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.