How Others See Us

This may be related to the traditional NZ habit of asking visitors "What do you think of the country" just as they get through Customs ... but I'm always intrigued by books by overseas authors that are partly or wholly set in New Zealand. From Samuel Butler to John Wyndham to Kim Stanley Robinson, plenty of authors have done it. I remember Earth by David Brin as a rather dodgy example. Does anyone else have particularly good, or bad, examples to share?

- Tim Jones

To be honest, I haven't read many books set in NZ; especially not ones with interesting descrptions. This interests me, though, so I'll have to check it out.

I do know that when people come to NZ, they say that we're friendly. ^^; Most are also surprised at how easy it is to get burnt, so I remind them that we're just below the hole in the ozone layer (I think?)

I do have a friend who has just moved from England a few months ago, except she does and comments on so many differences that it's hard to keep track of, lol.

Try The Colour by Rose Tremain. She's an English author who wrote about the gold rush era on the South Island. It has some interesting views from the various characters on what NZ was like back then. Though it is of course fiction so it's not exactly the gospel truth, I believe the author did a fair amount of research through letters etc into the era.

I found a list of 19th century works set in NZ or written by NZers online at the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre - it's at

http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-corpus-19thcenturynovels.html

and it includes the full text of the works listed. I find it hard to read lengthy texts online, but it is certainly an interesting resource for those with scholarly inclinations! Erewhon is famous; Anno Domini 2000 by Julius Vogel was reprinted recently.

- Tim Jones

I loved Earth! I do agree that David Brin was a bit dodgy in places with his NZnesses.

The English author Anna Kavan, who is famous for her novel Ice (which I haven't actually read, I must admit) turns out to have been a New Zealand author as well, with two very different views of the country: see

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/departments/index.cfm?P=11802

Has anyone read Ice or any of Anna Kavan's other books?