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Pad naar de zee (1999)

door Barbara Ewing

LedenBesprekingenPopulariteitGemiddelde beoordelingAanhalingen
704376,339 (3.39)3
Margaret Rose Bennett, like her elder sister, Elizabeth, was named after the two English princesses. But Elizabeth is dead, and Margaret Rose still living, searching and reaching out for life and its meaning. And against the frankly odd, strained and curiously English household she inhabits in a New Zealand city, it is hard to make out the truth. So Margaret abandons what her parents think is right: learning English history, the French language, listening to comedy shows on the World Service and returning home on the 9.30 tram and maps out a course of her own. She studies Maori at University, makes friends with the wayward Emily (daughter of the soon to be Prime Minister of New Zealand) and shy, independent Prudence. As a trio they study hard for their degrees, work by day at the local Government offices and by night sing, drink and laugh with the local Maori people - and fall in love. A new world, an enchanting world, and one with an underbelly of struggle, colour, passion and even violence. Far removed from the closed, ordered life of Margaret Rose's family, but perhaps not so detached from their own, secret history... Here is an extraordinary, poetic novel of a society trapped in a time of its own, undercut by a people that live and breathe with a vigour that bubbles and burst through the silent surface.… (meer)
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Toon 4 van 4
(7.5) I had high hopes for this book as it is based on the authors personal history.
When Margaret-Rose Bennett, aged 17, begins work at the bureau while doing part-time university study she enters a world foreign to her own experience. The bureau is the government Department of Maori Affairs. She becomes enamoured of the people, culture and language. She had had a sheltered, strict and somewhat loveless upbringing, her only sister having died at the age of seven. Her parents disapprove of her work place and even more so of her decision to study the Maori language in night classes. They are unaware that she has dropped French at university seeing no relevance to life in New Zealand. She is drawn into the social life of the bureau and soon embarks on relationships with the young Maori men. She eventually becomes estranged from her parents and discovers the truth about her sister's death.
What the author does do well is the representation of the societal attitudes of the 1950's, when the Maori language is perceived to be a dying language. How times have changed for the better in this regard.
  HelenBaker | Aug 29, 2020 |
Excellent fictional account of social history in 1950s New Zealand. Three young Pakeha (white New Zealander) girls are assigned to the Bureau of Maori Affairs in an era not so long ago when the races did not mix even at work. Their ensuing experiences are to have long-term ramifications for all of them. Economical prose captures the stultefying atmosphere brilliantly - which I guess may be a mixed blessing for some readers. However, the characterizations will be immediately recognizable to New Zealanders with parents/ grandparents over 70 in particular. I certainly caught glimpses of people I knew throughout. ( )
1 stem addbj | Jun 14, 2011 |
This is the sort of book it takes a while to warm up to; it starts off slowly, setting the scene, and consequently a certain distance is felt between the reader and the characters. Gradually this is eroded, however, as bit by bit the narrative reveals more about their emotional and material struggles in a time that is not so distant from our own... A new and unexpected favourite that I feel quite proud of, in an odd sort of way. It is so seldom that writing from my own country speaks to me in such a way. [full review on my bloghref>] ( )
  theinsidestory | May 19, 2010 |
This is one of those books which never truly gripped my attention or imagination, which may be because it followed hard on the heels of two outstanding novels - Cloud Atlas and The Tree of Man. I can understand why it was longlisted for the Orange Prize a couple of years ago, but understand, too, why it wasn't shortlisted for it.

In a sense ruthwater has said most of what I would say myself - strong on atmosphere and the cultural background, weak on both character and the telling of the story.

I too found the Maori characters merging into one another - but so did most of the Pakeha ones as well. Vine may have introduced distinctive little details, such as Paddy's ill-fitting red wig and Gallipoli Gordon's outstanding singing voice, but those details just aren't enough to create real characters. Only Maggie's mother, a repressed and guilt-ridden hysteric, really leapt off the page for me.

I too found the early chapters heavy going. The writing was clumsy and intrusive until around page 70 when it seemed to hit a new gear and improved markedly thereafter. Even so, it was the atmosphere and social history embedded within the novel which encouraged this reader stick with it. ( )
  MelmoththeLost | Dec 2, 2007 |
Toon 4 van 4
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Margaret Rose Bennett, like her elder sister, Elizabeth, was named after the two English princesses. But Elizabeth is dead, and Margaret Rose still living, searching and reaching out for life and its meaning. And against the frankly odd, strained and curiously English household she inhabits in a New Zealand city, it is hard to make out the truth. So Margaret abandons what her parents think is right: learning English history, the French language, listening to comedy shows on the World Service and returning home on the 9.30 tram and maps out a course of her own. She studies Maori at University, makes friends with the wayward Emily (daughter of the soon to be Prime Minister of New Zealand) and shy, independent Prudence. As a trio they study hard for their degrees, work by day at the local Government offices and by night sing, drink and laugh with the local Maori people - and fall in love. A new world, an enchanting world, and one with an underbelly of struggle, colour, passion and even violence. Far removed from the closed, ordered life of Margaret Rose's family, but perhaps not so detached from their own, secret history... Here is an extraordinary, poetic novel of a society trapped in a time of its own, undercut by a people that live and breathe with a vigour that bubbles and burst through the silent surface.

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