Two Top Class Novels

The Month's New Reading

Two Top Class Novels From New Zealand

Two excellent New Zealand novels that can hold their heads up in any international company have been published this month. But although both are top class, there all other resemblance ends. Errol Brathwaite, with The Needle's Eye, produces the second stage in a planned triology, all with a background of the Maori Wars; but A New Gate for Mattie Dulivich is conspicuously contemporary.

RATH WAITE was the winner of 1 the Otago Daily Times centennial npetition a few years ago with a /el of wartime Bougainville called Affair Of Men. The first novel the triology followed ( The Flying h), and one of its characters was ijor Hugh Williams. In the present /el Williams is promoted to chief iracter and it is mainly through his tunes and misfortunes that the ry unfolds. fhe period is 1863-64, during the ond phase of the Maori Wars ich were then three years old, with ither seven to run. All the action es place in the Waikato, an area the southern end of what is now ckland Province, which is dom ted by NZ’s largest river, the likato, and its tributary the Waipa. \lthough the Treaty of Waitangi re the country into the keeping Queen Victoria, it took the British years to consolidate their position h some of the Maori tribes. The t phase of open Maori insurrec i lasted from 1845-48; and the ond, and most serious, for 10 years m 1860. It is with this long war t Brathwaite concerns himself.

Side Issues

\s the war dragged on, all sorts side issues entered it, but in its ginal, over-simplified conception, argument was about whether the ions should have their own king, they insisted; or whether there >uld be, as the British insisted, only ; sovereign, Queen Victoria.

Phis clash of two peoples and two tures has all the incident, excite nt, bravery and adventure that great ries are made of, and most New iland school-children of this re wer’s generation thrilled to the ing exploits of the Maori chiefs

who gave the British hell. Yet, until now, little attempt has been made to present this period in adult, sophisticated fashion.

Perhaps what sets the Maori Wars apart from other colonial conflicts of the kind—America’s Indian wars or the Afrikaaners’ troubles with the Zulus —is that, as the fighting went on, both sides developed an under standing and respect for the other.

At the end of it both Pakeha and Maori were able to settle into a partnership that, while it has had some latter-day stresses and strains, has been more a workable affair than any achieved elsewhere.

The author brings this out through his Major Williams, who begins not only as a man conscious of being a soldier, but conscious also of being a very brave soldier. He is very eased with himself, his bravery and the fact that amongst the civilian population he is a veritable lion among the doves.

As the story develops Major Williams begins to have doubts about his own greatness and finally to see himself in perspective against a war that is not very glorious at all.

The author’s characterisation of Williams and subsidiary characters such as the missionaries—Father Brady, the medical bigot, Harris, and his unfortunate superior, the Rev.

Mr. Beckwith, is very good, blending in well with the factual figures who have an important historical place in the narrative.

A New Gate For Mattie Dulivich is a different kind of literary exercise.

It is written in a style that is quite unusual and although the author’s frequent switches of tense take some getting used to, it seems to fit the characters that make the book.

On the one hand there is the Dulivich family, the members of which might be called New New Zealanders apart from the fact that mother and father have been out from Dalmatia for about 40 years.

On the other hand there is Amo Tahu, his wife, Marama, and a clutch of Maori relations and friends.

Somewhere in the middle there is Mary Mandalay, who owns many neglected acres that two voracious, real-estate men covet for sub-division and development.

The Dulivich mere and pere, Vinka and Mattie, work like beavers to turn their rough grazing property into a productive farm, and to produce and educate their children. Amo and Marama, Maori fashion, sit on their land and do no more work than they can help.

Their son Mita is of like mind.

“His motor truck has all the excite ments,” says his mother, “For mak ing a farm or being a midwife to a lot of old pregnant cows, Mita isn’t caring a damn.”

In spite of their different attitudes there is a great bond of friendship

between the Dulivich and Tahu families, expressed mostly in the boat ing expeditions indulged in by Mattie and Amo. When their happiness is threatened by the disposal of Man dalay acres, dogged Dalmatia com bines with Amo’s Polynesian gods to do something about it.

E, H. Audley is a New Zealand school-teacher who has taught also in the United Kingdom. His writing certainly has its own brand of peculiar charm.—JT.

(The Needle’S Eye. Collins. 26/9. A

New Gate For Mattie Dulwich.

Hodder & Stoughton. 23/-.)