Michael O'Leary: Unlevel Crossing

By MICHAEL LARSON

Patrick Mika Fitzgerald meets a stranger on a train just out of Christchurch and remarks on how difficult it is to understand the man. The language used is a mixture of Maori and English, both spoken imperfectly and in a circumlocutory manner, almost pretentious in its effect.

I wonder if O'Leary is aware that this perfectly sums up his own novel? Far more than the events, it is the language which dominates this offering from the Kapiti Coast bookseller/performer/poet/writer.

He mixes Maori and English, poetry, prose, songs and bizarre puns to tell this meandering story, at one stage even resorting to a character that speaks backwards.

If the plot hung together, then the use of invented and mixed language types could work well. Juxtaposing bizarre semantics against a brilliant story could, if done properly, serve to highlight the narrative.

Here, the narrative doesn't have enough meat to hold our attention, and the strange semantic convolutions lose our interest. Sure, some of the punning is funny - "chopin liszt" for shopping list, Fitz dancing "gingerly but Austere-like" - there is no doubt O'Leary has an imaginative mind.

But too often the whole thing reads like a series of clues to a cryptic crossword.

Too many of the language jokes add nothing to the story or characters, and seem to serve no other purpose than to show how clever-clever O'Leary can be.

In addition, he often resorts to the most diabolical cliche. The old joke about "honour offer" is almost nauseating to see in print, it is so done to death, and quite often the language is plain indecipherable.

There is also a large section in the middle - the "Yellban Apocryphal" - which is so difficult to follow, having re-read it three times I was none the wiser as to its purpose in the novel, other than it shows O'Leary once read Pynchon. The fact that it is meant to show Fitz having gone insane is neither here nor there; it is too indecipherable to make any sense.

What frustrates is that the story - of someone following their heart and taking a physical and spiritual journey through our beautiful landscape - is a good one, and O'Leary can pull out the most heartfelt prose, particularly when describing the natural beauty of this land.

But why weave into this an untidy subplot about Nazi Germany, and tell the whole thing in such a bizarre way it puts you off reading it? As a study for New Zealand literature students it may serve some purpose; but if you want a good read, give this a wide berth. Some self-discipline and editorial censorship will be needed before I pick up another O'Leary book.

Huia Publishing

$29.99