KEY POINTS:
It is a sign of the wealth and creative breadth of Janet Frame's writing that her first novel, Owls Do Cry (1957), and her second-to-last novel, Living in the Maniototo (1979), make such a curious pair. Owls Do Cry is the book for which (except the autobiographies) Frame is probably best known within New Zealand, and Living in the Maniototo is arguably her best work of fiction.
This new Random House edition celebrates the 50th anniversary edition of Owls Do Cry, and, as Lawrence Jones in his new introduction, and Patrick Evans in his recent article in the Listener, remind us, this book is something of a New Zealand literary institution. Ground-breaking when it first appeared, it still speaks powerfully about a specific time, a specific cultural experience that doubtless resonates with many New Zealanders today.
Owls Do Cry is largely responsible for the popular conception of Frame's work as concerned with the plight of the artistic individual in a small-minded society. It tells the story of the Withers children and the treasure they find in imagination. This treasure initially safeguards, but ultimately fails to protect, them from the ravages of time, convention and social mores.
Daphne, the child who immerses herself wholly in the realm of imagination, "sings" as an adult from "the dead room" in a stream of lyrical italicised prose, while she awaits the leucotomy that will normalise her. In parallel narratives, we follow the adult diary of Chicks (the youngest Withers child) who opted for the 1950s suburban dream, and the fate of Toby - the epileptic who is forever straddling two worlds: the alternative realm of imagination and otherness, which he cannot bring himself to fully embrace, but which (thanks to his epilepsy) he can never fully escape, and the materialistic realm of "sick yellow treasure", whose allure he cannot resist.
It is a beautifully written book, both poignant and disturbing; but there is something relentless, even heavy-handed about its adherence to a dual narrative. As Evans and Jones remind us, Frame herself considered the book to be an exploration rather than a novel, but I can't help but feel there is something incongruous about the casting of such a fixed, schematic work as an exploration.
This tension is perhaps highlighted by the contrast between Owls Do Cry and Frame's later, far more fluid work, especially a book like Living in the Maniototo.
If Owls Do Cry supported one popular conception of Frame's work, Living in the Manioto is the book that consolidates Frame's status as a brilliantly incisive mischief-maker. Simply put, this book is a huge amount of fun. It is so rich in texture and ideas, so diverse in its attention to so many aspects of life from the mundane to the philosophical, yet it somehow manages to leave the reader with the sense of a perfectly executed and precise performance.
Only a conman/woman (and there are plenty of them in Living in the Maniototo) would attempt to pronounce absolutely on the nature and meaning of this book, so I will focus instead on the experience of reading it. Although the reader doesn't know whom to trust or how heavily to lean on any surface of reality in the novel, such uncertainty only adds to the pleasure of this text.
Our multi-faceted narrator is New Zealand writer and widow Mavis Furness Barwell Halleton, also known as Alice Thumb, "eavesdropper", and Violet Pansy Proudlock, "ventriloquist". These latter personae (at least) are trickster figures who lead the reader a merry dance as she or he, like Mavis, attempts to make sense of Mavis recent experiences in the United States.
I won't spoil the surprise for readers new to the novel, but to give you a taste of the material involved - at one point an artist character, Tommy, is erased on the spot by a blue fury from a cleaning commercial. If you only ever read one Frame book, this is the one you must not miss, and if you have already read it, read it again - it's a new book every time.
* Random House, $29.99
* Dr Jan Cronin teaches New Zealand literature in the English Department at the University of Auckland.
