Published by Seachange
Nelson 2011 Vincent O'Sullivan
writes of Coast: "For a long time David Young has been one of the clearest and most respected writers on New Zealand ecology, a champion for what its people hold in trust. He now brings a novelist's eye and voice to his story of pakeha settlement, plaiting his Scottish migrants into the weave of a 'new' land, and their engagement with what was already here. This is the story not of 'man alone' but of 'men together', for better or worse; of a country inherited and a country transformed. If you ask what it might mean to become a New Zealander, 'Coast' and its generations will take you a long way towards an answer." |
COAST is a unique novel that sets up a resonance between a departing shore in Scotland, and a receding shore, in New Zealand. The story begins with a Scots ploughman from the Mearns, who is confronted with a new and sometimes volatile environment in coastal Rangitikei-Whanganui, New Zealand. The promise and opportunities within a Scots community in his new home are ultimately robbed from him by the war on the Western Front. However, the relationship he has established with this memorable coastal landscape connects fathers and sons through three generations.
Visiting Scotland to research this novel – a novel based on a Scottish grandfather he never knew - David arrived at St Cyrus in the North East Mearns. Here he found a coastline with resonances of the shifting estuary, dune country and rich birdlife from the coastal landscape of his childhood at Turakina, New Zealand, 18,000 kilometres away. The story spins from there, exploring how a coastal environment might heal the after effects of trauma experienced by those who fought in war. Told by three inter-cutting voices, the narrative raises questions about war and its impacts on fathers and sons long after the fighting has finished, of the tension between community and freedom, of family and belonging, the relationship of tangata whenua to the landscape and the redemptive power of love. Ultimately, the novel is a love story, less of the classical man-woman theme than that of a son for his father, and for the magic of wild country. David Young connects his lifelong fascination with water, memory and landscape. |
Author David Young researched
the effects of war on men and their children extensively. His father, Philip, was also essential to this story, both informally and consciously. Supplied with an electric typewriter to record his memories, and aided by a diary he kept during the air war in the Pacific, Phil provided written memories that offered a foundation, as well as historic detail, for what became a central character of this novel. It is not only his father’s wealth of language and expression but also his good humour and merriment in re-telling past exploits that added to the richness and imagery of the novel. Beyond that, Coast is entirely a work of fiction - an original narrative - but pegged to some identifiable historical events and figures. |
REVIEW PEOPLE AND THE ENVIRONMENT THROUGH HISTORY
Coast: three generations of men on the Rangitikei coast November 26, 2011
By Dr Catherine Knight is a writer and environmental historian.
“Coast” is a novel written by David Young about three generations of men; their relationships with each other and the wild Rangitikei coast. Strong themes running through the book are ancestry and belonging (and acceptance). The narrative is largely based in the Rangitikei: in the township of Marton and the small beach settlement of Koitiata, near Turakina [click hereto view map], spanning from around the turn of the 20th century through to today (or thereabouts).
The Turakina River features prominently in the narrative: as a destructive and unpredictable force which takes life in the dramatic opening scenes of the novel; as a source of food and recreation for Maori and European alike; as an ancestral place for Maori; as a source of historical relics (including shoes of the victims of the Tangiwai train disaster); and, as a dynamic and powerful forger of the landscape.
David Young is best known for his writing on New Zealand’s environmental and conservation history, and especially, his works which have explored the human relationship with rivers. And indeed it is perhaps his descriptions of the river that are the most vivid and potent: they reveal his deep understanding of how rivers work, how they interact with the rest of the landscape – and, what they mean to people. For example, describing the native timber which would arrive on the beach, coveted by locals as firewood: “The beach was never short of driftwood because of the river’s raid on the back country” (p.20) … “Some arrived in the form of lost fence posts, wires attached” (p.43). And of the river’s perpetual dynamism (perhaps also a metaphor for life?): “The river mouth still hauls itself for miles up and down the coast, as if it never can decide – an equivocation upon which the wildfowl flourish” (p.254). ..A flooded river is also employed to describe the difficulty of transitioning to adulthood (p.77)
As explored in an earlier post Turakina – does the Celtic tradition live on in the landscape? , the Scots were prominent early settlers in Turakina, and indeed it is Scottish ancestry and links which looms large in this book. It is the grandfather of the youngest protagonist who first settles in the Rangitikei, when he courageously emigrates to New Zealand in his 20s, leaving everything – and everyone – that he knows behind. However, it is these very actions (and the disposition that drives it) that links him and his grandson – despite having never met one another. Both possess a quiet intellectualism, strong inquiring minds, and a resistance to conform – even if it means not being accepted fully by those from whom they most desire approval and acceptance.
The landscapes, the history, and the often fraught nature of parent-child relationship relationships explored in the novel will resonate with many who read it.
https://envirohistorynz.com/2011/11/26/coast-three-generations-of-men-on-the-turakina-coast/