Cristina Sanders Blog

On the Couch with Lars Mytting

Interveiw with Lars Mitting at Featherston Book Town Festival

Interviewing Lars Mytting at the Featherston Book Town Festival in May this year was a real treat. I’m a big fan, have read all his books, love the mix of engineering precision and intimate family saga in his writing, and so I jumped at the offer of being “on the couch” with Norway’s most famous literary woodsman, hoping he would be as interesting as his books. And he so was! The man is a joy to talk with and an absolute honey.

We talked about growing up in Norway and deer shooting in Featherston, old stories hidden beneath the new, things underground, and a bit of dark rural gothic, woodpiles, fame, herding cows, Saxon feet and old Norwegian ways to drink coffee. We talked about his character Kai Sweigaard realising that the future will judge us, and the truth behind the co-joined twins. I asked about his latest book, set in Norway during WWII and he was extraordinarily open about the evolution of shared histories between Germany and Norway and the pain of the misappropriation of legends and symbols that powered the Nazi regime. Just wow.

You Are Here – book review

You Are Here, by David Nicholls

You Are Here has a flat start. We are introduced to two seemingly introverted characters, both bruised by past loves, who are now so terrified about crossing their carefully constructed boundaries that they avoid most social connection. It makes a pretty dull first couple of chapters: one for each pessimistic narrator, but it’s pretty obvious, this being a romance, that these two will be thrown together against their will, dislike each other to begin with, argue, fall out, have a major crisis and get together for a happy ever after end. And so it happens. And it’s a great read!

The Adversary–book review

The Adversary, by Michael Crummey

I was recommended The Adversary by Phil of Wardini Books who knows what I like and what might challenge me. I’ll tell this one in her words: “It’s miserable. Absolutely. It’s so dark and violent and they all lead such horrible lives and it’s historical and there are old ships and pirates and oooh, I read it and thought of you straight away.” Is this how she sees me? I mean, I love Catherine Robertson, too, and not a shipwreck in sight. But I’ve read and been inspired by many books on Phil’s recommendation, so off I went with The Adversary under my arm. Good God.

1985 – book review

1985, by Dominic Hoey

I guess Dominic Hoey sets his street cred early on in this story by throwing in a couple of ‘cunts’, just in case readers mistake him for an IIML grad. That would be a mistake. You can’t study to write authenticity like this.

Hoey’s previous story, descriptively called Poor People With Money is about youngsters on the edge in Auckland, making bad choices and rocking the consequences on a wild ride to a village so small. It’s on my list of classics of the decade. Can he do it again?

A Different Kind of Power – book review

A Different Kind of Power, by Jacinda Ardern

I didn’t know political biographies could be like this. There’s not a nasty bone in its body. I haven’t read a book so uplifting for a long time but I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, Jacinda Ardern’s signature is kindness. No one was expecting she’d take the opportunity now she has left office and living overseas to get stuck into the dozens of goons she must have had to deal with on a daily basis.

A Beautiful Family – book review

A Beautiful Family, by Jennifer Trevelyan

Lots of hype came with this book, a first novel by a Wellington writer and IIML grad Jennifer Trevelyan: massive publicity, a high profile agent, a two book deal, international sales, film rights. All of it, I think, very well deserved. It’s the story told by a ten year old girl of a summer holiday at the beach. They are a beautiful family, but somehow there is a sense of danger everywhere. Danger either for our girl, her sister, her mum or dad – risk everywhere, some obvious, some insidious. Enough to keep you anxious for the entire book. I had that feeling of early motherhood where I was constantly sweeping the environment for things that might damage my child. Here, at this seemingly wholesome kiwi bach, there are things to watch out for: a difficult sea with rips and big waves, a mother not watching her children because she has another agenda, two sisters looking/not looking out for each other, a teenage hangout at the lifesaving club, bad choices, a creepy voyeur next door, a missing girl whose name is carved into a wall. A swampy lagoon.

Wonderland – book review

Wonderland, by Tracy Farr

I really hope this book smashes the awards next year. It’s a damn good story about family dynamics and dealing with life’s ups and downs in a Wellington seaside suburb in the early 1900s. Oh, and for some reason, Tracy Farr decided to stretch belief a bit to invent a scenario where scientist Marie Curie comes to lodge with this very kiwi family. She is hiding out of the public eye as she recovers from scandal and illness. Each of these very different story-lines offers a good premise, the weird thing is to put them together. What was Farr thinking? Whatever madness caused it, we need more of it in our novels.

My Three Rivers – book review

My Three Rivers, by Shirley Bagnall Metcalfe

This book was a real surprise. Shirley Bagnall Metcalfe’s book on life in NZ’s early outback is subtitled “Jottings of a rural woman 1884-1968”. It sounds like it could be a bit staid. A little bit domestic. Grandmotherly, perhaps. But Shirley is a tour de force, a gutsy and practical woman with a hell of a life story and a cup that is never half-empty, despite the extremes of her life, but always, just like those bloody rivers, filled right to the brim and overflowing. She has gusto, does Shirley, and has a young, friendly voice. I wish we’d been friends. I’d have followed her anywhere.

In Ascension – book review

In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes

I was absolutely engrossed in this novel. It had everything I love in a book; it took me away to places I’ll probably never go (a deep sea trench and space, for example) and concentrated on the one storyteller with all other characters only really understood in relation to her – a deep dive into the head of a very interesting woman. Leigh is a Dutch biologist, very nerdy, interested in the beginnings of life on earth. She is also the survivor of a father’s beatings, a mother who consoled her but would not stop the beatings and a sister Leah protected so she didn’t get beaten. He died and she tried to make herself anonymous. I felt the father as an understated presence in the story. He is not the story. The story is the science.

Much of Leah’s childhood is related in a pragmatic fashion, ignoring the ‘show don’t tell’ rule of modern writing. She tells us, and moves on. She has an extraordinary life, there is lots to cover and Leigh is pretty straightforward. Her science, on the other hand, is – like most things we don’t understand – utter magic. The places she takes us are deeply compelling and we linger over the meaning behind things.

Pretty Ugly – book review

Pretty Ugly, by Kirsty Gunn

On the strength of this book I am going to build a new bookshelf in the spare bedroom, just for short stories. For guests who stay a couple of nights and might otherwise run off with an unputdownable novel. Let them fill their early mornings or sleepless nights with Kirsty Gunn. That’s what short stories are for; they’re probably not designed to be consumed all at once like I did these. I couldn’t help it. These short stories are terrific.

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