That New Zealand National Library and Archives New Zealand issue ...

Both the Labour Party and the Green Party think that amalgamating the National Library (together with the iconic Alexander Turnbull Library) and Archives New Zealand into the Department of Internal Affairs is a terrible idea.

The Government in March announced the two bodies would be integrated into the Department of Internal Affairs to save between $3 million and $9m, and assured critics the independence of their statutory roles would be protected.

Labour MP Grant Robertson strongly disagrees, saying it will undermine the independence and influence of both the Library and the Archives.

"The result of the bill will see the chief archivist and national librarian as third tier-managers who are not part of the leadership team at (the Department of Internal Affairs), with no guaranteed access to ministers," he says.

"All of this is being done for limited savings. The Government was not able to tell the select committee how much would be saved, or offer any real justification for the merger," he said.

"Labour will continue to oppose these aspects of the bill."
The Green Party said the change could have a disastrous effect on both the National Library and Archives NZ.
"We share some submitters' concerns that this process has been driven out of an ideological motivation to reduce the number of governmental departments rather than a desire for good archival or library outcomes," the party said.
"Sharing technology and digitisation, bureaucratic efficiencies and cost savings were presented as arguments in favour of proceeding with this bill.

"No evidence or robust analysis why this particular and very disruptive structural solution was needed to achieve essentially financial and technological policy aims was presented.
"The Green Party believes this is a retrograde step."

THE HAUNTED LIBRARY

A real-life, perhaps "true crime" mystery has unexpectedly come to light, with the renovation of India's National Library, historic Belvedere House, in Alipur, near Calcutta.

According to Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey, writing for The Times of India, Belvedere House has always had the reputation of being haunted. Now, architects working on the restoration of this great eighteenth century building have uncovered a good reason for it.  They have discovered a secret room -- a mysterious space about 30 metres square, with no openings into it.  Not even trapdoors.  Just the suggestion of a bricked-in arch.

Belvedere House was built in the 1760s by Mir Jafar, who gifted it to the first Governor-General of India, Lord Warren Hastings.  In 1854 it became the official residence of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, and remained so until the British capital moved to Delhi.  After Independence, the National Library was moved to the building, the librarians apparently taking stories of ghosts in their stride.

Recently, the books were moved out to temporary storage nearby, while the Archaeological Survey of India restores Belvedere House to something like its former glory.  And that was when the architects discovered this large blank space.

Lengthy negotiations are taking place, to secure permission to open it up.  Naturally, speculations are rife.  Was it a death chamber?  Did one of the British Governors have secrets to hide?  Eighteenth century politicians in India were rather fond of walling people up, according to legend.  Or was it a treasure vault?

"It could be just about anything," said D V Sharma, regional director of the Archaeological Survey.  "Skeletons and treasure chests are the two things that top our speculations because it is not natural for a building to have such a huge enclosure that has no opening."

But how to find out what secrets it holds?  The current plan is to open up a small hole, once permission has been granted, and poke in a searchlight and a camera.

"We are eagerly awaiting the first look inside," said historian Barun De.

And so are we all.  Watch this space.

Fascinating KiwiCrime profile in The (New Zealand) Listener

I have just opened my copy of the latest Listener, just arrived in the mail, and have found a great article by Guy Somerset, profiling Craig Sisterson, KiwiCrimeWatch blogger (see RH menu; also picture, right), the upcoming decision on Kiwi Crime-writer of the Year (aka the Ngaio Marsh Award, inspired and organized by said Craig Sisterson), and the growing respectability of crime writing in New Zealand.

Fascinating stuff.  I have to admit that my own crime reading as a youngster was Ngaio Marsh, Agatha Christie, or Leslie Charteris.  (Anyone reading this young enough to remember The Saint?)  I was convinced that all crime writers were English.  Then I found American crime writers, who seemed to be in a different genre altogether.  Great stuff, but Different.

So, when I was asked by my agent to think up a crime series, who did I turn to?  Agatha Christie.

What an odd model for a historical maritime mystery series, is all I have to say now.  But it worked.

Now, there is huge interest in new young bloods, like Vanda Symon, Neil Cross, and Alix Bosco, the finalists in this big new award, the result of which is to be announced in Christchurch on 30 November.

Congratulations and best of luck to all these wonderfully talented young people.

But still there is a mystery.  What interests me is how little attention is paid in New Zealand to a major modern mystery/thriller writer. 

Anne Perry.

I wonder why?

All Blacks doing well -- and not because of anything fortuitous or fortunate

The current All Blacks are certainly doing well -- but the commentators need to look up a dictionary of English usage.

So often what happens is "FORTUITOUS."  The spin of the ball, the drop of the tackled player, the decision of the referee -- or whatever.  If it goes "our" way, it is fortuitous.

Well, maybe it happens by chance, but the commentators seem to think that it is lucky.  Which it is not.  It is simply accidental.

Quote from The Cassell Dictionary of English Usage:

The adjective fortuitous comes from Latin fortuitus 'happening by chance', and means 'accidental, unplanned' ...

Because the adjective is so frequently used to describe a 'lucky happening', fortuitous is something used when 'fortunate' or 'lucky' would be more appropriate.

Will the commentators take any notice of me?

Fat chance.  It would certainly be both fortunate (lucky) and fortuitous (accidental) if they did.

AS THE EARTH TURNS SILVER

If you want to fulfil your dreams, you will have to work relentlessly.  At least twice as hard as any man.  You must find within yourself the necessary determination, the will and the wisdom.  And you must also cultivate intelligence of the heart.

This quotation from the New Zealand Book Awards Fiction Category Winner, Alison Wong's novel As the Earth Turns Silver, is advice given by a wise woman to a girl who is heading off to medical school in the year 1914, when girls did not usually do such things.  Change one word, "man" to "European," and it could apply just as aptly to the main protagonist of this book, a Chinese man, Wong Chung-yung, who arrived in Wellington at the age of 18 in 1896.

This is a story with two threads -- the status of women and the status of Chinese in early 20th century New Zealand.  The two strands are closely linked -- just as on the ships of the time, where Chinese men  were cooks, stewards, and laundry workers, the Chinese men of Alison Wong's story do jobs that were considered women's work.  Yung, for instance, washes carrots and beetroot, cooks meals, and scrubs out the family greengrocer shop, while Katherine, the European woman he comes to love, labors to rinse, wring, and hang out the washing, and then prepare stew for her unappreciative family.  There is the same unfairness, which disturbs them both, but which both accept as a fact of life, because that was the way things were at the time.

There are many eloquent chapters in this beautifully written book, mostly very short, as this is a story told in bytes.  It works well.  Not only does it make the book very readable, but the frequent pauses give plenty of opportunity to think deeply about whatever glimpse of life in Wellington or in the Chinese home village has just been shared by the author.

Though the theme is discrimination, the book is character-driven.  Yung and his brother, Wong Chung-shun, are particularly well-drawn, providing a remarkable insight into the racism of the time.  Katherine, whose gradually developing love affair with Yung is exquisitely described, is more blurred, often seeming more symbolic than real.  By contrast, the Chinese women who feature in the story -- the two wives of the brothers, left behind in China to eke out claustrophobic women's lives with their mother-in-law, and Mei-lin, the pretty little concubine Shun chooses to bring to New Zealand -- are almost brutally alive.

The remarkable research is a bonus.  Alison Wong is a meticulous historian, and the carefully evoked background is evidence of this.  Altogether, As the Earth Turns Silver is a book to be treasured, as it will definitely will be read more than once.

GEORGE W BUSH, PLAGIARIST?

Twitter is going nuts.  According to political commentator Huffington Post, there is convincing evidence that George W. Bush plagiarized from other books when he wrote his own memoir.

"George Bush Book 'Decision Points' Lifted Passages From Advisers' Books," runs the headline.

When Crown Publishers signed on the dotted line, they expected "gripping never-before-heard detail" about key moments of the former president's tenure in the White House, but instead got a collection of anecdotes scooped from previously published memoirs written by subordinates.

For instance, there is a touching little tale from Karzai's inauguration.  Unfortunately, GWB wasn't there.

Ironically, he also appears to have swiped passages from critical accounts of his presidency, such as those by Bob Woodward and Robert Draper.

If true, Bush joins august company.  According to gawker.com, Tony Blair, that famous plagiarist, scooped his account of his conversation with Queen Elizabeth from the film The Queen, which he claims he has never seen. Apparently, he "remembers" it word-for-word, though the conversation actually only existed in the screenwriter's imagination.

E-BOOK BESTSELLER LISTS SCHEDULED BY THE NYT

Publisher's Lunch reports that the New York Times promises eBook bestseller lists for "Early Next Year"

According to the announcement, it will "publish e-book best-seller lists in fiction and nonfiction beginning early next year." Spokesperson Diane McNulty elaborated, on questioning, that they they will run dedicated ebook bestseller lists rather than incorporate ebook sales into any of the existing lists.

Additional details, including the number of positions on the official lists and the possibility of showing "extended" lists online, will be announced "closer to launch."

One hopes they will not make the "Amazon" mistake, and include free eBooks in their sampling.

SIMON'S CAT BETWEEN THE COVERS AGAIN

When Simon Tofield made a short animated cartoon featuring his lovably destructive cat, and posted it on YouTube, he had no idea it would turn into an internet phenomenon, reaping him 25 million fans.

About this time last year, a selection of cartoons was published as a book, which became such a popular stocking filler in the UK that it sold 125,000 copies.

Now The Guardian reports that the feat is being repeated for Christmas 2010 -- the bossy feline makes it between book covers again, with a line of associated goodies for sale.

US fans have to wait until next spring.

THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON

I can't believe that I have been reading Forever Amber.  I read it first at a tender age, and remember very little about it.  I suspect, however, that my mother did not know!

Anyway, I was encouraged to read it again by a comment from a physician who is as interested in medical history as I am.  He remarked that Kathleen Winsor's description of London during the great plague was the best lay account he had ever read.  I was not impolite enough to ask him what the devil a mature Kiwi male was doing reading a bodice-ripper (though I have often wished I did), but his observation stuck in my mind.  So, when I saw the recently re-issued paperback in the library, I decided to give it a go -- especially when I checked on Amazon.com and found it is doing well.

I suppose I got two-thirds of the way through the book before putting it aside, after a quick look at the ending.  It's the story of Amber, a country girl, who in the early years of the Restoration is seduced by the broodingly handsome Lord Carlton.  Despite his reluctance, she goes with him to London, where she falls in and out of a lot of beds (including that of Charles II), gets married several times, but never gives up on adoring him, vainly hoping he will make her his forever. 

Despite all that bed-hopping, there is no graphic sex.  Anyone who reads this for pornography is going to be gravely disappointed, as is anyone who expects Amber's character to develop at all.  She is utterly obnoxious, beautiful but shallow, selfish, bad-tempered, hysterical, and demanding, and despite what life throws at her, she never learns.  Instead of maturing, she merely ages.  Altogether, both cardboard and unconvincing.

But the background is amazing, filled with intriguing trifles of London and court life at the time.  Because of this (and the irritating protagonist), it reminded me a lot of Gone With the Wind.  In Margaret Mitchell's iconic work, the descriptions of medical care during the Civil War were riveting, and the same can be said -- oh yes indeed -- for Winsor's descriptions of the Great Plague of London.

  Day by day London was changing.

Gradually the vendors disappeared from the streets, and with them went the age-old cries which had run through the town for centuries.  Many shops had closed and the 'prentices no longer stood before their stalls, bawling out their wares to the passerby -- the shopkeepers were afraid of the customers, the customers were afraid of the shopkeepers ...

Searchers-of-the-dead walked in every street.  It was their duty to inspect the dead and to report to the parish-clerk the cause of death.  They were a group of old women, illiterate and dishonest as the nurses, forced to live apart from society during a time of sickness and to carry a white stick wherever they went so that others might know them ...

The town grew steadily quieter.  The busy shipping of the Thames lay still -- no ships might enter or leave the river -- and the noisy swearing impudent boatmen had all but disappeared.  Forty thousand dogs and two hundred thousand cats were slaughtered, for it was believe they were carriers of the sickness.  it was possible to hear, far up into the City, the roaring of the water between the starlings of London Bridge -- a noise that usually went unnoticed.  Only the bells continued to ring -- tolling, tolling, tolling for the dead.

NELSON WATTIE WINS RESIDENCY

Receiving the good news?

I happen to know that a biography of Kapiti poet and major New Zealand literary figure Alistair Te Ariki Campbell has been brewing for a long time now -- and it seems that at last this labor of love has a good chance of being completed.

Author, translator (to and from German), and opera singer Nelson Wattie has been awarded an 8-week stint at the Michael King Writers' Centre in Devonport, Auckland, next southern autumn, along with an $8,000 stipend.

Congratulations are also due to Aucklander Arthur Meek, who has a summer residency to work on a play called The Good Times.