What lies beyond
Dreams and reality collide in a Kiwi writer’s memoir of her life in Britain.
In June 1962, Elspeth Sandys joined the ranks of young New Zealanders engaged in that once-great rite of passage called OE. Looking to exchange the stifling familiarity of a small country for England’s sophisticated allure, the newly married Sandys set sail on a former Italian aircraft carrier transformed into a passenger liner. She had high hopes, glowing dreams and a small bank balance. But her dreams soon collided with reality in a country still scarred by war.
What she discovered during more than 20 years in Britain continues the story begun in her first volume of memoirs, What Lies Beneath. Written with the same casual elegance and wry humour that pervaded the first book, Casting Off (Otago
University Press, $35) charts her increasing recognition as a writer working in Britain’s rapidly changing society. Growing personal and professional maturity and enduring emotional ties with New Zealand fill a book written with much affection, candour and warmth.
I started Dr Cynric Temple-Camp’s The Cause of Death: True Stories of Death and Murder from a New Zealand Pathologist
(Harper Collins, $39.99) with increasing, albeit nervous, anticipation. Then I arrived at the chapter headed “The Exhumation”, and the nights of bad dreams about fog, gravestones, wet soil and corporeal decay began. This certainly isn’t a criticism of Temple-Camp’s forensic tales. It’s praise for his unerring ability to lift the veil on the pathologist’s role as a medical detective. There are moments when you want to look away, but he gently insists that you confront death as a process that cannot be ignored. The dead have their own tales to tell and here is a book that recounts his experiences without indulging in lurid sensationalism. Although it’s not an easy read, it emerges as illuminating, lucid and reassuringly human.
According to one school of thought, in terms of organised religion, New Zealand has never been an especially observant society. But for historian Peter Lineham, an understanding of the country’s religious culture is essential if we are to understand how New Zealand society has evolved during the past 160 years. In Sunday Best (Massey University Press, $55), Lineham provides a lively and eminently readable account of how the various religious denominations were themselves changed by exposure to the worlds of 19th- and early 20th-century Maori and Pakeha. In many respects, it was a profoundly symbiotic relationship.
From church architecture to doctrinal changes and the effects of increasing secularisation, he makes revelations about the country’s evolving sacred and secular profile as he describes what churchgoers actually believed in and how their churches affected their individual and collective lives. There’s even a hint of occasional scandal in the vestry.
Although The Cause of Death is not an easy read, it emerges as illuminating, lucid and reassuringly human.