Tuesday, March 12, 2013

Sir James McNeish - 2013 Janet Frame Memorial Lecture - report from Rebecca Styles


Photo - James McNeish - © Matt Bialostocki.

It’s not every Monday evening that I am in lecture where a Dame introduces a Knight.  Dame Fiona Kidman introduced Sir James McNeish at the 2013 Janet Frame Memorial Lecture at the City Gallery Wellington last night.  The auditorium was full and the audience eager to hear Sir James’s talk entitled Two Cheers for Eccentricity: a non-academic approach to the theme of creative non-fiction.  While the address is typically a ‘state of the [literary] nation’ address, Sir James side-stepped this aspect citing that Owen Marshall did it so well in 2007 that it didn’t need repeating, and Sir James also noted that he has spent a good deal of his time out of the country. 
Being out of the country was one of the main themes of his address.  He believes it is through experience outside of New Zealand where inspiration can be found, and indeed, interest in global affairs can enrich writers’ lives and their stories.  He spoke of the need for the writer to embrace their ideological passions.   In her introduction, Dame Fiona Kidman spoke of the bond she and Sir James shared as both writers and activists.    Sir James spoke about the Nationalist period in New Zealand writing where writers like Sargeson were concerned with creating a local literature, and although acknowledging how important this had been, he also lamented the absence of New Zealand voices during a time of great historical significance, the Spanish Civil War except for a “few hardy souls” who happened to be there at the time.
            Creative non-fiction is the mixing of fact and fiction, the blurring of boundaries between the two, or the labra-doodle of the literary world, as Sir James suggested.  He mentioned both Lloyd Jones’ ‘Biografi’  and Sarah Quigley’s ‘The Conductor’ as examples of authors using fiction to illuminate truth. And he made mention of Owen Marshall’s recent re-imagining of history in ‘The Larnachs’.
              It is in the blurring of the two where imagination and invention met.  Sir James elaborated on this theme, telling us of a text where the writer has a Soviet Block runner winning gold and being awarded gifts of an apple and bread and butter insisting the writer had no way of knowing that the runner received these gifts, but their inclusion highlights the bleakness of life at that time, and the few rewards for a great deal of effort.  Creative non-fiction means a letting go of the literal truth, a truth that Sir James thinks New Zealanders are particularly fond of, and embracing small fibs and eccentricity because they illuminate the humanity of a situation.
            Sir James is sponsoring a travel prize, which is due to be advertised in the near future.  This scholarship is a chance for a New Zealand writer to travel abroad, to let go of the literal and embrace the eccentricity of experience.  This award highlights Sir James’s generosity and support of writers, and advocacy of his beliefs, which has been a feature of his career.  

Rebecca Styles is a writer and a member of the NZSA Wellington Branch committee.




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