily, that I'm asleep. In another I'm being held in a compound, but I walk around with my captors, politely commenting on the landscaping, while secretly looking for a way out. The dreams never resolve one way or another, but the sense on waking is of the enormous pressure of knowing your safety depends on cheerfulness, on your ability to convince others that you are blithely unaware of danger. I know my sister has the same dream sometimes.</p></blockquote><p>In her acknowledgements, Kate talks about her dad's reaction to the book. Her dad loves her: both her parents do, and she them, and the largely untroubled nature of that loving is one of the things that balance out the horror movie bits. But he's upset that the book focuses on all the bruises on the apple of Kate's life, and doesn't reflect its shine: her happy marriage, her successful career, her publishing record, her literary fame, her solidity in the world. Why is she painting herself in such an unflattering light?</p><p>There's a passage in the book that sums up for me the wisdom of Kate Camp. In her interview with Kim Hill, Kate passingly references a "not very startling self-realisation of the Covid era", and this is one of these. It's not a unique realisation but you just know she has lived in, in a thousand humdrum moments that may well make her wince to recall, but that are irresistible because when she writes them down, they make a hell of a good story:</p><p></p><blockquote>When you think about rock bottom, it sounds like a one-time thing, but in my experience it's a place you end up going to over and over. If you're lucky, you learn something each time you visit. </blockquote><p></p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-3884941300850662422022-07-07T17:42:00.003+12:002022-07-07T17:42:50.422+12:00Link roundup<p>A quick reocmmendation to kick things off - Maureen Lander has started digitising and sharing her archive on Instagram - follow <a href="http://www.instagram.com/maureenlanderarchive"><b>maureenlanderarchive</b></a> for so much wonderful goodness</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>* * * * *</b></p><p><b><a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-house/audio/2018847025/learning-to-minister-and-a-crucial-skill">Learning to Minister, and a crucial skill</a>. </b>In this RNZ story Phil Smith interviews Kieran McAnulty about the rapid shift from backbench MP to Minister: </p><p></p><blockquote><p>You might imagine incoming ministers get lots of warning, to study and gird their loins. They don’t. </p><p>If that had been the case Kieran McAnulty wouldn’t have chosen that week to move house. </p><p> Kieran McAnulty is now minister for Emergency Management, for Racing, the Deputy Leader of the House and Associate Minister of both Local Government and Transport. Associate Ministers generally get specific roles inside the wider portfolio. </p><p>That’s like taking on five new jobs at once. But it’s more than that, it’s a change from effectively working for Parliament to working for the Government. </p></blockquote><p></p><p>As Smith analyses it, one of the major differences is the new expectations of Question Time in Parliament, where the Minister is judged not only on content, but performance and delivery: </p><p></p><blockquote><p> A minister might be brilliant at policy development, at management, delegating and overseeing multiple projects and multiple departments, and at getting money approved …but public perception will determine they are failing if they get monstered at Question Time. </p><p> It’s a strange way to mark success because Question Time’s interactions aren’t particularly ‘real’. Instead Question Time is a kind of theatre and doing it well involves a degree of performance, but not all MPs are naturals at that. </p></blockquote><p></p><p>Smith follows this up with an interview with Chris Hipkins on <b><a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/the-house/audio/2018847503/tips-on-surviving-question-time">how to survive question time</a></b>.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><b>* * * * *</b></p><p>From my friend and Tāwhiri / Aotearoa NZ Arts Festival CE Meg Williams, <b><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sober-reality-meg-williams/?trackingId=P7X%2BJLEAT0aWXj6nlB56Ag%3D%3D">Sober reality</a></b> - on three years of not drinking. Shared partly for Meg's insight and generosity, but also because it refers to one of my pet topics, the <a href="https://richardstep.com/dope-personality-type-quiz/dope-bird-4-personality-types-test-questions-online-version/">DOPE bird personality test</a>.</p><p style="text-align: center;">* * * * *</p><p>Athol McCredie and Jane Harris at work did a beautiful job of pulling together a <b><a href="https://blog.tepapa.govt.nz/2022/07/02/luit-bieringa-1942-2022">full tribute to Luit Bieringa</a> </b>for the Te Papa blog. Scroll all the way through for the final pic of Luit and John McCormack back in the day in shorts with icecreams. </p><p style="text-align: center;">* * * * *</p><p>There's a strong tendency with arts (and other) organisations to focus on CEs and senior leadership, and not the boards that put them in place. <b><a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/culture-in-crisis-arts-minister-tony-burke-slams-decade-of-neglect-20220630-p5ay3z.html">This <i>Sydney Morning Herald </i>article</a></b> about Australia's incoming arts minister Tony Burke is fascinating because he sheets home responsibility to the previous administration for "lazy and indulgent" appointments. </p><p style="text-align: center;">* * * * *</p><p>Shared by <a href="https://twitter.com/nicgaston/status/1542952186417905664">Nicola Gaston on Twitter</a> - an <b><a href="https://undark.org/2022/07/01/interview-james-poskett-on-reframing-the-history-of-science/">interview with James Poskett</a></b>, author of <i>Horizons: A global history of science</i>. Poskett notes the tendency to tell the history of science as a series of breakthroughs by (largely) white Western males, and dismiss the continued histories of science in other cultures:</p><p></p><blockquote>We’re at a kind of crossroads in history, but also in science. And the narratives that scientists were taught and told themselves in the West was a narrative that was built for the Cold War. But the Cold War’s over — the original one. Yet we’re still telling these narratives about Western science, science being neutral. And I think a lot of public mistrust in the sciences generally is actually a function of this — that we need to present publicly a more realistic, political, diverse account of how science is done – how we got to now — in order to have the consent and engagement of the mass public in the sciences.</blockquote><p></p><p style="text-align: center;">* * * * *</p><p>Also on science, also quite possibly shared by Nicola - a long and fascinating and quite worrying (in that oh-shit-there-goes-another-set-of-assumptions-I-was-comfy-with) <i>Guardian</i> article by Stephen Buranyi, <b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jun/28/do-we-need-a-new-theory-of-evolution">Do we need a new theory of evolution?</a></b></p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-43896775576521751992022-06-26T14:27:00.019+12:002022-06-27T15:14:57.734+12:00Emerging, Submerging, Sinking or Swimming: Career cycles and trajectories in the GLAMs<p>As they say - this is a long post that I didn't take the time to make short. It meanders through a group of musings about career progression, with a long digression into Brazilian jiu jitsu. It's an effort to get these ideas out of my head, and back into the habit of sharing. </p><p style="text-align: center;">* * *</p><p>A few weeks ago I attended the <a href="https://camd.org.au/">CAM-D</a> (Council of Australasian Museum Directors) and <a href="https://www.amaga.org.au/">AMAGA</a> (Australian Museums and Art Galleries Association) meetings in Perth.</p><p>I'd been nervous about going to CAM-D. This group is made up of the leaders of the state and national museums in Australia and Aotearoa. Because the pandemic struck when I was just 3 months into my role at Te Papa, I had only met a few of them face to face before becoming Tumu Whakarae. </p><p>For nearly two and a half years then, I've been joining Zoom hui with this group, always feeling a bit of of my depth. These are really seasoned professionals. Most have at least one, sometimes two (possibly three) decades of experience on me. My nerves about joining then were exacerbated by losing my bag on the flight to Perth, meaning I'd had to do an emergency shop to get clothes for the first gathering. At least that gave me a topic for small talk.</p><p>As it turned out, of course, everything was fine. No-one treated me like the little kid who didn't belong at the grown-ups' table (that's my internal narrative playing out, and it's also running out: I'm 42 now, rapidly moving past even "youth-adjacent"). It was magical to spend time with a group of people used to working and thinking and managing at significant scale in my sector. We had shared challenges, and many shared aspirations. We're balancing similar tensions, and competing priorities. I felt surprisingly at home very quickly.</p><p>AMAGA was completely different. Hundreds of people, compared to about a dozen. A council and organising committee that favours younger / newer professionals in the sector. And an explicit activist spirit, one that is very familiar to me from earlier in my career but not a space I occupy much now: of kicking against accepted practice and pace of change.</p><p>The conference was strongly flavoured by emerging museum professionals (a loose definition would be "people in their first ten years of museum practice"), and the strengths of these regional and national EMP networks was obvious. Listening to their presentations and talking to people between sessions, I found myself <i>feeling my age</i> in a really specific way, which I spend a lot of time thinking about. At 42, generationally I sit right on the cusp of Gen X and Millennial. I often feel like I'm in the middle, holding hands between the Boomers and Millennials - able to see both sets of perspectives and life experiences, not feeling settled in either camp.</p><p>Which led me to tweet this during one of the talks:</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">I’m old enough now that every time I hear the phrase “emerging museum professionals” I start thinking about what we should be doing to support submerging museum professionals <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/amaga2022?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#amaga2022</a></p>— Courtney Johnston (@auchmill) <a href="https://twitter.com/auchmill/status/1536894093472956416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 15, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>I've got to hat-tip to Megan Dunn for the "submerging" bit, which she coined in <a href="https://pantograph-punch.com/posts/submerging-artist">this 2013 essay for the Pantograph Punch</a>. Megan there is talking about the flip side to the emerging artist, who is taking off on a career trajectory: the submerging artist, who slid off the ladder of career progression.</p><p>When I was a baby PR at City Gallery Wellington - my first full-time job - one of the things I had to do was write media releases. One of the clichés that gets rolled out high up in these releases is the status of the artist. It looks something like this:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Emerging</li><li>Rising talent</li><li>Mid-career (the trickiest)</li><li>Established</li><li>Senior</li><li>Renowned</li></ul><p></p><p>This is reductive, of course. There are those artists who emerge later in life; those who were overlooked for chunks of their lives; those whose work or impact wasn't recognised within the mainstream gallery system but were fully formed outside it. But the key to it is that <i>the only way is up</i>. There's no resting spots, no plateau, no in & out flow. And there's definitely no wind-down. </p><p>Te Papa employs approximately 600 people. A percentage of these are long-standing professionals (across a range of practices) who are coming to the end of their full-time or paid working lives. The negotiation of the final period of your working life inside a museum is, I think, worthy of as much attention and support as that emerging / entry period. And yet it is something that is rarely discussed out loud. How to accommodate, enjoy the benefit of, and celebrate people who are late in their careers, who are going through family changes, health changes, financial changes, and for some a massive change in their identity, as they contemplate leaving a career (and sometimes a single institution) to which they have dedicated decades' of mental, physical and emotional energy. Not to mention the subtle (or unsubtle) pressure of the generations behind these people, who - frankly - <i>want the jobs they currently hold</i>. While there's a lot of emphasis on internships, promotion and career development, there aren't similarly strong shared frameworks in place for how to reduce working hours, responsibilities, or shift the emphasis from producing outputs to transferring knowledge.</p><p>That's what I actually meant by "submerging" in that tweet, rather than the people who have trialled a museum career and decided it's not for them (that was me, by the way - I left City Gallery vowing I would never work in a gallery, and look how that worked out). Or, to put another spin on 'submerging', the people who feel like they are <i>stalling</i> in their career. </p><p>We tend to think of careers as ladders, patterns of progressions. One speaker at AMAGA suggested that they should be thought of more as jungle gyms, where you might move laterally as well as vertically. New Zealand has a government careers website, which <a href="https://www.careers.govt.nz/resources/career-practice/career-theory-models/">lists a wide variety of models</a>. </p><p>I've not got the insight to propose a different model. And I'm not sure I want to promote a bell curve theory, from emerging to peaking to submerging again on the other side. Or a seasonal one, moving through Spring to Winter. What I want to explore is more the micro-phases <i>within</i> your career journey, that play out repeatedly as you take on new roles, or new life experiences alongside your working life. And I'm thinking a lot in sporting analogies.</p><p>This year, I've gone back to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu">jiu jitsu</a>. I've been training since August 2012, but I took a long patch off over the past two years; a combination of lock-downs & Covid restrictions, a bad ganglion cyst, and also just feeling overwhelmed in my new job and not having mental space for a sport that is literally all about being up in someone's face. </p><p>BJJ has a belt system: white, blue, purple, brown, black. While there is a syllabus, every club interprets this differently, and awards belts differently. But let's say, roughly, that each belt represents 2-3 years of solid training, skill acquisition, and a certain kind of commitment to your club and the people you train with.</p><p>I'm a brown belt. But I love going to beginners classes. I like to help out, supporting new people, especially women. It's also soothing, running through basic techniques that you know well. And as with most disciplines, you find yourself learning so much more about what you already know through teaching it to a diverse range of people.</p><p>So one night recently I was paired up with a fairly on-to-it newbie, a smaller dude who could listen to the instructions and to me. And next to me on the mat was a pair of the most exemplary munters. Fresh off the street, muscular dudes who quite likely watch UFC in the weekends and listen to the Joe Rogan podcast. </p><p>It's important for context that you know that everything you do in BJJ is done with a partner. There are no kata, like karate. From your very first class you are paired up with another person, doing something that looks like full-body, floor-based <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thumb_war">peaknuckle</a>. People either love the intimacy and the intensity of being thrown into such close physical proximity with a stranger (or even worse, your mate who came along with you, and now has his face planted in your groin area because your first class happened to be <a href="https://www.bjjheroes.com/techniques/the-triangle">triangles</a>) or it freaks them out and they never come back. To begin with, it can feel a lot like being assaulted. You have no idea what's going on, and another person is trying to hurt you. </p><p>So, these guys were just a picture to behold. Rigid as fuck, because they were so uncomfortable being wrapped in each others' arms. Hyper-aroused, flooded with fight-or-flight chemicals, they could hardly hear the instructor because of all the brain chemicals rushing around. Because they've learned that strength is a virtue, every move was being performed at 200%, which meant nothing worked properly. BJJ is full of weird specific movements and you get taught them piecemeal, so these guys had no context in which to place the particular technique they were being taught. And they were so self-conscious that when other people tried to help them, they either couldn't hear the advice, or had all their barriers up against being told how to do something better.</p><p>And watching them, I realised that this was the exact parallel of my first two years as a CE. So hyper-aware of being watched I couldn't remember what it felt like to do something naturally. Loads of advice coming in, but no existing experience to place it into context. The rushing white noise of expectation and fear of failure in my ears. And the crushing experience of simply being very, very bad at something and having to be okay with doing it poorly for as long as it took to learn how to do it well.</p><p>The thing with jiu jitsu is that it's a lot like swimming. When you learn to swim, you start from the point of drowning. Learning to swim is the process of getting better and better at not drowning, until magically, you're swimming, not drowning, when you take your feet off the ground. Then you learn to take breaths, to experiment with different strokes, to dive under water, to turn flips. You can't remember what it felt like to not be able to swim. You also can't - without quite a bit of reflection and practice - effectively coach someone else how to transition from not-drowning to swimming.</p><p>BJJ's like that. To begin with on the mat you're drowning all the time. Then the moves start to connect together. You learn sweeps and counters and escapes, as well as attacks. You learn that if they do <i>a</i>, it's likely heading towards <i>b</i>, and so you can prep to do <i>c</i>, and if <i>c</i> is unsuccessful, you can transition to <i>d</i> - in fact, maybe you'll feint <i>d</i> in order to pull off an <i>e.</i> You learn to breathe through pressure. You distinguish pain from actual threat of injury. And once you've got some experience and perspective, a body of knowledge, some resilience, you might even graduate to self-awareness: an insight into the impact your actions have on your partner, how you can be a helpful training partner by considering their needs as well as your own, how you can pace the speed or intensity of a roll to bring out the best in an encounter for both of you. </p><p>This year, I feel like I graduated from white belt as a CE. I reckon most days, I'm hitting purple. Enough experience to see the patterns playing out, to draw on a decent repertoire of techniques, predict outcomes, and be conscious of the people around me. Some days I find myself acting like a white belt and its crucifying, but only because it hurts my ego. What I need to remember though (and this is easy for me, because I am lucky to have a really strong natural growth mindset) is that black belt is still a long way away, and on the way I will have to ride out and push through several plateaus and some complacency. And as my coach says - once you hit black belt, you turn around, and you learn it all again from the basics right up. </p><p>That was a long tangent. But what I wanted to illustrate with it is that throughout your career, you're likely to regularly spend time in microcycles, going back to white belt as you take on new responsibilities or roles, and growing through them. I like this way of thinking much more than impostor syndrome (<a href="https://hbr.org/2021/02/stop-telling-women-they-have-imposter-syndrome">this article</a> has been so influential on me on this topic): you are thrown back into the beginning of a learning cycle, and so logically, things will be harder until they get easier.</p><p>So if we think of a career more as a series of looping coils than a straight line tracking up, what might the stages be? Like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman%27s_stages_of_group_development">Tuckman's theory of group development</a>, there might be storming, norming and performing. But there's also the bit after you've gotten to performing - or competence, or mastery - where you plateau. And that's where I think we could spend some time flipping up our mental models.</p><p>Years ago, I learned about the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle">Gartner Hype Cycle</a>, a theory of the adoption of new technology:</p>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg#/media/File:Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Gartner Hype Cycle.svg" height="260" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/94/Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg/1200px-Gartner_Hype_Cycle.svg.png" title="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>I think there's something there in that plateau point. To think of it not as stalling, but as your most productive phase in a particular role. You have mastery, you're comfortably meeting the expectations, you're receiving the pay off for the investment of extra energy you put into learning these new skills: so what are you doing with it? Maybe less a plateau than a prairie - loads of room for you to range.</div><div><br /></div><div>In my own career, this plateau stage is when I typically move into teaching (whether that's been workshops or blogging or some other form) or volunteering (enough mental space to take on governance roles or help out with conferences and networks and such like). I can comfortably perform the role asked of me, and from that base, I can push myself in other ways. For me, that's always naturally about getting externally involved, rather than developing deeper mastery in the technicalities of my job. Then when I transfer to a new role, for a while I have to give all this up: I'm fully occupied learning how to do my new mahi.</div><div><br /></div><div>That's where submerging comes into it. I'm a <a href="https://richardstep.com/dope-personality-type-quiz/dope-bird-4-personality-types-test-questions-online-version/">Peacock</a>. I thrive on being noticed and working with people. If I'm very honest, I get some hurt feelings when I'm no longer seen as an emerging talent, or an expert, and instead I go below the radar. A big part of my motivation comes from that visibility. And while (yes, get out the world's smallest violin) it's been lovely to get as many invitations as I have over the past 2.5 years to do talks and interviews on being a woman in leadership (only a woman, mind you, I don't think I've done a single non-gendered event) I miss being asked to do stuff <i>because I'm really good at something</i>. Or because <i>I'm leading new thinking</i>. And let's note here - I don't think I'm ready to be invited to pontificate as a CE yet for those reasons. I don't think I've achieved anything like enough to warrant that. But I also wonder if that time in my career is behind me.</div><div><br /></div><div>When I was at the height of feeling needlessly sorry for myself, sometime last year, I listened to an episode of Adam Grant's <a href="https://www.ted.com/podcasts/worklife">Work Life podcast</a> that has really sat with me. It's titled <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/worklife_with_adam_grant_career_decline_isn_t_inevitable/transcript?language=en">Career decline isn't inevitable</a>, a phrase taken from one of the central interviewees on the episode, Arthur Brooks, who in 2019 published an article on <i>The Atlantic</i> titled <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/work-peak-professional-decline/590650/">'Your professional decline is coming (much) earlier than you think'</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the intro, Grant says: </div><div><blockquote>Let's be honest, we all have peaks and valleys in our careers, times when we hit our stride and do our best work, and times when we're in a slump. Most of us are worried that as we age, our physical and mental skills will decline and we might enter into a permanent slump. And that fear is compounded by the fact that age is seldom seen as an asset in the modern workplace.</blockquote></div><div>And then Arthur Brooks says:</div><div><blockquote>I mean the number one myth is that, you know, particularly in certain professions, like, let's just say yours and mine, which is coming up with big ideas and sharing them, that that'll never go into decline. Why? Because it doesn't require, you know, strong biceps, and yet there's overwhelming evidence that in idea professions people experience decline as well. They just don't expect it.</blockquote></div><div>And I was like - <i>holy shit, that's me</i>. I could blame it on pandemic brain, but at my very core, I could feel that effortless, effervescent mental energy of my 20s and 30s fading. I hadn't just paused jiu jitsu - I'd also given up blogging, stopped clearing my feedreader, stopped following a lot of professional coverage across the sectors I was interested in. I could feel myself slowing down and <i>it terrified me</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>The podcast covers a range of things, including countering the idea we're fated to decline. But the idea that really resonated with me (because it felt like a life-line) was the <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/fluid-crystallized-intelligence.html">concept of fluid and crystallised intelligence</a>. Here's Grant introducing the concept:</div><div></div><blockquote><div>What happens to our cognitive abilities as we age is not straightforward. It actually depends on what kind of mental skills we're talking about. Psychologists have long distinguished between two kinds of intelligence: fluid and crystallized. Fluid intelligence is your raw processing power. It's basically your IQ, your innate capacity for learning and problem solving.</div><div><br /></div><div>... A common refrain in Silicon Valley is that young people are just smarter. When it comes to fluid intelligence, that's generally true. But the story changes with crystallized intelligence, your acquired ability to solve problems by applying your knowledge and experience. </div></blockquote><div><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_and_crystallized_intelligence">The concept dates back to the 1960s and a psychologist called Raymond B. Cattell</a>. It suggests fluid intelligence the innate ability to think fast and flexibly, to draw inferences and connections, to apply reason and come up with new conclusions and insights. And it falls away by your 40s, when - according to the theory - it's replaced by growing crystallised intelligence, the ability to apply your learned experience and knowledge to your thinking. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWVYFrODiiXs9YiJg8ig_J34KHjD_mmHWeNUgo4G0q0_-hYW0z8J8vWPkoHkm9dGtNmj8AbnJppHmv--7fmc-htv9vO85ccAKTaPA7DqPgMRXTip3O9e8ljscv2yKz6I7f_dxxL-w_y7kTyGhjkBZ1_wcl7WURQnPdfD39heldwrzJSW5DnCK736Dl/s1868/fluid-crystalized-intelligence.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1050" data-original-width="1868" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWVYFrODiiXs9YiJg8ig_J34KHjD_mmHWeNUgo4G0q0_-hYW0z8J8vWPkoHkm9dGtNmj8AbnJppHmv--7fmc-htv9vO85ccAKTaPA7DqPgMRXTip3O9e8ljscv2yKz6I7f_dxxL-w_y7kTyGhjkBZ1_wcl7WURQnPdfD39heldwrzJSW5DnCK736Dl/w400-h225/fluid-crystalized-intelligence.png" title="https://www.simplypsychology.org/fluid-crystallized-intelligence.html" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/fluid-crystallized-intelligence.html">https://www.simplypsychology.org/fluid-crystallized-intelligence.html</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>What Grant and Brooks argue is that if your 20s and 30s are about raw insight and invention, your 40s onwards can be about making way for a new generation of powerful thinkers, and adapting yourself into more of a role as sounding board, coach, and providing the context and experience to support that emergent thinking. In tandem, in theory, you should have the best of both worlds. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm instinctively wary of any Western academic or scientific form that has measures of intelligence wrapped up in it. But I think the shape of this idea is really helpful for reflection. It reminds me of a quote from Aristotle which I am very fond of (again, something that I've never read in the original Greek and therefore have only a mangled and personalised grasp on): that there is intelligence, and then there is wisdom, which is having the judgement to apply intelligence well. (<a href="https://hbr.org/2020/10/leaders-need-to-harness-aristotles-3-types-of-knowledge">Here's an HBR-style take on that idea</a>.)</div><div><br /></div><div>I think the combination of the CAM-D and AMAGA meetings really made me think about all this, because the two environments were so characterised by these qualities: the activist fluid intelligence of the cohort I was spending time with at AMAGA, and the crystallised intelligence of the CAM-D group. And me, sitting in the middle - relinquishing the fluidity but only just beginning to crystallise - could see both the potential and the frustration on both sides. Energy and experience, when you looked at it through one lens, and ignorance and fossilisation through another. Millennials and Boomers.</div><div><br /></div><div>By virtue of having an accelerated progression through a range of roles with rapidly growing complexity (from managing a web team of two at 30 to a national museum of 600 at 40), I feel like I've been gifted with the opportunity to develop that contextual knowledge faster than a lot of my peers. At 42, I find myself in my career peak. I hope though I'm only in the foothills of my wisdom. </div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-86069328033069301942022-06-26T11:07:00.001+12:002022-06-26T11:07:08.835+12:00Link round up<p> This weekend Aotearoa marked the first Matariki public holiday - the first public holiday in the world to honour indigenous knowledge. In the lead-up, E-Tangata re-published a 2012 essay by Tā Hirini Moko Mead, <a href="https://e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-analysis/understanding-matauranga-maori/"><b>Understanding Mātauranga Māori</b></a>:</p><blockquote><i>Mātauranga Māori is thus linked to Māori identity and forms part of the unique features which make up that identity. Because this is so, it also means that mātauranga Māori is a unique part of the identity of all New Zealand citizens. </i><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>Some citizens may deny it, some may not realise it is there, some may reject it. But a good many will embrace it and be proud to be part of the revival process.</i></div></blockquote><div><p>The <b>Empire, Slavery & Scotland’s Museums Project, </b>sponsored by the Scottish Government and coordinated by Museums Galleries Scotland, was commissioned to "recommend how
Scotland’s involvement in empire, colonialism, and historic slavery can be addressed
using museum collections and spaces." </p><p>The recommendations have now been delivered to the Scottish Government. A <a href="https://www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk/media/2831/final-empire-slavery-and-scotlands-museums-steering-group-recommendations-press-release.pdf">brief outline here</a>; the <a href="https://www.museumsgalleriesscotland.org.uk/media/2804/empire-slavery-and-scotlands-museums-recommendations.pdf">full report here</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote><i>The conditions of the last few years have created an unprecedented global and national focus
on systemic racism: a need to collectively name it, and to try to understand what it means
for all of us in practice, and how it continues to shape and define our world order. Scotland
can become a country that reckons with its history with responsibility and maturity, working
toward a more fair and equal society. Through the implementation of these recommendations,
museums can be part of that change.</i></blockquote><p></p><p>Aaron Straup Cope's latest post <b><a href="https://www.aaronland.info/weblog/2022/06/17/expectations/#usf">sometimes expectations happen to you</a></b> is, as always an opus, both dense and freewheeling, and has at its core a recounting of the story of the Cooper Hewitt Museum's "Pen". I link to it partly because it introduced me to a phrase I've not heard before but which is so powerful, from historian <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/margaret-macmillan-on-history/">Margaret MacMillan</a>, author of <i>The Uses and Abuses of History</i> (which I have just ordered because obviously I should have read this):</p><p></p><blockquote><i>The past keeps changing, because we keep asking questions of it.</i></blockquote><p></p><p><b><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/jun/09/misogyny-just-a-modus-operandi-for-politics-in-australia-says-former-museum-director">"I'll be quite honest ... it was the misogyny"</a></b>. <i>The Guardian </i>pulls quotes about the political environment she had to cope with from <a href="https://blenheimpartners.com/podcasts/">a podcast</a> with Liz Ann MacGregor, reflecting on her two decades leading the MCA Sydney.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">More Māori people were publishing scholarly work in various publications in the first two decades of the 20th century than you would find in the bibliographies of most critical work from the first two decades of the 21st century. Why do we diminish ourselves and our readers?</p>— A TePungaSomerville (@alice_tps) <a href="https://twitter.com/alice_tps/status/1538994482929995776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 20, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p><b><a href="https://twitter.com/alice_tps/status/1538990976814833664">A tweet thread</a></b> from Alice Te Punga Somerville about not being lazy with your academic citations</p></div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-55042584244970053202022-06-21T21:16:00.002+12:002022-06-26T11:08:44.604+12:00Moe mai rā e Luit: Luit Bieringa, 1942-2022<p>It was strange to walk up Tory Street tonight after work, and realise I won't be bumping into Luit Bieringa anymore, out roaming in his hood.</p><p>I have always felt a kind of kinship with Luit (as with Jim Barr) because we all kicked off as young(ish) directors of a regional art gallery. With Luit, it was the Manawatū Art Gallery, which he led from 1971 to 1979. He must have been about 29 or 30 when he took on the role, and oversaw the replacement of a converted house that acted as an art gallery to the purpose-built centre. As he <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/97446921/a-40year-celebration-of-art-without-boundaries">recalled in 2017</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote>The main thing was to try and change the context in which the gallery operated to becoming a fully-fledged public institution that the community could relate to. We had people's support and if you think of the time, the early 70s, we'd only just moved out of the rugby, racing and beer environment.</blockquote><p></p><p>I have always loved the <a href="http://www.art-newzealand.com/Issues1to40/opening07.htm"><i>Art New Zealand </i>article</a> about the opening of the gallery. I often share it as an example of "guys - they've been doing this <i>for ages</i>". A fundraising team raised about a third of the building costs. Luit "deliberately tried to make the gallery as accessible as possible to all the people of the Manawatu, whether their interest be in functional pottery or conceptual art." At opening, there were looms and a potter's wheel on the ground floor for people to try out; Woollaston, Driver, Albrecht and Wong nearby; a "touch" gallery that people entered blindfolded then felt their way through an array of objects; then upstairs a show by conceptual artist Bruce Barber, including a video work. The original something-for-everyone: hands-on, tradition, new media, recognised quality, defying categories, emerging artists. I always found that inspiring. </p><p>Likewise this beard:</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6SmCowrox8SGfib3on_f9hW0Z7Szdk0adDyumqx6guEzjAT6ncEC_vURZsPYXk-avMabpQXRQKACfIbkYLAZyxhdHKmWFPML_gEf1vcm8CuEuLesQXwOyBzbaeyMs7AGuNJ2CTmyoDMESxS6Hc-k250GyCHWmZzm-MndYf52nmTXEO2pTfj9hTDAL/s414/Manawatu%201974.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Bearded man's face next to sculpture of a man's face" border="0" data-original-height="414" data-original-width="315" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6SmCowrox8SGfib3on_f9hW0Z7Szdk0adDyumqx6guEzjAT6ncEC_vURZsPYXk-avMabpQXRQKACfIbkYLAZyxhdHKmWFPML_gEf1vcm8CuEuLesQXwOyBzbaeyMs7AGuNJ2CTmyoDMESxS6Hc-k250GyCHWmZzm-MndYf52nmTXEO2pTfj9hTDAL/w304-h400/Manawatu%201974.png" width="304" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Luit in 1974, <a href="https://manawatuheritage.pncc.govt.nz/item/0bc8b77d-2910-4a0a-a108-361e307ecd39">from the Manawatu Heritage site</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">It was at Manawatū too that Luit produced the <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/ephemera/43223/the-active-eye-exhibition-manawatu-art-gallery-1975">landmark touring exhibition</a> of contemporary photography, <i>The Active Eye</i>, a touchstone of any <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Active_Eye">history of photography</a> in Aotearoa (and history of any <a href="https://www.art-newzealand.com/Issue106/Clark.htm">exhibition controversy</a>).</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV53YSEEZkuQ20i4dT9Hgk_fGu5wDZobzNS81MMWSTnNhVpqn01wNPiMzv8W2vOXTnh0Uq7OhWl8mq1-woxnDOIGP8xgHsHus7yswTpRUypOIbGB-YQTVDnJkNbWBEVON7z5WNIprSiGvD70nwQF_q2v-DVgxo_yvzjhhBEbad3Tq6qSBa47JVxdfC/s700/Active%20Eye.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="700" data-original-width="502" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV53YSEEZkuQ20i4dT9Hgk_fGu5wDZobzNS81MMWSTnNhVpqn01wNPiMzv8W2vOXTnh0Uq7OhWl8mq1-woxnDOIGP8xgHsHus7yswTpRUypOIbGB-YQTVDnJkNbWBEVON7z5WNIprSiGvD70nwQF_q2v-DVgxo_yvzjhhBEbad3Tq6qSBa47JVxdfC/w286-h400/Active%20Eye.jpg" width="286" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Cover of </i>The Active Eye<i>, <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/ephemera/43223/the-active-eye-exhibition-manawatu-art-gallery-1975">from Te Ara</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">In 1979 Luit left Manawatū to take on the National Gallery that was. So he must of been about 37 when he took that on, and he committed for a full decade. His legacy includes bringing that enthusiasm for photography and an exquisite eye to the development of the photography collection, and <a href="https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/agent/2999">enrichment of the archives</a> (including as a voluminous correspondent). </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">And in the 1980s Luit led the charge on Shed 11, the offsite project space that is now the New Zealand Portrait Gallery. By the time I was studying recent New Zealand art history in the early 200s, this was the stuff of legend. The exhibitions between the two sites <a href="https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/23">ranged all over the place</a>. <a href="https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/36996">Barbara Kruger</a> <a href="https://robertleonard.org/you-must-be-barbara-kruger/">came to New Zealand</a>. Cindy Sherman too. <i>Content / Context</i>. <i>When Art Hits the Headlines</i>. And didn't he look like a legend doing it.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVeK5f1HpwhfXVIW63ptCOmCtYfMqJwxLcZ2rkHgwlmHvHdlGcLHKWKUOZWvHoC2xyuL4oxB2IS4FQorKleFP3HO2TXf8hcMOOzvmpKr4EB16EVpjXUZWYEeQs_fjBTweurzTEOj9gw3hfELZ7fgsYZcnTGp8FfRoB-SuY_aqSsg0rAPzjnJitHCIa/s478/Shed11%20Luit.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="478" data-original-width="319" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVeK5f1HpwhfXVIW63ptCOmCtYfMqJwxLcZ2rkHgwlmHvHdlGcLHKWKUOZWvHoC2xyuL4oxB2IS4FQorKleFP3HO2TXf8hcMOOzvmpKr4EB16EVpjXUZWYEeQs_fjBTweurzTEOj9gw3hfELZ7fgsYZcnTGp8FfRoB-SuY_aqSsg0rAPzjnJitHCIa/w268-h400/Shed11%20Luit.jpg" width="268" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Luit outside Shed 11, from a <a href="https://www.catherinegriffiths.co.nz/04-for-the-record.html">post by Catherine Griffiths</a></i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">I wish I'd known him then. But - as I sometimes remind the people who still pull me up at art openings and berate me over the closing of the NAG - I was born the year Luit started working there. Which means I got the joy of knowing him in the second half of his life and career, with that odd frisson of meeting people in real life who just the week before you'd be reading about in Tina Barton's ARTH 301 paper. </div><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOtT-7Ljx0UxGviJVVLOVuoh8PYQ4SADF0X9OGtsKct1JcDRHY2NxALhirEgLEO9PCjzrCVwOesAWHoQU57GQ8l5_Gj9VqD-KDhRIeHEskjO59VrNnuffzpjakLalDJmH2GOzE10DZxPGSSvXhpn5IKxxamHD3K4QZO1xwi_X4q5gJ6LNxSXn2nNOr/s1102/Luit%20NAG.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1102" data-original-width="828" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOtT-7Ljx0UxGviJVVLOVuoh8PYQ4SADF0X9OGtsKct1JcDRHY2NxALhirEgLEO9PCjzrCVwOesAWHoQU57GQ8l5_Gj9VqD-KDhRIeHEskjO59VrNnuffzpjakLalDJmH2GOzE10DZxPGSSvXhpn5IKxxamHD3K4QZO1xwi_X4q5gJ6LNxSXn2nNOr/w300-h400/Luit%20NAG.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Photo snapped in Luit's archives last year</i></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p>By the time I got to know Luit well, he had repurposed himself <a href="https://www.nzonscreen.com/profile/luit-bieringa">as a film-maker</a>, working alongside his wife Jan. They produced documentaries on Ans Westra, the Tovey generation of art education, Peter McLeavey, and most recently Theo Schoon. We were lucky enough to be at the premiere of <i>Signed, Theo Schoon</i> last year, and join Jan and Luit afterwards, with all their friends. Ans was there. Luit bantered at her for not paying attention during his speech. It was wonderful.</p><p>Over the past two years I've had a few chances to talk to Luit a bit about his career (not very interested in talking about that) and way of working and making films (much more interested). He loved every aspect of it: the relationships (as exasperating as they might be at times), the arguments, the storytelling, the documentation, the romance of the archive, visual punch, emotional heft, the precious, precious stories of people's lives.</p><p>Luit, of course, was a vocal opponent of the dissolving of the National Art Gallery in the creation of Te Papa in the 1990s, and a <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/outrage-at-hatchet-job-on-te-papa/NITUYLLUW7TMHDWOZJWTUKRURI/">staunch critic</a> <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/new-zealand/otago-daily-times/20181026/281964608707808">of the way</a> Te Papa has collected, shown and served art since opening. At the same time, he could critique because he showed up; he was a frequent user and annotator of those archives; and a friend and encouragement to staff. He was a critic, because he cared deeply and he had strong opinions. Would that we all had that kind of passion.</p>Luit Bieringa. He was just a really cool cat. He and Jan have always been incredibly kind to me, first with my first husband, William, and now with Reuben. When I moved to Tory St Luit became part of my neighbourhood, and I'd bump into him often at the lights on the corner or at breakfast at Prefab. This part of Wellington will be quieter without him. While his death does not come as a shock, we all have to get used to this new gap in our environment, that space that will gradually heal over into memory.<div><br /></div><div>All my love to Jan, the kids and their whānau.</div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-LBvKNZbokiu6stp2t9Tx3JzlkWKJY8rJUyewQT2inaf1qNF1l1e13iY-RO6fA0P1Shl1d6MbAZ4GiyVK121pXxIdRLUvzGsmD9Q2P_NB7EpbaLnJNf9EJG-Dn5yfY4NnAZs7guohbllT4QPId0kQJQHDkRfKZlxHpzdJXBPfElBh0MIr62yc1Pd/s1034/Stuart%201960s.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><img border="0" data-original-height="1034" data-original-width="818" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG-LBvKNZbokiu6stp2t9Tx3JzlkWKJY8rJUyewQT2inaf1qNF1l1e13iY-RO6fA0P1Shl1d6MbAZ4GiyVK121pXxIdRLUvzGsmD9Q2P_NB7EpbaLnJNf9EJG-Dn5yfY4NnAZs7guohbllT4QPId0kQJQHDkRfKZlxHpzdJXBPfElBh0MIr62yc1Pd/w316-h400/Stuart%201960s.jpg" width="316" /></i></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Jan and Luit in the 1960s, from an Instagram post shared today by Stuart McKenzie</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div><a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/arts/129054812/innovative-but-pragmatic-friend-to-arts-community">The official Dominion Post obituary</a>, written by Mark Amery in collaboration with Luit, Jan, family and friends</div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-4643061825649287242022-06-18T23:07:00.001+12:002022-06-18T23:09:57.560+12:00Link round-up: AMAGA-inspired and related<p> This past week I attended the <a href="https://camd.org.au/">CAM-D</a> (Council of Australasian Museum Directors) and <a href="https://www.amaga.org.au/">AMAGA</a> (Australian Museums and Art Galleries Association)* meetings in Perth, also a chance to see the new <a href="https://visit.museum.wa.gov.au/boolabardip/">WA Museum Boola Bardip</a> and the first time I've left Aotearoa since 2019.</p><p>It felt like waking up. Like a big lungful of fresh air. Thinking at scale again, meeting new people again, get out of the usual conversational grooves and organisational concerns we all tend to slip into, but have stayed in longer over the past two years of the pandemic.</p><p>One of the many things I realised while I was away is that I miss writing. I write so much in my day job that since joining Te Papa, I've barely put any thoughts down outside the course of my work. It's time to ease back in.</p><p>So, as a baby-step, here's a round-up of things that I read throughout the week (conference related, and just chronologically aligned).</p><p><a href="https://twitter.com/adzebill">Mike Dickison</a> linked to two articles this week that I found really interesting:</p><p>University of York archaeology lecturer Colleen Morgan's <b><a href="https://colleen-morgan.com/2022/06/13/the-outrage-machine/">The Outrage Machine</a></b>, about dealing with the Daily Mail publishing an "outrage-bait" article about her (and others') use of content warnings in their course materials. Morgan's strategy basically boils down to "don't feed the trolls". She notes:</p><blockquote>As an academic you really want to set the record straight, to potentially educate the journalist, or perhaps the public, but it doesn’t work that way. With outrage bait articles they are not looking for a reasoned response. They don’t want you to convince them, they want you to be the dumb woke academic mollycoddling our fragile students. They want column inches and maybe a photo of you for their right wing audience to mock. Give them nothing. I’m writing this during the furore, but will likely post it only after things have died down.</blockquote><p>Oxford University Museum of Natural History curator Mark Carnell on <b><a href="https://fistfulofcinctans.wordpress.com/2016/06/23/how-and-why-to-cite-museum-specimens-in-research/">How and why to cite museums specimens in research</a></b>. In this post, Carnell describes how poor or overlooked citations of museum collection material create more work, don't show the value of museum collections to research, and amount to trash science:</p><blockquote>For many natural history museums, although we work with a range of audiences, scientific publications using our specimens is one of our key measures of success, justifying our staff and existence to local, national and international funding bodies. We’re ecstatic when publications using the collection come out because it’s one of the reasons we are there in the first place. We’re actively keen to promote your research on our collections to our audiences through exhibitions, online and social media. All we ask for in return (and often this is on one of those forms you sign) is that you let us know when you publish, give us a copy of the paper or book and cite the specimens properly. </blockquote><p>Somebody at the conference linked to Elizabeth Merritt's (Center for the Future of Museums) latest post <b><a href="https://www.aam-us.org/2022/06/15/in-praise-of-mission-creep/">In Praise of Mission Creep</a></b>. In it she notes that the phrase "mission creep" originated in military operations, and that sometimes carrying language over without scrutinising the underlying thinking and context (most of us are not literally running aggressive, politically-charged, life-or-death operations) can be unhelpful, inappropriate, or make our thinking lazy:</p><blockquote>Looked at from a different perspective, “mission creep” is often a side effect of the mission itself. This happens, for example, when missions create artificially narrow constraints by focusing on the mechanisms of the work (collect, preserve, interpret) rather than on the change an organization wants to make in the world.</blockquote><p>As a relief from all those quite long articles, here's a tweet from the conference by Michael Parry that summarises a concept we need to communicate better about our sector: </p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Loving this history of the <a href="https://twitter.com/EgyptianMuseumC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@EgyptianMuseumC</a> another reminder that all museums go through these long cycles of building, rebuilding and redefinition. We may think of them as "permanent institutions" but really it just depends on your timeframe of reference. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AMaGA2022?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#AMaGA2022</a></p>— Michael Parry (@vaguelym) <a href="https://twitter.com/vaguelym/status/1537273425974411265?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 16, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>One of the talks I missed was by ACMI's Lucie Paterson and researcher Indigo Holcombe-James; luckily ACMI has long (under Seb Chan's leadership, in a way many of us <i>did</i> in the (g)olden days but few of us - including me - <i>still do</i>): <b><a href="https://labs.acmi.net.au/amaga-2022-presentation-how-to-increase-your-museums-digital-literacy-30dbc50fcc56">How to increase your museum's digital literacy</a></b>.</p><p>I'm putting this tweet here simply because I know I'm going to want this as a metaphor for so many things in future</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Crested mynas, as many other birds, are born altricially, which means young are underdeveloped at the time of birth, therefore fed by parents. When they grow up, they have to learn that food doesn't simply jump into their beaks [📽️: Rebecca Gelernter] <a href="https://t.co/xhH1TouIwd">pic.twitter.com/xhH1TouIwd</a></p>— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1535585412361723904?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 11, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>Tristram Hunt at the V&A in London is one of the few museum directors (in English, anyway) who blogs frequently and with a argument (rather than anodyne statements that do not court controversy). I respect him for putting his arguments out there. His posts often leave me feeling unsettled - often professionally grumpy, if I'm honest, with a tendency to write them off as pleas for a status quo and assumption of privilege that I think Western museums should be recognising, reconciling and reinventing for an equitable future. </p><p>His latest post, <b><a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/design-and-society/the-enlightenment-and-the-universal-museum">The Enlightenment and the Universal Museum</a></b> leaves me wondering - as I so often do with his writing - whether I'm just being chippy in seeing it as an exercise in yes-but-still-ism. In it he accepts that the Enlightenment (and the museums that emerged from it) was a beautiful dream based on racism and sexism. He writes:</p><blockquote>the challenge for museum leadership is to unpick such toxic legacies and then seek to re-imagine the mission of the Enlightenment as an egalitarian, empowering, and transformative project.</blockquote><p> He then writes that the museum needs be a 'cultural and psychological resource' to help individuals 'transcend inherited identities'. That in order to retain trust, the opening of authority in museum collections and interpretation to previously excluded communities and experts must be 'additive to the essential role of museum curation by experts in the field'. He concludes:</p><blockquote>Finally, we need to move from the Universal Museum of the Enlightenment to the Cosmopolitan Museum of the 21st century. The racism of the Enlightenment needs to be replaced by a much richer understanding of how the construction of European identity was always a global endeavour. This necessitates a continued reckoning with the imperial and colonial past and, with it, new strategies around restitution and repatriation based on reciprocity, humility, and shared professional endeavour with colleagues in the Global South. The post-war hierarchies must be dismantled to shape a truly cosmopolitan public sphere. </blockquote><blockquote>
That is the modern calling of the Enlightenment – which endowed so many superb cultural institutions that have, in turn, transformed so many lives over the years. It still matters.</blockquote><p>I don't know. I'm getting a weaselly feel off the phrase "Cosmopolitan Museum". I recently (I wish I could remember where) saw someone refer to cosmopolitanism (celebrating immigration, diversity, complex histories) as a possible alternative to biculturalism. Becoming cosmopolitan does not feel to me like decolonising, or deep-reaching re-purposing and reinvention. It feels like a more acceptable face on an old idea. I'm going to have to mull this one.</p><p>*No-one knows how to pronounce either of these acronyms. That was one of my favourite parts of the trip. </p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-87904764118304641462022-02-22T12:02:00.005+13:002022-02-22T12:02:44.748+13:00Museums, media and public trust: National Digital Forum opening, February 2022I was delighted to be asked (along with Honiana Love from Ngā Taonga, Rachel Esson from National Library, and Stephen Clarke from Archives New Zealand) to give a short presentation at the <a href="https://www.ndf.org.nz/programme">2022 NDF conference</a> this week. <div><br /></div><div>I've been engaged with NDF for such a long time now - as attendee, Board member, conference organiser and speaker. It always feels like going home.</div><div><br /></div><div>This year I felt extra lucky to be asked to introduce Anna Fifield, editor of the <i>DominionPost</i>, for her keynote lecture, and then conduct a Q&A afterwards. This gave me an opportunity to examine some ideas I've been mulling for awhile now, about the connection between museums (and the wider GLAM sector, but museums is my knowledge area), the media and public trust. It was fuelled by that old adage, "the news is the first draft of history" and my addiction to that peculiarly specific genre, the media commenting on itself (like the legendary <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch">Mediawatch</a>). Over the last few years we've seen the media critically engaging with its own histories and practices - one of the reasons Anna was asked to present was <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/our-truth/123533668/our-truth-t-mtou-pono-stuff-introduces-new-treaty-of-waitangi-based-charter-following-historic-apology">Stuff's Our Truth: Tā Mātou Pono work</a> - in much the same way museums and cultural institutions have looked at their own histories, ignorance and damaging actions and sought to do better. I was keen to draw out these connections.</div><div><br /></div><div>Stuff have also made an explicit commitment to public trust as their key performance metric, as described by <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/22-01-2021/the-fold-stuffs-owner-sinead-boucher-on-how-she-bought-the-company-for-1">owner Sinead Boucher in this interview with Duncan Greive</a>. Trust is a topic the media canvasses regularly (<a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018793371/we-ve-got-trust-issues-with-news">see this Mediawatch segment from last year</a>). It's also a topic museums are regularly gathering data on. My particular area of interest is where trust and expectations of neutrality collide. </div><div><br /></div><div>In my framing talk, I returned to a section of <a href="https://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2014/05/museums-social-work.html">a presentation I gave in 2014 at NDF</a>, looking at a piece of research conducted by the British Museums Association into what the public expected from museums. Asked to rank a group of purposes supplied by the museum sector, workshop participants rated collecting and caring for national heritage as the core and most important purpose of museums, and social change / care for vulnerable people as lowest priority. Seeking to tackle controversial topics or shape opinions in any way was seen as <i>counter</i> to museums' purpose and undermining of the trusted position they held. </div><div><br /></div><div>Looking at recent research from Britain, Australia and America, in my talk I touched on this ongoing tension between trust and neutrality. In the era of Covid, mis and disinformation, the current anti-mandate protests in Wellington and the rising antagonism towards the media in Aotearoa, this felt like a fruitful place to start a conversation about what our sector and the media could learn from each other.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>Resources that informed this presentation and the Q&A with Anna Fifield:</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div>Museums Association, <span style="background-color: white; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: #1155cc;"><u>In museums they trust</u></span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 2013</span></div><div><span id="docs-internal-guid-be2b096d-7fff-79b0-ec3b-f25f310d4a96"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Britain Thinks for Museums Association, <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/app/uploads/2020/06/03042013-britain-thinks.pdf ">Public perceptions of - and attitudes to - the purposes of museums in society</a>, 2013 [referenced in talk]</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; white-space: normal;">Nina Simon, </span><a href="http://museumtwo.blogspot.com/2013/04/seeking-clarity-about-complementary.html" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; white-space: normal;">Seeking clarity about the complementary nature of social work and the arts</a><span style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; white-space: normal;">, 2013</span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">Courtney Johnston, <a href="https://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2014/05/museums-social-work.html">Museums and social work: a year of changing thinking</a>, 2014</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">Dr fari nzinga, <a href="https://incluseum.com/2016/11/29/public-trust-and-art-museums/">Public trust and art museums</a>, The Incluseum, 2016</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 12pt; margin-top: 12pt;">American Alliance of Museums, <a href="https://www.aam-us.org/2021/09/30/museums-and-trust-2021/">Museums and trust</a>, 2021<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[referenced in talk]</span></p>Western Australian Museum, <a href="https://museum.wa.gov.au/about/latest-news/value-museums-demonstrated-during-covid-19">Value of museums demonstrated during Covid-19</a>, 2021 <br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p>Democracy 2025, <a href="https://www.democracy2025.gov.au/documents/Is%20Australia%20still%20the%20lucky%20country.pdf">Political trust and democracy in times of Coronavirus</a>, 2021 <span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[referenced in talk]</span><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p>Museum Next, <a href="https://www.museumnext.com/article/museum-curators-among-the-most-trusted-professionals/">Museum curators amongst most trusted professionals</a>, 2021 <span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[referenced in talk]</span><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></p><a href="https://www.edelman.com/trust/2022-trust-barometer ">Edelman Trust Barometer 2022</a></span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Duncan Greive, <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/22-01-2021/the-fold-stuffs-owner-sinead-boucher-on-how-she-bought-the-company-for-1">The Fold: Stuff's owner Sinead Boucher on how she bought the company for $1</a>, The Spinoff, 2019 </span></div><div><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p>Mark Stevens, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/our-truth/300165985/stuffs-apology-to-mori--our-truth-t-mtou-pono">Stuff's apology to Māori: Our Truth, Tā Mātou Pono</a>, 2020</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Katarina Williams, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/our-truth/123533668/our-truth-t-mtou-pono-stuff-introduces-new-treaty-of-waitangi-based-charter-following-historic-apology">Our Truth Tā Mātou Pono: Stuff introduces new Treaty of Waitangi-based charter following historic apology</a>, Stuff, 2020</span></div><div><span><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/our-truth/300168692/stuffs-charter-a-brave-new-era-for-nzs-largest-media-company">Stuff's charter: A brave new era for NZ's largest media company</a>, Stuff, 2020</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Te Manu Korihi, <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/431725/stuff-apologises-for-its-coverage-of-maori-issues">Stuff apologies for its coverage of Māori issues</a>, RNZ, 2020</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p>MediaWatch, <a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018793371/we-ve-got-trust-issues-with-news">We've got trust issues - with news</a>, RNZ, 2021</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Anna Fifield, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/wellington-top-stories/300416719/letter-from-the-editor-on-choosing-what-not-to-cover">Letter from the editor: On choosing what not to cover</a>, Stuff, 2021 </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: Spectral, serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">[referenced in talk]</span></div><div><span><br /></span></div><div><span>Anna Fifield, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/300301693/letter-from-the-editor-trying-to-instil-trust-in-the-ne">Letter from the editor: On trying to instill trust in the news</a>, Stuff, 2021</span></div><div><span><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><a href="https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/mediawatch/audio/2018825127/mediawatch-for-19-december-2021">MediaWatch for 19 December 2021</a>, RNZ, 2021 (featuring Hal Crawford, see below)</p><div><span><br /></span></div>Hal Crawford, <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/media/19-11-2021/rip-centrism-why-stuff-is-gradually-moving-left-while-the-herald-inches-right">RIP centrism: Why Stuff is gradually moving left while the Herald inches right</a>, The Spinoff, 2021<br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Anna Fifield, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/127682814/when-did-our-public-service-get-so-arrogant">When did our public servants get so arrogant</a>, Stuff, 2022</p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><br /></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">Andrew Ecclestone and Simon Wright, <a href="https://www.stuff.co.nz/opinion/127798835/how-the-media-can-improve-the-toxic-dynamic-with-government">How the media can improve the toxic dynamic with government</a>, Stuff, 2022</p></span></div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-22552214544342069662022-01-12T09:31:00.000+13:002024-01-12T09:44:44.618+13:00Gavin Hipkins: View Finder<blockquote>
<p><em style="color: #555555; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;">There's no point anymore in being a photographer, at least in the sense of a photographer who attempts to distinguish themselves by producing a certain ‘type‘ or 'style' of photograph. The specialist-photographer today is like someone trying to chop down a forest of trees with a blunt axe: they'll eventually die of exhaustion - <a href="https://contemporaryhum.com/writing/clinic-of-phantasms/">Giovanni Intra</a></em></p>
</blockquote>
I fell into a time-trap on Tuesday night.<div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737885" height="480" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/9dbb021c-d4f2-ad9b-0f21-1d3111ca17c5.jpeg" style="max-width: 640px; width: 640px;" width="640" /></div>
</div><div><br /></div><div>That's one of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavin_Hipkins">Gavin Hipkins</a>' <em>Falls, </em>from a series of works he made in the 1990s. It's on display at the Wellington Webbs showrooms at the moment, in an <a href="https://www.webbs.co.nz/departments/wellington/">exhibition of NZ photography from the collection of Howard Greive and Gabrielle McKone</a>. <br />
<br />
Hipkins' photography has been a big part of my adult life. The one and only exhibition I've curated was a mega-effort when I was director of The Dowse; I took over the whole ground floor of the museum to present <em><a href="https://dowse.org.nz/exhibitions/detail/gavin-hipkins-the-domain">The Domain</a>, </em>a survey of 25 years of Gavin's work.<br />
<br />
There are a few threads to my attachment to Gavin's work. There's a bit of imprinting going on here: his 2000 exhibition at the Adam Art Gallery of <em><a href="http://www.adamartgallery.org.nz/past-exhibitions/gavin-hipkins-the-habitat/">The Habitat</a> </em>coincided with my first year in Wellington, my first year in art history at Victoria, my first time being immersed in contemporary art. I guess fundamentally I approach visual art as a person who is in love with words ("Shouldn't you be doing English?", someone asked me, at a pivotal moment when I was losing faith in my art history thesis). Gavin's photography is, for me, hyper-verbal. It lends itself to thinking and talking. It is soaked in allusions. What Shane Cotton is to painting, Gavin is to photography, but Shane's been grappling with his Māooritanga while Gavin navigates his Pākehā-ness.<br />
<br />
Second, there's Gavin's friendship with my late husband, William. William had written the <a href="https://www.art-newzealand.com/Issue109/hipkins.htm">10-year survey of Gavin's work for <em>Art New Zealand</em></a>; in many ways, me curating this show in 2017, five years after his death, was me making the exhibition that he never got to do. I was laying some obligations to rest, and making a silent tribute. Curating with a ghost in mind.<br />
<br />
Third, there's the way that in the 2010s I was engaging with photography through the career I'd developed in the web. Web 2.0 hit galleries and photo collections in some really splashy ways. The photo-sharing site Flickr had a special focus on cultural institution partnerships and collections (led by George Oates, who became a mate). Creative Commons surfaced for us. We had to lead a charge on letting people take photos in galleries and share them online (at the Dowse, for example, I rewrote our loan agreements to enable this). <br />
<br />
And web philosophers - especially <a href="https://jamesbridle.com/writing">James Bridle</a> - shaped my thinking. In 2013 I gave a talk on <a href="https://mcleaveygallery.com/artists/ben-cauchi">Ben Cauchi's</a> work (a NZ photographer who has built a practice around very early photographic techniques, like tintypes) called <a href="http://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2013/02/photos-nostalgia.html"><em>Has the internet killed photography</em></a>. That was a real thing we debated then: here's <a href="https://best-of-3.blogspot.com/2013/02/has-internet-killed-photography.html">the list of references and projects</a> I cited, a little time capsule of that moment.<br />
<br />
The tsunami of photography in the 2010s was on my mind when I came to write my essay for the book about Gavin's work. As I started gathering references, I was struck by the tone of the first pieces about him, from the mid to late 1990s, by writers like Giovanni Intra and Justin Paton. These Gen-X curators, writing about a Gen-X artist, as the year 2000 bore down on them - there was this tone of enervation, of resigned exhaustion, of <em>everything's fucked, yet still quite beautiful, and I'm just gonna lie back and take another drag.</em><em> </em><br />
<br />
So that's where I started my essay, which I dug out this week and decided to reshare here. It's an okay piece of writing, though it really needs the show or at least the illustrations to hold it up. I'm proud of a few turns of phrase in there, and a couple of very choice words (<em>fillet, assay</em>). But I'm proudest of all of the Reality Bites quote that I contrived the opening around, which made it all the way through to print.
<div style="text-align: center;"><br />
<strong>GAVIN HIPKINS: VIEW FINDER</strong></div>
<br />
When Gavin Hipkins began exhibiting steadily in the late 1990s, five years or so out of art school, critics and curators - many of them his Gen X compatriots - consistently diagnosed a sense of end-of-millennium exhaustion in his works. As Giovanni Intra wrote about Hipkins in the catalogue for <em>Signs of the Times</em>, a 1997 exhibition of emerging artists:<br />
<br />
<em>There's no point anymore in being a photographer, at least in the sense of a photographer who attempts to distinguish themselves by producing a certain ‘type‘ or 'style' of photograph. The specialist-photographer today is like someone trying to chop down a forest of trees with a blunt axe: they'll eventually die of exhaustion.</em><span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(1)</span><br />
<br />
The photographer was doomed, Intra declared, because the more that photography proliferates, the less chance any individual image has of distinguishing itself from the mass. Two years later, curator Justin Paton suggested Hipkins' 'true subject' was 'the flood, the Niagara of photographs that cascades toward us daily.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(2)</span> The challenge for the artist 'working up against the dead-end of the Twentieth Century', as Blair French put it in 1999, was to find some kind of space in a world where every image was already over-saturated, over-determined, and worn out.<br />
<br />
This narrative of exhaustion crests with <em>Zerfall</em> (1997-1998) the work Hipkins produced for <em>every day</em>, the 11th Biennale of Sydney. One of his signature 'fall' pieces, <em>Zerfall</em> is made up of 24 fluttering strips of machine prints, each frame filled with close-ups of domestic paraphernalia. The strips have a strobing, stuttering effect: objects are not centred in each frame, but often seem to fall through them, or are sliced up over several frames, or repeated without differentiation over a full length of paper. This apparently blasé approach flies in the face of modernist conventions: 'If the classic aesthetic project within modernist photography involved the creation and selection of single images encapsulating ideal form or decisive moment,' wrote French, 'then <em>Zerfall</em> attested to the debilitation of the claims of such singular images to authoritative record of historical experience.'<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(3)</span></div><div> <br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/948571" target="_blank"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737833" height="427" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/1e331962-9179-e2f6-821d-712bab1c9576.jpg" style="max-width: 640px; width: 640px;" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>The Colony</em> (2000-2002), collection of Te Papa on the left; <em>Zerfall</em> (1998), on the right</div>
<br />
The work's title comes from a term used by German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno to signify culture's dissipation and decay in the 20th century. What role then could photography play today, French asked:<br />
<br />
<em>Is it condemned solely to actions of cultural anaesthesia? Can it aspire beyond banal distraction, lifestyle promotion, or cultural nostalgia—those defence mechanisms against post-millennial inertia that have ingratiated themselves so successfully within contemporary art practice as 'critical strategies'?</em><span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(4)</span><br />
<br />
The sense of millennial foreboding expressed in these texts calls to mind the sentiments of Troy Dyer, the slacker antihero of generational touchstone <em>Reality Bites, </em>who resigns himself to the pointlessness of searching for meaning when life is 'just a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. Abandoning the grand narrative, Dyer elects instead to narrow his concerns: 'I sit back and I smoke my Camel Straights and I ride my own melt.'<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(5)</span><br />
<br />
But rather than capitulating in the face of the end of the millennium and the ubiquity of photography, Hipkins displayed, and continues to display, prodigious productivity. Intra may have described him as 'someone unfortunate enough to be struck dumb by photography' while Paton identified his uniqueness as lying in his 'willingness to go with the flow, to succumb to photography'; I would concur with French, who, writing about Hipkins' best-known work, <em>The Homely</em> (1997-2000) concluded:<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(6)</span> <br />
<br />
The Homely<em> (and indeed each of its individual images) bespeaks an acknowledgment of the ultimate impossibility of totally encapsulating all the complexities and contradictions of our changing world within any single photograph. The quality of Hipkins' project is in his careful process of photographically recording fleeting encounters with the visible world, in his collecting and then his reconstituting these visual fragments over and over again in new configurations like some form of compelling but irresolvable puzzle.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(7)</span></em></div><div><em><span style="font-size: 11.0224px;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><em><span style="font-size: 11.0224px;"><a href="https://citygallery.org.nz/exhibitions/gavin-hipkins-the-homely/" target="_blank"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737841" height="427" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/0cb7e4f1-eb83-8763-8182-08d961e12b74.jpg" style="max-width: 640px; width: 640px;" width="640" /></a></span></em></div>
</span></em><div style="text-align: center;">A selection of images from <em>The Homely</em>, these editions from the Auckland Art Gallery</div>
<br />
When we survey Hipkins' career to date, commonalities - in formal presentation, in subject matter, in conceptual approach - emerge and submerge over time, cross-pollinating throughout his work. His strategy of massing images, for example, might be used to dominate a gallery space at one time, and appear in the form of an analogue slide-show at another. His predilection for haberdashery-store notions like doilies and buttons might manifest as a fleeting glimpse or a heroic portrait. His enduring interest in the connections between colonisation and photography may be expressed through photographing a museum diorama, manipulating a digital scan of a 19th century bookplate, or lacing Google Earth footage into a film. In this way, Hipkins' work does not progress linearly, but rather moves in eddies, as he revisits and redeploys both his art-making tactics and his ever-growing artistic archive.<br />
<br />
While still an undergraduate student, Hipkins made the remarkably farsighted decision to devote himself to <em>not </em>developing a signature style. Several factors combined to bring the young artist to this point. For one, he had come to see the career of painter Colin McCahon as a possible model, admiring his plurality of practice, the way the older artist had moved fluidly between formats while staying committed to core concerns.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(8)</span> For another, artistic borrowing was in the air: Hipkins was studying at Elam School of Fine Art alongside artists like Intra, Haruhiko Sameshima and Anna Sanderson, and later recalled that they were ‘playing with each others' works, borrowing each others' styles'.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(9)</span> As William McAloon observed in 2003, the effect of this borrowing was to 'void his work of a signature style, make it unrecognisable as his own.'<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(10)</span> McAloon also noted the benefits of avoiding pigeon-holing:<br />
<br />
<em>By utilising a range of photographic practices, Hipkins was also circumventing a conventional career route that would have him build his reputation on the basis of one type of work before branching out. Moreover, by having a variety of styles at his disposal, he was able to present his work in a range of exhibition contexts. It's a strategy that has worked well, even if it has resulted in some confusion along the way. When a curator in America recently asked Hipkins which of the two very different works he had seen - The Next Cabin and The Mill (2001) - was the more representative of his practice, Hipkins' reply was, 'both, of course'.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(11)</span></em><br />
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We can trace the mutable nature of Hipkins' practice by considering a selection of his earliest works, all represented in the survey exhibition <em>The Domain</em>: the <em>Falls</em>, <em>The Vision</em>, and <em>The Field</em>.<br />
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Hipkins produced his first 'falls' - uncut strips of film, shown pinned to the wall from the top, loosely rustling at the bottom - while still a student at Elam. He turned the camera on himself and his immediate surroundings, documenting domestic details: 'light bulbs, switches, cheese graters, cupcakes, cucumbers and other such scraps of eye-lint.'<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;"> (12)</span> Each 'fall' consists of a single 24-frame roll of film, shot in one act and printed without editing. The works have a performative aspect; what we see is what the artist was looking at, where his attention was drawn. 'They were literally "looking around",' Hipkins said in a 2003 interview.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(13) </span>When he embarked on this format he was living at Elam’s Fisher Lodge, in the 'wilderness' at Little Huia, 30 kilometres from Auckland city, feeling isolated and inwards-looking.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(14)</span><br />
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The <em>Falls</em> were the first works that curators latched on to. Pieces from Hipkins' final-year BFA show at Elam were quickly incorporated by influential curator Gregory Burke into a 1992 group exhibition at the Wellington City Art Gallery; a three-metre <em>Fall</em> featuring a repeated image of the artist's foot was included by William McAloon in <em>Station to Station: The Way of the Cross, 14 Contemporary Artists</em> at Auckland Art Gallery in 1994. Initially, the falls were hung individually, or in small groupings, modest and unassuming; over time, they became larger and more cohesive. Hipkins began incorporating coloured blank frames and purpose-bought objects (dollar-shop tchotchkes, often soft and round), and imagery pilfered from art books, travel magazines and websites. With curatorial nudging, the <em>Falls</em> began to coalesce into wall-length sheets of imagery, culminating in <em>Zerfall</em>; the 95-piece <em>The Stall</em> (2000)<em>, </em>produced while Hipkins was artist in residence at the Waikato Museum of Art and History; and the seven-work suite <em>The Gulf</em> (2000-2001), the final appearance of the 'fall’ format where screenshots from porn sites are intercut with scenic travel shots.<br />
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Writers who dissected these early works all agreed on their cinematic quality. The works had the appearance of strips of film hung out to dry; the same object often appears through several contiguous frames, waiting for the editorial eye to splice them into a properly realised form. Trained to seek out linear narrative, our gaze sweeps over the falls, but rather than finding a thread to follow gets snagged backwards or forwards or sideways. </div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737849" height="277" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/b70da17b-515c-78d6-bebe-99ee7e7965ee.jpg" style="max-width: 320px; width: 320px;" width="320" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>The Gulf (Teen)</em> (2001), one of Hipkins' <em>Falls</em>.</div>
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If we jump forward in Hipkins' work, we see many of the components of the <em>Falls</em> take on new forms over time. The descending frames of the vertical strips are flicked sideways and become the frieze format of <em>The Homely</em> (1997-2000) and <em>The Next Cabin</em> (2000-2002). The decorative oddments come into focus in lush, large-scale works like <em>The Oval</em> (1998), a bobbly beige soap dish on a wood-veneer background, which won the inaugural Waikato Art Award, and <em>The Shaman (Blue) </em>(2006), perhaps the most preposterously beautiful of Hipkins' single images, a silkily tactile circlet of fur on a periwinkle backdrop. The reproductions from art books re-emerge during an artist's residency in New York, where Hipkins visited famous art museums and photographed paintings and sculptures, forming the basis of the series <em>Tender Buttons</em> (2006), where they are overlaid with pearlescent buttons sourced in New York's garment district. And of course, the cinematic quality becomes cinema. Hipkins began interspersing his photographs with video works in the late 1990s; the experimental films often riffed on his still photography motifs, such <em>The Relay</em> (1999), in which bath-bomb after bath-bomb dissolves in a tub of water. From 2010 Hipkins began making short, fragmentary narrative films; in 2014 he released his first feature-length film <em>Erewhon</em>, and today he works as frequently in film as he does still images.</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/object/778464" target="_blank"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737853" height="668" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/d059f20c-254f-04ce-6ddf-cb32a0f70461.jpeg" style="max-width: 640px; width: 640px;" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>The Shaman (Blue)</em> (2006), collection of Te Papa</div>
<br />
Barbara Blake, an early writer on the <em>Falls</em>, commented on their beauty, 'glowing with colour and sometimes blurred into abstract shapes'. She continued, 'This would seem to be an accidental aesthetic, but one which Hipkins exploits, re-aestheticising conceptual photography.'<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(15)</span> Blake paired her discussion of the <em>Falls</em> with an analysis of <em>Westwards</em> (1993), a contemporaneous body of work which show Hipkins taking a very different approach to the reworking of conceptual photography.<br />
<br />
Hipkins had started reprinting found imagery while at art school: this is hardly surprising, given the postmodern zeitgeist and the pervasive influence of the Pictures Generation. He recalls knowing of the artists associated with this loose grouping - figures like Louise Lawler, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger and Richard Prince - but not necessarily the bigger 'concept': a generation of artists, largely working with photography, who appropriated existing images from sources both high and low, and used this found imagery to fillet power, value and identity in a politically uncertain period of American history.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(16)</span> Nonetheless, ironic appropriation and gleeful reuse of the riches of mass media, advertising and previous art icons' work was the flavour of the moment.</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737845" height="427" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/f1dd86cf-a3ba-81c4-1922-c2ba4aa81ffe.jpg" style="max-width: 640px; width: 640px;" width="640" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>The Vision, </em>a recreation of a 1995 work, restaged at The Dowse in 2017</div>
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In works like <em>Westwards</em> Hipkins curated kitschy decor posters into groupings that hinted at a unifying concept. (In 1994's <em>The Secret</em> we see a sly aggregation of clefts and phallic stand-ins: towering skyscrapers, a silhouetted couple holding hands before a sunset, a pouncing pink-gulleted black panther, and a Surrealist ocean liner sailing through a series of doorways). The images were selected from stockpiles of offset-prints manufactured in Switzerland in the late 1970s, which Hipkins found in a West Auckland bargain basement store, and then transported into the gallery space. The works were brought together in <em>The Vision</em>, Hipkins' first solo exhibition at a public gallery, curated by Athol McCredie at the Manawatu Art Gallery (now Te Manawa), one of the earliest institutions in New Zealand to promote photography as a serious art form. After several decades of photographers like Peter Peryer and Laurence Aberhart working to establish the medium's place in the art gallery, in walked Gavin Hipkins, apparently taking the piss.<br />
<br />
It's easy to dismiss these works as juvenile. Certainly their overt tackiness seems at odds with Hipkins' oeuvre, which even at its roughest - printed on aged photo paper, or realised as newsprint banners - retains a distinctive elegance. Yet conceptually, with their seemingly careless attitude toward subject matter, these works tie to the de-heroising impulse of the <em>Falls</em>, and also to Hipkins' early-career outings as a curator, including his 1998 project <em>Folklore: The New Zealanders</em>, which drew its content from coffee-table photography books, drawing forth a 20th-century Pākehā narrative of New Zealand.</div><div><br />
<img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737857" height="470" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/06276769-dc81-bcab-153e-6b3dc7884edb.jpg" style="max-width: 473px; width: 473px;" width="473" />
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>Empire (Ship II)</em> (2007)</div>
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Perhaps the most compelling argument for revisiting these appropriation works is to provide context for three bodies of work, produced in close succession in the late 2000s. <em>Empire</em> (2007), <em>Second Empire</em> (2008) and <em>Bibles Studies (New Testament)</em> (2008) , caused confusion, even consternation, amongst Hipkins' followers. In thee works Hipkins turned away from the realist mode of photography and instead began scanning and manipulating line-drawn illustrations from a range of books (mid-20th century British <em>Commonwealth</em> and <em>Empire</em> annuals, sumptuous 1880s travel publications, a 1968 Italian illustrated collection of Bible stories for children). Onto these he digitally overlaid massively enlarged embroidered patches. Big (the largest measuring two metres), brash (one work is emblazoned with an all-caps EVIL; in another a depiction of the Annunciation is capped by the phrase 'Abandoned Youth'), and not even necessarily photographs as such (the <em>Second Empire </em>works are printed on stretched canvas) the three collections seemed aberrant unless you took the long view as the artist obviously did. In an article on the <em>Second Empire</em> series Hipkins himself observed a connection back to his art-school experiments:<br />
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<em>I need to remind myself that this is not the first time my practice has turned to strategies of borrowing and coupling. [...] This is how we worked under the tyranny of the shadow of Roland Barthes'</em> Death of the Author<em>; in the distant wake of defining practices by Richard Prince and Sherrie Levine: for then it seemed (as today), how else to make images but by sourcing and reframing?<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(17)</span></em><br />
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Under this framework, these aberrant works become another evolution in Hipkins' thinking about image-making. This sourcing and reframing found further expression as Hipkins has moved into film-making; his 2016 short film <em>New World</em>, for example, collages text from an 1849 publication encouraging immigration to north-east Texas, lines drawings from <em>American Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil</em> (1878), an illustrated travel publication, solarised photographs from <em>National Geographic</em> and <em>Penthouse</em>, and drone-like footage of Texas sourced from Google Earth.<br />
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Hipkins' appropriation works were also an astute way for a new artist with few financial resources to cheaply yet effectively fill an entire gallery space. This kind of resourcefulness was characteristic of his first decade or so of regular exhibiting:: throughout the late 1990s you could see him in exhibitions such as <em>Signs of the Times</em> (City Gallery Wellington, 1997) and <em>The Circuit</em> (Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 1999) finding ways to take up a lot of space with small photographs, massing or otherwise arranging his materials into full-gallery installations.<br />
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An early and still powerful example of this strategy is seen in <em>The Field</em> (1994-1995). In January 1994 Hipkins relocated from Auckland to Wellington, working part-time as a dishwasher until eventually taking up a position as a photography technician in the School of Design at Wellington Polytechnic (now Massey University's College of Creative Arts). His official job was to reproduce images from books as slides for design lecturers, but it also gave him access to a dark room, free chemicals, and a stash of expired photo paper. Over the summer of 1994 he printed manically, making the pieces that would be assembled into <em>The Field</em> - 1,500 photograms, each made by exposing a sheet of photographic paper overlaid with a polystyrene ball. Pasted up side by side, row by row on a single wall at Auckland's Teststrip gallery, and then re-presented at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the work caught the imagination of writers and curators, who called on diverse references to explicate it, from star-struck sci-fi films to the utopian ideals of avant-garde photography.<br />
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<em>The Field</em> was also a wellspring for future works. Photograms have occurred over and over in Hipkins' practice. In one trajectory, the massing seen in <em>The Field</em> resolved into simpler, more clean-cut installations, like <em>The Well (White)</em> and <em>The Well (Black)</em> (1995) and <em>The Ring</em> (2000). The starry shimmer of <em>The Field</em> is concentrated in these works into a tauter, more rhythmical beat. In another line of inquiry, the fripperies sourced for the <em>Falls</em> and monumentalised in works like <em>The Shaman (Blue)</em> become a key element in <em>New Age</em> (2002 - ongoing) and <em>The Sanctuary</em> (2004-2006) where photographs of landscapes are overlaid by bright-white apparitions formed by double-exposures of doilies, chain necklaces, threaded sequins and ribbons.</div><div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737861" height="427" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/96abf5b8-2573-9578-40d5-d5eff3b3a7d4.jpg" style="max-width: 640px; width: 640px;" width="640" /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><em>The Well (White)</em> and <em>The Well (Black)</em> flanking <i>The Colony</i> at The Dowse</div>
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The polystyrene balls of <em>The Field</em> are also called into service multiple times, most notably in <em>The Colony</em> (2000-2002), produced for the 25th Sao Paulo Biennial. Here Hipkins glued together balls of various sizes, painted them and photographed them against makeshift paper backdrops. The 100 framed images are then hung in a pattern that evokes a bar graph or cityscape, though not in a specified order. The retro-coloured balls (lots of orange, red, grey and beige) have little sense of scale, looking both like habitation domes in an alien landscapes and spores on a petri dish. Writing about <em>The Colony</em>, Hipkins noted:<br />
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<em>In their shapeliness, these photographs of small models aspire to slot into the category of generic mounds, hybrid forms and nowhere colonies that are found under the scientist's microscope, the astronomer's telescope, or the captain's periscope. Anywhere, but always, like history, at the end of a lens.<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(18)</span></em></div><div><span style="font-size: 11.0224px;"><i><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img class="tl-email-image" data-id="4737869" height="426" src="https://gallery.tinyletterapp.com/40fe734263a6d4c5406f429472ec34e089210cc0/images/b71e33b2-f7ee-7db4-a4ea-affea52ad744.jpg" style="max-width: 640px; width: 640px;" width="640" /></div></i></span><div style="text-align: center;">Detail from <em>The Colony</em></div>
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This painting of props and confusion of scale re-emerges in Hipkins' current series, the <em>Block Paintings </em>(2015-ongoing). Here, miniature wooden blocks are painted in a restricted yet rich palette of colours (cream, white, crimson, black, grey, azure blue), then photographed with a shallow depth of field, throwing the painted surfaces into high relief in large prints, where the technology of photography, the tactility of painting, and the physical presence of sculpture merge.<br />
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It is impossible, surveying the full expanse of Hipkins' work, not to notice the pervasiveness of circular forms. They are there in every format and at every scale: the round light-switches in the <em>Falls</em>, the spheres that give form to photograms like <em>The Field</em> and <em>The Coil</em>, the gravid bobbles of <em>The Colony</em>, the ghostly doilies in <em>The Sanctuary</em>, sheeny buttons in <em>The Terrace</em>, embroidered ovals in <em>Empire</em> and <em>Second Empire</em>, the painted semi-circles of the <em>Block Paintings</em>. Writers have hypothesised on the circle in many ways but one intriguing possibility emerges from Hipkins' own childhood. As an eight-year old, he nearly drowned in a motel swimming pool. He retains a visceral memory of seeing from beneath the surface of the water the circle of an inner-tube floating above him, dark against the sunlight. A subliminal memory, perhaps, that has directed his vision ever since?<br />
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For almost as long as Hipkins has been making art, the moniker 'tourist of photography' has been attached to him. Coined by Giovanni Intra, the phrase has a dual meaning, encapsulating both the importance travel holds for Hipkins' practice (he has made work in India, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, England, the United States, Canada, and numerous other locations) and the way he calls upon diverse aesthetics and nuances within the history of photography (architectural, modernist, commercial, pictorial, documentary).<span style="font-size: 11.0224px;">(19)</span> The label also evokes the close connection between modern tourism and photography, which developed in tandem: the activity of the camera-toting tourist, the use of imagery to sell tourist destinations, the way we understand distant places by way of the images produced and disseminated of them. Hipkins has knowingly played on all these connotations in his work, and much has been written on this theme. Here, I am interested in how <em>time</em> travel, as much as <em>geographical</em> travel, is a structural aspect of his work.<br />
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Photographs, of course, always entail some element of time travel. The technology literally freezes light: today's digital photographs, stuffed full of metadata as well as graphical information, could be seen as time capsules. The ineluctable sense of the passage of time contained within photographs is what imbues them so often with melancholy. </div><div><br /></div><div> The sense of time passing seeps through Hipkins' work. In 1997, for example, he travelled to northern India to take photographs in the city of Chandigarh, established by the country's first prime minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru, after the 1947 partitioning of British India. In the 1950s Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier produced a radical plan for the city, and in a prominent position he placed one of his signature open hand monuments. As Robert Leonard recounts: </div><div><br /></div><div><i>Located alongside a sunken amphitheater, the giant, idealised hand slowly rotates to suggest ‘the direction of the wind (that is, the state of affairs)’. The judges and lawyers of Chandigarh once identified the monstrous disembodied hand as a representation of the Law, but, at the time of Hipkins’ visit, the Hand’s ‘Trench of Contemplation’ had been co-opted by kids as a makeshift cricket pitch, reflecting instead the fate of modernism’s lofty ideals.(20) </i></div><div><br /></div><div> Hipkins' resulting work, <i>The Trench</i> (1997-1998), consists of 80 images of Le Corbusier's hand, double-exposed with blooms from Chandigarh's famous rose gardens, produced as slides to be played through an analogue slide projector. The work has overtones of the now-outmoded tourist slideshow, but abstracted, with a lush yet ominous beauty. Contained within the affect of the work and its backstory is a sense of a dimming utopian vision. </div><div><br /></div><div>Time travel is more explicit in <i>The Habitat</i> (1999-2000), another travel-based work. Hipkins toured New Zealand universities, documenting the Brutalist buildings constructed during the boom years of the 1960s and 1970s to house the super-sized post-war generation as it entered tertiary education. Rather than taking conventional architectural shots, Hipkins concentrated on details, often signs of wear - cracked window panes, snaking vines, begrimed surfaces. The sense of decay is heightened by his choice of materials: the 72 silver gelatin prints are printed on expired photo paper, over or under-exposed, each imprinted with an archival-style stamp. Three time periods are collapsed in The Habitat: the 1950s, when the Brutalist style emerged in Britain amidst a post-war spirit of democratisation; the 1960s and 1970s, when New Zealand's largest generation took advantage of state-funded education and flooded into universities; and the end of the 1990s, by which time student loans had been introduced and the dream of a free education was rapidly fading. </div><div><br /></div><div>This folding-in of time is enacted in the travel-based series <i>The Homely </i>and <i>The Next Cabin</i> (2000-2002), each of which surface 19th century markers in the contemporary landscape, exploring the signifiers of settler culture. The collapsing or colliding of time becomes more overt in the <i>Empire </i>and <i>Second Empire </i>works, as the period illustrations are brought rudely into the present by the imposition of pop culture adornments. Shortly after this Hipkins begins working more seriously with film, at which point his ability to evoke time, previously restricted to the single still image, is opened up. <i>The Port</i> (2014) is Hipkins' work that deals most explicitly to date with the entanglement of physical and chronological travel. Imagery in the film is drawn from Hipkins' documentation of Jantar Mantars in New Delhi and Jaipur (two of the five immense equinoctial sundials constructed in the early 18th century under the instruction of Maharaja Jai Singh II, which influenced Le Corbusier's planning of Chandigarh), abstracted and naturalistic landscape scenes (a constant in Hipkins' films), and footage taken in Stonefields, a new suburban development in a former quarry in Mt Wellington, Auckland. The film is accompanied by an audio montage of narrated passages from H.G. Wells' science-fiction novel <i>The Time Machine </i>(1895). As Hipkins noted in a 2014 interview: </div><div><br /></div><div>The Port<i> is a science-fiction film which allowed those spaces, those 'ports', to be connected. The playing out of seemingly disparate locations - the Jantar Mantars, the South Island landscapes, and Stonefields - is plausible because we know of this space through travel - and that travel is my own - but also through the abstract travel of H.G. Wells' text. … there are other connections that can be made - the utopian issues, the importance of the 19th century and the calling on of this period's literature, like Butler, H.G. Wells and Darwin, the space of the emergence of modernity and its framing via museums, and the revisiting of those sites, and making new of those strange elements. Those are some of the key threads that continue to underline my practice at a structural level.(21) </i></div><div><br /></div><div>Of all the recurrent themes in Hipkins' practice, perhaps circularity is the most dominant. Locations, landscapes, texts, visual motifs, artistic movements and social ideals have been visited and revisited over the past 25 years, creating a body of work that circles in and around on itself, as new works assay the content, concepts and aesthetics of earlier images and series. Such looping and remixing could become reductive and inward-looking, but Hipkins continues to bring new referents into his spiralling explorations of modernism, nation-building, colonial appetites and visual culture. Each new image layers over images from the past, deriving its meaning not simply from its singular existence but also from its lineage. A metaphor for photography today: not exhausted, not evacuated, but containing multitudes.</div><div><br /></div><div><b>References</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div>1. Giovanni Intra, 'Photogenic', in Signs of the Times: Sampling New Directions in New Zealand Art, Wellington: City Gallery Wellington, 1997, p. 24<br />2 Justin Paton, 'The Anatomy Lesson', in Gavin Hipkins: The Circuit, Dunedin: Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 1999, np.<br />3 Blair French, 'Gavin Hipkins: Scouring Modernity', in Gavin Hipkins: The Pack, Woolloomooloo, NSW: Artspace Visual Arts Centre, 1999, np.<br />4 Blair French, 'Gavin Hipkins and International Photo-Art' in Gavin Hipkins The Homely, Wellington: City Gallery Wellington, 2001, p. 38<br />5. Ibid, p. 40<br />6. Reality Bites (1994), Jersey Films, Universal Pictures. Written by Helen Childress, directed by Ben Stiller.<br />7. Conversation with the artist, February 2017<br />8. Blair French, 'Gavin Hipkins and International Photo-Art', p. 43<br />9. William McAloon, 'Model Worlds: A decade of work by Gavin Hipkins, Art New Zealand, no. 109, Summer 2003/04, p. 58<br />10. Ibid<br />11. Ibid<br />12. Justin Paton, op cit, np<br />13. William McAloon, op cit, pp. 59-60<br />14 Conversation with the artist, February 2017<br />15. Barbara Blake, 'Image Sampler: Recent Photographic Work by Gavin Hipkins', Art New Zealand, no. 71, Winter 1994, p. 59<br />16. Conversation with the artist,February 2017. The Pictures Generation was crystallised in the exhibition Pictures curated by Douglas Crimp at Artists Space in New York in 1977, and his essay 'Pictures', published in October in 1979.<br />17. Gavin Hipkins, 'Second Empire: Spots of Time', Scope (Art), no. 3, November 2008, p. 90<br />18. Gavin Hipkins, 'Notes on The Colony', in Gavin hipkins: The Colony, Auckland: Gus Fisher Gallery, 2002, np.<br />19. Intra, op cit, p. 24<br />20 Robert Leonard, 'The Guide', Art and Text, no. 65 (May-July 1999), p. 41<br />21 Virginia Were, 'Playing the Surrealist card', Art News New Zealand (Spring 2014), p.106<div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><br /></span></div><div><b><br /></b></div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-23048824858971885722021-03-13T10:01:00.000+13:002021-03-13T10:01:32.188+13:00Adventure and Responsibility - an interview with Kimberley Stephenson for the journal of the Australasian Registrars Comittee<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifne9ovCdyUMcJhzHjknQlQ95FdOslnxKQbGsDB09rnPbP7IBqnC0WjZQhI9QLSvdpMpVwwgI1Y5CwwXQ0kV5FYp5YuLHDdCIiw4FHk0pjTAKVXdyqsntP6LxcASKT-rNWeYMJBcWLlM0/s2048/IMG-8648.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifne9ovCdyUMcJhzHjknQlQ95FdOslnxKQbGsDB09rnPbP7IBqnC0WjZQhI9QLSvdpMpVwwgI1Y5CwwXQ0kV5FYp5YuLHDdCIiw4FHk0pjTAKVXdyqsntP6LxcASKT-rNWeYMJBcWLlM0/w300-h400/IMG-8648.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The really beautifully designed Journal</td></tr></tbody></table><br />My thanks to Kimberley Stephenson, Collections Manager at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, who interviewed me for the leadership issue of the Australasian Registrars Committee journal. This was the second time Kimberley and I have worked together like this - she also interviewed me when I was the director at The Dowse, and it was interesting to see how I'd changed (mellowed out a bit, maybe? grown up a little?) between the two roles.</p><p>Also interviewed in this issue are Jenny Harper and David Reeves from Aotearoa, and Caroline Martin and Kim McKay from Australia.</p><p><b>In the past you have described leadership as your happy place. What is it about taking on leadership roles that inspires you? In what ways has it helped you grow as an individual and as a museum professional?</b> </p><p>Years ago, when I’d just joined Hutt City Council as director of The Dowse Art Museum, the HR team there did a personality exercise with all the managers: one of those ones where you look at a long list of motivations and pick the 20 that describe you best, then narrow that down to 10, and then to 2. The two motivations that came out for me were ‘adventure’ and ‘responsibility’. </p><p>And I think that still really holds true for me: leadership roles give me the opportunity to learn, grow, push myself, be scared; and also the opportunity to care, improve and be committed to the wellbeing of something bigger than myself. So I don’t know if I’m “inspired” by leadership roles, but I do find them deeply rewarding. </p><p> I think the key way leadership roles have helped me grow is in self-awareness. The first time I became a people manager, my whole view on the workplace changed. With every move that I’ve made sense then – every new level of responsibility I’ve taken on – the more deeply I’ve come to understand that people just don’t think and behave exactly like I do, and the more I’ve tried to bring the best out in myself to bring the best out in my work with others. </p><p><b>What is one thing that you know now that you wish you had known at the start of your leadership journey?</b></p><p>It’s that leaders are making it up <i>all the time</i>. For example: the morning of this interview, something happened at Te Papa that’s never happened before. It wasn’t major, but it was very unusual, and I had no previous experience in making the decision I had to make. So, I just did my best in the moment with the information I had available to me and the advice I was given. </p><p> So, that’s it. People – leaders - are sitting at their desks, or in meetings, or on the phone and they’re making it up every day. You think you’re the only person doing it, but you’re not. I used to be scared that people will find this out, but the more people I have talked to about this, the more times I’ve found it’s a shared experience amongst leaders. </p><p> And I think the deeper truth inside of this is that often when you feel like you’re making things up, it’s because you’re doing things that haven’t been done before. You’re actually inventing in these moments. You’re bringing all your hard-won knowledge and experience and perspective to bear on the issue, and you’re inventing your way through it. </p><p><b>What are three qualities that you associate with a good team leader, and why do you think they are important?</b></p><p>Honesty, kindness and ambition. Be honest with yourself, and with others. Be kind to yourself, and to others. And have ambition - a sense of what you want to achieve as a leader, and what you want to help your team achieve. </p><p><b>In what ways do you think our sector could nurture those professionals who are more reserved, but have amazing leadership potential?</b></p><p>I think as team leaders and people developers, we can support more expressions of leadership – it’s easy to fall back on the people who are more extroverted, happier overtly taking risks, faster to speak in public contexts. </p><p>At the same time, people have to find it in themselves to be leaders. It’s not about self-aggrandisement. It’s about having a cause you know within yourself needs to be fulfilled. And from that certainty, you can draw the energy to stand up, speak out, put yourself forward. </p><p><b>In your experience, what skills have you found most valuable in building effective relationships - both within an organisation, and with the wider communities that we serve? </b></p><p>Time. It’s not a skill, but no relationship grows without it. The skill is probably making the time in busy schedules and busy heads to truly stop, listen and share. </p><p><b>The world we operate in as museum professionals is constantly changing. Is there a particular aspect of change within our sector that you are particularly passionate about and why? </b></p><p>I’m in this game because I’m excited about all the change. But if I was to look forward to the end of my career, and ask what I’d want to be remembered for, it would be for making opportunities for people; for giving the support and creating the openings for others that I’ve been so lucky as to receive myself up to this point. </p><p><b>What did you learn about yourself as a leader as the result of the Covid-19 national lockdown? What learnings did you take away from leading a team though this challenging time? </b></p><p>I think all leaders over that time learned a tremendous amount about how they and other behave under pressure. I listened to a really useful podcast under Level 4, which talked about how when placed under stress, people tend to over-express one of two innate tendencies: to cope by controlling, or to cope by retreating. I definitely fall into the first category, and I got a great lesson in how that can be helpful when channelled correctly, and can be really annoying and stress-inducing for others (including the people in lock-down with you!) when it’s not. </p><p>I also learned about letting down my guard with my team. Under Level 4 and 3, there were a couple of days when I woke up just feeling so sad. Debilitated by sadness. That’s such a foreign emotional space for me. And so I learned to just tell my team what was going on, and to trust that they wouldn’t feel let down or disappointed in me. On those days I struggled to perform, and the gift I received from my team was the permission to take care of myself, while they took care of the museum. </p><p>And finally, my lock-down mantra: assume best intentions. It works pretty well in normal life too.
</p>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7254410590157839056.post-45185839653438892222021-01-23T17:33:00.001+13:002021-01-23T17:33:04.869+13:00A short note on recruiter experiencesThinking about the recruitment process recently, I've on three poor experiences I've had, and one stand-out one:<br /><br />In about 2017 a museum leader role here in Aotearoa came up that I went for. I was shortlisted, and took a day off work to fly and meet the recruiter (that wasn’t required, I did it off my own bat and at my own cost). The recruiter proceeded to tell me I looked "too young" to be a credible candidate, and I should come back when I had some wrinkles. I nonetheless made it to the final three candidates, after which the recruiter would call me occasionally, say things like "Just checking you haven’t done anything silly, like get married or get pregnant". It was one of the most patronising and overtly sexist encounters of my working life.<br /><br />Around the same time, another museum role came up. I was approached by the recruiter to provide my CV and (although I was luke-warm on the position) I did so. I made it to the longlist, and the recruiter rejected me with the feedback that they thought I was insufficiently experienced, and really need to “go somewhere and get a really good failure under my belt". I felt at the time that this was risible feedback - how do you build a failure into your career path, to prove you can rebound from it? And moreover, what employer could in good conscience let an employee fail at the level this recruiter felt was necessary for me?<br /><br />In 2019, a recruiter asked me what my career goal was, and I said Chief Executive of Te Papa. The recruiter asked me what I was doing to build for that goal, and I outlined it. Then they sat back and said to me "Look, I’m going to be honest with you: there are two things that from my experience are going to stand in your way of achieving that goal. One is that you present as young, and the other is that you’re a woman". And while in this case I don't believe sexism was at play (from the recruiter, at least - they were reflecting back to me the outcomes of the system they were familiar with), I was infuriated that my (perceived) age and gender were seen as fatal flaws. And even more infuriated that as a educated, privileged Pākehā woman, my chances were still likely to be much better in this context than others'.<br /><br />So much for crappy experiences. My great experience was with Russell Spratt at Jackson Stone, who was the external recruiter for my current role.<div><br /></div><div>At the end of our first interview, Russell asked me what I felt stood in my way of getting the role. And I said – because of all this conditioning, all this feedback I’d received on being too bubbly, too enthusiastic, too young-looking – that my biggest concern was that I just didn’t look like what people expect a CE to look like. <br /><br /> Russell talked me off this ledge. He gave me the reassurance - speaking as an expert who spends all day doing this - that pictures of what "leaders" look like are changing. He helped me me realise that I’m not alone, and also that at a certain point in your career, employers either want you for all you bring, stand for and radiate outwards – or they want something else. It’s both deeply personal (entirely about you) but also de-personalised (it’s not that you’re not likable or not good enough, you’re just not what they need right now). It was a bloody invaluable piece of mentoring and increased my confidence hugely.<br /><br /> For the last couple of years, I've told people those crappy stories, and I've discouraged them from using the recruiters I had those experiences with. I've probably (if I'm honest with myself) indulged in a little bit of "revenge is a dish best served cold" behaviour rather than given the feedback to the people who were concerned. </div><div><br /></div><div>Just recently, I've started looking at this in a different way. Recruitment is one of the most important things you do as a leader. It's absolutely fine - useful in some circumstances - to enlist external support. But it's your responsibility to set the tone for the recruitment, and your expectations of the experience your candidates should have. If candidates have a crappy experience, that rests with you. <br /><br /> So think really hard next time you do a piece of recruitment – what’s the experience I want to create for people who go through this process?</div>Courtney Johnstonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15634389572794209243noreply@blogger.com0