Presence of Music

by Maurice Shadbolt

224 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1967

About the author

Maurice Shadbolt was a major New Zealand fiction writer and playwright. He published numerous novels and collections of short fiction, as well as novellas, non-fiction, and a play. His writing often drew on his own family history. Shadbolt won several fellowships and almost every major literary prize, some more than once. He was capped Honorary Doctor of Literature by the University of Auckland in 1997.

Reviews

[Fergus Usal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Its was not the easiest thing to arrive at my final conclusion of my thoughts on this book: it’s far older than me, and it appears there’s been little historical or contemporary discussion on it that I could compare my own thoughts against. Remarkably, I managed to find a speech Maurice Shadbolt had given on the book written down in the New Zealand Listener, and it’s that which has helped me collect my thoughts best on The Presence of Music.

To begin with, across the two short stories and the novella between them, the writing always stood out as excellent. Not just for its prose and such but for the subject matter itself, and how especially how, with what appears ease, Shadbolt can conjure to life vividly descriptions of Aotearoa New Zealand that ring true all these decades later.

I think what leapt out most from this book is a certain angst concerning New Zealanders: an angst arising from a culture and people desperate to understand and assert themselves, yet equally unwilling to practice self reflection. Shadbolt spoke of New Zealanders as a “people helplessly and inextricably involved with the land […] we are wholly in bondage to it”. A shared frontier past is deeply personal and common to all, and yet as we aspire to settle ourselves, to push others to achieve so that New Zealand might assert itself amongst the rest of the world, we simultaneously suffocate artists or any sort of creative, desiring that their work reflects only what we want to hear, what we expect, and never to dwell on a future where we are not so uniform.

Permeating many of the creatives in this book is the idea of an ‘elsewhere’ where successful New Zealanders can truly be appreciated and measure themselves up against a real country. There’s an incessive need amongst many of them for their thoughts to be given and hear on any matter, and yet each retreats from actual involvement so as not to taint themselves, or deign to wade into the strife of creativity and self discovery. A balancing act of extroversion and introversion. Everyone is on a journey of some sort that never quite seems to be resolved.

At the time Shadbolt wrote The Presence of Music, he believed that there were “primitive prototype of the possible future New Zealander”. That anxiety of self discovery and evolution of a juvenile country oozes through every page. I think that process is still well underway to this day, if not only just starting: The Presence of Music is essential reading if one is investigating the culture and development of Aotearoa New Zealand, a reminder that we cannot hope to remain a uniform people as we aspire to progress and settle ourselves.

[Geoff Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three great stories that provoke you into questioning your relationships based on the ones that are superbly written here
Makes you understand the essence of a Kiwi in post modern times and should be a must read in New Zealand schools
Each story absorbs you in different ways each is compelling and honest with a rawness that you only get from experiencing life and people
Highly recommend this collage of stories