I do not read much New Zealand fiction and in fact I regard few if any New Zealand novelists as great. Ronald Hugh Morrison, Janet Frame, Margaret Mahy & Elizabeth Knox are however writers who I have respect for.
Before reading the Absolute Book I had only read 3 of Elizabeth Knox's novels, the 2 Dream hunter books and Mortal Fire, these are all young adult books but they are all good. They are imaginative, unique and for me open up possibilities of what a New Zealand novel can be.
My sister in law was reading the Absolute Book and I was attracted by the cover and put off by it's size, but the idea of a large scale adult fantasy novel by Elizabeth Knox somehow got under my skin and I felt compelled to buy a copy and read it. I'll frame my appreciation rather negatively first in that if I find myself not particularly appreciating a novel I will put it down and stop reading, that did not happen with the Absolute Book, there were a few times where I felt like skipping through but then events would unfold in various ways and it kept a hold of me until the end. That in itself is an endorsement.
All of the Elizabeth Knox novels I have read have had an element of fantasy to them, more in the tradition of Margaret Mahy and Diana Wynne Jones than that of Tolkien or Dunsany, although one could make a case for some similarity to the work of Charles Williams as his novels are likewise set in this world with the fabulous encroaching into it.
I admit as i get older an increasingly sense of envy has crept into me with my novels reading due to my own unfulfilled desire to write one. This novel is not one I wish I had written but ti does have many elements I would like in that phantom work, I appreciate the world transformation and the use of mythology.
The main character and in fact most of the characters are shown as flawed and while this does mean there is no single character that i loved in the novel, their flaws don't entirely alienate them from you so that when things happen to them and there are many happenings in the novel, I did find myself caught up in the action.
Unfortunately, for reviewing this novel it does have an involved plot that should be unfolded as you read rather than spoilt in reading an appreciation, so I am rather confined to writing my reaction, rather than a description of events and themes.
For me the origins of the fantasy novel are very spiritual or religious, George MacDonald's Lilith (1895) was both rich in the fabulous, full of profound transformations and reflections upon death and deeply religious as MacDonald had been a deeply religious man and writer and their is an incredible sense of divine love that is expressed in Lilith and all of his works. Tolkien was a devout Catholic and his religious concerns are central to his mythos, C S Lewis too combined the religious and the mythic.
Elizabeth Knox has a post Christian secular sensibility, she comes across as a woman of our time and yet a woman and writer who is steeped in the imagination and has chosen to express herself and her concerns through fantasy. She is an outspoken defender of the imagination. See her excellent address here: https://festival.nz/documents/92/Useless_Grasses.pdf…
What struck me as strange though about this modern sensibility is that the Sidhe (fairy folk) and Demons are portrayed in this novel and while Angels are not excluded by the mythic paradigm, they don't play an important role and while Gods too can inhabit the world, there is not a sense of the God of classical Theism, the Brahman that is the base of all existence, the uncreated creator and while the characters may face spiritual danger their response is never prayer, this seems to place it within that strange topography of contemporary spirituality. I have seen some criticism of the end of the novel, which is the pay off or resolution of the events, but for me I find the end satisfying as it is a vision of the goal, an expression of what is to be hoped for and it gives the novel heart and strengthens its sense of purpose.
I'll cover two more themes the first seems to mirror Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment in that it explores the implications of the self destructive power of a sinful act and the struggle for redemption. This gives the novel a sense of gravitas.
The last theme has a sense of horror for authors and book lovers it is the destruction of books and libraries by fire or loss of funding.
Overall, I was pleased to read the book, it is an expression of spirit and an impressive achievement, I found myself marvelling at the art, the weaving of the strands of story, it is a large novel not just in pages but in invention and scope, I think Elizabeth Knox has created an important New Zealand novel and at some stage I suspect I'll read it again.
