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Photographic portrait of an older man in a dark tweed jacket and cheesecutter hat. Beautifully lit so that only his face is really visible. An air of great warmth and cleverness.
Vincent O’Sullivan (Photo: Grant Maiden Photography)

BooksApril 29, 2024

Vale Vincent O’Sullivan, 1937-2024

Photographic portrait of an older man in a dark tweed jacket and cheesecutter hat. Beautifully lit so that only his face is really visible. An air of great warmth and cleverness.
Vincent O’Sullivan (Photo: Grant Maiden Photography)

We remember one of Aotearoa’s towering literary figures, who died on Sunday 28 April.

Sir Vincent O’Sullivan, one of Aotearoa’s most prolific writers, has died in Dunedin at the age of 86. His son, Dominic O’Sullivan, shared the news on social media on Sunday 28 April: 

“Hei aitua hoki, kua hinga toku matua,

“I am profoundly sad to share that my father, Emeritus Professor Sir Vincent O’Sullivan, died in Dunedin late yesterday. I was present with his wife Helen.

“In the next day or two, Vince will travel to the Home of Compassion in Island Bay, where he will repose ahead of his Requiem Mass later in the week at St Mary of the Angels, Wellington.

“Requiescat in Pace.”

O’Sullivan was born in Auckland in 1937, the youngest of six children, and went on to study at the University of Auckland and then at Oxford. His literary career was varied and brilliant and hugely productive, with lecturing stints, residencies and fellowships at Universities in New Zealand and Australia; and a long and beloved professorship at the University of Victoria in Wellington where he taught until he retired in 2004. His contributions to Aotearoa’s bookshelves, to students, to literary conversation and scholarship is so immense that it is difficult to summarise in any sensible way: he was a mind of extraordinary capacity.

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Toby Manhire
— Editor-at-large

Between and throughout his academic career O’Sullivan wrote and wrote with unwavering energy. His first book of poetry, The Burning Man, was published in 1965 and was the first of 21 collections; the latest – Still Is, a collection of 90 new poems – is due to be released by Te Herenga Waka University Press in June this year. O’Sullivan also published seven collections of short stories, three novels, nine plays and 10 librettos. He was the author of acclaimed biographies of John Mulgan and Ralph Hotere. He was the New Zealand poet laureate for 2013–2015. In 2000, he was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and in 2021 he was redesignated as a Knight Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit.

It was his work on the letters and stories of Katherine Mansfield that made O’Sullivan renowned in global academic circles. Between the 1980s and mid 2000s O’Sullivan co-edited five volumes of Mansfield’s collected letters, making her inner life accessible to scholars and fans all over the world. O’Sullivan also edited collections of Mansfield’s poetry and stories; as well as editing collections of New Zealand poetry and stories at large.

In 2017 O’Sullivan wrote this characteristically prismatic piece for The Spinoff in response to the then Wellington Mayor’s idea to repatriate the bones of Katherine Mansfield. In it, he writes: “It has always struck me as a curious thing, how readers at times so hanker to own an author, beyond carrying her books in a shoulder bag, or reading her in a library. That urge to get closer, to know what life was like when she wasn’t writing, to pick up scraps she didn’t know she had let drop. It is an understandable, even a touching, trait. Mansfield readers often seem more than usually prone to the condition. I have heard of “Kezia Parties” on October 14 where even men are permitted to wear pinnies. Or an event on May 3, when guests are invited to throw paint balls at another guest whose name is drawn at random to dress up as Middleton Murray.” A taste of the scholar’s generosity and delight in human nature.

I was always struck by O’Sullivan’s reviews. Examples I study both for their scholarship, and for their serious intentions: you can always see the mind at work. Take his thoughts on Lloyd Jones’ tricky novel, The Fish, which confused readers and critics. In his review on The Spinoff, O’Sullivan applies an informed close reading, an academic’s clear-eyed judgement, and a generosity towards the project of the searching writer. And who else but O’Sullivan to tackle the 700-page biography of Allen Curnow and make the analysis sing?

Close friend of O’Sullivan’s, and fellow writer, Dame Fiona Kidman says: “Vincent and I were among the founding Trustees of the Randell Cottage Writers Trust. He remained on the Board throughout its history, and in the latter years was its Co-Patron, a position he held until his death. Vincent O’Sullivan was a defining literary figure in the 1960’s and 1970’s. He was part of a group that seemed golden when I first knew him: Lauris Edmond, John Thomson, Alistair Campbell, Harry Orsman. Everyone seemed to know him and everyone had a witticism of his to savour and repeat. I was in awe of him. But the person I came to know was one of the most tender hearted and generous of men, who would drop everything for a friend, who would go in to bat for other writers, especially newer and less well-known ones finding their way. We talked nearly every week for decades. To say I will miss him does not even begin to cover it. And who now will I save the Wellington goss for?”

I did not know Vincent O’Sullivan well but on the occasions I did get to spend some time with him – mostly at writers festivals where he would always be in the prime spots, revered and looked up to as someone with dazzling knowledge and huge experience – I was struck by his forward momentum, his palpable vibrancy. He seemed to me as someone lit by intelligence and curiosity; who had an internal creative drive that meant he was always producing something, working, thinking. It’s a trait shared by many great writers: a need to keep going, keep looking out and in at the same time. It seems very Vincent to have a huge collection of poetry coming out this year, now posthumously.

Thanks to the academic tradition of the festschrift (the term for a book created to honour an academic career) there is an anthology of writing that celebrates O’Sullivan’s varied creative lives called Still Shines When You Think of It, co-edited by poet Bill Manhire and academic Peter Whiteford, and published in 2007 to mark Vincent’s 70th birthday. A excerpt from introduction to the book goes:

“The cover design for Still Shines When You Think of It comes from another of Vincent’s friends, the artist Ralph Hotere. Their friendship goes back a long way. Ralph devised the cover for Vincent’s second book of poems, Revenants. Something went wrong back in 1973, however – perhaps the right inks and cover card were unavailable, perhaps the publisher couldn’t afford them. At any rate, Revenants was published with a sad grey cover, and thin orange rectangles contained the title and author’s name in severe black lettering. We are pleased that Ralph Hotere has given us permission to create something much nearer the cover he originally envisaged.  

There is a further story about Revenants, a book Vincent no longer much cares for, which involves the offering of what are sometimes called financial inducements to students and friends to ‘liberate’ any copies they might find in libraries and bookshops. The story is probably too good to check, but we believe there is some truth in it. We hope Vincent will not want to organise the removal of this book from the public record, but if he wants to give it a go, we wish him the best of luck.”

In this insightful interview O’Sullivan’s student, writer Majella Cullinane asked Vincent about the theme of death in his poetry, wondering if it’s connected to Catholicism or a writer’s sensibility. O’Sullivan’s answer goes: “It seems to me pretty hard to imagine not being aware of what is inevitable, and twinned with birth, what no one can get away from. If death defines the kind of being we are, then how we think of it can be as diverse as there are individuals. If you’re not aware of death to some degree, then you’re pretending to be other than you are. Every story ends with it, if it is told long enough. But the story, for all that, need not be obsessed with it. Just don’t make out it’s not there.”

Tributes to Vincent O’Sullivan can be read here, and will be updated as more flow in. 

Keep going!
Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

BooksApril 28, 2024

Inside the home of New Zealand’s greatest crime writer

Image: Archi Banal
Image: Archi Banal

Ngaio Marsh House is one of Christchurch’s best kept secrets – and contains more than a few mysteries of its own.

Trust Ngaio Marsh to leave more than a few mysteries scattered through her house long after her departure. For a start, there’s the curious concrete portal in the garden, concealed beneath a cross-shaped hedge. There’s the unnerving papier-mache head, which some say was made in her likeness, winking at guests from the corner of the lounge. Perched on one of her many bookshelves is a toothy skull bearing a bloodied grin, entirely nonplussed by the dagger lodged through its temple. 

Perhaps one would expect this level of intrigue and unease from one of New Zealand’s most prolific crime writers. Dame Ngaio Marsh published 34 crime novels from 1934-1982, has had her work translated in over 100 languages, won the Edgar Allan Poe Grand Master award in 1978 and recently had her first novel A Man Lay Dead included in Time’s 100 Best Mystery Novels of All Time. Alongside Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, she is considered one of the queens of crime from the golden age of the detective novel.

But wait, there’s more. She’s also known for being the grand dame of local theatre, with Christchurch’s 430-seat Ngaio Marsh Theatre named in her honour. Marsh has been credited as single-handedly reviving Shakespeare in New Zealand, while also being a mentor to young upstarts such as Sam Neill. She was close pals with artists Rita Angus and Olivia Spencer Bower, writer James K Baxter and composer Douglas Lilburn, and was known for hooning around Christchurch in a shiny jet black Jaguar until she was in her 80s. 

Ngaio Marsh, New Zealand’s queen of crime fiction (Image: Wikipedia)

All those connections, all those accolades, all that influence and glamour. So why did I a) not even know who Ngaio Marsh was until I wound up at the Ngaio Marsh crime writing awards last year, and b) not have any idea that her perfectly preserved house was just six minutes up the road from me? 

“I think there is a real difference in the way that we treat certain writers,” says Jessica Peterson, chair of the Ngaio Marsh House and Heritage Trust. “Janet Frame and Katherine Mansfield wrote literature, whereas Ngaio wrote down and dirty crime, so she was treated very differently.” That’s part of the reason her Cashmere home is such an important heritage site to preserve in situ and not “museum-ify” she adds. “We really want to champion a woman who lived the way she wanted at a time when that wasn’t kind of done.”

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— Politics reporter

Situated atop a serpentine driveway in the Cashmere hills, Marsh’s two bedroom home was built in 1907 and designed by Christchurch architect Samuel Hurst Seager. If you had any breath left in you by the time you made it to the front door, which I didn’t, the rest would be surely taken away by the view across the vast, flat expanse of the city. Wall-mounted costume shields greet you at the front door, establishing a sense of playfulness and theatricality – and a vaguely threatening aura – that will continue throughout. 

Ngaio Marsh’s dining room. (Image: Wikipedia)

Marsh’s dining room remains largely unchanged since her time in the house (she lived there from the age of 10 until she passed away at home in 1982, aged 86), still lined with floor-to-ceiling linseed-stained timber. There are ornate carriage lamps, a grandfather clock, and a 10-seater dining table which played host to many nights of revelry. Inspecting her kitschy handmade decoupage placemats, you can’t help but imagine what her one-time dinner guests Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier would have made of them. 

More and more details jump out as your eyes adjust. There are swords lining the walls, and a riding crop which Marsh used with her horse, Frisk. Our tour guide David tells us that she used to spend so much time galloping through the hills on Frisk that her mother sent her to a governess to try and make her more ladylike. “It didn’t work,” he smirks. On the table is a copy of one of Marsh’s many journals, this time dating back to 1907. “Hip hip hooray it is my birthday,” she wrote. “I got a lot of things, but the best is a watch.”

If she thought she had a lot of things at just 12 years old, Marsh would go on to accumulate a true treasure trove. We stop in her mint green kitchen dotted with pastel Crown Lynn, the belongings left as if Marsh had just popped to the shops to get some milk. There’s a burn mark on the green formica table, and we’re told that the mint paint job happened after a housesitter started a fire in the mid 1950s. Speaking of fire hazards, Marsh’s not-so-secret cigarette stash sits next to a tin of Rawley’s ointment and Pulmona’s pastilles. 

Ngaio Marsh’s kitchen. (Image: Alex Casey)

Even her cigarettes look classy and interesting, not all just boring white and orange but some boasting gold filters, others wrapped in the same dazzling shade of turquoise blue that adorns the lounge walls next door. A room stuffed with more books, glass trinkets, paintings and technicolour armchairs, we’re told it is here that Marsh would do most of her thinking and writing. “Every book in this room has something to do with what she felt or thought,” says David, opening a dresser to reveal folders of notes, programmes and photographs. 

The green chair at the end of the room was her favourite place to write (that or the floor, we’re told). She’d write at night in longhand in green ink, and then would give her notes to her secretary in the morning to type up on the typewriter. David pulls back one of the armchair covers, faded from decades in the sun, to reveal the original vivid emerald velour. While bright colours pop through the house, Marsh clearly had a thing for green – green ink, green chair, green kitchen… even her housekeeper was named Mrs Greene.

THE green chair (by the piano) (Image: Alex Casey)

If the lounge was the place for working, Marsh’s bedroom was clearly the glamour zone. Thick sheepskin lines the floor, her bed is draped with embroidered turquoise quilting, and a bright orange nook boasts glinting religious trinkets. Dior perfumes, engraved silver hairbrushes and silk gloves remain laid out on her dresser, and a collection of her iconic berets sit atop a large, well-used shipping trunk. David picks up her passport and shows us where Marsh crudely handwrote “DAME” in capital letters in front of her own name. 

Beholding a closet jam-packed with furs, silks, and ruching, it’s very easy to get swept up in the opulence of Marsh’s life, but what charmed me just as much were the mundane details – the burn mark on the table, the plastic pedal bin, the tossed-aside reading glasses. The idea of becoming internationally-renowned writer often seems like something that can only be achieved from the turret of a castle or some cafe in Paris, not by someone sitting on the floor at home in Christchurch and grinding out work night after night.

Ngaio Marsh’s travel trunk, berets, and embroidered blanket. (Image: Alex Casey)

“She created something quietly remarkable for herself in this little pocket of Christchurch,” says Peterson, “and that feels quite special to me.” Although Peterson admits Marsh was a fiercely private person who would “absolutely hate” having strangers traipsing through her home, she says it is a great way to connect with one of our most internationally-successful writers. Ngaio Marsh House is part of the upcoming Open Christchurch festival, and is open for tours throughout the year

As we conclude the tour outside a small extension built beneath the house in the 1970s, there’s one more reminder of Marsh’s calibre and contemporaries. “See the roses there?” David says, gesturing at the pale pink flowers climbing the outside wall of her office.

“We call that rose Agatha Christie – always peeping through the windows to see what Ngaio was writing next.” 

But wait there's more!