Barbara Anderson: Change Of Heart

Reviewed by PETER WELLS*

I was in a bookshop recently trying to locate a New Zealand novel. The assistant, failing to find it in the New Zealand section, went to look for it in what she called "normal" fiction. This is a neat encapsulation of the position of New Zealand fiction in its own country.

Local fiction has a small and dedicated band of followers, but for most people the quintessential New Zealand writer is still Barry Crump, or his contemporary relation, Alan Duff. Janet Frame could be called Crump's fairy, slightly dotty, godmother. But for most New Zealanders, the New Zealand novel is still an uninspected motel, somewhat guiltily driven past on the way to more glittering diversions.

All this is prelude to a particular love hotel - to keep up the motel metaphor - Barbara Anderson. She has been producing artful, amusingly wry entertainments for more than a decade now. She certainly has her followers: the late Dirk Bogarde is just one. She started out believing herself to be a poet, and there's something of a poet's discerning choice of words in her prose.

Anderson, the wife of a vice-admiral and a lady of the realm, is Frank Sargeson's most unlikely heir: her novels are nearly always told in variations of down-home local patois. She enjoys spoken language, its jokes, and the way in which people often say more than they think when they turn to cliche.

In some ways, Change of Heart is no change of heart at all. It is yet another wry, occasionally wise divertissement. It's about an elderly dentist on the point of obsolescence. "God forbid that I should let it all hang out," he says early on.

His wife is randy for change. He has a hopeless son who works for WINZ, has a failed marriage behind him and a child. It all fits within what anyone might call "normal fiction". The hopeless son meets up with a Spanish stripper. The dentist comments deadpan: "I [have] heard that Spanish ladies are very open". Perhaps he's thinking of his position in the dentist's chair.

This novel could perhaps be accused of being quite slight. But it is also a delightful book which can be guaranteed to make you forget much of the weariness of daily life. It pokes fun at New Zealandness even as it celebrates our flat-vowelled qualities. As Anderson herself says, quoting a poet, "our planet is poorly equipped/ for delight/ One must/snatch/gladness/from the days that are". This is a delightful, normal New Zealand novel.

Victoria University Press, $27.95

*****

* Peter Wells is an Auckland writer and film-maker.