The more of Maurice Gee’s novels I read, the more I enjoy them.
These two are from his more recent works, and they demonstrate a much more mature, polished writing style than his very early work, for example, The Big Season.
It’s a bit like comparing the music that Mozart wrote when he was a child, with his later masterpieces.
One thing that I really notice about Gee is the recurring common themes in the plots of some of his novels. For example, in both Access Road and Blind Sight, the story is told in the first person, by a mature woman, and the story mainly focuses on her brother, and explores her relationship with him, with many flashbacks to their shared childhood.
There are also other common themes. In both stories, there is a murder: in both cases the brother has a deep, dark secret, that involves the murder, and in both cases the implication is made that this drives him a little crazy.
In both stories the family grew up in the fictional West Auckland town of Loomis, not far from the Great North Road. Loomis also features in some of Gee’s other works, for example in the Plumb Trilogy, and is based on the Henderson of Gee’s childhood.
The creek that runs through Loomis figures heavily in many of Gee’s novels, and it appears here again in both of these. There are the usual childhood scenes of paddling home-made canoes in the creek, and mention of eels hiding in the creek’s dark waters.
To me, the creek symbolizes a lot more than just a creek. There is often mention of deep, dark places, under the water, of hidden secrets, in some cases terrible secrets. This comes to the fore in Access Road, near the end of the book, when Lionel’s deep dark secret is revealed. It involves something nasty from the past, hidden in the creek for all those years, and hidden in the deep dark places of Lionel’s mind also, nagging away at him, relentlessly, until it literally drives him sick.
I was reminded of a variation on the deep dark secret of Loomis Creek from one of Gee’s earlier novels, “Sole Survivor”, where one of the main characters witnesses a suicide in the creek, and keeps quiet about it for many years. Powerful, spine-chilling stuff. Cold water, slimy stuff in the water, opaque, dark water, hiding horrible yukky secrets from the past.
Gee is a master at exploring relationships between family members, and in both these stories he demonstrates this skill impeccably.
In both novels, there is also the influence of the parents, which has a major effect on the main characters, but (just like in many of his other masterpieces, eg. In My Father’s Den), this influence of the parents is skillfully woven, and not over-done. This is in contrast to his earlier work, for example, in The Big Season, the father looms incredibly large, in a very unsubtle manner.
In fact, in The Big Season, it is the domination of the main character, Rob, by his father, and older brother, and Rob’s struggles to break free from this, which is the main theme of the story.
In both Access Road and Blind Sight, the influence of the parents is stated much more lightly, more by implication. However, it is still a major factor, and Gee never lets us forget this, especially in Blind Sight, where he opens the novel with the line “Father taught us how not to love”, and for good measure, he ends the novel with the same identical line.
As always with Gee, the characters are extremely well-drawn, especially in cases where the author is deliberately drawing out an emotional reaction from the reader, like when he describes the reappearance of the childhood bully, Clyde Buckley, in Access Road. His description of Clyde, right down to the blackheads and flakes of dry skin, certainly achieved a reaction of disgust in this reader.
Despite their similarities, and their shared themes, the two stories are quite different in some respects. Among the similarities, in both cases, there is the mystery, the question of “Why? Why is the brother acting like this?” What was it that transformed the brother Gordon, of Blind Sight, into “Cyril”, the homeless recluse? Why is it that Lionel, the former dentist in Access Road becomes a bed-ridden hypochondriac? What is the deep, dark secret of each of these men, both of them obviously deeply affected by something in their past?
And, interwoven into each mystery story, Gee displays his usual characterization skills. The way he describes how Lionel just lies there, unmoving, unmovable, silent, unresponsive. And, the same with his description of Cyril, the homeless recluse, as he walks his daily route through the streets of Wellington.
I used to live in Wellington, about the same timespan that Blind Sight was set in, and I used to often see a few homeless men wandering the streets. I can vouch that Gee’s description of Cyril (both the original “Cyril”, and the later version) is absolutely accurate. I had a strong feeling that Gee must have spent hours intently watching one or more of these men, in real life, in order to get the degree of authenticity that his writing displays.
Both novels, eventually, reveal the secret: the deep dark happening from the past, that was a major contributor to what made each of these two brothers become what they now are.
In Blind Sight, the truth is quite startling, unexpected. Though, there is also the larger, brooding background issue of the influence of the parents, especially the father who “taught them how not to love”. This is also skillfully, and lightly, demonstrated by the main protagonist’s own life story: how Alice has had a number of men in her life, but none of them being all that satisfactory.
In contrast to this, the first-person story-teller in Access Road, Rowan, has been married to the same man for many years, but one gets the feeling that the marriage is a bit of a mis-match, the man being a real 100-percent “bloke”, a former rugby player who did not quite become an All-Black.
This theme is a repeat of a similar marriage in another of Gee’s novel’s, “Meg”, where Meg’s marriage to Fergus, the plumber, is also rather similar in some ways, almost a mis-match, but not quite.
Gee is just so good at describing these family relationships. It’s one of the things that make him such a genius, and almost certainly New Zealand’s greatest living novelist.
He is also a master at describing social relationships and issues, especially as they were in the New Zealand of his childhood and youth, ie. the 1930’s and 40’s. Both these novels are no exception, with plenty of meaty material of how it was back then.
For example, in Blind Sight, the father is a pharmacist, and the teenage Rowen works in the pharmacy. Gee skillfully works into the story an insight into pre-war New Zealand social attitudes and mores, for example with references to the gang of teenage boys hanging around outside the shop, teasing one of their number about going into the shop to buy his “Frenchies”.
There are other sly references to pre-war sexual social customs, when he works into the story-line about the pharmacy customer who regularly buys her “Wife’s Friend Pessaries”.
And, as in many of Gee’s novels, there is mention of how “progress” changes the landscape of NZ in the post-war years. This is alluded to in many of his novels, a good example being the new blocks of shops being built by commercial property developers on the Great North Road, and how (in Blind Sight), the chemist-shop father misses out on the opportunity of a lifetime when he runs foul of the developer, is locked out, and his business then slowly stagnates and dies in its old location, as his old customers gradually transfer their custom to the shiny new competitor up the road in the new shop.
One wonders what Gee makes of the late 20th century property development frenzy, and the rise of such enterprises as The Warehouse and Michael Hill?
It’s not that he passes judgement in an overt way at things like property development, and other similar 20th century industries. Gee has a skillful knack of, even from within the first-person perspective of the narrator-protagonist, of stating the bare facts of what happened and leaving it to the reader to decide. His most striking example from the property-development industry probably occurs in the Plumb Trilogy, when Fred Meggins gets his comeuppance, and Meg’s husband, Fergus, has been sucked into the get-rich-quick schemes.
Anyway, back to Blind Sight and Access Road. Both, as is usual with Gee, are replete with plenty of light-handed social commentary, skillfully using the relationships between the characters as the scenario for this.
However, with both of these novels, it is the possibility of the “deep, dark secret”, the “hidden monster from the past”, that dwells within the minds of the protagonist-narrator’s brother, that is the main focus.
As Gee skillfully narrates the story of each of these brothers, and develops the narrative of their unusual behavior, the reader is left wondering “Why? What is the deep, dark secret?”
The same theme comes up very strongly in one of his other novels, In My Father’s Den, where, once again, a brother of the protagonist-narrator (this time a man rather than a woman) is drawn into a difficult situation because of the inner demons of a brother (I refer here to the original book, not to the film adaptation, which has a totally different story-line, focussing more on the father than the brother).
So, there you have it. These novels have a bit of everything. Murder, complex family relationships, and social commentary from the times they were set in, especially from the childhood times of the characters: all skillfully woven together in a tapestry of a plot that keeps the reader guessing until the final chapter.
Highly recommended.
Monday, August 22, 2011
The Big Season
Having grown up in the 1950’s and 60’s myself, I can easily relate to how Gee describes this past era of small-town New Zealand,
Whereas my own personal experience from this era was located in rapidly-growing post-war suburbia, Gee’s setting in this novel could be described as “archetypal small-town Kiwiland”. In the introduction, by Bill Manhire, to the paperback version that I recently read, it is revealed that the fictional town of “Wainui” was based on Paeroa, where Gee had lived for a time shortly before writing the novel.
It could just have easily been Levin or Oamaru or Foxton or Ashburton, they were all much the same, especially back then in 1958.
The story centres around rubgy. But it is not really about rugby as such, it is about the clash of characters, in a small-town and closely-knit small family setting, where the author takes the opportunity to fire off a lot of shots at the dominant small-town Kiwi culture that was centred around rugby, racing, and beer.
Having only recently begun to seriously work my way through Gee’s writings, (this is the fourth of his novels that I have read recently), I found it very interesting to notice the differences between this, his first published novel (published in 1962) and his recent work: namely “Blind Sight” and “Access Road”.
I should state up-front that I am a huge fan of Gee’s: I greatly admire his writing style, and his level of skill. My all-time favourite is “In My Father’s Den”, the original book, not the hacked-around movie screenplay.
Whereas his recent works display a real polish, every page crammed full of skillfully executed descriptive writing: writing that inevitably draws the reader in, from the very first page, “The Big Season” is by comparison quite raw, almost clumsy, both in its style, and in its plot.
However, the skill level is still remarkably high, especially for a first novel, and more so for one written in the late 1950’s, when writing styles in general were not as sophisticated as they are today.
Gee does a marvelous job of describing the interactions of the characters.
One point that I would like to make, was the influence of the father on the main character, and how this is a recurring theme in many of Gee’s novels. For example, the simple but striking opening line in “Blind Sight”, which says “Father taught us how not to love”, which is repeated as the very last closing line on the final page, to great effect.
In between those two occurrences of that one simple statement, there lies a hugely interesting exposition of the consequences of this simple fact.
Whereas in “Blind Sight” and in “Access Road”, the influence of the father (and the mother also) is more complex and fraught with various shades of meaning and nuance, in “The Big Season” it is comparatively blunt and brutal.
The “Big Season” father, Ray, is a fairly one-dimensional character, whose life centres around the local rugby team (rugby is his all-consuming obsession), socialising with his mates (with constant talk about rugby), and family life (again, dominated by rugby, as both sons are talented players).
The result is a rather unsympathetic portrait of a very one-dimensional father, and the eventual consequences when Rob, the main protagonist and younger son, begins to grow uncomfortable in his role as the “trophy son” star rugby player, and begins to look for a life of his own, and rebels against the straightjacket that his older brother (Donny) has willingly stayed confined in.
I like the way Gee has skillfully woven the tale of how this comes about, with the prologue of the much younger Rob developing an obsession about the goings-on up at the local boarding-house, which represents the “forbidden fruit” of 1950’s small-town New Zealand, the local version of “sin city”, where no so-called decent person would be seen dead.
Inevitably, years later, the young man Rob, now all grown-up at 21 years of age, and now able to decide for himself who is worthy of being his friends, he re-encounters the characters from the forbidden boarding-house, but now, his father (and older brother) cannot do much to prevent him from deciding for himself what to do about this.
I especially like the scene of the confrontation in the bar of the Commercial Hotel, which is the watering-hole of Ray and Donny, when Rob deliberately invites his new mate, Bill the burglar, to come and have a drink with him there, and how this is such a breaking of a huge unspoken taboo, that Donny attempts to bully Rob into backing down, Rob refuses to back down, and how this leads to the unraveling of not only Rob’s star place in the local rugby world but also in the family.
Well done.
As well as the characterization of Ray, the father of Donny and Rob, there is also a very skillfully-executed cameo role of another father, when Rob meets Bill’s father. The mean, viscous old rat-bag of a farmer is skillfully described, so much so that I found myself feeling almost sick with repulsion.
I also enjoyed Maurice’s description of the public dance of the 1950’s era, which was not much different from my own personal experiences circa late 1960’s. The NZ public dance of this era features in some of Gee’s other works, eg. in “Access Road”, where it is just as skillfully described from the female side of the hall.
The “Big Season” story plays itself out to its inevitable conclusion, fittingly culminating in the final, all-important rugby game of “the season”, against the dreaded “Railway” club, which Ray and his associates have been plotting and planning for all season. But, by this time, Rob, their former star player, doesn’t give a damn any more, and spends the whole time that the game is being played in an act of ultimate rebellion, much to his father’s and brother’s disgust.
From here, there is no going back to the way things were before: however, I love the final touch, where the mother, who for so many years has been the door-mat wife, finally finds the courage to stand up and act out her own little act of rebellion against Ray.
So, in the end, there are really no “winners”, and no “losers”, just players, who have hopefully learnt some good lessons from the experiences. Although in the case of Ray and Donny, and their rubgy-mad mates, I doubt that they have learned much.
But, who cares about them: New Zealand was heavily populated with the likes of them, and still is, to some extent. The whole point of the story is to highlight this, to expose their rubgy-mania and beer-soaked culture for what it is, a job that Gee performs mercilessly.
Oh, and also to chronicle the waking-up of one young man, emerging from among the rugby-mad crowd into a real manhood and maturity, if somewhat by trial and error, and with many mistakes along the way, but emerging none-the-less.
Whereas my own personal experience from this era was located in rapidly-growing post-war suburbia, Gee’s setting in this novel could be described as “archetypal small-town Kiwiland”. In the introduction, by Bill Manhire, to the paperback version that I recently read, it is revealed that the fictional town of “Wainui” was based on Paeroa, where Gee had lived for a time shortly before writing the novel.
It could just have easily been Levin or Oamaru or Foxton or Ashburton, they were all much the same, especially back then in 1958.
The story centres around rubgy. But it is not really about rugby as such, it is about the clash of characters, in a small-town and closely-knit small family setting, where the author takes the opportunity to fire off a lot of shots at the dominant small-town Kiwi culture that was centred around rugby, racing, and beer.
Having only recently begun to seriously work my way through Gee’s writings, (this is the fourth of his novels that I have read recently), I found it very interesting to notice the differences between this, his first published novel (published in 1962) and his recent work: namely “Blind Sight” and “Access Road”.
I should state up-front that I am a huge fan of Gee’s: I greatly admire his writing style, and his level of skill. My all-time favourite is “In My Father’s Den”, the original book, not the hacked-around movie screenplay.
Whereas his recent works display a real polish, every page crammed full of skillfully executed descriptive writing: writing that inevitably draws the reader in, from the very first page, “The Big Season” is by comparison quite raw, almost clumsy, both in its style, and in its plot.
However, the skill level is still remarkably high, especially for a first novel, and more so for one written in the late 1950’s, when writing styles in general were not as sophisticated as they are today.
Gee does a marvelous job of describing the interactions of the characters.
One point that I would like to make, was the influence of the father on the main character, and how this is a recurring theme in many of Gee’s novels. For example, the simple but striking opening line in “Blind Sight”, which says “Father taught us how not to love”, which is repeated as the very last closing line on the final page, to great effect.
In between those two occurrences of that one simple statement, there lies a hugely interesting exposition of the consequences of this simple fact.
Whereas in “Blind Sight” and in “Access Road”, the influence of the father (and the mother also) is more complex and fraught with various shades of meaning and nuance, in “The Big Season” it is comparatively blunt and brutal.
The “Big Season” father, Ray, is a fairly one-dimensional character, whose life centres around the local rugby team (rugby is his all-consuming obsession), socialising with his mates (with constant talk about rugby), and family life (again, dominated by rugby, as both sons are talented players).
The result is a rather unsympathetic portrait of a very one-dimensional father, and the eventual consequences when Rob, the main protagonist and younger son, begins to grow uncomfortable in his role as the “trophy son” star rugby player, and begins to look for a life of his own, and rebels against the straightjacket that his older brother (Donny) has willingly stayed confined in.
I like the way Gee has skillfully woven the tale of how this comes about, with the prologue of the much younger Rob developing an obsession about the goings-on up at the local boarding-house, which represents the “forbidden fruit” of 1950’s small-town New Zealand, the local version of “sin city”, where no so-called decent person would be seen dead.
Inevitably, years later, the young man Rob, now all grown-up at 21 years of age, and now able to decide for himself who is worthy of being his friends, he re-encounters the characters from the forbidden boarding-house, but now, his father (and older brother) cannot do much to prevent him from deciding for himself what to do about this.
I especially like the scene of the confrontation in the bar of the Commercial Hotel, which is the watering-hole of Ray and Donny, when Rob deliberately invites his new mate, Bill the burglar, to come and have a drink with him there, and how this is such a breaking of a huge unspoken taboo, that Donny attempts to bully Rob into backing down, Rob refuses to back down, and how this leads to the unraveling of not only Rob’s star place in the local rugby world but also in the family.
Well done.
As well as the characterization of Ray, the father of Donny and Rob, there is also a very skillfully-executed cameo role of another father, when Rob meets Bill’s father. The mean, viscous old rat-bag of a farmer is skillfully described, so much so that I found myself feeling almost sick with repulsion.
I also enjoyed Maurice’s description of the public dance of the 1950’s era, which was not much different from my own personal experiences circa late 1960’s. The NZ public dance of this era features in some of Gee’s other works, eg. in “Access Road”, where it is just as skillfully described from the female side of the hall.
The “Big Season” story plays itself out to its inevitable conclusion, fittingly culminating in the final, all-important rugby game of “the season”, against the dreaded “Railway” club, which Ray and his associates have been plotting and planning for all season. But, by this time, Rob, their former star player, doesn’t give a damn any more, and spends the whole time that the game is being played in an act of ultimate rebellion, much to his father’s and brother’s disgust.
From here, there is no going back to the way things were before: however, I love the final touch, where the mother, who for so many years has been the door-mat wife, finally finds the courage to stand up and act out her own little act of rebellion against Ray.
So, in the end, there are really no “winners”, and no “losers”, just players, who have hopefully learnt some good lessons from the experiences. Although in the case of Ray and Donny, and their rubgy-mad mates, I doubt that they have learned much.
But, who cares about them: New Zealand was heavily populated with the likes of them, and still is, to some extent. The whole point of the story is to highlight this, to expose their rubgy-mania and beer-soaked culture for what it is, a job that Gee performs mercilessly.
Oh, and also to chronicle the waking-up of one young man, emerging from among the rugby-mad crowd into a real manhood and maturity, if somewhat by trial and error, and with many mistakes along the way, but emerging none-the-less.
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