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Issue 6 August 2010

Inside:

KMS News, Page 2

Reports on ‗Katherine Mans- field, the Underworld and the Blooms Berries‘, Melbourne, June 2010, Pages 3-7

‗Shaping Modernism: Katherine Mansfield and her Contemporar- ies‘, Page 8

‗The Beginning and the End with Katherine Mansfield‘ by Joan Taylor, Pages 9-12

KMS Inaugural Birthday Lec- ture, Page 13

‗How Katherine Mansfield Turned Me Into a Writer‘ by Thomas E. Kennedy, Page 14

‗A Love Affair with Katherine Mansfield‘ by Todd Martin, Page 15

KMS Essay Prize Announce- ment, Page 16

Review of On the Rocks by Melissa C. Reimer, Page 17

Report on launch of Katherine La Mama Theatre, Melbourne Mansfield: The Storyteller by Venue of Gary Abrahams‘ Kathleen Jones, Page 18 Something Natural but Very Childish

Book Announcements, Page 19

Issue 6 August 2010 Page 2 KMS News It‘s been a busy few months for the KMS, and work continues to gather pace on a number of upcom- ing events and projects to whet KMS members‘ appetites! In June, KM scholars and acolytes gathered in Melbourne for a two-day symposium on ‗Katherine Mansfield, the Underworld and the Blooms Berries‘, co-organised by Melinda Harvey (Reviews Editor of Katherine Mansfield Studies) and the Newsletter‘s own Sarah Ailwood. Congratulations to both for putting together a fantastic few days! [And special thanks go to Gerri Kimber, Sue Reid and Janet Wilson for invaluable assistance!] For those of us who weren‘t lucky enough to make the trip, this issue features two reports on the symposium by Elizabeth Welsh and Maggie Rainey-Smith. Also in this issue, you‘ll find Joan Tay- lor‘s account of her journey from KM‘s birthplace to her burial site, as well as two contributions by Thomas E. Kennedy and Todd Martin detailing their own unique relationships to KM‘s writing. And as if that weren‘t enough, we also feature Melissa C. Reimer‘s lively review of the recent production of Amy Rosenthal‘s On the Rocks in Christchurch and a report on the recent launch of Kathleen Jones‘ new biography of KM in Auckland. In the months to come, you can look forward to the next issue of Katherine Mansfield Studies (due for publication in October); a conference on the subject of ‗Shaping Modernism: Katherine Mansfield and her Contemporaries‘ to be held in Cambridge in March 2011; and the KMS‘s inaugural Birthday Lecture to be held in London in October. You‘ll find full details about all these events and more in the pages that follow, as well as news of incredible dis- counts for KMS members on a number of new books. Finally, congratulations to Glennys Adams who is the winner of the recent competition to win a copy of Susannah Fullerton‘s Finding Katherine Mansfield CD. The winning entry is: Kezia delights us as a character because like the “living” lamp in The Doll‘s House she shines a light on the real and the imaginary and illuminates life‟s frighten- ing and exciting possibilities. Well done Glennys!

Hope you enjoy this issue of the KMS Newsletter, and don‘t forget to contact us with submissions and feedback—we‘re always happy to hear from you!

Jenny McDonnell and Sarah Ailwood, Joint Editors of the Katherine Mansfield Society Newsletter

STOP PRESS!!

Katherine Mansfield Society Inaugural Birthday Lecture: Friday 15 October 2010

In addition to the wonderful support from the New Zealand High Commission for our inaugural Birthday Lecture, we are delighted to announce that the New Zealand Society UK has offered us a generous grant to cover the printing of the birthday lecture booklet, which will be sold both on the night of the lecture and via the website, to raise funds for the KMS. Our grateful thanks go to Karyn Newman and the committee of the New Zealand Society (UK) for their generous support.

In addition to the eagerly awaited lecture by Angela Smith, there will be cello music performed by Kate Kennedy, a reading from ‗The Doll‘s House‘, and a book signing by Kathleen Jones of her new KM biography Katherine Mansfield: The Story- teller. All this, plus birthday cake, drinks, prize raffle and more, in one of the best locations in central London – the Pent- house of New Zealand House. We hope to see you there! See the flier on page 13 for more details.

Published by the Katherine Mansfield Society, Stroud, England

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Symposium Reports ~

Katherine Mansfield, the ‗Underworld’ and the ‗Blooms Berries’ RMIT University, Melbourne 4-5 June 2010 As a scholar, enthusiast and society member I was recently fortunate enough to attend Kathe- rine Mansfield, the „Underworld‟ and the „Blooms Berries‘ Symposium held in the UNESCO city of literature, Melbourne. I was there to present a paper and to soak up all things Mansfield. Having spent the last five years immersed in Mansfield studies I was in my element. The two day celebration of Mansfield‘s life and works was held at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT) in conjunction with the recently established Katherine Mansfield Society. The symposium kicked off with the keynote speaker, Mansfield scholar Professor Sue Thomas from La Trobe University in Melbourne. She delved into Virginia Woolf‘s perception and judgement of Katherine Mansfield with her presentation ―Lines So Hard and Cheap‘: Katherine Mansfield, Vir- ginia Woolf and the Aesthetics of Respectability‘. The paper was fascinating in its discussion of Mansfield‘s construction of a ‗short fiction‘ that was both commercially marketable and simultaneously capable of contributing to the canon of literary modernism. Woolf, who was extremely cautious of the labels ‗mass-market‘ or ‗popular fiction‘, clearly felt that Mansfield was ‗selling out‘. I was amused at Professor Thomas‘ recurring focus on scent, particularly in Virginia Woolf‘s letters. Woolf‘s equation of scent with a distrustful commerciality, commonness and prostitution seems re- markably absurd today and yet was an all too natural association for Mansfield and her contemporaries. Woolf‘s obvious social snobbery explains so easily her jealousy towards Mansfield‘s writing and publication success. The first session after the morning tea of cupcakes and steaming cups of tea and coffee (reminding me of Mansfield‘s ‗A Cup of Tea‘) was entitled „Mansfield and Women‟. This session included a discussion of the enigmatic literary model provided for Mansfield by French writer Col- lette, as well as two presentations on Mansfield‘s influence on two celebrated Australian writers, Marjorie Barnard and Eleanor Dark – ‗Viewing Intimacy in the Work of Katherine Mansfield and Marjorie Barnard‘ by Ann Vickery and ‗Anxious Beginnings: ‗Prelude‘ and Prelude to Christopher‘ by Sarah Ailwood (respectively). These were especially captivating on the topic of Australasian re- gional responses to modernism. Ailwood rebutted the common assumption that Australasian writing was and remains ―geographical curiosities removed from global impulses‖. This is a position I feel very strongly about and so listened with relish about the politics of colonial nation-building in literature. From envy to servitude, the stand-out paper for me from the „Intimates‟ session was Anna Jackson‘s ‗Katherine Mansfield and the ‗little maids‘‟. Anna effortlessly skipped across the lines between biography and fiction, discussing Mansfield‘s irrational and demanding dependence on Ida Baker (or ‗LM‘ as she called her) and her contradictory representations of figures of servitude in her

A cup of tea Deidre Ryan with Sue Thomas Lorraine Sim and Ann Vickery

Issue 6 August 2010 Page 4 short fiction. She recalled a hilarious incident when Mansfield asked Baker to smuggle a chair out of a fire escape and across London to avoid repossession, illustrating Mansfield‘s unappreciative atti- tude towards her ―little maid‖, Baker. My mind still reels at the nuances of the relationship between the two women. The next presentation made me eager to get out my Spanish language tapes again. Annabelle Lukin from Macquarie University presented an intriguing Mansfield collaboration between the Labo- ratory for Experimentation in Translation and the Centre for Language in Social Life. Lukin is pro- ducing the Spanish and Portuguese translations of Mansfield‘s short story ‗Bliss‘. Her presentation looked into the narrative shifts and the ‗planes of narration‘ present in the story. This may seem solely the joy of an English student or linguist, but the excitement about Lukin‘s project rippled throughout the Radio Theatre. It revolutionised the way I thought about narrative and I will be first in line when she has completed the project. Throughout the two days of the symposium the delegates enjoyed sumptuous morning and afternoon tea surrounded by a visual presentation of Katherine Mansfield art works. Penelope Jackson, Director of the Tauranga Art Gallery, had arranged for a series of (replica) art works to be installed in the symposium building. It was a delight to see that the bonds between writing and art are still as

Anna Jackson and Susannah Fullerton and Vincent O‘Sullivan Penelope Jackson permeable as they were in Katherine Mansfield‘s day when she sat for the famous Anne Estelle Rice portrait. Apparently, despite Virginia Woolf‘s communication and insistence that this painting was significant, Rice‘s bold painting was declined by the British National Gallery. Cue the collective sighs of colonial despair. On the morning of the second day we were treated to two sessions of academic papers, „Mansfield and Men‟ and „Influence‟. Two gems stood out for me among these presentations. Naomi Milthorpe, the 2009/2010 Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center Fellow, presented a humorous paper on the connection between satirists Evelyn Waugh and Katherine Mansfield in her paper titled ‗The Twilight of Language: The Young Evelyn Waugh on ‗Bliss‘‘. Evelyn Waugh is commonly catalogued as belonging to the ‗other‘ or ‗alternative‘ modernism, a position he advocated in his abuses of modernity. However, Naomi discussed the unpublished manuscript The Twilight of Lan- guage which demonstrates an earlier sympathy with modernism, despite the extended parody of Mansfield‘s ‗Bliss‘. Milthorpe was eloquent and engaging in her explication of Waugh‘s taste, pro- viding some marvellous satirical quips from Waugh. The other presentation that piqued my interest was Jessica Gildersleeve on the literary relationship between Katherine Mansfield and Elizabeth Bowen. Gildersleeve gave an extensive discussion of Bowen‘s heart-rending lament for Mansfield—―where is she?‖—written after Mansfield‘s death and explored Mansfield‘s influence on Bowen‘s writing. Bowen openly documented her constant textual influence as a short story writer, while regretting her death at such a young age. She viewed Mansfield as her lost literary forebear and never forgot this. This presentation struck to my core as it articulated the intimacy between reader and writer that is intangible and yet achingly real.

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In the slot directly before lunch I gave my own presentation, ‗Mansfield‘s ellipses as phenomenological markers of time‘ which was followed by Louise Edensor‘s eloquent Powerpoint presentation on ‗The influence of the writings of Henri Bergson and Arthur Symons on the short stories of Katherine Mansfield‘. These two presentations fitted together like a glove, both concerned with the presentation of the elusive nature of ‗time‘ in Mansfield‘s works, and both discussing the influence of contemporary philosophers on Mansfield‘s writing. I was ecstatic at the chance to discuss the grammatical tool of the ellipsis, an opportunity I don‘t often have the fortune to engage with in any depth. The mechanics of each discipline is truly only interesting to those engaged in that field; ellipses anyone? Out of professional curiosity, I often undertake visits to literary birthplaces such as Shake- speare‘s Stratford-Upon-Avon, Beatrix Potter‘s Hill Top Farm in Cumbria, and of course the Kathe- rine Mansfield Birthplace in Thorndon (to name a few). It is always a strange and awkward thing to do and I imagine most visitors leave feeling an uncertainty about the site‘s preservation and re- creation for a tourist market. In the afternoon session Brigid Magner avidly recalled her visit to Mansfield‘s Villa Isola Bella in Menton complete with a slide show of photographs and a discussion of the ‗cellar‘ that the holders of the New Zealand Post Mansfield Prize occupy. I was struck by the ways in which her thoughts on literary tourism and literary pilgrimage reflected my own inclinations to visit and yet be cautious about the act of visiting these sites. The Symposium concluded with keynote speaker and eminent Mansfield scholar, Vincent O‘Sullivan. He chose to talk about Mansfield‘s adoration for theosophist Lewis Wallace‘s Cosmic Anatomy and her decision to enter George Gurdjieff‘s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at Fontainebleau, an esoteric school and the site of her death from tuberculosis. O‘Sullivan lit- tered his discussion with a plethora of Mansfield‘s final utterances – ―I have known just instances of waking‖ – and left us with these final words recorded in her diary: ―What is the time, time‖. The symposium was over far too quickly, as all good things are, but I was left feeling as capti- vated by Mansfield, her work, and her life as I had been at fourteen when I first experienced those tantalizing words: ―What can you do if you are thirty and, turning the corner of your own street, you are overcome, suddenly, by a feeling of bliss – absolute bliss! – as though you‘d suddenly swallowed a bright piece of that late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe?...‖

Julieanne Elizabeth Welsh Lamond and Melinda Harvey Juliane Roemhild and Max Oettli

Louise Edensor, Elizabeth Welsh Julia Szabo and Diana Harris and Brigid Magner and Naomi Milthorpe Vincent O‘Sullivan

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I‘ve recently returned from the Katherine Mansfield Symposium, The ‗Underworld‘ and the ‗Blooms Berries‘, held at the RMIT University, Melbourne in conjunction with the Katherine Mans- field Society. Two days dedicated to a discussion of her life and short stories by a wide range of very passionate scholars, all bringing very different aspects of her work to the fore. I wondered, what Katherine would have thought, had she somehow dropped in at the Radio Theatre, RMIT on La Trobe Street, to eavesdrop upon the speakers. First, as I wandered down the wide pavements of Melbourne where the fat autumn leaves lay undisturbed, I marvelled at the difference and also the similarities between Wellington (birthplace of KM) and Melbourne, where the Symposium was being held. I don‘t think Katherine ever visited Melbourne, but it occurred to me that she would have loved it (as it is now), so stylish, cultural, and definitely a place to find a classy tea shop. The sluggish brown Yarra is not quite Oriental Bay, but at night it springs to life reflecting the true nature and sophistication of this city, out-dazzling itself in a riot of bright lights reflected on its darkened inert surface. And, now finally, after a few visits to Mel- bourne over many years, I have (with the help of a local) discovered the grid. That Elizabeth and Swanston Streets run one way (forever it seems) and Collins (Little Collins), Bourke (Little Bourke) the other. And before I segue too far, just one extra plug for the Melbourne City Library on Flinders Lane where they offer FREE computer access for one hour a day for a month, to visitors. The room was full of all sorts of people and all of them had their screens open on their Facebook page. Would Katherine have enjoyed this – chatting on-line to Middleton Murry from Menton, do you think? Let me confess right up front that I am a mere enthusiast and not an academic. I recently joined the Katherine Mansfield Society and it was through this newsletter that I saw the Symposium was to take place. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to pursue both my passion for Katherine Mansfield and my love of Melbourne. I could never have conceived of the wide range of illuminating and fascinating approaches to the study of her work. The opening keynote address was by Professor Sue Thomas of La Trobe University explor- ing ‗Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf and the Aesthetics of Respectability‘ which explored the relationship between these two writers, much written about and in particular, perhaps, the ‗snobbery, gossipiness and rivalry that made Mansfield retreat from Woolf and her circle‘. And, on it went, too many presentations to do justice and to detail them all, but including, Anna Jackson from Victoria University who told a charming story of Ida Baker being summoned to secrete a favourite chair out the fire escape of KM‘s London dwelling in the middle of the night, when KM and Middleton Murry were down on their luck and the repossession man was due. I love this image of unquestioning friendship, the loyal Ida Baker creeping precariously down the fire escape clutching KM‘s favourite chair. Another fascinating focus was on ‗Mansfield‘s ellipses as phenomenological markers of time‘ presented by Elizabeth Welsh of the University of Auckland... as an over-user myself, of the ellipsis, I will now interrogate my wanton use of this grammatical tool ... Thanks to the generosity of the organisers of this symposium, Dr Sarah Ailwood, University of Canberra and Dr Melinda Harvey, RMIT, I was somehow drawn into participating in the Sympo- sium and invited to be the Chair to introduce Penelope Jackson, Curator of the Tauranga Art Gallery, New Zealand who gave a most entertaining visual presentation about Katherine Mansfield as a subject for the portraitist. Penelope Jackson had generously organised replica portraits by famous New Zealand artists to be displayed in the room where we all gathered each morning for coffee and during the breaks for pots of tea (a large red tea pot on the table, irises in a vase, and delightful miniature brightly-iced cup-cakes) – everything possible was done by Melinda, Sarah and our Honours student helpers, Deidre Ryan and Julia Szabo, to evoke a sense of KM. I was most intrigued to meet Richard Carr, Associate Professor of the University of Alaska Fairbanks whose presentation was on ‗The Male World in Katherine Mansfield‘s Fiction‘. In chatting with Richard during the coffee breaks I was astonished to learn that he taught New Zealand literature in Alaska, in particular, Witi Ihimaera, Patricia Grace, Alan Duff, and Ronald Hugh Morieson (so, how about that!) – I told him about Alice Tawhai and Owen Marshall, and he was keen to know more.

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Professor Vincent O‘Sullivan wrapped up the two-day seminar with a most insightful, care- fully construed and empathetic interpretation of Katherine Mansfield‘s final days at Gurdjieff‘s Insti- tute at Fontainebleau—the fact that this ending of her life in his words ―continues to be an awkward biographical fact for many who write on her‖. Professor O‘Sullivan seemed to imply that Katherine in choosing this particular place to be at that time, was finally, heroically and bravely meeting life and death on her own terms. He discussed why she was drawn to Lewis Wallace‘s Cosmic Anatomy, a detail that he says most biographers tend to avoid because they cannot explain it. And then he added the delicious detail that Katherine was known to carry around a copy of the Bible, the works of Shakespeare, a pistol and a fan. And, in conclusion, the thing, the very thing that struck me so at this symposium, was the amazing line-up of young Australians (primarily women) who are so engaged with the reading and study of our darling KM. Add to this the fact that in 2010, if you explore Australian bookshops, there are barely any Kiwi writers, and vice versa on our New Zealand book shop shelves, very few Austra- lian writers – it seems we do not cross-fertilise that well in the modern world, but that retrospec- tively, Katherine Mansfield, yet again, has cemented her reputation as a very modern woman.

Maggie Rainey-Smith

Delegates hear Susannah Maggie Rainey-Smith and Fullerton‘s presentation, Simone Murray ‗Finding Katherine‘

Sarah Ailwood and Melinda Harvey

Dinner at Abla‘s

A quick word on Gary Abrahams’ Something Natural but Very Childish

On the Saturday evening following the Symposium, a group of delegates were delighted by a performance of Gary Abrahams‘ Something Natural but Very Childish. Based on ‗Mr & Mrs Dove‘, ‗A Dill Pickle‘ and ‗The Escape‘ as well as ‗Something Childish‘, and referencing numerous other Mansfield stories, Abrahams‘ play is focused on the theme of romantic love, an aspect of Mansfield‘s fiction that is not often celebrated by enthusiasts or analysed by critics. The stories knitted together very well, and the performances by the cast were outstanding, as we saw Henry and Edna and Mrs and Mrs Dove come to life. The audience‘s place on either side of a long, narrow stage was ideal for re-creating the train journeys that feature in these stories, and for evoking the sense, as a reader or viewer, of observing snapshots of urban life and intimate moments that are so central to Mansfield‘s fiction. Seeing this play, particularly with its emphasis on romantic love, inspired me to revisit Mans- field‘s stories in a new way. Sarah Ailwood

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The Beginning and the End with Katherine Mansfield

by Joan Taylor

I have accidentally followed in the footsteps of Katherine Mansfield. At this moment, I am sitting overlooking the River Seine, near Fontainebleau, France, on a hot, summer‘s day. The green water flows slowly through forest lying ready to be painted by Impressionists. In this quiet, sun-splattered world the ears seek out the sounds of birdsong, bees, a distant ham- mering. When we first went biking in the forest I noted aloud to my family how I felt as if I were back in New Zealand. I was suddenly on a bush track, hurtling along muddy paths where roots curled and ferns brushed legs. I had forgotten that Katherine Mansfield spent her last days in this place. It was only when – en route to the vast château of Fontainebleau – I saw ‗Rue Katherine Mansfield‘ on the map that I realised I had, within the course of five months, managed to follow my nation‘s greatest writer from cradle to grave, without intending to. Curiously, in March, when I was back visiting Wellington, my brother John had arranged to take his Massey class of English language students to the birthplace of Katherine Mansfield at 25 Tinakori Road, Thorndon: Te Puakitanga, as it is termed, the ‗Emergence‘. Since it was too large a class to move through the house in one group, he‘d asked me to shepherd half of it from below while he took the other to see the film upstairs before their tour. I had never visited this place before, perhaps fearing it might be a little pre- cious. Instead, the guides seemed to strike the right balance between honour and an appropriate, earthed, matter-of-factness. ‗Katherine‘, as they called her, was shown to be firmly rooted in the Wellington of Katherine Mansfield Birthplace, Wellington the late 19th century, within a family and a home. I was reminded of how much I loved her stories when I read them first in a New Zea- land literature course at Auckland University. With her great intelligence and care, and her relish of language, she could sculpt words into unpretentious works of searing observation, not just within her famous stories – ‗Prelude‘, ‗The Garden Party,‘ ‗The Doll‘s House‘, and others – but in such small gems as ‗The Fly‘, with its ache of multiple metaphors. I became – as so many – one of those who understood Katherine Mansfield‘s greatness. Upstairs, the museum had a photographic display and film telling the story of Kathe- rine‘s life. These presentations could have been dry, but they were well-conceived. I was held by her expression in photographs. Katherine‘s is a serious face, a little tense and sensi- tive, but with eyes that peer out and spot you. She used those eyes to locate all the little de-

Issue 6 August 2010 Page 10 tails others could miss, all the peculiar similes parked within the everyday. I re-learnt then the details of her life. Born in 1888 and growing up with three sisters and a brother, she spent her first formative years in this house, before the family moved to Karori in 1893, and then back to another house in Tinakori Road in 1898. In 1903 she left for school in England, returning three years later to Wellington, where she was irritated by the town‘s cramping boringness and provinciality. Katherine became the iconic Kiwi expatriate. She left, for the sake of culture and stimulation, only to find these entwined with a series of relationship disappointments: pregnant to one man, she married another, miscarried, and then took up, turbulently, with the influential critic and editor John Middleton Murry. She fraternised with the Bloomsbury group, feeling a bit of an outsider, and got tuberculosis. She became a double exile in Italy, France and Switzerland, for her health, contact with Murry becoming a marriage by correspondence. Her mind was drawn back to the place she‘d spurned. In Paris, in March 1922, Katherine wrote to her father: ―...the longer I live, the more I return to New Zealand ... New Zealand is in my very bones‖. Within a year of these words, she was dead. Perhaps it was just one expat looking at another, one woman‘s sense of another‘s trag- edy, or one oh-to-be-a-real-writer author today looking up to a true star, but I was touched again by Katherine, in that place: Te Puakitanga. I felt its safety: a prosperous home and a caring family. I thanked the guides with genuine gratitude. This stop on the Wellington tourist trail certainly fulfilled its purpose: the museum does pull you in to Katherine‘s world. We became friends; she would now be ‗Katherine‘ to me. Yet, for some reason, I did not prop- erly take in at the time the whereabouts of her death, or remember it. Somewhere in France. She was transient, after all, flitting like a fly. I intended to re-read her stories, but, back in England, a steady downpour of emails, meetings, teaching and academic articles to finish took me away from that purpose. I quickly booked a family holiday in summer from an advertisement in The Author, the magazine of the UK Society of Authors, which promoted a writer‘s retreat by the forest of Fontainebleau. It seemed a restful and pretty place, with opportunities for environmentally-friendly adven- tures. Thanks to deadlines that left me stuck on my laptop, I left England on the Eurostar with a bloodshot eye, with a hope just to be in a lot of greenery and natural light. I had truly forgotten about Fontainebleau (or more correctly Avon, which is fused with Fontainebleau today) being where Katherine died. The street written on the map was a shock. Googling, at the liberatingly airy house we rented at Fontaine-le-Port, I rediscovered the final instalment of her life. In Paris, seeking a cure for her tuberculosis, Katherine learnt about George Gurdjieff‘s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man, in the Château de Prieuré des Basses-Loges, Avon, and went there in October 1922. On January 9th, 1923, she died, and was buried in Avon cemetery. It was absolutely necessary that I go to these places. My husband Paul asked if I wanted to bring flowers, but I did not. Flowers, it seems to me, are too obvious a symbol of young death: they are cut at their prime, they wither, they turn into dry sticks. Katherine was only 34. We set off on our bikes along the Seine to Vulaine, and then over the bridge to Avon, where we checked the map for ‗le Prieuré‘, the Priory. We reached the place, but the sign indicated something else: ‗Le Prieuré: Établissement de Soins de Suite et de Readaptation‘. It was a contemporary rehabilitation centre. Where was the old Priory? Our detailed map showed an outline that had to be ruins, next to an ‗ancienne route‘. Rolling down the hill, we discovered the former château on a

Issue 6 August 2010 Page 11 busy corner, beside a flowery roundabout named ‗les Basses-Loges‘, and opposite the bizarrely-named ‗Find Later‘ discotheque. Gurdjieff‘s institute – where people came for spiritual growth, healing and personal development through practical work and sacred dancing – is now divided up into luxury apartments in well-sealed grounds. We could only look in through the tall, iron gates. The gardens are split into both private and public domains. Mentally photoshopping, I tried to delete the modern developments. Once there was the quiet cha- teau amid a two-hundred acre estate: some writer‘s retreat. January 9th, 1923. It would not have been this green summery day, but cold and grey. The surround- ing forest creates winds, apparently, and sudden rains. From my internet research, I‘d learnt that Katherine had been quite happy here, through the winter. She‘d Outside the Priory, Fontainebleau-Avon believed she was getting better. On the day Murry visited, she ran up the stairs, to prove to him how well she had become. And, in doing so, she was struck by a pulmo- nary haemorrhage. That, in itself, seemed a powerful image: an encapsulation of a life lived vibrantly, with spontaneity, where suddenly sprinting up a stairway in such a grand house was perfectly natural. How very un-European of her. New Zealand was indeed in her bones. There was no plaque to commemorate this place, but we went on around the corners to the blue street signs that do indeed give Katherine a memorial here: Rue Katherine Mans- field. But my heart then sank. An explanation reads: ‗Écrivain née le 14 octobre 1888 à Karori (Nouvelle-Zélande).‘ Transla- ted: Writer born on October 14th 1888 in Karori (New Zea- land). Karori? Oh, please! I felt like scratching a correction in capital letters: ‗THORNDON‘ and ‗WELLINGTON‘. Ah well. It‘s nice there‘s a French street named after her, even if the details are not quite right. Looking down the road, how- Rue Katherine Mansfield, ever, it did have some- Fontainebleau-Avon thing of a flavour of Wellington in that, from where we were, there was a slope towards the parkland. It was one- way, so we walked our bikes to the ‗Square Katherine Mansfield‘ where it levels out. A small hedged space off the road, largely composed of sycamore trees, this is not really a ‗square‘ in form or function, but it was cheering to find this place created for Katherine in grounds where she Square Katherine Mansfield, Fontainebleau-Avon must have strolled.

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Our next stop was the cemetery. Proceeding up the steep hill from the Avon viaduct, we came to the edge of the town, where there is the dense graveyard. We located Katherine‘s resting place in the eighth section, very close to Gurdjieff‘s grave, which is – uniquely – a patch of lawn between two standing stones. Katherine‘s grave is not so unusual, apart from its use of English amid French epigraphy. On the headstone I read the words, ‗Katherine Mansfield, wife of John Middleton Murry.‘ On the ground slab are these lines from Shakespeare‘s Henry IV, which Katherine had used at the beginning of her collection, Bliss and Other Stories (1920): ―. . . but I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle danger, we pluck this flower, safety.‖ Safety. The safety and care in Katherine‘s childhood home came back to me. How very unsafe her life had been since she left Wellington. Katherine Mansfield‟s grave But there was something even more poignant. Someone had placed a paua shell on Katherine‘s grave. It had been blown to one side, so I put it in a central position. It was not one of the touristy polished pauas, but a natural shell found at a beach, the kind you could pick up along the shorelines of Wellington when I was a kid, now so much harder to find. Paua – the shell used in the wide, perceptive eyes of gods and ancestors in a Maori wharenui – seemed very right for Katherine, and it was right that she should have a little piece of home resting here. Whoever had given this gift had chosen very well. I realised too that I was unwittingly wearing paua: a necklace in the shape of Maui‘s hook, and paua earrings bought by a dear friend of mine at Hot Water Beach, in the Coro- mandel, a friend whose son is currently living in Paris. How ironic. I felt a clear, sharp stab of homesickness, as things came together. Such is the experience of being an expatriate. No matter what good reasons you have for living away from where you belong, you are forever prodded by the knowledge that it is not where you belong. Katherine never went home, never returned to the safe world of family and friends in Wellington. Life was not fair to her. Then, as I looked around, I realised death was not very fair to her either. Behind the grave, surmounting the old stone wall of the cemetery, is a huge monster of steel: an indus- trial building. It casts a stern gaze on her exile, and makes her grave look even more lonely. ―New Zealand is in my very bones,‖ Katherine wrote to her father before she died. But her bones are not in New Zealand. To be buried back home in those days was impossible. So I write this now sitting beside the Seine thinking of our return to England, and my busy schedule, and when I will next manage to fly back to New Zealand to visit. I do not know what to make of my accidental arrival at the home of Katherine Mansfield‘s birth and her final resting place within such a short space of time. And so I write this, and invite anyone who comes to Paris to get on the train at Gare de Lyon to Montargis, get out at Fontaine- bleau-Avon, and pay Katherine a call. Add a few more pauas.

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HOW KATHERINE MANSFIELD TURNED ME INTO A WRITER by Thomas E. Kennedy

One evening when I was seventeen years old, in my room with a fat anthology of short stories, I happened to read a story by someone named Katherine Mansfield. It was entitled ‗Miss Brill‘ and was very short, only 5½ pages. Miss Brill is an old woman whose main pleasure in life is dressing up to go out to the public gardens on Sundays, and the people in the gardens are like her family, al- though she doesn‘t really know or speak to any of them. But she listens to snatches of conversation around her and feels as though she is involved, and the light is beautiful and makes her feel she wants to sing, as though everyone is about to sing, as she sits on her special bench, discreetly observing all the people around her. Then a beautifully dressed boy and girl sit down nearby, clearly in love, and Miss Brill hears them muttering devas- tatingly unkind things about her, about her appearance, about why she even bothers to come to the public gardens. And Miss Brill returns home to her little dark room and sits for a long time and thinks she hears something crying. So hurt did I feel by this story that I flung the book across my little room and sat there for a long time on the edge of my bed, furious that I was unable to do anything to help or comfort this Thomas Kennedy poor lonely old woman or to reprimand the Photo by Finja Desler young couple who had acted so thoughtlessly, who had with a few cruel careless words snatched away Miss Brill‘s only joy of life. It seemed to me that Katherine Mansfield was responsible for this. At least I could contact Katherine Mansfield. I could muster whatever power of words was available to me and write her a letter, scolding her, telling her off for creating this lamentable situation. I retrieved the book from where it had landed beneath my rickety writing table, flipped it open to find out where I could get a hold of this cruel writer, and I learned that Katherine Mansfield had been born in 1888 and had died in 1923. She had been dead for thirty-eight years. All at once it seemed to me that this writer had reached out from beyond the grave to take hold of my heart and squeeze a profound, hidden sorrow from it. There was no one to blame, no one to scold or tell off. There was only me and the story, the injured old woman, the thoughtless young boy and girl. Then I began to understand. This story was an illumination of life. It went beneath the surface and made it possible for us to see, to comprehend the meaning of things, the meaning of this isolated event one Sunday afternoon in the public gardens, how we hurt one another without a thought. It had made that moment of pain eternal, an eternal reminder, an eternal understanding. And I realized that this was what I wanted, the only thing I wanted to do. To write. To try to develop this power to make people see, to make myself see. Thomas E. Kennedy is the author of 25 books, including his recent In the Company of Angels (Bloomsbury 2010), a novel about a Chilean torture survivor in Copenhagen for treatment at the torture rehabilitation center, who meets a Danish woman who has herself survived a violent marriage. That book will be followed by another from Bloomsbury in 2011, Falling Sideways. More information is available on Kennedy‘s website: www.thomasekennedy.com

Issue 6 August 2010 Page 15

A LOVE AFFAIR WITH KATHERINE MANSFIELD

by Todd Martin Huntington University Most people‘s love affair with Katherine Mansfield begins with a story. Perhaps they pulled an unknown volume from their grandmother‘s shelves on a rainy afternoon and were stirred by a lonely woman wearing a tattered fur stole or a young girl in a pretty party hat enter- ing a house of mourning. For me, it was a photograph taken in 1914 from which Mansfield, in a white blouse and her hair uncharacteristically wavy, stares unflinchingly. Until then, I had re- mained more or less unmoved by the few anthologized stories I had read, but in this instance I lost myself in those dark, mysterious eyes. Only after several minutes did I become self- consciously aware that I was gazing intimately into the eyes of a woman long since dead. It is easy to understand that Mansfield should have so many lovers. However, I‘m not sure if I should admire Murry for persevering through the on-again, off- again relationship he had with Mansfield, or if I should pity his longsuffering. I had a relationship years ago with a young woman I might now stylize as Mansfield-esque. She was very clear about her career path and it didn‘t include marriage anytime soon (the fact that she became engaged to another guy six months later notwithstanding), and I was fine with that. But she tor- tured me—or at least toyed with me. Once, while we were dancing at a party, she turned and grabbed her ex-boyfriend‘s ass. The evening didn‘t end well, and I felt then as Murry must have felt when Mansfield left for Paris. Looking back, I like to think that this woman was just trying to make me jealous, and it is this revisionism that I imagine was the heart of Murry‘s own mythologized Mansfield. But while I recognize that his attempts to portray his relationship with Mansfield were in fact revi- sionist, I can‘t help but think that his more endearing Mansfield was as much a part of the real Mansfield as the strong, iconoclastic Mansfield that has emerged in more recent scholarship. For all of Mansfield‘s ‗New Woman-ishness‘, I sense that she was traditional in many ways, and for whatever reason, this is the Mansfield I‘ve fallen in love with. I‘m taken by the woman who, strong as she was, expresses in her letters her vulnerability and her longing for a home—a place to belong—and even a family; I take note that the Advanced Lady is taken to task by the narrator for neglecting her duties as a mother in order to write her book. And, say what you will about the momentary connection between Bertha and Pearl Fulton, Pearl is not a sympathetic character—anymore than Mrs. Harry Kember—for all her modern ways. Of course, as in any love affair, there are barbs, and some of her stories cut deep. I see the worst of myself pinned on a plank and dissected in Stanley. I‘m sure that Murry‘s own dog- gedness often left Mansfield exasperated, feeling like Beatrice in ‗Poison‘, annoyed and even disdainful of his devotion. I hear my own pathetic (though happily youthful) possessiveness emanate from the mouth of the narrator. Of course, I suspect there were tinges of guilt when Mansfield would leave Murry, not unlike Isabel‘s when she succumbs to the call of her friends instead of responding to William‘s love letter in ‗Marriage à la Mode‘. (Even now, I want Isabel to write that letter, her friends be damned.) Ultimately, I know Mansfield would have broken my heart. I would have tried to possess her, and she would have had nothing to do with it. Yet, like Murry, I would remember her with affection, though perhaps also with a bit of resentment, as with the young woman of years ago. But while I love a Mansfield more like Murry‘s version, it is no less Mansfield for all that. Lov- ers seek for what satisfies, and Mansfield‘s beauty—in life and in her texts—attracts all kinds of lovers.

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New Zealand Premiere of Amy Rosenthal’s On the Rocks The Court Theatre, Christchurch 17 June-17 July 2010

Cast: Claire Dougan as Katherine Mansfield, Jason Whyte as John Middleton Murry, Jon Pheloung as D. H. Lawrence and Ali Harper as Frieda Lawrence Directed by Lara MacGregor

Well there‘s no doubt about it, Amy Rosenthal is a talented playwright. On the Rocks is a fantastic script. And MacGregor has brought together a fantastic cast, helping to make Court Theatre‘s revival of the summer that Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry spent at Cornwall (April – June 1916) with D. H. and Frieda Lawrence as entertaining as it is illuminating. The cast has an impressive list of credits to their names—Claire, Jon and Jason have all worked in theatre and film and Ali, who has a strong musical background, has enjoyed numerous prestigious radio and television posts—and it‘s clear that they‘re all enjoying their roles as two giants of literary modernism and their long-suffering spouses. The reviews have been very good and yet it was with trepidation that I ventured to the theatre. Whether or not we care to admit it, we have pre- conceived notions of what constitutes a good show – obviously we like to be entertained – and in this case, about whom these people were; and we bring these ideas and expectations to theatre. As a PhD candidate, Mansfield has been my life for the past three – four years, though the affinity dates back twenty-something years. Would they get it right? I‘ve been disappointed before. Not this time. The show opens with the feisty Frieda knocking some sense into the passionately destructive Lawrence – I‘m not sure who or what fared worse, Lawrence‘s head or the crockery? They certainly got our attention. Lawrence and Frieda both do a superb job of their accents, the former‘s testament to his working-class, Nottinghamshire origins and the latter, as if the name didn‘t give it away, un- abashedly and forgivingly German. Given her aristocratic heritage, education and the intellectual cir- cles in which she moved, owing partly to her first marriage to a professor of modern languages, Frieda was probably not as brash as Harper‘s portrayal suggests – one reviewer aptly describes her as ―earthy ... caustic and lusty‖ (Presto). But I believe that this role absolutely demands it and therefore all credit to Harper. The audience lapped it up. And, as Alan Scott notes in his review (The Press, 21 June), Frieda‘s antics provide a perfect foil to the more refined Mansfield and haltingly self- conscious Murry. Dougan is wonderful from her immaculately coiffeured head to her determinedly and yet deli- cately pointed toes. She perches regally, makes bird-like twitches and elegantly wrings her tiny white hands – cleverly and subtly drawing attention to her profession as a writer. Her hands seemingly in- voluntarily fly up to her hair – perhaps, between the Lawrences‘ furores, she was only checking the position of her neat black wig? (Dougan is naturally blonde.) Whatever it was, it certainly fitted the Mansfield we know from the memoirs of Ida Baker, Ottoline Morrell and Virginia Woolf. Of particular note is Mansfield‘s almost imperceptible reaction to the mention of her brother‘s recent death; I don‘t think I‘ve ever before witnessed such a subtle and yet resounding acknowledgement of pain. Murry, often perplexed, hands almost permanently deep in his pockets – something the few photos evidence but also a wittily perceptive signpost to his perpetual pecuniary problems – expertly and convincingly alternates between indecision, indignation and quietly but confidently articulated brilliance. And Lawrence? Well Pheloung‘s probably a lot burlier than the real Lawrence, though apparently he lost ten kilos for this role, which is no mean feat in a Christchurch winter. Again, like Frieda‘s characterisation, it works very well on stage. His Thor-like physicality is entertaining and

Issue 6 August 2010 Page 18 utterly believable. Surprisingly humble, the actors credit much of their performance to Rosenthal‘s script which they claim contains all the clues; and certainly, as I‘ve already stated, it is a fantastic script. But it takes a dynamic quartet to bring it to life. This double duo does it justice. Am I biased? No, I don‘t think so. At almost 3 hours, it is a long play, but like Mansfield and Lawrence‘s lives and the former‘s writing, there‘s nothing superfluous. If anything, the duration reinforces the periods of drudg- ery that plagued the lives of these four moderns, particularly during the bleak war years and the Cornwall interlude. The audience, evidently a knowledgeable bunch who made the requisite authori- tative ―ahhs‖, were happy with their lot. So is this a play with street appeal? I believe so. Sure, an insider‘s awareness makes the textual references all that more enjoyable but the play offers more than 4 strong actors working a clever and complex script. Harold Moot‘s set works brilliantly, as does Jenny Cunningham‘s authentic costuming. This season‘s On the Rocks at the Court is real and it‘s raw, embracing and simultaneously abrasive and it‘s thought-provoking; it‘s a genuinely good night out. Melissa C. Reimer

New Mansfield biography launched in Auckland

The spirit of Katherine Mansfield, forever present in Wellington, put in a brief but very welcome appearance in Auckland on a fine, frosty August evening. The occasion was the launch of a new biography of Katherine, Katherine Mansfield: The Storyteller (Penguin NZ, $65), by English writer Kathleen Jones. The venue was the Women‘s Bookshop in Ponsonby Road, whose pro- prietor is the indomitable supporter of women‘s writing, Carole Beu. Her shop was crowded for the occasion, and guests enjoyed chilled white wine and Carole‘s delicious pikelets topped with salmon, capers and sour cream. Among those present was Geoff Walker, publisher of the new biography, and several local writers, including Lindsey Dawson and Sue Reidy. Opening the evening‘s formalities, Carole welcomed everyone and introduced the first speaker, Sarah Sandley, Mansfield scholar, Auckland Readers and Writers Festival trustee and Chief Executive of NZ Magazines. Endorsing the new biography, Sarah quoted briefly from some of Mansfield‘s writing before introducing Kathleen. From Cumbria in the Lake District, biographer, poet and journalist Kathleen Jones discovered the work of Katherine Mansfield at an early age and has been in love with her writing ever since. In opening her address she first responded to the question which had been raised by many people who had learned of her project: ‗Why do we need another biography of Katherine Mansfield?‘ She then mentioned earlier biographies, in particular those by Antony Alpers (The Life of Katherine Mans- field) and Claire Tomalin (Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life). Kathleen expressed admiration for the Alpers biography, and pointed out that Claire Tomalin had not come to New Zealand in the course of her research on Mansfield‘s life. Kathleen went on to explain that there was much new material in her biography, particularly concerning the time Katherine spent in Germany, her brief first marriage, the late-term loss of her unborn child and the accompanying trauma this wrought, her fatal illness and death. There was also new material pertaining to her life with her second husband, John Middleton Murry. Kathleen also spoke at length about Murry, and his life after the death of Katherine. Katherine Mansfield as a person and as a writer is a perennial source of fascination. Kathleen Jones‘s Katherine Mansfield: The Storyteller is a major addition to the Mansfield canon, and will no doubt be read with great interest by literary scholars as well as general readers. Kathleen Jones went on to address audiences about her new biography at The Press Christchurch Writers Festival, held in September. Graeme Lay

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