Busytown: A good read
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if I started a PA book club, would anybody come?
Would there be a colouring in section?
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With all due and sincere respect, I would suggest that referring to various participants in this thread as closed minded tools of the PA "clique" was less than entirely helpful. Jus' saying...
Hate doing a climb-down but while everyone else is diverted by Cactus Kate's APN conspiracy, and while no one is looking over here, I'll say: fair cop, Craig, I was out of order. Okay, that feels better.
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While no one else is looking, group hug for Philip -- unless that's too cliquey :-)
And yes to short books, magazine articles, and colouring in. I do think we should reserve the right to wank on about other books other people might not have read, though - that's how I find out about what to read next.
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From Stuff today:
Life improved substantially for prominent author Witi Ihimaera this week.
Ihimaera, who was at the centre of a plagiarism row last week, was today named one of New Zealand's Arts Foundation Laureates for 2009.
The author of Whale Rider is one of five artists to win the award, along with carver Lyonel Grant, musician Chris Knox, photographer Anne Noble and traditional Maori musical instruments guru Richard Nunns.
The awards, presented at the ASB Showgrounds in Auckland this evening, gives the recipients a $50,000 no-strings attached donation to celebrate their past achievements and invest in their future.
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I do think we should reserve the right to wank on about other books other people might not have read, though - that's how I find out about what to read next.
Quite honestly, showing off the fact that I am well read* is all I've got. You can't possibly be thinking of taking it away from me.
(*) It's not even true, it's just that I have a knack of working the twelve books I've read into most conversations.
Life improved substantially for prominent author Witi Ihimaera this week.
He was made a fellow of the humanities on the day when the news broke or the one after. I felt quite sorry for him, if that makes any sense.
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Life improved substantially for prominent author Witi Ihimaera this week
Feh...
I'm trying to figure out WTF a "$50,000 no-strings attached donation to celebrate their past achievements and invest in their future" is, though I hope it will do Chris Knox and the family a lot of good. Ihimaera I couldn't give a rat's arse about.
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though I hope it will do Chris Knox and the family a lot of good.
The Herald was interested in my views, but mysteriously did not end up using my reply about how delighted I was to see this renaissance man and complete original (Mr Knox, I mean) finally recognised at the highest level. But then good news is no news :-)
WTF a "$50,000 no-strings attached donation to celebrate their past achievements and invest in their future" is
Modelled on the MacArthur Genius Grant, I'd wager, although smaller monetarily by a factor of ten. Good stuff, though - I'm quite fond of that kind of whopper-scale American-style drive-by philanthropy. Although you might run out of recipients faster in NZ. But that's probably why they only do 5 at a time.
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I notice, too, that the paper of record keeps inadvertently misspelling the title of the novel. That will surely mess up any future googling on the subject.
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The Herald was interested in my views, but mysteriously did not end up using my reply about how delighted I was to see this renaissance man and complete original (Mr Knox, I mean) finally recognised at the highest level.
Heh...
Modelled on the MacArthur Genius Grant, I'd wager, although smaller monetarily by a factor of ten. Good stuff, though - I'm quite fond of that kind of whopper-scale American-style drive-by philanthropy.
So do I -- but what a shame an award that is supposed to recognise the highest achievement in the arts is described with such an arse-ugly tumour of cliché and pretentious verbiage. If Knox had his voice, I'm sure he'd be taking the piss out of it in his adorably feral manner. :)
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</quote>group hug for Philip -- unless that's too cliquey </quote>
No, that's more cult-y (cf Love bombing). Isn't the next step that we isolate him from his existing peer group?
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No, that's more cult-y (cf Love bombing). Isn't the next step that we isolate him from his existing peer group?
I'm a bit of a Groucho Marxist about this: wouldn't join any group that would have people like me as a member.
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wouldn't join any group that would have people like me as a member.
Oh, we wouldn't have to have people like you as a member. We could just have people not feel particularly strongly one way or the other about you as a member. Would that work?
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Just saw that The Trowenna Sea is the number one NZ fiction bestseller -- not just for the week ending Nov 7 but also for the week ending Nov 14. The second week being the period when the Listener cover was everywhere and the story was widely discussed. There's no such thing as bad publicity, obviously, and now I can see Denis Welch's point that the Listener cover -- which was all about Witi apologising -- was a bit soft on him (the cover, not the story inside). The magazine let him frame it his way rather than making the expose the story. Now, little over a week later, the "plagiarism row", as at least one paper calls it, starts to appear like something traumatic that happened to Witi for which he has been justifiably rewarded with $50K, as in this quote from the Herald story:
He was grateful for the support he'd received from the foundation which would help him move past the controversy.
Amazing that the Arts Foundation "discussed" withdrawing the honour but opted not to.
Up thread, Giovanni talks about feeling sorry for him. I felt the reverse when I heard him on Morning Report today. He's not just overshadowing Knox, we've also heard nothing about Anne Noble who has produced three of the most extraordinary series of photos in our art history: the Whanganui River one, the Antarctica one, and the one about the nuns (can't be arsed googling their real names).
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Amazing that the Arts Foundation "discussed" withdrawing the honour but opted not to.
And there goes the sympathy I had for the Arts Foundation this morning.
Now, little over a week later, the "plagiarism row", as at least one paper calls it, starts to appear like something traumatic that happened to Witi for which he has been justifiably rewarded with $50K, as in this quote from the Herald story:
He was grateful for the support he'd received from the foundation which would help him move past the controversy.
Ihimaera just doesn't get it, does he -- but why the hell should he when he's been surrounded by textbook enabling from Penguin and Auckland University? A plague on all their houses -- and that's a quote from Shakespeare, not my own work. :)
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Just saw that The Trowenna Sea is the number one NZ fiction bestseller -- not just for the week ending Nov 7 but also for the week ending Nov 14. The second week being the period when the Listener cover was everywhere and the story was widely discussed.
Not for much longer. Breaking news: Witi Ihimaera will buy back all copies of the book, Penguin removing remaining stock from bookstores.
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Whoops, scooped by Russell.
This is a very interesting development. And, for all concerned, probably a welcome one.
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That'll suck back a fair proportion of his $50K if most book stores opt in.
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He's still not getting it, though. From the Herald story Jolisa and Russell linked to:
He apologised for the oversight, which he said amounted to less than 0.4 per cent of what had been published, and promised any future editions of the book would include proper acknowledgments.
Seriously, Witi, do not let the words " less than 0.4 per cent" pass your lips again because that's so far from the point it will need serious air points to come home again. Just stop trying to mitigate or minimise what you did. Please.
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Just saw that The Trowenna Sea is the number one NZ fiction bestseller -- not just for the week ending Nov 7 but also for the week ending Nov 14. The second week being the period when the Listener cover was everywhere and the story was widely discussed.
And then:
Not for much longer. Breaking news: Witi Ihimaera will buy back all copies of the book, Penguin removing remaining stock from bookstores.
"Up like a rocket, down like a stick"
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so far from the point it will need serious air points to come home again.
Air Points fairy may take pity? But agreed, that number should be retired.
Now I'm trying to figure out how to get my hands on a copy of this suddenly collectible item. All I have is the bound galleys. Doh!
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3410,
Seriously, Witi, do not let the words " less than 0.4 per cent" pass your lips again because that's so far from the point it will need serious air points to come home again. Just stop trying to mitigate or minimise what you did. Please.
To be fair, there's no indication that he's "still" running with that one, rather than the Herald merely rehashing two-week-old copy.
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Aren't these interesting quotes? From the Stuff story that just went up.
When accepting the laureate award yesterday, Ihimaera explained to Stuff.co.nz, the unacknowledged use of other authors' material in his book came about as he struggled to create a new form of fiction.
"I believe that what I am trying to do with The Trowenna Sea, which is a big novel, is something that is just a little bit different in terms of the genre of historic fiction.
"Normally with historic fiction what you get is a piece of work where history is treated as fiction. But with The Trowenna Sea, I have always tried to be on the cutting edge of fictional devices, what I have been attempting to do with that book is to create fiction as history. So I think what Trowenna Sea is, is the beginning of a hybrid book in which [you have] the problematics of acknowledgement of historical material and historical inspirations. Where you have non fiction writers traversing that area then they can use footnotes but fiction writers can't so I am having to try to figure out creative ways of addressing that and I think that what we will end up with is in fact a very, very exciting new approach to creating a framework to those new fictions.
"The first draft for instance was completely historical. With historical fiction what you traditionally get is the history as background but I wasn't happy with that because as a Maori writer detail is important to me and so therefore making sure that detail wasn't background but fully integrated into the whole novel itself is what I was attempting."
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Snap, Philip - just opened up a new topic with these very quotes, over here.
What to make of this exciting new approach to historical fiction??!
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I had to flick this off to a historian friend, we were discussing such things over lunch. As an explanation, it seems very convenient to me. And also a little problematic. If he was really so conscious of how he was handling his sources and aiming to credit them creatively, how in the world did he end up not crediting them at all?
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