| |
 |
|
|
Hobby Forum Index » Arts - Books - Reviews » Book Review - Talking About O'Dwyer (C.K. Stead)
Page 1 of 1
|
| Author |
Message |
| Danny Yee |
 Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2003 9:39 pm |
|
|
|
Guest
|
Talking About O'Dwyer
C.K. Stead
Harvill 2000
243 pages
A book review by Danny Yee
http://dannyreviews.com/h/Talking_About_ODwyer.html
During the Second World War, Donovan O'Dwyer was a pakeha -- white New
Zealander -- officer in the Maori battalion of the New Zealand Division.
In the fighting around Maleme airport in the Battle of Crete, one of
his men, Joe Panapa, died in circumstances which resulted in his family
subsequently putting a _makutu_ curse on O'Dwyer. And when O'Dwyer
himself dies, more than fifty years later, his fellow Oxford don and
New Zealander Mike Newall is the only one who knows the full story --
which he recounts to his friend Winterstoke over a series of pub lunches.
The title notwithstanding, Newall has little to say about O'Dwyer:
he tells Joe Panapa's story, which he has reconstructed from letters
and a diary, but mostly he talks about his own life (and all of this
Stead puts into the third person). As a child Newall's best friend
was Joe Panapa's son, Panapa having married into the Croatian family
next door. During the Vietnam war, Newall -- a philosopher, an expert
on Wittgenstein -- had an academic posting in the United States, and
his account of that is background to his marriage and recent divorce.
And coming to terms with his divorce and tracing Joe Panapa's story has
taken Newall to Croatia (in the process of separating from Yugoslavia)
and back to New Zealand, to find new lovers and meet up with old ones.
_Talking About O'Dwyer_ moves backwards and forwards between these
strands, intertwining past and present, and spanning geographically
and culturally disparate worlds: New Zealand in the 40s and 50s, Crete
during the Second World War, the United States in the 60s, and Oxford,
Croatia, and New Zealand in the present. Despite this, there's never
any trouble following events and it all hangs together as a story -- it
doesn't have the thrust of a full-blooded thriller or mystery, but the
uncertainty about the manner of Joe Panapa's death is nicely spun out and
there's continuous tension from the working out of personal relationships.
Stead offers fine evocations of age, childhood and memories, insights into
relationships and their failures, and brief but powerful vignettes of war.
The conclusion is perhaps a little contrived, but not unsatisfying;
and the overall result is an engaging and rewarding novel.
--
%T Talking About O'Dwyer
%A Stead, C.K.
%I Harvill
%C London
%D 2000
%O paperback
%G ISBN 1-86046-821-7
%P 243pp
%K fiction, war fiction, New Zealand
%Z fifty years to resolve a Maori curse from World War II
23 July 2003
------------------------------------------------------
Copyright (c) 2003 Danny Yee http://danny.oz.au/
Danny Yee's Book Reviews http://dannyreviews.com/
------------------------------------------------------ |
|
|
| Back to top |
|
| |
|
Page 1 of 1
All times are GMT - 5 Hours
The time now is Mon Dec 01, 2008 1:02 pm
|
|