My Katherine Mansfield Project

by Kirsty Gunn

Kirsty Gunn returned to spend the winter in her home town of Wellington, New Zealand, the place where Katherine Mansfield also grew up. Gunn explores the ideas of home and belonging and of the profound influence of Mansfield on her own creative journey.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Memoir, Writing, Travel

148 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 6, 2016

About the author

Kirsty Gunn was born in 1960 in New Zealand and educated at Queen Margaret College and Victoria University, Wellington, and at Oxford, where she completed an M.Phil. After moving to London she worked as a freelance journalist.

Her fiction includes the acclaimed Rain (1994), the story of an adolescent girl and the break-up of her family, for which she won a London Arts Board Literature Award; The Keepsake (1997), the fragmented narrative of a young woman recalling painful memories; and Featherstone (2002), a story concerned with love in all its variety. Her short stories have been included in many anthologies including The Junky's Christmas and Other Yuletide Stories (1994) and The Faber Book of Contemporary Stories about Childhood (1997).

She is also author of This Place You Return To Is Home (1999), a collection of short stories, and in 2001 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary. Her latest books are The Boy and the Sea (2006), winner of the 2007 Sundial Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award; and 44 Things (2007), a book of personal reflections over the course of one year.

Kirsty Gunn lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

'One has left a version of oneself as the place of departure and it waits for us at the point of return - but she is not me when I get there.'

Despite its plain appearance, as soon as I saw this book, I was drawn to it. The quote emblazoned boldly on the front, in red, called to me, touched a place deep in me. On top of that, the title was so intriguing. Turning over to read the back cover blurb, I discovered that the project was to do with the idea of home, and I was hooked. I had to have this book.

I have never been to New Zealand, and I have vague memories that I might have read a Katherine Mansfield story many years ago, but neither of these factors made any difference to my enjoyment of this wonderful essay. It was all to do with 'home', which is a topic that any person can relate to in some way. At the same time, it is an idea that is hard to define, to pin down. We often think of home as you place that you live, but it is possible to not feel like your residence is a home, and also feel completely comfortable and settled in places that you are just passing through. It was fascinating to hear about Kirsty Gunn's experience, in many ways so similar to that of Katherine Mansfield, of moving between Wellington and London. As I read, I was constantly lead to reflect on my own story and where I thought home actually was, what it means to live in the town (though no longer the house) that I grew up in - so different to Kirsty Gunn's story but also creating many of the same emotions. Whatever your life experience, you are sure to find many ideas and feelings to contemplate and consider as you read My Katherine Mansfield Project.

I really enjoyed the format of this little book. It flipped between Gunn's life story, what it was like to return to Wellington, and seeing her childhood hometown through the eyes of her two daughters. Interspersed with these reflections were details on Mansfield's life and books, as well as Gunn's own stories, penned in response to living in the cottage so close to where Katherine Mansfield grew up. It is a truly beautiful book.

'That home, for me, is always ... just there ... out there ... and just beyond my reach. I yearn for it, remember it, imagine it ... And in the end the destination I can reach is in words.'

[Sohum · Rating 3 out of 5]

i wish i had liked this more; too digressive, not nearly as insightful as it thinks it is

[Anne Fenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love NZ, and/or Katherine Mansfield, you'll love this book of essays, reflections and short stories. The book is based on Wellington, on the Tinakori Road area, and everything nearby connected to KM. The author has a lot in common with her, from personal background, extending to a lifetime of study associated with the famous writer. It's a very short book but packed full. It reveals a lot about Kirsty Gunn, who grew up in Wellington. We learn about her leaving it, making a life as a writer and academic in the UK. She brings her two young daughters into the story, living in London and then reacting to this new part of their lives. The book's focus is on place, and Gunn's four short stories emerge from chapters dealing with specific elements in KM's stories. Gunn adopts the writing style of capturing the moment, in a powerful blending of details, observation, thoughts and feelings. It has a breathless effect, of racing impressions. The book itself is beautiful, one in a series of essays published by Notting Hill Editions. The whole thing is a treasured link to Katherine Mansfield, keeping her brilliant work alive.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every year I avidly read authors favourite books of the year in the Guardian to discover new reads I wouldn't usually find. This year this was one of those reads, its interesting but I suspect not knowing enough about Katherine Mansfield I'm missing out on something. The writing is very carefully thought out and its an interesting exploration of her life during this project.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very different format from anything I remember reading. She made me look forward to starting Mansfield’s short stories.

[Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this mix of short story, memoir, and travelogue, but I wanted more insight into Mansfield.

[Luci · Rating 4 out of 5]

(I actually read the book in hardback but this Kindle edition is listed with a cover picture and more of the important details).

This short book is a mixture of memoir and literary essay. Kirsty Gunn was born in New Zealand but has spent most of her adult life living and working in England and Scotland. In 2009 she returned to Thorndon, the suburb of Wellington, New Zealand where the short story writer Katherine Mansfield grew up at the end of the 19th century, to work on her "Katherine Mansfield project". Mansfield also spent most of her short adult life in London and in Europe, before dying of TB in 1923, aged 34, and wrote several collections of short stories. She also left behind journals and letters.

In this, she explores ideas and complicated feelings about home, about exile, whether this is a chosen escape for education, culture and travel, experience and freedom to write, or a political exile like that of the Palestinian writer Edward Said. She describes complex feelings of coming home yet never quite belonging for people who have made lives and homes on the other side of the world.

I was also really interested in Kirsty Gunn's account of reading Katherine Mansfield's stories as an experience across three generations of her family, from her mother reading the stories to her to Gunn now sharing the stories with her daughters, particularly including the stories set in New Zealand, like Prelude and The Dolls' House.

This is a beautiful and thought provoking book, published in the UK as a small hardback with good quality paper by Notting Hill Press.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was fabulous and so wonderfully unexpected!