Book Review: The Quiet Spectacular, by Laurence Fearnley

Available from Monday 27 June in bookshops nationwide.

The lives of three females come together in a small hut in a wetland reserve. They each bring their struggles, their quirks and their sense of longing for change. But this is not a novel of angst and pain. Instead it is a celebration of the possibilities all women carry deep inside. Loretta, the librarian, who wants to celebrate the women of the world who have achieved so much, allows us to glimpse the spectacular in life. Chance, a schoolgirl, who was accidentally named Porsche, has to establish herself as a person separate from her literary Mum, and Riva, the woman who came back to New Zealand to create and nurture a wetland area.

You know you are reading a good book when you find that the author seems to be inside your own head, and knows your secret thoughts. While the story itself twists and turns between the main characters, it is the inner thoughts which are so clearly expressed that resonate with me. Men do feature but they are like footnotes, and it is the strength of the women which gives energy to the story. There is a strong storyline and purpose in the telling, as each character has to resolve their own problems. The writing is beautiful and captures the place as well as the emotions in this corner of the South Island.

Laurence Fearnley continues to write about the struggles we have to be ourselves in a world which wants us to conform. The Hut Builder (2011) did this so well, and she has continued to explore such relationships in The Quiet Spectacular. The title, the cover and the chapter illustrations add an extra layer of beauty to the story with detailed plant sketches. Truly spectacular.

Reviewed by Kathy Watson

The Quiet Spectacular
by Laurence Fearnley
Published by Penguin Random House NZ
ISBN 9780143574156

Book Review: Going Up is Easy, by Lydia Bradey, with Laurence Fearnley

Available now in bookshops nationwide.

In this world of great achievements, it’s a real treat to read about Kiwis making a name for themselves on the world stage, against adversity and with attitude. Lydia Brady is one of New Zealand’s top mountaineers and adventurers, and the first woman to ascend Everest without oxygen. In Going Up is Easy, she tells the story of many of her great climbs including the ascent of Mt Everest, giving us a wonderful insight into the world above 8,000m.

One of Lydia’s earlier experiences is hair-raising, as she attempted the climb to Kedernath Dome in India in 1987. Exhausted after days on the mountain and in bad weather, Lydia and fellow climber Jon Muir were swept away by no less than 3 avalanches in a row. Reading how the soft whoosh surprised her and carried her away makes you fearful as you imagine yourself in that situation. Struggling to stay upright and dog paddling to keep her head above the surface, Lydia didn’t know which way was up when she was buried. The pair survived, but they knew they’d used up most of their 9 lives on that trip.

There are risks in mountaineering, but the payoffs are huge. For some people it’s the challenge they can’t find in their everyday life, and for others it’s the sport of it, the connection with the earth and life, and the views that keep them going. Lydia talks of the gap between being a strong, confident and clear-thinking mountaineer and being dead as very small. At altitude you do not always think your best or clearest, so climbing high needs both mental and physical strength, so you know when to go on and when to turn back.

The day-to-day experience is also a memorable part of the journey, not just the success of ascent. Living on what you can carry, making friends, laughing and enjoying the trip, mountaineering can be an addictive pastime. Expect the unexpected too: imagine sitting in a tent high in the mountains, crowding with your mates in a tent telling stories when you hear a ripping sound and a massive dagger-like icicle pierces the tent from a cliff above, missing someone’s head by 3cm. Lydia and the team slept with helmets on that night.

Lydia Bradey on the Minarets, Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park, photo by Michael Chapman-Smith from stuff.co.nz

Lydia’s ascent of Everest is a great read, she climbed up on her own and without oxygen, sticking to her plan of rest and rehydration on the way, but unable to take photos at the top because her camera had frozen – this was back in 1988. She allowed herself ten minutes at the top, viewing the various Himalayan peaks around and below her, and keeping her balance in the strong wind.

Lydia also bravely addresses the feelings she had on returning to the wider world’s disbelief that she had actually climbed Everest at all, coming from media as well as those in her own climbing group which included respected New Zealand mountaineer Rob Hall. It took time to prove that she had indeed completed the ascent, but there was more than a few years of disillusionment for Lydia in between.

As one of a group of aspiring mountaineers on a beginner Snowcraft course, I was lucky enough to hear Lydia speak last year. Lydia was leading a technical climbing course based in the same Mt Ruapehu lodge and was very generous in sparing her evening to chat to us about what life was like as a professional mountain guide. Her stories were magnetic and jaw-dropping; covering danger, rescues, medical mishaps, and daring adventure.

I’m pleased to see that even more adventures are covered in Going Up is Easy. I highly recommend it as a great read for anyone, it’ll give you a good injection of inspiration, motivation and encouragement for whatever you aim to achieve.

Reviewed by Amie Lightbourne

Going Up is Easy
by Lydia Bradey, with Laurence Fearnley
Published by Penguin Books (NZ)
ISBN 9780143573234

Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival: A Shock to the System

‘Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay. I’m always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it’s very shocking to the system.’

So wrote the American writer and genius Flannery O’Connor many decades ago. In the Fullwood Room today, contemporary New Zealand fiction writers Laurence Fearnley, Emily Perkins and Jackie Ballantyne were asked by Fiona Farrell what drives, pulls and pains them about the novel writing process.

After listening to the generous, lengthy and true introductions to their work and selves, and before responding to Farrell’s catalogue of excellent questions, each author read from her latest novel. Perkins read first, with a page from The Forrests. Aside from the quality of the prose (this is a classy novel), what was very evident was the life brought to scenes read aloud by the person responsible for their existence, a point also commented on by Farrell. This was true for the excerpts from Ballantyne’s The Silver Gaucho, which focused on the enigmatic and observant ‘one-eyed man’ of Patagonia’s Paso de los Indios, and Fearnley’s Reach, during which she described a diver’s experience of submersion, concluding with the serenely grave line, “He could not imagine being separated from the sea.”

Farrell asked the authors why they wrote novels, and these novels in particular.
Perkins: “I was turning forty, I was thinking about the passing of time, the decades.” Emily Perkins speaks with her hands, her conductor’s fingers making metaphysical pizza dough.

Ballantyne: “This novel just came. I had not planned to write about a gaucho.” (The Silver Gaucho is a popular television programme in Argentina, where she had been travelling.) And, “Writing a novel teaches me more about self than anything else I do.”

Fearnley: “I was desperate to write a novel while I was nearing the end of a PhD. I wrote it in ten months. I had no specific plot in mind. I had the image of sediment, wanting to layer it heavier and heavier. I wanted to throw a stick into a fast-moving river.”

The writers spoke of the difference between reality and believability, of needing to trust what they were writing, to not have cracks in their faith that would allow the weaknesses to come through. Fearnley (right) compared this self-belief to that shown by that famed creator of the urinal ready-made (Duchamp). He had to believe it was art and not a urinal so that everybody would believe it. Fearnley is very funny, during this session careful to offset serious talk of art and faith with self-deprecation (“I look at the crowded shelves in libraries and bookstores, and think, ‘Why the fuck do I bother?'”) Audiences love it when a writer swears.

“What keeps you writing?” asked an audience member, “Rituals, a certain word count, a nine o’clock start?” “Deadlines,” said Perkins. “I need to be terrified.” Terror and desperation had come up several times during different talks at the Festival, reminding me of something that James K. Baxter once said, something like God shifts people with a gun to the head. “I’m a binge writer and a binge reader,” said Ballantyne (left). “When it’s on, it’s on.”

Then, just as my hand began to rise, our time in the Fullwood Room was up. The writers had considered the issues with vigour and wit, warmth and honesty. Their written work stands alone but their voices and views had added value. I left though, descending the thousand stairs to Harrop Street, with the idea still sitting in my head: Haruki Murakami said that for him fiction writing is an unhealthy occupation, requiring the writer to deal with mental toxins as he distils cultural and psychological darkness’s. Murakami deals with it by keeping a strict routine of early rises, running or biking for an hour every day, listening to jazz. Was this the experience of Perkins, Ballantyne or Fearnley? If so, how did they deal with the shock to the system? Walking the dogs up Signal Hill? A quiet pint at Chick’s hotel? Toning down the close attention, the electric pulse of consciousness?

The question would need to wait. Two of the writers live in Dunedin and the third will probably move here, intoxicated by the autumn and the architecture, so the opportunity should arise. Meanwhile, the festival was over and reality waited at home in the form of undone dishes, unwashed clothes, unfed children. Focus on the positives: only fifty-one weeks until the next Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival.

Reviewed by Aaron Blaker

‘A Shock to the System’ featured Emily Perkins, Jackie Ballantyne and Laurence Fearnley in discussion with Fiona Farrell.

Fearnley will appear in panels at the Auckland Writer’s Festival 

Book Review: Reach, by Laurence Fearnley

Available now in bookstores nationwide. 

I was delighted to receive this book for review, as I had not read anything by Laurence Fearnley except other reviews of previous books! And while I had intended catching up, I had not yet managed that.

That has changed, or more precisely reading Reach has made me head off to the shelves to get hold of her earlier books.

The title, no pun intended, has far-reaching implications. Chambers Dictionary gives some of the definitions of the verb reach as: to stretch forth; hold out; to succeed in touching or getting; to communicate with; to arrive at; and some of the definitions of the noun form include: the act of reaching; a stretch or portion between defined limits.

All of these can be found encapsulated in this very clever and readable novel. The three central characters Quinn, Marcus and Callum are linked at first tenuously but finally inextricably,as their lives are connected by various events.

Quinn at first seems the most complex character, but all three have flaws and strengths peculiar to themselves.

Fearnley explores the various ways in which we reach, or can be reached by, others; how we interact, how personal space is important to everyone, how very singular individuals can be brought together – and indeed pushed apart. She does this by using the form of a countdown – Quinn, an artist, is preparing for a new exhibition, and the challenges which she faces in her work, her relationship with Marcus, and her friendship with Callum are all explored in depth, with great insight into the complexity of human relationships, the challenges faced and the decisions which must be made.

When I finished reading, I thought about the book a lot. At first I thought that there was very little dialogue, and that much of the text was around the unspoken thoughts of the characters. But then I realised that was not the case – there’s plenty of dialogue, and it’s powerful. However the real insights seem to come through in the way Laurence Fearnley writes about the mind.

I think this is a really good book. It’s well-written, intelligent, complex and creative. I’ll even read it again, which is unusual for me. And now I’m off to start The Hut Builder. I can’t wait to see what it’s like.

Reviewed by Sue Esterman

Reach
by Laurence Fearnley
Published by Penguin, 2014
ISBN 9780143571728

A Novel Relationship and The Stars are Out Tonight, at WORD Christchurch Writers & Readers festival, Friday 29 August

Sarah Jane Barnett is a poet, creative writing tutor, and reviewer from Wellington. Matt Bialostocki is a writer, photographer, and bookseller from Wellington. Together they went to a full day of festival events at the WORD Writers’ & Readers Festival 2014 in Christchurch. After each of the sessions they recorded their conversation. This is what was said in their final two sessions.

A Novel Relationship
Friday, 29 August 4pm
Owen Marshall and Laurence Fearnley discuss their new novels, and their experience working with editor Anna Rogers, with Chris Moore.

M: I think we need to open by telling everyone that Rogers said of split infinitives, ‘mercifully, the world has decided we can boldly go, which has made everything so much easier’.
S: She was fascinating, and the close relationship between the two writers and their editor was clear.
M: They were funny, too.
S: Did you not expect that?
M: Well, Fearnley said that she gets nervous about being edited to the point where it can ruin her Christmas. She did say, ‘I once received an email saying I’d used the word “just” 146 times’.
S: What stuck out for me was when Rogers said her editing should be invisible, and that she ‘helps the writer say what they want to say, the best way they can’—
M: And that the best writers were always the ones that valued the editing process. Both Marshall and Fearnley saw it as a positive application to their work.
S: It seems we were lucky to hear from her—that there are fewer full-time working editors in New Zealand.
M: While Rogers (left) wants to be invisible, she did say it was noticeable when editing is skipped in the book-making process.
S: I like that, the ‘book-making process’. They did see themselves as a team, the writer and editor. Both Marshall and Fearnley said the editing process helped them see the ‘blind spots’ in their own writing; Marshall said he appreciated an editor with expertise who could ‘interrogate’ his work. Fearnley talked about how there would be parts of her novel that would niggle at her, but that she was resistant to revise because of the domino effect on the novel. A good editor saw those parts too.
M: Towards the end of the session Marshall read us an excerpt from his novel, Carnival Sky, and Fearnley read us a section from an untitled book that’s due out later on in the year.
S: Do you know what that is?
M: I’m not sure. It’s about Quinn, a young artist, and it’s set in fictional Wellington. Something to look forward to!

The Stars are out Tonight
Friday, 29 August 7.30pm
John Campbell introduces Eleanor Catton, Diane Setterfield, Damon Young, NoViolet Bulawayo, Anis Mojgani, Meg Wolitzer, Kristin Hersh. The sold out session was held in the Transitional/Cardboard Cathedral. (all names link to the authors’ other sessions)

S: Holy shit! I mean—can I swear? That was incredible.
M: John Campbell closed with ‘I can’t think of any event in the world that would have been like this’.
S: It’s 10pm.
M: Time to go home.