Nina Nola talks to bicultural novelist Yvonne du Fresne about alternative notions of “home”.A DELICIOUS LANDSCAPE
I sat in the cable car on a piercingly
bright Wellington winter morning with my dossier on Yvonne du Fresne clutched
between sweaty palms: will I remember which side of her family is Danish, which
French Huguenot? Will I confuse her novels? How does a Dalmatian New Zealand
doctoral researcher encounter a writer like du Fresne, whose prose creates such
a pervasive sense of Scandinavia?
As I step out of the car, notes and camera
bundled under one arm, I see a figure making uncertainly toward me. I am
surprised to see du Fresne – it has to be her, peering at me over large,
red-framed sunglasses – looking so un-Danish in a white sweatshirt, blue skirt
and slip-ons. She could have been any European New Zealander out on a Sunday
walk around the rose gardens, sprightly and, I was surprised to note, rather
small.
Her short fair hair blew wildly as we
walked to her car and then she smiled, her eyes crinkled up and slanted like
almonds, as the eyes of Danes have a habit of doing when they are happy (I had
learned this from her fiction), and yes, here was more of the Dane I had
expected to meet.
Driving over the hills from Kelburn we
descended into an increasingly barren, wild landscape. Yvonne was disappointed
not to find the resident geese waiting to welcome me to her Makara, but a few
corners ahead there they were, sunning themselves on the banks of the stream.
Suddenly all echoes of Hans Anderson
disintegrated into the spilling-out mouth of the sea that gaped at the coast of
forbidding Makara Beach. We turned up the last driveway to Yvonne’s beach
house, perched on the hill, just as I had always imagined it. I could see
through the glass doors that the simple cottage was small and cosy, full of
hygge (comfort, warmth, food and welcome – everything a Danish home should
offer a visitor). Geraniums in pots crowded around the entrance, and a
fine-nosed collie was barking excitedly. She was called “Lalla” in Motherland – though she is Olivia by
pedigree – and Lalla she remained throughout our afternoon.
We walked through the cottage to Yvonne’s
studio, divan lining the back wall, a comfortable writing chair facing the sea.
The cover mock-up of Yvonne’s latest novel lay in front of me, a bold play of a
rich yellow field, blue sky, a windmill idling in the distance with the title Motherland suspended across the terrain.
The image spoke of Denmark, but the title poses the question: which country is
the homeland of Astrid, a New Zealand-born woman about to turn 50 and fall in
love with a Danish journalist with whom she experiences the country and culture
of her parents?
It is based on the author’s experience of
trying not to be different in conformist New Zealand, and it made me wonder how
the pen that produced the Astrid stories in the immensely popular Farvel and its follow-up The Growing of Astrid Westergaard could
develop the portraits of the two or three intolerant New Zealanders, among the
many who embrace cultural diversity, in Astrid’s adult world.
A pair of malevolent characters, in
flashback, molest little Astrid as she proudly, and innocently, wears Danish
national costume. The bright and flamboyant clothes are a marker of cultural
difference, and incite violence in these men, much as the homespun jumper
covered with bidibids and smelling of shearing sheds, worn by Bill at the
Danish education conference, humorously invites the reader’s recognition of
what New Zealand culture stands for in the popular imagination. To Astrid, the
jumper is home – or one of them, at least.
Du Fresne started writing stories based
largely on English models, butt captivated Robin Dudding, then editor of Islands, with stories that were to
become part of the Farvel and The Growing collections. Commissioned
for radio, each story was written in the weekends, after du Fresne had finished
her school work. Their success encouraged her to harness her Danish voice and
develop her portraits of growing up in the Manawatu in the 30s and 40s.
With confidence and acclaim, she felt
impelled to address the other side of her heritage, her paternal French
Huguenot side. The Book Of Ester and Frederique explore the lives of the
heroines of the titles, contemporary Ester Capelier, and 19th-century
Frederique D’Albret who, with the remnants of her family, flees Catholic
persecution in Europe and hides on the Manawatu plains. Both novels, like the
short stories, are set in the Manawatu, with an intertwining of imported and
Maori spirituality, but centre on a European past.
This affinity of the Danes with Maoris has
irked reviewers, who are uncomfortable with what they see as du Fresne’s
too-easy affiliation of European coloniser with the colonised. Du Fresne’s
explanation that the Danes are very sensitive to aboriginal people is
particularly relevant to the fellow-feeling developed through her characters
Astrid, Ester and Frederique, and Maoris, towards the land. She felt an echo of
this intense, respectful and symbiotic relationship on her visit to Denmark
while on a writing scholarship: “I felt really a part of the landscape. This
countryside was where my families, and my larger ‘national’ family lived and
worked. My past was all around me, skin and bone and spirit.”
This recognition of what it is to be a Dane
punctuates Motherland with acute and
sometimes poignant observations. Astrid is surrounded by people who look and
behave as she does, and at last she’s one of a large group; she even realises
there is a peculiarly Danish type of hair and a way of wearing it, as she sees
herself reassuringly mirrored in Danish women.
The puzzle of Astrid’s life in New Zealand
is also completed as she fits into the mould of her lover Kristian. Bone to
bone the couple lock into a seemingly perfect physical match, while their words
play in and out of a weave of English and Danish: “My cheekbones and chin. His
own mouth: lower lip full, at rest; upper lip thin and mobile all the better to
speak Danish. Fading blond hair with the same grey patches as mine and the same
cowlick and thinness. I knew exactly how he walked, ate, moved his hands,
curled up in sleep. I was him and he was me. After such a long absence it gave
me a light-headed feeling and huge relief. My mind couldn’t grasp how the
pattern of our shared genes had formed again and again over one hundred and
five years, twelve thousand miles apart, and not changed.”
Throughout Du Fresne’s fiction there is
acknowledgement of other pasts, of alternative notions of “home” that challenge
the Eurocentric norm of Pakeha New Zealand. Only the Dalmatian New Zealander
Amelia Batistich before her has written of the contemporary impact of two
cultures outside the Maori/Pakeha dynamic. Like Batistich, du Fresne pushes the
limits of what a New Zealander writes.
With her sixth book, du Fresne’s prose is
as sparse and potent as ever. Her distinctive style shines – as do her eyes
when I hand her the gift I have brought. The delight with which she savours
unwrapping the bottle of lavender that I had helped my grandfather harvest in
Croatia, and the way she enjoys the aroma that escapes, reminds me of my own
thrill at every word on a du Fresne page. I am reminded also of Maurice Gee’s
comment on her writing: “Everything is tasted, heard, seen, smelt. Many writers
operate on about one sense, your landscape is absolutely delicious.” Q
A
READER’S GUIDE TO YVONNE DU FRESNE
Farvel
and Other Stories (VUP, 1980)
Du Fresne’s reputation was firmly
established by this first book (the title translates as “Farewell”), which Bill
Manhire’s introduction likens to a tapestry, with her language a needle
“flashing in and out of linen”.
This is an obvious place to start to get to
know Astrid, her family and the community she describes from the outside as an
observer beside her Far, Mor and Bedstemoder, and from the inside as a
schoolchild trying desperately to be a good member of the British Empire.
Astrid is a spy setting out to discover the
world for herself, and the new world for her family. Stories such as “The
Messengers” underscore the collection with a sense of the vital importance of
the first-generation children: Astrid must “find the message” of the new land
for herself and her people so that they may escape the migrant’s fate of
drifting psychically anchorless.
“The Looters” is a popular favourite as it
humorously parades the ability of Astrid’s family to mimic the English, both
the language and the culture, around them.
The stories are all brief, simply
constructed, and linked for the original Radio New Zealand broadcast format.
This lends them continuity and promotes a picture of a community and Astrid’s
vital place within it.
The
Book Of Ester (1982, out of print)
Astrid makes way for Ester Capelier, Danish
becomes Danish-French Huguenot and the wholesome symbiosis of childhood in the
Manawatu disintegrates into a widow’s sense of not belonging in New Zealand any
more. The elements are simple enough, but du Fresne’s alternative mythmaking is
complex and potent.
Her strongest work to date on the ethnic
theme, Ester comes with a preface linking du Fresne’s previously explored
Danish heritage with the stories of the French Huguenot: “They were still
trying to fit in with the Danes, let alone the New Zealanders!”
An introduction helps to make sense of
exiled Calvinist Protestants escaping persecution across Europe, and journeying
through Ester’s grieving mind. Only by reconciling herself to the plight of her
ancestors, and a 17th-century namesake in particular, can present-day Ester
pick up the pieces of her shattered life.
This book has been called the classic study
of working through grief, but you don’t have to be bereaved to relish the
intricate web of alternative mythmaking at which du Fresne excels.
The
Growing of Astrid Westergaard and Other Stories
(1985, out of print)
This book returns to Astrid and her family,
friends Cherry Taylor and Anna Friis, and continues the semi-autobiographical
storytelling of Farvel. Astrid’s
exuberance is as infectious as ever, her wide-eyed appreciation of her Danish
heritage and endless thirst for experience undaunted by restrictive schooling.
This collection is divided into three
sections: 11 stories exploring Astrid’s negotiation of her position as a
schoolgirl between the wars in the Danish farming community of the Manawatu;
three final bleak tales of adult women disappointed and despondent, bereft of
the comfort family provides childhood, adding a darker note to the world of
Astrid’s perpetual optimism; and a single bridging story which gives the
collection its title.
This account of Astrid’s “growing” marks a
pivotal step in the child’s perception of her place as a Danish New Zealander.
Equipped with a multicultural sensitivity, Astrid is able to embrace “our
country”. The growing of Astrid Westergaard has indeed begun.
Frederique
(Penguin, 1987)
Don’t be put off by the cover! Do read the
novels chronologically: even if Frederique D’Albret hails from the last century,
she is introduced in Ester’s readings on the Reformation and so seems familiar.
This book is hard to get into, but the richness of myth and memory make the
text increasingly rewarding as you read on, even if you don’t buy into the
apparently supernatural mystery of psychic links central to the plot.
The romantic ending is a total surprise,
but that is probably giving away too much – this poetic, evocatively textured
historical fiction legitimises other threads of myths to be woven into the
story of colonial New Zealand. Not a costume drama, more a testament to the
migrant experience.
The
Bear From the North (Women’s Press, 1989)
No new stories, but a British publishing
coup for du Fresne. The subtitle “Tales From A New Zealand Childhood” is a
telling addition, introducing the Danish perspective to an international
concept of what it is to be a New Zealander.
UPDATE:
Yvonne du Fresne’s
cousin Karl du Fresne blogged recently his fine article about her and the importance of knowing one’s
family history, first published in the Nelson
Mail and Manawatu Standard on 4
January, 2012.
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