When is a Book not a Book
Third Week: 15-21 November, 2008
Today is Friday. A warm early summer’s day. At seven o’clock in the morning I watered some juvenile rosemary plants that I have propagated from the mother plant at my front door. Steam rose from the sunlit ground. Already the earth is heating up. In New Zealand, we are at the mercy of the ozone hole that forms each spring in the southern hemisphere. I forgot this a few days ago and sat in the full sunlight on my deck for almost 15 minutes. I got burned. Forgot to look at the time, forgot about the mid day sun. Forgot.
I can see Mount Mangatautiri in the distance from my kitchen window. This mountain has a 45 kilometre fence around the summit. This is no ordinary fence. It is made to keep out cats and dogs and ferrets and possums and stoats and weasels and any human being intent on harming the birds. Inside the fence a few male kiwis are (hopefully) incubating the eggs laid by the females. We in the Waikato district are waiting for the hatching with bated breath.
A wonderful project. But one that would have seemed completely bizarre a few short years ago. Building an expensive fence to keep kiwi incarcerated? Madness. Keeping out of the sun for months on end? More madness.
One of the consequences of getting older is the ability to experience change at a gut level. One lives in a state of permanent incredulity. How can it be that there are only a few kiwi left in the wild? How can it be in this land of wilderness and wonderful beaches we have learned to fear the sun? And how can it be that (according to some media reports) the book as we know it is about to disappear.
A year ago this month Amazon.com released a small e-reader (the Kindle) weighing only 10 ounces. It caused a sensation amongst publishers, writers and readers alike. It is a device that downloads digital books that can be accessed and read on demand. It is the literary equivalent of Apple’s iPod which has revolutionised the music industry by changing the power structures that formed the relationships between music makers and music sellers. Now, Sony’s e-book has been launched and some say that it is better than the Kindle. It comes to the consumer with 100 classic books already downloaded and is said to be much more user friendly than the clunky looking Kindle.
The revolution is underway and given what has happened in other areas of digital creativity, the e-book will soon get smaller, cheaper and make the world of books available to all at a very low cost. Call me an optimist, but I can’t wait.
If we can transport books from writer to reader at the click of a mouse without the cost of paper, transport and all the layers of management that make books so expensive, we will see the barriers between writers and readers melt away. Some say that this will result in a load of rubbish being published. What’s new? This has always been the case. But then, one readers ‘rubbish’ is another readers enjoyment. Publish everything, let it all hang out, let the reader decide.
The fascinating thing for me is not so much the technology (which is nothing short of breathtaking) but the negative reaction to it. Many of us have powerful emotional attachments to books and to the act of reading itself. I am one of those people. I also know that any change always brings fear. When the first printing press was invented, some people were worried that if books became mass produced, anybody would be able to read them. Knowledge could no longer be controlled by the power elites.
It is ironic that I have chosen to set my first online fictional work in the past (1920). In the first few pages (posted last week), we see Hannalore rescuing a drowned man from a river that runs through the closed religious community where she lives. Now read on…
Part Two: Hannalore: The Music of the Spheres
One of the men dismounted and climbed down the rough track. It was Abraham. He removed his felt hat and held it by the brim. He ordered her to release her skirt from her waistband and to leave the body alone. It had nothing to do with them. He covered the man’s flaccid genitals with his hat. Juno giggled.
‘This innocent child should not be exposed to such sights,’ said Abraham. ‘I will ride into town tomorrow for the constable to come with a konaki to retrieve the body.’
‘But he is still alive,’ said Hannalore. ‘God in his infinite grace has saved him.’
♫♫
Hannalore threw lumps of fuel into the fire box of the coal range. The room was infused with the smell of roasted potatoes and mutton. Abraham came into the kitchen and ordered the women on cooking duty to prepare barley soup and bread for their unexpected guest and to find him some decent clothes. Then send him on his way.
‘No,’ said Hannalore. ‘The poor man is too weak to make his way on foot through
the bush. He must stay until he has regained his strength.’
There was a hush; everything stopped except for the rhythmic clanking noise Juno was making by hitting an empty saucepan with a stick. Tap! Tap! Tap!
Hannalore would not let it go. ‘The man’s horse has been swept away in the river taking his saddle packs with him. He has nothing left.’
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Hannalore opened the oven door and began to turn the potatoes over with a wooden spurtle. Abraham said for the sake of my sanity would someone please control that child.
Tap! Tap! Tap! Hannalore removed the pot and the stick from Juno. The child clicked her tongue and tried to mimic the sound of the stick. Tip! Tip! Tip!
Abraham said that the situation was murky. Jimmy and Conrad had been sent to the river to find the drowned man’s horse but after searching for many hours they had failed to find any trace of the beast. It was becoming clear that the situation required further investigation. There had been a suggestion that the man had been sent to spy on them.
Tip! Tip! Tip!
‘I am a fair man,’ said Abraham, ‘and one who adheres to the sacred principles of Christian justice. The stranger is permitted to stay until he has recovered on the condition that before he leaves there will be a hearing. Hannalore will have every chance to tell us the truth about the drowned man and how it was that she brought him back to life.’
He turned and left. Juno began to chant back to life back to life in her copy-cat voice. Hannalore placed a warning finger on her mouth and the child fell silent. The women in the kitchen came out of their collective trance and murmured between themselves. Hannalore turned her back on them and finished attending to the potatoes. The heat of the oven blasted her face.
The murmurs became louder and the comments and questions more pointed. Then the old woman Sarah stood up from her stool and clapped her hands. ‘Be silent,’ she said. ‘The food will be spoiled with this idle chatter.’
‘Her shame is written on her body,’ said Augusta. ‘There is no need for words.’
‘In that case,’ said Sarah, ‘let there be an end to it.’
3
The trial was brief and to the point. Hannalore denied prior knowledge of Mr Wilfred Cattermole before she saw him washed up on the banks of the swimming hole. She did not understand why she had removed his underclothes. She did not understand why she was able to put the breath back in his body. Someone or something had guided her.
Mr Cattermole was seated in front of Hannalore in the meeting room. When he turned his head to look at her, she barely recognised him from the glacial being that had lain beneath her at the swimming hole. He looked relaxed and healthy and his beard was neatly trimmed. He was dressed like the other men; flannel shirt, denim dungarees and a felt hat.
Mr Cattermole was not able to explain what he was doing near the river. His memory had gone, flown away like a paper dart, skedaddled. He can remember leaving Piopio on his horse some time ago. After that, it’s a blank. No, he does not know Miss Hannalore Cooper. Never laid eyes on her before. He didn’t even know that this place existed. He would like to know when they had arrived here to take up the land.
‘We are not here to answer your questions,’ said Abraham. ‘You are the trespasser, not us. You must leave today and go back to where you belong. Jimmy and Conrad will take you to the boundary of our land.’
‘What was the name of the river that took my horse and almost took me?’
‘Our land has its own name and so does the river,’ said Abraham.
‘By the look of it I reckon it to be a tributary of the Mokau River.’
‘You will not find us on any map.’
Mr Cattermole stood up. ‘Don’t bother with an escort. I am well used to the ways of the bush. I can find my way back to Piopio.’
‘Go then,’ said Abraham. ‘There is a package of food and a bed roll outside on the porch. Take them and leave.’
Mr Cattermole turned at the door and doffed his hat at the assembly. He gave Hannalore a conspiratorial wink.
She was mortified by this unwanted gesture of familiarity.
Worse was to come. Abraham summoned her to the front of the room and instructed her to face her accusers. Did she not understand the gravity of her actions? She had shown disrespect towards the elders since the unfortunate incident by the river. Her arrogance must be reined in.
‘I am loath to do this,’ he said, ‘but I have no choice. You will be subject to the punishment of interment for the period of one lunar month beginning next Sabbath when the moon is at its lowest point.’
Hannalore could feel her body close down. Her legs shook. She tried to hold her head up high and look them in the eye but none would engage her.
Abraham asked the assembly to pray for her soul. Then he read from the book of Samuel from the Old Testament. Saul said unto his servants seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit… and his servants said to him behold there is a woman that has a familiar spirit at Endor…
The felt hats nodded in approval. Abraham put down his bible and took hold of Hannalore’s head. She locked her eyes onto his. She forced herself to stay calm. He will not make me cry, he will not…
‘Learn your lesson from the sacred book,’ said Abraham. ‘Only God has the right to bring back the dead. Do not enter the dark and dangerous world of the bone-conjuror even if a king himself begs you to do so.’
Hannalore could not speak.
Abraham went to the door and ushered in old Sarah. ‘Take her,’ he said. ‘Take her now. You know what to do.’
November 28th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
This relates to teaching creative writing. My first book was published when I was 39. When I think back to my apprenticeship days, which lasted approximately 23 years, I would have loved the opportunity of being amongst other apprentice writers and the chance to listen to a published writer. You always pick up much more than you think. And often it is things which barely register consciously which come back to haunt. The fact is, too, every writer is an apprentice but there are skills and tricks you pick up along the way. It is good to share these insights.