WORD: Can Books Change the World, with Peter Biggs as chair, Kate De Goldi, John Freeman and Victor Rodger

What a great event to begin the WORD festival with. The Piano is a brand new venue and perfect for a literary festival. This panel discussion was chaired by Peter Biggs, and drew us immediately into the ethics of being a writer. Is it about engaging with real world events, or do writers just tell stories. Is there any such thing as ‘just a story?’

Kate De Goldi had some interesting reflections on how children can be engaged morally and ethically. “Writing is an ethical act, especially as a children’s writer.” She explained that children’s literature happens in the space between knowing and not knowing. It grows out of children’s misunderstandings of the world around them. To read allows children to develop empathy and curiosity.

Literary magazine editor and writer John Freeman gave a political and American voice to the discussion. He explained that writers don’t often set out to engage in political views, rather they are addicted to writing, it is a habit, and out of it a voice grows, and you gain confidence that it speaks truthfully. It is not just about characters, but situations. Once you develop a voice you have to ask where to situate yourselves. He sees literature as a political act.

Victor Rodger got all the witty lines. As a part Samoan, part Palagi gay man, his story was there, unique and ready to be told. He used writing to make sense of a confusing childhood – and to share his experiences to help others in the same situation. He sees theatre as being able to push boundaries and make people squirm, citing his popular play Black Faggot as an excellent example. He also reflected that books do change the world, something the other two didn’t commit to – citing The Bible, and the Qu’ran. Kate De Goldi noted that there are still families in which the only written word available at home is the Bible – undoubtedly this is also true of the Qu’ran.

Peter Biggs saw books as providing a slower form of narrative in this fast-paced world. “Forms of longer narrative are crucial to working out who we are, and what our world is. Books re-enlarge our idea of what a citizen is, while the world around us is reducing us to consumers.” In response, Kate noted that it was ironic in a way that books had become a commodity themselves – making the point that not all books matter. “The cul de sacs of interiority children’s books need have been ironed out by the requirement of action.”

Biggs then pulled us into a further discussion of how it is that the world is in such a state – the rise of Trump, Brexit, Australia changing Prime Ministers frequently: this world should know better – why doesn’t it? Freeman answered on behalf of America: “It is a structural problem, and related to the privatisation of the education system. When a populace is strategically de-educated, they can be controlled.” Rodger agreed –he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Hawaii last year, and saw among those there a lack of consciousness, a failure to get angry when it was warranted.

When considering how to educate children via fiction, Kate’s response tends to be: children’s books need more semi-colons. The use of semi-colons gives children the layers of complexity that are needed to make sense of the world.

John Freeman doesn’t think books change the world – he thinks they allow us to survive the world. “The people that are most resilient in surviving trauma are those who can narrativise it.” For him, the construction of self can be dangerous, and a book is valuable if it can allow us to see that there is a self beyond our own – to explode the notion of self.

The role of libraries and of booksellers was also noted in the conversation, with the revival of the physical book and the regeneration of independent booksellers. Children’s bookshops in particular have survived through, a) knowing their clients, and b) knowing their stock. Likewise libraries have survived, and even in places where books have been fully digitised in libraries, it is the physical book which kids still prefer.

It was an interesting discussion with the take-away concept being that of the responsibility of writers to be morally and ethically true to their readers. There were also a few book titles and names dropped that are worthwhile hunting down at your local bookshop: Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me, Fiona Farrell’s The Villa at the End of the Empire, Susanna Andrews & Jolisa Gracewood’s Tell You What series, anything by Angela Fornoy – and Freeman noted that those who are writing the most considered work at the moment are writers of colour, queer writers, and those who are otherwise marginalised.

Reviewed by Kathy Watson and Sarah Forster

From The Cutting Room of Barney Kettle
by Kate De Goldi
Published by Longacre
ISBN9781775535768

Kate De Goldi appears in:
Read the World, Sat 27 Aug, 12.15pm
Writing War Stories (Chair), Sat 27 Aug, 3.15pm
Coming Rain: Stephen Daisley (Chair), Sun 28 Aug, 11am.

Freeman’s Literary Journal: Arrival
edited by John Freeman
Published by Text Publishing
ISBN 9781925240221

John Freeman also appears in:
A Literary Life: John Freeman, Fri 26 Aug, 11am

Sons
by Victor Rodger
Published by Huia Publishing
ISBN 9781869693039

Tim Gruar in conversation with Kate De Goldi about ‘The Cutting Room of Barney Kettle’

Kate De Goldi’s novels and picture books really engage you. A winner of numerous awards, including the NZ Post Children’s Book Awards and the Esther Glen Medal, her books have a specific type of sophistication that respects and challenges her readers. Inspired by her own veracious reading appetite when growing up and a love of the new wave of post war children’s fiction, she builds her novels with cinematic layers that are as much about the set and scenery as they are about the plot.

Kate De Goldi signing after her launch at Unity Books. Photo copyright Matt Bialostocki.

As with her previous award winning novel, The 10pm Question, there’s a degree of line-blurring when it comes to defining her target age for her latest book, From the Cutting Room of Barney Kettle. So I have to ask, “Is this book for young adults? Or is this a book that can be read and enjoyed by young and old alike, like the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime?”  Kate: “Good question. I’d like to say it’s a book that can be read by anyone from 9 – 90, because I think there are some reasonably sophisticated language and ideas at play.”

One of the things that De Goldi says inspired her most recent writing, was the post-war ‘middle range fiction’ that really ‘nourished her insatiable appetite’ as a teenage reader. She says that nowadays the publishing world has been keener to produce age appropriate works, particularly in the young adult space. She wanted to create a book that was less age prescriptive.

In her latest book, From The Cutting Room Of Barney Kettle, we meet filmmaker Barney Kettle, who likes to invent stories, but in this case finds the real oil right under his nose. The book opens with a letter written from a hospital bed by an unnamed man, as he recovers from serious injuries. He introduces his project: a story about Barney Kettle which he writes over many months, as he slowly recovers. He writes to remember the street where he lived, home to a whole raft of strange, weird and interesting people and bizarre, singular shops and curious stories. He writes to remember the last few summer days. Before he was injured; before it all came crashing down; before his world vanished.

“Every filmmaker is a megalomaniac” – the perfect summary of many of the most famous directors – from Fellini to Spielberg to Jackson, all crazy obsessed nutters and brilliant visionaries. Then there’s Barney. “The character of Barney was inspired by my nephew Rowan, who has been making films since he was about 6 years old, corralling his relatives and his whole neighbourhood into whatever project he was up to at the time. His devotion was such that on the day of the first Christchurch earthquake, the day of his first job at a production house, his first instinct wasn’t to dive for cover but to grab the camera and start filming. Which he did. All day! He’s now an animator. Barney is Rowan, but he’s also a bit of me too – as my sisters will attest. He’s someone who’s utterly focused on making something and seeing it all the way through to the end.”

Barbara Larson, Kate’s editor and expert chopper – helping to launch Kate’s book. Photo copyright Matt Bialostocki.

Much of the book revolves around the idea of editing, chopping up, re-arranging, the pieces, all exacerbated by the unexpected but significant event that threatens to take over the story. It’s not hard to find direct links and references to post-2011 Canterbury. Because she grew up there, Christchurch was always destined to be a major character in the book. She actually started writing about Barney and the High Street before the earthquakes but had to stop, “because the coordinates changed. I came back to the High Street that was destroyed. But I couldn’t not include the event, it was a major part of my landscape.”

“I wanted to capture a High Street that was a lively, colourful fantastic place, with layers of history and with its own community. I always wanted to write about children at play in a community is a street like this, the kind that you only get in a city. The kids are kind of parented by the others in the street. They have real relationships with the adults, as well as each other. Anyone with an appetite for eccentric figures will more likely find them here. It doesn’t happen in the gated suburbs, where people are more spread out.”

“This is my, heightened, slightly imagined version of the (Christchurch) High Street,” De Goldi says, “with a slightly personal history too. A couple of my generations have lived in buildings above these shops. We all went to that Basilica for mass. It’s part of my family’s fond, collective history. We remember the shops and people and those days we were there. And now as a Wellingtonian I always go back there for my frame of reference. Even though, now it only exists in memory. Much of the street came down and is rubble now.”

Remains of the McKenzie Willis building, on High Street, Christchurch after the quakes.

Also an important part of the picture, De Goldi says, was to set Barney living over an old school junk shop. “The kind that Christchurch’s High Street were once full of, with discarded fashions, lawnmowers, TVs and appliances and all manner of bric-a-brac.” The ultimate props room for a filmmaker, and a place of constant visual inspiration.

The Cutting Room of Barney Kettle is definitely one of those multi-layered books that will, hopefully, invite many re-reads as its reader gets older. For the younger reader, there’s the opportunity to explore a world lost forever. For older readers, perhaps a chance to remember a world that is still alive in their own imagination.

Interview by Tim Gruar

The Cutting Room of Barney Kettle
by Kate De Goldi
Published by Longacre, Penguin Random House NZ
ISBN 9781775535768

Book Review: The Pirates and the Nightmaker, by James Norcliffe

Available in booksellers nationwide.

In the mid-eighteenth century young Jeremy is signed up aboard the Firefly as a loblolly boy – a gruesome job aiding the ship’s doctor. However, his seafaring adventures turn even more disturbing when, after the Firefly is attacked by pirates, he finds himself set adrift with the remnants of the crew and the mysterious figure, Mr Wicker. To escape the murderous intentions of this unscrupulous band Jeremy, renamed Loblolly Boy, is transformed, made invisible by the curious talents of this latter character.

But is Mr Wicker acting in Loblolly Boy’s interests or his own? Caught by the seemingly eternal ties that now bind him to his new master, Loblolly Boy must engage in a dangerous game to discover who Mr Wicker really is and what drives this strange, enigmatic individual. With equal urgency, however, Loblolly Boy must also find a way to cross over from his liminal existence – unseen, unheard – back to his human self.

As Norcliffe himself confirms, The Pirates and the Nightmaker affords a backstory to the author’s Loblolly Boy concept – an intriguing characterisation first introduced in The Loblolly Boy. A finalist in this year’s The New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults, The Pirates and the Nightmaker’s engaging blend of fact and fiction produces an absorbing quest that advances with serpent-like shifts. Enigmas, commotions and betrayals layer complexity and captivating drama as a tousled cast of characters jostle for supremacy on land and the high seas.

This title is a perplexing mystery adventure in which, with narrative precision, James Norcliffe evokes detailed imagery of the iconic battle between “light and darkness” in the pursuit of power. I highly recommend this book and will be watching its award’s journey with keen interest.

Reviewed by Kay Hall

The Pirates and the Nightmaker
by James Norcliffe
Published by Longacre
ISBN 9781775537694