“No moa, no moa…”

…in old Aotearoa. Can’t get ‘em, they’ve et ‘em, they’ve gone and there ain’t no Moa.”

Would I be able to resist the overwhelming urge to quote, or worse, sing those lines? Surely Quinn Berentson would have heard them many times before? The man has a Masters in Science Communication and those lines communicate the science of extinction in a commendably pithy way, so perhaps he would be understanding.

Moa the Life and Death of New Zealand’s Legendary Bird takes a bit longer to explain how “first we killed them, then we ate them, and then we forgot about them”. In 2009 Berentson set out to follow the trail of the creature that became so large and strange that they were almost as much mammal as bird.

He discovered that there was far more to the story of the moa (it should be pronounced to rhyme with ‘more’, not ‘mower’ – who knew?) than he had ever imagined.  It’s not just the story of the birds, but also of the scientists who ‘discovered’ them and what we know about them now.

Berrentson pointed out that this was not as easy as it might seem as everything about the giant birds, from their biology, to their evolution and then to their extinction has been argued over and re-examined for the last 170 years.

The moa story came along at just the right time. It had been newly discovered that the world had once been dominated by huge creatures that no longer existed. When moa remains were first discovered the public’s imagination was captured by it as a bizarre and grotesque monster. They featured on the front page of popular  newspapers and were world famous; often the first thing people had heard about New Zealand.  They were one of the first museum specimens to be photographed and every museum had its own skeleton.

While this was all very interesting the real fascination of this session was the personalities of the men who made the moa. Richard Owen , the ‘father of the moa’ was ‘extremely malignant’ according to mild-mannered Charles Darwin, who wrote him out of history after a long and acrimonious relationship. Talk about survival of the fittest.

It’s hard to feel much sympathy for Owen though, as he stole the credit for the work and ideas of Gideon Mantell, an amateur whose wife found the ‘Mona Lisa of fossils’  - considered to be the first dinosaur fossil found. This treasure happens to reside at Te Papa, although it is not on show. Snarky comment resisted.

Mantell’s obsession with fossils lead to his wife and his son severing contact with him. He suffered a terrible accident which resulted in his becoming a hunchback and was in such pain that he self-medicated, becoming an opiate addict. He was a Dr. so access to the opiates was not a problem.

Then his son Walter Mantell came out to New Zealand. He found moa bones that he sent back to his father in an attempt at winning his approval. But Mantell Snr had to give them to that evil genius Owen. When he sent his last batch back Owen’s perfidy was no longer a problem because Gideon Mantell was dead of an overdose.  You couldn’t make it up.

This was a great session and I could go on but really the best thing is to read the book. Although I must add that the moa is close to the top of the list of animals that could be cloned because we have recovered so much DNA. Coming soon to a swamp near you?

And I did resist singing.

• Moa has just won the Royal Society of New Zealand’s 2013 Science Book Prize.
• Visit the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival website.
• Follow our Festival coverage on the blog.

 

Boys at War: Jane Tolerton AWRF 2013

It’s a terrible thing to talk about what I’m talking about, you know. But I saw it. I was there.

So said one of the 84 veterans of the First World War interviewed for the World War One Oral History Archive, which Jane Tolerton helped to set up in 1987.

In An Awfully Big Adventure Tolerton revisits these recordings and puts the reminiscences into a chronology for the present-day reader.  When the words “we will remember them” were intoned on ANZAC Days after the First World War, it was the fallen rather than the survivors who were being remembered.

The convention was that the New Zealand division was  ‘the silent division’. However, when researching her book on Ettie Rout, Tolerton discovered that those who had returned were willing to talk, but they had to be asked.

Just as well somebody did ask, as the World War One recordings are the most used part of the Oral History Archive. There were 84 interviews over three years and most of the men had never talked about the war.  Tolerton played some of the recordings and the voices came down all the years; vivid, candid and humble (the worst sin was to be a ‘skite’).

For an idea of what those at home were being fed about the war, Tolerton recommends looking at Papers Past. Small wonder civilians asked returned soldiers “did you have a good time?”  and no-one ever said “you must have had a crook time”.

Word of the session: tough.

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Remarkable Women AWRF 2013

Jolisa Gracewood had an unenviable task wrangling, in the nicest possible way, three strong, singular women who ended up running over her in the nicest possible way.  Or actually two of them did.

Aorewa McLeod is one of those simultaneously inspiring and daunting people who has a long and distinguished career and then on retiring starts another, equally successful enterprise. In McLeod’s case a Masters in Creative Writing led to a well-reviewed ‘autobiographical fiction’ or ‘fictional autobiography’, Who was that woman anyway? The book ended up at the top of the biography best-seller lists, then moved to fiction.

All the reviewers who met Meme Churton when her extraordinary memoir Meme: the three worlds of an Italian-Chinese New Zealander came out noted her chic, so, irredeemably trivial as I am, I was very keen to see her. And she did not disappoint. Churton has Chinese and Italian ancestry; she ran some of Auckland’s earliest dealer galleries and cafes; she knew everybody and had an extensive art collection, but she did not have a happy marriage. Meme claimed to have brought the first espresso machine to Auckland; Jacqueline claimed to have ruined one of the first in Wellington.

Jacqueline Fahey has written two volumes of memoirs that are not only insightful descriptions of of an artist’s thought and practice, but are also vivid snapshots of what life was like at a time when clever women were expected to help their husbands in their careers, look after the children and never ever show any signs of doing anything for themselves. Fahey’s voice came through the books so strongly I expected her to dominate proceedings totally.

And she pretty much did. Meme gave her a good run for her money, but Aorewa could barely get a word in, despite valiant attempts at talking about sex and destiny.  She did a bit better with fashion, but on the subject of hating her mother Fahey topped her again – “It’s the most natural thing in the world”.

What they all did agree on was telling the truth about one’s life can only ever be one version of the truth.  One woman’s truth is another woman’s lie, all memories are true but within families they can be hopelessly at odds.

Word of the session? Barbarous.

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Anticipated highlights #3 – AWRF 2013

The last of my anticipated highlights is also one of the last sessions of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival. It’s a panel made up of two authors I know and admire, and two I have never read. By this stage of the programme difficult choices have been made, bargains have been struck with colleagues and panic that you’re going to miss an author you really want to see starts to set in.

This is why writers festival panels are a great invention. Festival-goers can cram a viewing of several writers into one session time, they can see unfamiliar writers (always good for the For Later list), check up on old favourites,  and the speakers change before concentration can flag.

What the writers choose to read is another great thing about panels – for this one they will “read selections from their work that reference the repeating of history”. This is the only time I will get to see Kate Atkinson and Charlotte Grimshaw, both writers I really like. I’ve seen them before so traded their main sessions for writers I hadn’t, but  the way history tends to repeat is fundamental to their work, so their choices should be very interesting.

Hamish Clayton’s Wulf features terrifying old Te Rauparaha – the possibility of his history repeating itself  is not an inviting prospect – but of course Clayton doesn’t have to read a published work; it could be something to add to the much later/eagerly awaited list.

Tanya Moir studied at Christchurch’s very own Hagley Writers’ Institute and has moved from straight historical fiction in La Rochelle’s Road, her first novel, to a mix of contemporary and historical elements in Anticipation, her latest. Both books have very well reviewed, which sometimes influences me and sometimes doesn’t.

Do reviews influence you?

 

Anticipated highlights #2 – AWRF 2013

My paper copy of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival programme is a sea of pink as the highlighter continues to get a work-out.

My second most anticipated event features Rosemary McLeod; cartoonist, journalist, collector and all-round great writer whose work has been entertaining, annoying and making me think since I was a teenager. Actually that may be something of an exaggeration because she’s not much older than me, but then she could have started working on Thursday magazine when she was a teenager.

I still look for her column first in The Press on a Thursday and her book Thrift to Fantasy is one of my favourites, so I’m really excited to hear her talk about The Secret Life of Aprons and her new book With bold needle and thread.

The occasion may call for the wearing of a very special ceremonial apron. Like a female Mason, if there was such a thing.

 

One out of the box

Really out of the box. Kind colleagues who know that I hold Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in very high esteem alerted me to the arrival of Her Majesty.

It’s a book to gladden the hearts of book lovers who believe that reading a book on a device is all very well, but that nothing can match turning the paper pages of a behemoth.

Her Majesty tells the story of QEII’s  reign, mostly in very large and very beautiful photographs, but with some text. And it came in a  dull gold box with its very own plastic handle. Classy.

The box and the book have parted ways, but  really the box is a minor detail, even if it did have Her Majesty printed on the side. Packaging is all very well, but the book is the main thing here. It’s definitely for more than staunch (and strong) Royalists.

The sheer size and quality of the photographs make it an object of beauty worthy of a good long look. Getting it home may be another matter!

 

“My subject is war…

…And the pity of war. The poetry is in the pity.”

That quote from Wilfred Owen is on the monument to the war poets in Westminster Abbey. A line from Owen also provides the title for the 2010 book by Wellington author and academic Harry Ricketts - Strange meetings: the poets of the Great War.

Owen has always seemed the most tragic of the war poets, dying as he did just days before the end of the war. Is it true that his mother received the news of his death just as the bells were ringing to celebrate the Armistice?

The Great War has contined to provide the subject matter for some wonderful fiction, including the Regeneration trilogy by Pat Barker. The treatment of poet Siegfried Sassoon for shell shock  at Craiglockhart Hospital is one of the major themes of the novel, and Sassoon’s fictionalised autobiography, the Sherston trilogy,  is worth reading. Start with Memoirs of a fox hunting man.

Barker returned to the subject of the Great War in Life class and Toby’s room, both up to her usual standard.

A. S. Byatt’s The children’s book has Rupert Brooke (‘ the handsomest man in England’) as a bit player and ends with the return of the soldiers from the war. In a book of many fascinating (or irritating, depending on how you feel about staying on the subject,) digressions, Byatt’s listing of the names the soldiers gave to the trenches is among the most unusual.

Sebastian Faulks’ Birdsong featured in the Big Read, which aimed to find Britain’s favourite book, and on Best British books 1980-2005. It’s sold a lot of copies, but it’s not one of my favourites; although Eddie Redmayne was in the T.V. series, which is a definite reason to watch it.

Do you have a favourite piece of fiction set in the Great War?

 

Auckland Writers and Readers Festival – Anticipated highlights # 1

Now that I know I am really going to the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival, the time has come for a detailed examination of the programme while wielding a fluorescent marker. They don’t call them highlighter pens for nothing;  highlighting my anticipated highlights is in itself a highlight for me. Tragic.

Number one on my giddying up list is Don McGlashan and Sylvie Simmons singing their own songs and the songs of Mr Leonard Cohen. I am not familiar with Simmons’ work, as I still languish low on the holds list for I’m Your Man, but the combination of Cohen and McGlashan is unmissable.

Are you going to the Festival? What are your anticipated highlights?

 

Beauties (2)

The big beautiful books just keep on coming and who am I to turn them away? I have a new category (a list can’t be far away) – “Books too big to be taken home”.

Love looks not with the eyes is a collection of over 400 photographs of the work of fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Anne Deniau is a French woman who photographed the models backstage at Givenchy, where she met McQueen when he did his first collection there. Their relationship continued for the next 13 years until McQueen’s sad death.

The photographs are very beautiful, but the really interesting thing about them is that they are taken behind the scenes – there are none of the models on the runway and the clothes really star. All the amazing details are here to be examined: the embroidery, the make-up, the hats, the sets. Also seeing how the beautiful genetic freaks that are the models tower over the ordinary mortals who design, make and fit the clothes. And how many of the models smoke.

Cameron Silver has a bachelor’s degree in theatre and after he graduated he began a career as a modern-day interpreter of Weimar cabaret songs.  While travelling the United States interpreting, he visited second-hand shops, finding some great men’s clothes but lots more women’s. With the soul of a true collector he bought them without quite knowing what he was going to do with them.

Other true collectors also buy things without knowing what they are going to do with them – generally what they do with them is stuff them into already crowded cupboards, telling themselves they will mend, alter, display or in some way use them.  Cameron Silver is made of sterner and richer stuff. He decided to retire from interpreting and open a vintage couture boutique in Beverly Hills, specialising in “only the finest pre-worn clothing”. Not only that, but the clothing had to look modern.

After he’d been buying and selling these clothes for 12 years or so, he decided to write about them. Decades, a look at clothes from the 1900s to the 1990s, is the result. And what a result. The book  combines lovely big photographs from fashion magazines with publicity shots of movie stars, and well-written observations of how fashion changed as society did. It’s really worth a good poring over, but park near the entrance of the library if you plan on taking it home.

 

Possession

Obsessive collecting takes many forms. There are those tragic types who collect the titles of books they fondly imagine they will read some day. Some of those types even have lists of more than 200 books.

Then there are the people who just can’t bring themselves to throw anything away. Chastened by too many viewings of Hoarders, they claim that they have ‘collections’ because somehow that seems more connoisseur and less crazy cat lady. Purists say you need to have three of something before you can call it a collection, but, even if it’s one random item picked up at the last car boot sale, finding another one is a great excuse to peruse every publicly available pile of tat possible.

These people look for reassurance that they are not going to end up crushed under a pile of ‘vintage’ (sounds so much better than second hand) Christmas decorations that include cardboard balls that were once strung across the streets of Geraldine. They hope that when they are found the small piece in the newspaper will not say things like ‘Librarian’s Body Lay Under Old Christmas Decorations Until February’.

They revere Andy Warhol; admittedly before his death he was unable to get into most of the rooms of his house because they were full of his ‘collections’, but when his belongings were auctioned in 1988 they fetched $5.3 million dollars. Warhol’s example is the perfect answer to the threat of the skip parked up the driveway.

Reassurance that things aren’t really out of hand can also be gained from reading about other collectors. Collectomania presents collections from Bakelite radios to classic cars in a chapter by chapter format, with lots of photographs. A Collector’s Year takes the reader through 12 months of one man’s trawls through car boot sales, auctions and odd shops in search of the next great addition to his stuff.

One Coin is Never Enough addresses the psychological aspects of collecting coins in a nicely upbeat way with the emphasis on how the choice the collector makes when he or she adds an object to their collection transforms that item. Satisfyingly intellectual.

Proust’s Overcoat is the story of an even more rarefied obsession – the work and belongings of Marcel Proust. I came across it when I was reading books about Proust rather than actually reading books by him (could be why completing his magnum opus is once again on my 2013 resolutions list).  It’s about a man who started out collecting Proust’s books and letters. When the opportunity presented itself  he branched out into material items like furniture and then the ultimate prize – Proust’s overcoat.

On the “if only” front, Herb and Dorothy is a delightful DVD about a postal clerk and a librarian (!) who spent every spare penny from their modest incomes on collecting modern art, ending up with a museum quality collection worth a very large amount of money. But, true to their principles, they have donated it all to the National Gallery of Art.

Do you have a picturesque collecting obsession?