Maurice Gee is one of New Zealand’s greatest writers. Now 93, he tackled some of books editor Claire Mabey’s burning questions.
Remember Shy? That dainty, silvery plant in Maurice Gee’s world of O that restored a traveller’s sight from black and white to full colour? Whenever I see a tiny violet now I think, “Shy!”, and wonder if I pick it, sniff it, will it fade in my hands as the world turns neon? Remember bloodcats? And Jimmy Jaspers, and the Woodlanders, and the terrible Otis Claw, and Odo Cling?
Maurice Gee’s Halfmen of O trilogy had an immense impact on my relationship with the fantasy landscape of Aotearoa. In those books I learned that an abandoned mineshaft in Nelson could transport me to the beautiful, troubled land of O. And it was Maurice Gee’s slim but powerful novel, Under the Mountain, that forever shifted my view of volcanoes, and slugs. How many of us look now at Rangitoto and wonder what the Wilberforces might be up to? Slithering, plotting, rotting the ground beneath our Gee-imagined Auckland.
And then there was the historical novel set in the Depression, The Fat Man, read aloud to my class at primary school: a story so quietly menacing I couldn’t sleep for trying to feel out inside myself what it was about the story that so threatened my sense of safety. The man was terrifying but more so was Colin Potter’s relentless hunger. The cruelty of the man’s globular spit on the bar of chocolate: I will never scrub the image of that spoiled feast, so desperately needed, from my mind.
I’ve never stopped mulling Maurice Gee’s characters; their fates, the construction of the worlds they find themselves in. The O trilogy set me off on a lifelong thought quest on the nature of false religion (The Priests of Ferris), and the mechanisms of totalitarianism. Gee reminds me always of William Blake in that there is a deep mysticism alive in his work: there are artists (Ellie and the Shadow Man) and visionaries (Rachel in Under the Mountain), and a profound respect for innocence and how it can be corrupted; and how the essential struggle, once that innocence is ruptured, is between wanting to flee and hide, or stay and fight.
Like Margaret Mahy, Maurice Gee has carved an indelible path in New Zealand literature. He is simply one of New Zealand’s greatest ever writers for both children and adults. Gee’s list of awards is lengthy and weighty but it’s the breadth of the storytelling, and the way his characters and worlds linger, that is the real testament to his talent. Gee’s books resonate across genre, across decades, back and forward through time, across ages: the political and environmental messages of his fantasy fiction (The O Trilogy, Salt, Gool, and The Severed Land) are all too urgent for readers today.
Maurice Gee was born in 1931 and is now 93 years old. He no longer writes. Rachel Barrowman did the work of collecting the details of Gee’s life story in her thorough biography, Maurice Gee: Life and Work, published by THWUP in 2015. It is an essential guide to Gee’s career as these days, Gee’s memory, he says, is very imperfect: “I just can’t remember many things about my writing career.” He was, however, happy to tackle some of my burning questions. With thanks to Gee’s daughter Emily for facilitating.
Claire Mabey: How did your process between writing children’s novels and adult novels differ?
Maurice Gee: For me, the children’s books were more enjoyable to write, whereas the adult novels were more demanding in various ways (although I enjoyed writing them, too).
It was hard work, but enjoyable hard work. Sometimes I got a lovely flow going and could write two pages without realising it. In both children’s and adult fiction that would happen now and then.
It’s a business of making. Something exists at the end of the day that didn’t exist when I sat down to work. The sense of achievement made all the difficulties worthwhile.
CM: I’m fascinated by the way you worked between fantasy like The Halfmen of O trilogy, and the historical novels like The Fat Man, and Hostel Girl. Did you have to approach writing fantasy and writing more realistic stories differently?
MG: I’m sure I did, but I can’t really remember now. Books like Hostel Girl and The Fat Man required research, whereas the fantasies were easier to write because I could let my imagination roam and discover new and interesting things.
CM: I’ve been reading books by David Almond lately and then reading his essays on what inspired his stories: I’m always fascinated when stories begin with just one flash of an idea, or a scene, or a feeling. It made me wonder what inspired The Halfmen of O? And what inspired Under the Mountain (surely one of the most impactful children’s novels in New Zealand, ever).
MG: I can’t really remember now. I think Rachel Barrowman went into this in the biography. With Under the Mountain, I do remember walking to work in the morning and seeing Mt Eden disappear behind the houses, then rise up again, and I remember wondering whether anything was living underneath it.
CM: I’ve read so many different writers’ accounts of their process: some work in an organic way, piecing together a story, or excavating it. Others seem to know everything before they start and carefully plot. What is your process?
MG: I let each story grow organically. I usually had an idea of key scenes and worked my way towards them.
CM: Do you have a favourite or perhaps most memorable character?
MG: In my children’s fiction, Jimmy Jaspers. I remember I had him fighting with Odo Cling on the edge of Sheer Cliff, a wrestling match, tottering on the edge, and they both went over. When I read that scene to my daughters, they yelled “No! You can’t kill Jimmy Jaspers!” so I had him chuck Odo Cling off instead.
I thought I had no further use for Jimmy Jaspers, but he’s central to the next two books and I wouldn’t have written those books without him, so it’s just as well he didn’t go over Sheer Cliff!
CM: One of my favourite of your adult novels is Ellie and the Shadow Man. I read it when I was perhaps a little too young but the reading experience has stayed with me, very vividly. I understand that the novel is the adult version (if you like) of Hostel Girl, which I also loved. Is that right?
MG: Ellie and the Shadow Man grew out of Hostel Girl. I wrote Hostel Girl first, and I liked Ailsa so much that I wondered what would happen to her when she grew up. So, I decided to write a novel to find out. I changed her name to Ellie so that I could make any alterations that the new story required.
CM: So much of your fantasy writing for children is writing against totalitarianism, against the destruction of the environment, and callous disregard for indigenous populations. What inspired those worlds? (I’m thinking of the O series, Salt, Severed Land).
MG: They were inspired by my strong concerns about those things. Who doesn’t dislike totalitarianism and political oppression? Those beliefs are part of my mental furniture.
CM: What books that you read as a child awed, enchanted, stayed with you?
MG: Reading Dickens in my teens was the great reading experience of my life. I wanted to be like Dickens. I’m reading A Tale of Two Cities at the moment (in very large print).
CM: How do you feel about your body of work? What do you see when you look over it all?
MG: I feel a sense of satisfaction and a sense that, considering all things, I’ve done as much and as well as I could have.
I did start writing a new adult novel after Access Road and it wasn’t coming to life for me, so I stopped.