Slipping into Paradise

Slipping into Paradise

Why I live in New Zealand

by: Jeffrey Moussaifeff Masson

2004

248 pages, hardback

With the hopes of learning about the land we were to visit, I asked on facebook if anyone had a novel about New Zealand that they would recommend.  Unfortunately, it was late in the game, and the books I requested to be mailed to our local library arrived after my ability to collect them for our journey.  I did however have a successful trip to the downtown Library where I checked out three books and very happy that I chose Slipping into Paradise as the first one to read.  The author loves New Zealand!  At the time of writing the book, Jeffrey Masson was not yet a citizen of the country yet his enthusiasm for his new "home" is apparent with each page.  The book is a great resource. It is written from a personal point of view of a man who had lived in many diverse places and in his sixties, with a young wife he adores and two young children, he describes a land that Jared Diamond claimed is "as close as we will get to the opportunity to study life on another planet" (page 132). Masson is a journalist who has written several books and I can tell he likes words, and detail and story.  Intertwined with his own history and present, he gives chapters to the two Island's intriguing history (some things that stood out to me: c.1000 arrival of first people but they did not remain, but the rats they brought with them did, perhaps the first mammals, other than bats that are indigenous to New Zealand, to live on the Island.  c.1350 about 200 people arrived with coconut plants, sweet potatoes and a pregnant dog.  First missionary arrived in 1814 along with horses and cattle.  Sheep and the imported grass they needed to graze came from England in 1834.  Lots of history is covered in a readable way and there are also chapters dedicated to trees and birds (the national bird is the kiwi.  Kiwi fruit is also grown here and New Zealanders are present-day called Kiwis) and a chapter on Maori people and a brief glossary of both New Zealand words and phrases as well as a glossary of words in the Maori language, which now along with English are the two official languages of New Zealand. The book also mentioned two other books that I'm interested to read about new Zealand one being the Bone People (I have it with me) and the other is The Whale Rider (which is waiting for me at the Heights Library).  After just a few days in New Zealand, I too can see why it could be very easy to slip into this paradise.  I would recommend this book to those like me who have the wonderful opportunity of visiting what is known by  locals as "Godzone". 

Come on Shore and we will Kill and Eat You All

Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All

A New Zealand Story
By Christina Thompson
2008
260 pages, hardback

This is my second book about New Zealand.  The first was written by a man, who in his 60's, has made New Zealand his home and he is ecstatic to tell his readers why, and along the way he shares a bit about how he sees New Zealand's history, its landscape and people and a general sense The book is called Slipping into Paradise.  And now this one is from the view point of a white, privileged, intellectual woman from Boston, who while studying in Australia visits New Zealand, charmed by its differences, marries a handsome Maori man and from that perspective continues to research the history and customs of the land.  It is only when I came to the end of the book that I realize to whom the book is primarily written: to the three young sons that will one day grow up to see that the gift their parents have to offer is their interesting history that will become the heritage for each of the boys.  

Christina Thompson does a good job at using narrative to breathe life into people who have long ago lived, fought and have died from both the perspective of the conquers and of those being conquered.  Although most of the Maori people alive today are living on the Northern Island, and we have spent our time in New Zealand on the Southern Island, I experienced enough rustic hikes in which I tried to image what life here was like before sheep, electricity or a vast variety of delicious restaurants.  What was it like for the Maori to first come to this land, perhaps as the first people to inhabit these beautiful and yet harsh mountains?  What did the Maori think of the first "others" to come and how have their lives changed drastically since those days?  And how do the assimilation and the mixture of ideas, culture, dreams, and opportunities continue to play out many years later in the lives of the author's family in particular?  

The book covers a wide range of topics including history, development, the growth and decline of a particular people, and how the change for good and for bad continues to effect the physical land.  

As I read Come on Shore... what also stood out was the process of how some children grow to adulthood; some move about and take on bits from the places they have been and the people that have influenced them. All along choices are made and each choice directs the next path and consequently the next choice. Although many of the book's pages seem remote from how life is lived presently, the very thought that life is lived in certain ways today is because of the choices made by others years ago.  Whether with Europeans inhabiting New Zealand and displacing the Maori or Europeans doing the same to those first living in the Americas, personal and societal choice affect the generations living in these lands today.  Just as the choices I have made affect the lives of my children and so will it be with each generation yet to come. This book did not come to me through a personal recommendation, but when I looked on the internet for options to read about New Zealand, the title caught my attention and then later I saw it in the library so I chose it as a good option for our trip.  The title actually is explained on page 112ff about the voyage of Charles Darwin aboard the Beagle and how he formed his initial opinion of the Maori from a misunderstanding of what was written about what Cook (an early explorer) had written years before.  

Left to Tell

 Left to Tell
Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust
by: Immaculee Ilibagiza
2006
210 pages, paperback (with a few photos too)

There are gaps in what I know about history, the world, and the people who live in it.  How did i not know of this awfully tragedy that took place in my own lifetime?  In 1994, over 1 million people were brutally murdered in about 100 days in Rwanda, many died at the hand of what had been a friend or neighbor.  Tragic indeed.  Thankfully Immaculee's retelling of her own survival story has a redemptive tone.  Yes, it was very hard for me to read, yet i read through it quickly and will think about it maybe for the rest of my life.  Stories like these change one's perspective on so many things.  
One Tuesday in my ladies prayer time we were discussing various aspects of Col. 3:12 (putting on compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience) and one of the gals used this book to to further explain elements of compassion.  She loaned Left to Tell to me, and as I wanted to learn more about Africa while Sophie was living there, I began to read it.  Then I put the book down for these images were too much for me,  then i thought i can not simply stick my head in the sand.  I read on.  It is a very sober, straightforward firsthand account giving just enough background to make some sense of two tribes Hutus and and the Tutsis that have for years lived with a form of unity including intermarrying within  Rwanda.  Hope springs from the pages; hope in God, hope of forgiveness, hope of healing. 
It is a book worth reading.