1998, Wellington.
A series of catastrophic earthquakes has left the city destroyed. Returning to
the ruin from London, a New Zealand writer explores the devastation, compelled
to find out for himself what has become of the city he left years ago. As he
drifts through the desolate streets, home now to the shell-shocked and
dispossessed, he finds among the survivors a woman and a child. And although
they are haunted, hostile and broken, the strangers feel eerily familiar to
him: as if they promise the answers to the mysteries he once swore to leave
behind.
A layered
meditation on love, history, creativity and loss, The Pale North is an audacious and disarming novel, a
forensic journey into one writer's short but singularly brilliant body of work.
At
the end of my review of Greg McGee’s The Antipodeans, like a dumb,
impetuous clever dick prick, I wrote this on reading merely 17% of Hamish
Clayton’s second novel (ebook format) The
Pale North.
17% into The Pale North and the words in my mind so
far are: over-worked and arty sentimentality. Our individual reactions to a
worthy work of art are subjective: some works will transect with our
experiences and aesthetics and speak to us, some won’t. There’s a lot of book
to read yet, however, as I crustify into my middle age years, I like a starker
prose than this, with harder edges.
Thankfully
I redeemed myself (a bit) at 25% by writing an addendum, formatting it in bold
trying to recover my soul:
25% into The
Pale North, I retract the above. I'm getting it now, the words
occupying my mind have changed to 'aberrant; beguiling; singular talent, and
treat'. Also, sentimentality is the point; Mr Clayton has cracked through the
crust. Indeed, beginning to view this novel as a stunner. Looks like Wulf remains on the reading list.
Noting
the review of art is all about me – it has to be because I’m the point and then
the filter - can I excuse my rashness into that first statement? It's interesting Clayton
was prescient to the response of the premature half-wit reviewer:
… But then he asked me what I’d remembered of that
first exhibition [snip]. I described what I’d seen as clearly as I could
remember, but Colin only narrowed his eyes as he listened, focusing on some
far-off but internal horizon, scanning for meaning and finding my account
wanting on some score or other. He listened in silence as I revered what I
could recall of those photographs: their calm, arcane order, the sombre grace
of their elegy. He seemed unmoved but then sighed and turned away.
I asked him what I’d missed and he laughed quietly
and said, ‘The whole point.’
I’d
been in a ruthless stage of editing my own script, trying to pare it down to concise
sophistication, and was initially immune to Clayton’s swirling ordinary words
and the humanity which lives too easily (damn it) in them. Mea culpa.
I
don’t know if what I write is any good – see, me again. After realising I
couldn’t write a short story – either I didn’t like the form enough, or perhaps
I was just useless at it - I never submitted the first novel I wrote – it’s
awful, so never will – and am at sea on the one being rendered down; the only
solid fact being I have no judgement on assessing my own work (none at all).
And so – Murphy’s law - at this tenuous time, crashing from his celestial orbit
above my fragile confidence too easily tipped into paralysing self-doubt
(please forgive me Mike Hosking) comes Hamish ruddy Clayton and his bloody
masterpiece that creeps up on you, The
Pale North. Clayton is a dangerous man because he makes me want to stop
reading. He makes me want to stop reading, because he is so good he makes me
think I must stop writing for all is hopeless in the face of his words … but
then what would I have left without writing?
Wine.
Yes. But wine alone is not enough, certainly not the next morning. Please
realise Mrs H and I live in a house, three in fact (one munted thank you, no
fuck you, EQC – [from the Big One out of Christchurch]), wearing our happy
domesticity and well-worn love (and better, friendship) like a glove over
top of the world I otherwise live in words, so that doesn’t count, I don’t think.
If
I could read Clayton’s human stories, imagery and busted Wellington without an
ego, and a need, I reckon the overwhelming residue would be the word warmth from a finely honed artistry and a love of art,
despite he references the winds from Antarctica in The Pale North too much – three times by 44% in (there, see, I can still be critical).
Damn
that man. Utter bastard. I say beguiling, the publisher says disarming … you
should read him; two novels so far, Wulf,
followed by The Pale North, though I
can only recommend the second (highly), I’ve not read the first, yet.
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