The Bleak Book
December 16th 2011 06:43
Joy Cowley in her memoirs, Navigation, discusses the bleakness of many New Zealand novels....(pages 108/9)
Over the next decade I wrote another four novels for Doubleday: Man of Straw, The Mandrake Root, Of Men and Angels, and The Growing Season, all set in New Zealand and all in our national literary genre, the bleak book. I believe it can be said that in New Zealand novels and films, the darkness is heavier than the light, and particularly in my own novels. The pages were so sodden with angst that they could be wrung out like handkerchiefs at a funeral. The later novels Classical Music and Holy Days were more balanced, but when I wrote them I had grown past the stage of therapy writing.
I have theories about the bleak book syndrome that other writers may not find acceptable. We all have within us a cave of pain where we have hidden our fears, hurts, resentments, beyodn the daylight of conscious thought. But writing is a deep process, much like meditation. Monks have described the early stages of contemplative prayer as a dark time in which they were sorely tempted by evil thoughts. That's one way of looking at it. But the same process works for authors. We can be sure that when we start writing, our pages will be like a Shakespearean play, littered with corpses. The trauma cave we no longer admit to having will be opened, and unresolved fear will be projected in our characters.
Of my own novels, I can only say that I am glad I did all my 'therapy writing' before I wrote novels for children. I see too many bleak manuscripts and books, especially in the young adult genre. Adolescence is a time of emotional extremes, but I don't think that a depressed teenager is going to feel better through a depressing book.
As a reviewer, I've become tired of reviewing New Zealand novels for the very reason Cowley discusses above: too many of them have been so sombre, grim and miserable that I can barely finish them. I think the pick of all time was Stuart Hoar's 1993 novel, The Hard Light. Thankfully, in the last few years there's been a sea change in this regard and New Zealand novels are starting to become more celebratory, funnier and generally lighter in tone (by which I don't mean that lack seriousness, but they don't drag you down while you're reading them).
Over the next decade I wrote another four novels for Doubleday: Man of Straw, The Mandrake Root, Of Men and Angels, and The Growing Season, all set in New Zealand and all in our national literary genre, the bleak book. I believe it can be said that in New Zealand novels and films, the darkness is heavier than the light, and particularly in my own novels. The pages were so sodden with angst that they could be wrung out like handkerchiefs at a funeral. The later novels Classical Music and Holy Days were more balanced, but when I wrote them I had grown past the stage of therapy writing.
I have theories about the bleak book syndrome that other writers may not find acceptable. We all have within us a cave of pain where we have hidden our fears, hurts, resentments, beyodn the daylight of conscious thought. But writing is a deep process, much like meditation. Monks have described the early stages of contemplative prayer as a dark time in which they were sorely tempted by evil thoughts. That's one way of looking at it. But the same process works for authors. We can be sure that when we start writing, our pages will be like a Shakespearean play, littered with corpses. The trauma cave we no longer admit to having will be opened, and unresolved fear will be projected in our characters.
Of my own novels, I can only say that I am glad I did all my 'therapy writing' before I wrote novels for children. I see too many bleak manuscripts and books, especially in the young adult genre. Adolescence is a time of emotional extremes, but I don't think that a depressed teenager is going to feel better through a depressing book.
As a reviewer, I've become tired of reviewing New Zealand novels for the very reason Cowley discusses above: too many of them have been so sombre, grim and miserable that I can barely finish them. I think the pick of all time was Stuart Hoar's 1993 novel, The Hard Light. Thankfully, in the last few years there's been a sea change in this regard and New Zealand novels are starting to become more celebratory, funnier and generally lighter in tone (by which I don't mean that lack seriousness, but they don't drag you down while you're reading them).
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