A RODERICK FINLAYSON READER
Ed by Roger Hickin
Cold Hub Press
REVIEWED BY JESSIE NEILSON
Though a Pakeha, Finlayson (1904-1992) identified with the Maori mindset and life close to the land. He spent much time in Maori communities in the North Island, from his childhood summers on. Like Maori he valued simplicity and tradition, while despairing at European attempts to modernise. The European, he expounded, was likely to be ‘‘devoured by the monster of his own making’’, caught in a system valuing greed and destruction.
Finlayson's work spanned fiction, essays, letters and poems, his earlier work frequently outraged at injustices, or satiric, mocking and demanding change. Frank Sargeson was in awe of his writing's beauty and lack of pretension, which empathised with Maori. He acknowledged himself as a rebel with too many causes, unable to sit back quietly as the great villain, Western Civilisation, charged on. E. H. McCormick referred to Finlayson's integrity, and this is apparent in both his creative writing and its sympathy for the underdog, and in his essays and letters that often warned of the dangers of Europeans to themselves, and of ‘‘social pollution’’.
With a life encompassing most of the 20th century, Finlayson certainly witnessed trends in New Zealand, constant technological ‘‘advancements’’, and the onset of consumerism. He was horrified by the ‘‘materialistic, mechanistic world's contempt for nature’’, particularly the replacement of people power by machines, a predominant theme in his stories.
In ‘‘Great Times Ahead’’, for instance, the object of his disparagement is the bulldozer, come to wreck the land. His stories dwell on and highlight, in comparison, the purity of the natural landscape as yet undamaged, and associated Maori traditions. ‘‘Sweet Beulah Land’’ sets the scene with a hangi, though it is to welcome the governor, who is negotiating to sell their communal lands. The experiences and sights that informed Finlayson as a child were the simple gathering of seafood from the coast nearby, meal preparation, and an affinity with the rural as it was.
Much of Finlayson's writing reflects a world earlier than his own, with a dose of nostalgia. He embraces aroha whakamuri, a passionate recalling of times gone. A number of short stories read as if belonging to Maori folklore, such as ‘‘The Wedding Gift’’ and ‘‘Tiki-Tiki’’, with their moralistic slants and clear motifs. Throughout, we see an empathy for and perspective of the Maori.
Yet his view was not black and white: he could identify with and portray in his stories the slump-stricken farmer, or ponder at the disparity between the noble Maori of legend and the poor reality of many communities. His fascination extended to the wider Pacific peoples, about whom he had widely read, and his 1952 novel, The Schooner came to Atia, looks at the impact of Europeans on Pasifika.
From a 2020 perspective, the stories feel of their time, when he was thinking and philosophising alongside friends such as Sargeson and D'Arcy Cresswell. Of the latter he wrote a 1972 monograph in praise, believing his work not duly recognised. Finlayson himself was aware of endeavours needed to push literary legacies towards longevity.
This work is attractively presented: compact and ordered. The cover is almost entirely taken up by Finlayson himself, peering down at the reader. His expression is perhaps tired, resigned, pensive. Yet in his eye contact there is also a challenge to the reader, to ponder and engage with this literature in our history, one that a reader should not be tardy in taking up.
Jessie Neilson is a University of Otago library assistant
