I-spy..or I-books?
Letter I was a toss up. It's Great Kiwi Bookathon, so I thought I would go native, though I don't want to ignore Kazuo Ishiguro, who is one of those literature Nobel Prize winners. I've only read two of his books, but I've never forgotten Remains of the Day and Never Let Me Go (both made into stunning movies). Kazuo Ishiguro is Japanese, but he writes in English since he grew up in England from when he was five. Both of the aforementioned novels are set in England, but Remains of the Day is possibly more English than the English themselves. So straightlaced and uptight and oh-so-proper is the butler in Remains of the Day that you wonder if it borders on parody. In the novel, the butler is the employ of an aristocratic family, and does everything for them with white gloves like ironing the newspapers. It doesn't matter that his employers are total Nazi fascist sympathisers and have never repented for their ill gotten gains, the facade must be maintained.
Never Let me Go is a Science Fiction that has me thinking if I had a genetic twin, would I in the future borrow them for spare parts? I often have thoughts of cloning myself when I'm working sole charge in the library and the administration doesn't want to give me a paid assistant. However I was let go, so that doesn't work. This novel is haunting and raises questions like all good Sci - Fi novels do, about humanity and what to do if you find out that you actually ARE a test tube baby.
Other than that, the other I author I'd like to mention is Witi Ihimaera. While some of his novels can be wordy, I must mention that I remember writing to him once with my hotmail and asking if he had any tips on writing and he wrote back and said just write everyday and keep at it. Author of Pounamu Pounamu, Tangi, White Lies, The Whale Rider, Dear Miss Mansfield and several other now-famous- in-New Zealand novels, Ihimaera's body of work is essential to the Maori renaissance and opens up our rich bicultural dialogue. In recent times he's retold Purakau (Maori myth and legend) into a grand epic of oceanic navigation, and written two of his memoirs, a third yet to come. He can whakapapa back to the original migration, and anyone who is tangata whenua would be able to relate to any of his writing, whether writing about gossiping aunties, rogue cousins, whanau rivalry or trying to pass for white. You could visit a Marae or study Te reo in school, but that's not the same as what it is to BE Maori. If you read Ihimaera, you'll begin to understand.
Sometimes writers can feel like they are in a foreign country ruled by unseen forces and trying to mansplain everyone's obscure customs to you, but that is what good writing does. It keeps you thinking long after you've finished the book and returned it to the library.
No comments:
Post a Comment