Jane Campion

A 6-episode crime drama series set in New Zealand. Robin returns home as a naive police detective to the small mountain town where she grew up and learns that the early darkness is not just from the sun setting behind the mountains. The series opens with a 12-year-old girl contemplating death. Robin uncovers the secret, but the cost is psychologically high. There is plenty of strangeness along the way. Overall, I was pleased. Though there are scenes that seem unnecessary and the plot slowed down in the early going. Beautiful scenery and photography. This plot is a whole genre and kinda felt unoriginal in places. The ending satisfied.… (meer)

Janet è figlia di una povera famiglia contadina della Nuova Zelanda: solitaria e insicura, si rifugia nello studio e nello scrivere poesie che pubblica già da giovane.

Già travagliata per le difficoltà economiche e la morte della sorella Myrtle per annegamento, la sua situazione emotiva precipita dopo il fallimento nell'esame di ammissione per maestra; ciò la costringe a svolgere lavori umili per pagarsi gli studi universitari ma, per un fallito tentativo di suicidio, viene ricoverata prima in ospedale e poi in manicomio dove, dichiarata schizofrenica, subisce per i successivi otto anni duecento elettroshocks, ma riesce a salvarsi dalla lobotomia, grazie al successo del suo libro.

Comincia così una fase più serena della sua esistenza: dopo l'uscita dal manicomio, Janet riprende in mano la sua vita, aiutata dall'affetto della famiglia e da giuste amicizie nell'ambiente letterario, il che le permette di esprimere tutto il talento nella scrittura.… (meer)

Concise, well written extended story that informed the famous film, though it was written after the movie got famous. Luckily I did not remember the script of the movie. It is a killer of a story, with, however, the obligatory Hollywood ending (breaking the thread of connectedness to the piano, by letting it sink and drifting to the surface oneself).

What was really well elaborated in the novel is the central role that the piano plays as a conveyor or proxy of the sensibilities of its player – how music can enchant the soul while allowing souls to meet or repel each other. Campbell and co also treat the classic dilemma of strangers in a foreign, wild society very well by developing two diametrically opposed archetypes in Stewart (settler – hungry for fenced land) and Baines (interpreter between two worlds – going local). The local Maoris also play a healthy role as antidote to Victorian fanciness. I like the Maori woman’s remark on Baines’ tool wasting away with his wife far off in Scotland – such a waste. Also on the way to Stewart’s house there is a hush and stoppage, when the Maori carriers pass the spot where the old man died.

Campbell is one of the best writers on female sensitivities in a positive sense of the word.… (meer)