Book Self: The Reader as Writer and the Writer as Critic

by C. K. Stead

Overview

A sequel to the successful books Kin of Place and The Writer at Work, this collection of critical writing takes the reader on a personal journey from the author's earliest discovery of poetry as a young man to his latest experiences on the literary trail. This trip through literary history involves many writers, including Katherine Mansfield, T. S. Eliot, Michael King, and Elizabeth Knox. The book also includes a series of journal extracts that allow readers to get closer to the mind of the writer, his strong personal views about other writers, and his deep commitment to the role of criticism in literary life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781775580287
Publisher:	Auckland University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	329
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

C. K. Stead is a leading figure in New Zealand literature. He is the author of The Black River, The New Poetic, The Singing Whakapapa, Visitors Ashor, and Yeats to Eliot. His novel, Smith’s Dream, won a Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Award and was later adapted as the film Sleeping Dogs.

Table of Contents

The Function of Criticism 1

Part 1 Shelf Life

Fifty Years Ago: Some Images of the Young Poet and his Elders: Brasch, Curnow, Sargeson 16

Janet Frame 36

Discovering Poetry 44

The Sweetshop Window: One New Zealand Writer's Engagement with French Language, Literature and Society 49

A Poet's View 70

Colin McCahon 85

Ken Gill in Cancale 92

On Reading and Writing 96

On Teaching English 100

Poetry and Politics (and a beating) 103

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 111

An Academic Colleague 114

History as it Happens 119

Men and Mansfield in Mansfield 132

Two Parochial Pieces and a Postscript 147

Christianity and Culture 156

Letter from New Zealand 158

Part 2 Third Person

Michael King's History of New Zealand 166

The Hoaxers Hoaxed: Ern Malley's Poems 173

O'Harashbery! 177

Robert Lowell-History as Happening 185

A Life of David Ballantyne 199

Proust meets Joyce (and some others) 203

Thom Gunn-the Man in the Iron Mask 206

Knox's Kiss 217

Rushdie the Clown 222

Craig Raine and History 225

A Good War on the Inarticulate 234

A Life of John Mulgan 239

Part 3 First Person

Travel Notes, 1999 249

An Interview with a Croatian Journalist 267

Travel Notes, 2000 273

Travel Notes, 2003 286

A War Story 306

At Home and Abroad, 2006 311

Interview with Gerri Kimber 348

At Home, 2007 374

Part 4 Lit Crit and Lit Hist

The Actor and the Man of Action: Andrew Marvell's 'An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland' 392

Eugene Lee-Hamilton, Nineteenth-Century Sonneteer 402

From Wystan to Carlos: Modern and Modernism in New Zealand Poetry 406

Index429

Editorial Reviews

The poetry criticism is first rate. . . . [The]journal entries . . . provide a valuable behind-the-scenes take on the international literary festival circuit.

Sydney Morning Herald

It is the story of 'love it or hate it' . . . a remarkably interesting New Zealand mind.

New Zealand Listener

The fascination of autofiction should not distract from the range of critical and autobiographical pleasures to be found in this book.

The Warwick Review

"The poetry criticism is first rate. . . . His journal entries . . . provide a valuable behind-the-scenes take on the international literary festival circuit."  —Sydney Morning Herald

"It is the story of 'love it or hate it' . . . a remarkably interesting New Zealand mind." —New Zealand Listener

"The fascination of autofiction should not distract from the range of critical and autobiographical pleasures to be found in this book."  —The Warwick Review

From the Publisher