How many rejections does it take to get a book to print? Jim Sullivan finds out when reviewing Jane Carswell's new book.
TALK OF TREASURE
Jane Carswell
Submarine/Makaro Press
By JIM SULLIVAN
Jane Carswell's Talk of Treasure describes an internal voyage with detours into the worlds of meditation, the monastic life and hosting Chinese visitors but with a road map firmly marked with the route to becoming a writer.
It turns out to be a rough ride, with at least 17 rejection slips blocking the path to eventual publication and the various forms of rejection letters which arrived along the way.
Advice from friends and editors includes comments like "reading the manuscript is rather like accompanying a bee as it flits from one intriguing plant to another'' and "Where are you in your story?'' All very useful, no doubt, and combined with agonising over getting just the right word rather in the manner of a poet, the author produced her award winner.
With Talk of Treasure we know just where Jane Carswell is in her story. She provides memories of childhood reading, including the Just William books (a solid foundation for any would-be writer), and descriptions of the sometimes mysterious characters met on the road to becoming an oblate ("someone who tries to follow the spirit of a monastic order in their ordinary life without having to give up or promise too much'').
Spiritualty is leavened with light touches of humour: "I did like cloisters, the way they bend the light and the sheltered air they enclosed. Perhaps it was the cloisters that drew me first.''
Probably no flawless book has yet been produced and Dunedin readers may flinch at "Prince Edward Technical School'' in the reminiscing about childhood holidays in Stuart St, but memory is a fickle faculty.
Talk of Treasure is not only a fine piece of writing but the publishers have produced an attractive vehicle for the words, even to the extent of giving stylish French flaps to the cover.
But wrestling with words remains at the heart of this book and my favourite is the author's revival of "swithered'', a 16th-century Scottish word meaning "was uncertain''.
There are many more linguistic delicacies to lighten the journey and at the end of it all Jane Carswell has certainly reached her goal of being "a writer''.
Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
