Collected stories is a
retrospective from Barbara Anderson, spanning her own relatively brief career,
but a much longer period of New Zealand history.

Most of the stories have appeared
in previous anthologies, going back to 1989. Arranging them in time sequence
provides some opportunity to study the progress of a writer who gives hope to
those attempting to reinvent themselves in later life: Barbara Anderson began
writing in her sixties. There are stories here from I think we should go
into the jungle (1989), The peacocks (1997), and Glorious things
(1999). The remaining three stories are previously unpublished. Anderson also counts eight novels claims among her publishing credits, including the award
winning Portrait of the artist’s wife. She might have taken her time
getting around to writing, but Anderson has plenty to show for it.  On the back
cover of this book is the endorsement from Nick Hornby that Barbara Anderson "is
a born writer". The stories in this collection do more than enough to
justify that clam.

Anderson’s special talent is the
unfinished story, the narrative that sharply displays a situation or a set of
characters without the feature sometimes considered essential to short fiction:
a plot development or event that changes relationships or provides the reader
with a new perspective on characters they had got to know. In many of the
stories in this collection Anderson is content to take the reader into the
lives of her characters as if to say "Look at this". Having revealed
something hidden Anderson is then content to leave the reader with something to
reflect on. This can be a little disconcerting. Some readers might feel short
changed, especially if they demand plot as a fundamental component of a short
story. With Anderson, plot is a device to reveal character, nothing more. Her
characters are revealed with a lucidity that makes her stories a lingering
pleasure. The reader is propelled into a future shaped by a taciturn farmer, an
obsessive teacher, a shopkeeper who, having gained an insight into the life of
a juvenile shoplifter is left whispering to himself "Sweet Christ."

The opening story Discontinuous lives
features a chance reunion between two former childhood friends on the occasion
of the wake for a cousin. Identities are peeled away leaving the two
reminiscing over an act of childhood cruelty. The story touches on the
relationship English descendants have with "Home", and especially the
Mansfield-like theme, recurrent in later generations, of having to return to England to make it. This looking to England as "Home" is a motif for New
Zealanders with a particular history, and of a particular generation, and is seen
in a number of Anderson’s stories. Such individuals talk of "Mother"
and "Father", not Mum and Dad. They are a little self conscious of
living in New Zealand which is, after all, not England. Others like the mother
of The girls look to Scotland; throughout there is a sense of not having
fully arrived. (As an aside, this story has the fabulous opening line: "All
of the girls could kill").

There is a strong regionalism about
Anderson’s stories, something seen in the work of her contemporary Owen
Marshall. Up the river with Mrs Gallant is a good example. Mr. Levis
runs tourist parties along a river in his boat. His party in this case are Mr.
and Mrs. Gallant, Mr. and Mrs. Kent, and Mr. Borges. Confined together on a
small boat, their conversation is related as a series of inconsequential
trivia, ("Mrs. Kent said"; "Mr Gallant said," etc) with Mrs.
Gallant seeming irritated by the whole process ("Mrs. Gallant said that
remark was typical, absolutely typical"). After nagging her husband at the
outset to park in the shade she triumphantly points out on their return that
the car is in the sun. Mr. Gallant argues that the car was probably in the
shade for the first six hours. There is no way through this morass, and the
story ends "The river said nothing". This story is told with
startling economy; you finish it wondering how much can be said in so few
words. Living on the beach begins with Mary and her elderly father arriving
at their rented bach (beach house) and ends with a blossoming relationship
between Mary and fellow beach dweller Don. In between we are given insights
into the old man’s life, and his daughter’s devotion, all redolent of sea spray
and the mousy scent of the bach. Again, half a dozen pages are all Anderson needs to evoke the end of life and the flowering of love.       

Anderson shares with Marshall the ability to portray an ordinary life with deceptive simplicity. The people and
places are immediately recognizable. Her characters are an unpretentious lot.
They might be university educated, but they share a disdain for the
complications of the world, something they are apt to shake off with an
exasperated "For God’s sake". There is a strong connection with land
and sea, whether on the farm or at the beach. These stories are as a dry as a Hawkes Bay paddock in summer, as crisp as the new season’s wine. The cover picture of two "bathing
beauties" leapfrogging on the warm sand of Mount Maunganui Beach, circa 1947, suggests this book is the perfect companion for the southern summer holiday.
Best read with the sun on your face and a glass of Sauvignon Blanc in your
hand.  

© 2006 Tony O’Brien

Tony O’Brien is a short story
writer and lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland. a.obrien@auckland.ac.nz

Categories: Fiction