Mapping the Godzone

William Schafer read, and dreamed, about New Zealand before his first visit in 1995. Mapping the Godzone grew out of that visit and his attempts, as an American, to focus his impressions of New Zealand's literary culture and relate its mental and moral landscape to that of the United States. Through an idiosyncratic selection of contemporary novels and films, Schafer opens up a complex and compelling world, revealing underlying attitudes on a range of issues: the relationship between Maori and pakeha (European) populations, New Zealand's status as a post-colonial Pacific Rim state, the connections between its modern urban culture and the pastoral-agricultural history of its early settlers, the fate of the natural order in the late twentieth century.

Mapping the Godzone takes up the work of internationally celebrated writers such as Witi Ihimaera, Fiona Kidman, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, Maurice Shadbolt, Albert Wendt, Alan Duff, Keri Hulme, Patricia Grace, Ian Wedde, and Janet Frame. It also looks at the emerging New Zealand film industry and the handful of direc

Preface

ix

Fishing with Maui: Beginning the Voyage

1

(13)

1 Where on Earth Is Aotearoa?

14

(23)

2 Whalers, Sailors, Sealers

37

(19)

3 The Last Big Islands

56

(37)

4 Once Were Crusaders

93

(23)

5 The Bildungsroman at the End of the World

116

(21)

6 The Necessity of Ghosts: Aotearoa Gothic

137

(23)

7 Falling through the Hole in the Godzone

160

(15)

8 Aotearoa at the Movies

175

(12)

Bibliography

187

(4)

Index

191

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Summary

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials