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A review by vincentkonrad
Pūrākau: Māori Myths Retold by Māori Writers by Witi Ihimaera, Whiti Hereaka
5.0
Incredible. It’s a thick book but so compelling that that doesn’t matter.
There’s a dialogue by Wilde in which the insufferable Gilbert argues that too much is written for the page and not for the voice, and it suffers for it. The majority of this collection would have pleased him, as the language flows aurally and one feels they are being told a tale rather than that they are reading words on a page. Suppose it comes with an oral tradition.
Some of the pieces have been written for the book, but the majority are collected from existing work spanning the last forty odd years. Their arrangement allows the reader to get a grasp of the mythology as a whole, while the individuality of each piece lets them stand out on their own significance. This also initiates one into the sense of reality that these myths have; they are at once true events that happened and just stories, perhaps with an aetiological purpose or a moral. Having read about a character in one context (Tangaroa as one of a bunch of rowdy sons with divorced parents), they remain that instance while also taking on other forms (Tangaroa as god of the sea who must be placated), being at once a familiar and a strange entity; a real human and a god.
The bringing together of these pieces allows for themes to emerge from the whole, which again initiate one into the tikanga that they represent. Ihimaera cheekily notes that the theme of asking permission to use things may be relevant to arrogant young writers (who may be later accused of plagiarism).
While there were a couple that I wasn’t into, that’s my problem for opposing certain forms (most poetry; story via interview). This also represents very much of a canon, with little from younger writers, but this is partly its purpose. Can hardly fault a work for following its own rules, and as a primer on Māori writers it gives a good taste of the big names that one has heard many times but neglected to actually read anything of.
Thoroughly entertaining, and whet my appetite for more of the same—in particular it got me excited to read ‘Black Marks on the Whit Page’, which I have had sitting there for a while without quite rousing the interest to open it.
There’s a dialogue by Wilde in which the insufferable Gilbert argues that too much is written for the page and not for the voice, and it suffers for it. The majority of this collection would have pleased him, as the language flows aurally and one feels they are being told a tale rather than that they are reading words on a page. Suppose it comes with an oral tradition.
Some of the pieces have been written for the book, but the majority are collected from existing work spanning the last forty odd years. Their arrangement allows the reader to get a grasp of the mythology as a whole, while the individuality of each piece lets them stand out on their own significance. This also initiates one into the sense of reality that these myths have; they are at once true events that happened and just stories, perhaps with an aetiological purpose or a moral. Having read about a character in one context (Tangaroa as one of a bunch of rowdy sons with divorced parents), they remain that instance while also taking on other forms (Tangaroa as god of the sea who must be placated), being at once a familiar and a strange entity; a real human and a god.
The bringing together of these pieces allows for themes to emerge from the whole, which again initiate one into the tikanga that they represent. Ihimaera cheekily notes that the theme of asking permission to use things may be relevant to arrogant young writers (who may be later accused of plagiarism).
While there were a couple that I wasn’t into, that’s my problem for opposing certain forms (most poetry; story via interview). This also represents very much of a canon, with little from younger writers, but this is partly its purpose. Can hardly fault a work for following its own rules, and as a primer on Māori writers it gives a good taste of the big names that one has heard many times but neglected to actually read anything of.
Thoroughly entertaining, and whet my appetite for more of the same—in particular it got me excited to read ‘Black Marks on the Whit Page’, which I have had sitting there for a while without quite rousing the interest to open it.