More from Janet Frame's autobiography
April 15th 2011 07:19
About a month ago I included some quotes from Janet Frame's autobiography.
Here are a couple more:
An Autobiography - Janet Frame - Part II, chapter 9
Writing an autobiography, usually thought of as a looking back, can just as well be a looking across or through, with the passing of time giving an x-ray quality to the eye. Also, time past is not time gone, it is time accumulated, with the host resembling the character in the fairy tale who was joined along the route by more and more characters, none of whom could be separated from one another or the host, with some stuck so fast that their presence caused physical pain. Add to the characters all the events, thoughts, feelings and there is a mass of time, now a sticky mess, now a jewel bigger than the planets and the stars.
An Autobiography - Janet Frame - Part II, chapter 11
South Dunedin - Kensington, Caversham, St Kilda - was a poor community where lives were spent in the eternal 'toil' with the low-lying landscape reflecting the lives, as if effort and hope were here washed away in the recurring floods while the dwellers on the hill suburbs prospered. I had taught in Caversham School and at Kensington in the school under the railway bridge, and I had seen the poverty, the rows of decaying houses washed biscuit-colour by time and the rain and the floods; and the pale children lank-haired, damp looking, as if they emerged each day from the tide.
Frame's comments about South Dunedin are interesting - some parts of the area still suffer from the daily tidal changes. I remember helping dig up a friend's back lawn in order for him to lay down some gravel (? I think) that would help reduce the frequent flooding of the grass.
And in my experience there's always been a sense that South Dunedin has more poverty than the rest of the city. When I was a child this was definitely the case, but with large numbers of older people moving into the area in the last few decades, the face of the place has changed. There are still poorer people there, but they're well outnumbered by the older ones.
Here are a couple more:
An Autobiography - Janet Frame - Part II, chapter 9
Writing an autobiography, usually thought of as a looking back, can just as well be a looking across or through, with the passing of time giving an x-ray quality to the eye. Also, time past is not time gone, it is time accumulated, with the host resembling the character in the fairy tale who was joined along the route by more and more characters, none of whom could be separated from one another or the host, with some stuck so fast that their presence caused physical pain. Add to the characters all the events, thoughts, feelings and there is a mass of time, now a sticky mess, now a jewel bigger than the planets and the stars.
An Autobiography - Janet Frame - Part II, chapter 11
South Dunedin - Kensington, Caversham, St Kilda - was a poor community where lives were spent in the eternal 'toil' with the low-lying landscape reflecting the lives, as if effort and hope were here washed away in the recurring floods while the dwellers on the hill suburbs prospered. I had taught in Caversham School and at Kensington in the school under the railway bridge, and I had seen the poverty, the rows of decaying houses washed biscuit-colour by time and the rain and the floods; and the pale children lank-haired, damp looking, as if they emerged each day from the tide.
Frame's comments about South Dunedin are interesting - some parts of the area still suffer from the daily tidal changes. I remember helping dig up a friend's back lawn in order for him to lay down some gravel (? I think) that would help reduce the frequent flooding of the grass.
And in my experience there's always been a sense that South Dunedin has more poverty than the rest of the city. When I was a child this was definitely the case, but with large numbers of older people moving into the area in the last few decades, the face of the place has changed. There are still poorer people there, but they're well outnumbered by the older ones.
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