Readers who have enjoyed his books on St Petersburg and Sicily will know that
Duncan Fallowell's travel writing is in a class of its own.His trip to New
Zealand in search of memories of the Old Vic Tour of 1948 led by the Oliviers
was certain to surprise the natives and any readers who expected a smooth
travelogue in the style of Newby or Leigh Fermor. What you get is a double
journey. The first is by plane,bus,car and foot through the towns, cities and
mountains of New Zealand. Occasionally he stumbles into Paradise but all too
often he finds a landscape ravaged by greedy developers and city planners
indifferent to the qualities of the environments they have destroyed.
The second, parallel journey is through the extraordinary contents of Fallowell's mind as he jump-cuts from food to sex, religion to history,
bars to backrooms, and dialogue to description.
As any traveller is entitled to do, he jabs occasionally at the soft and
sensitive parts of New Zealands self-image. Maybe this is why the book
has ruffled national feathers. But since Fallowell is so bracingly
honest about his own desires and behaviour readers should not expect
him to be any less so in his reactions to their country.
Highly recommended; but I wish the publishers could have given us a map.