Baxter—‘a strange boy’

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 20

Baxter —‘a strange boy’

Horse. By James K. Baxter. Oxford U.P. as an “N.Z. Classic,” 1985. 125 pp. $14.95 (paperback). About 15 years ago Baxter described “Horse” as "unpublished and unpublishable.” Even then, : the manuscript had existed for 20 years. This is an old, early work — something close to juvenilia. It is also a book that a good many young New ‘Zealanders-', set but to write, or dreamed of Writing, in the 1940 s and 19505. As a-novel it isthin; as, aneariy,. sample of Baxter the poet working in prose, it is fascinating; and as a social document it is enormously valuable. Baxter, the Otago University student, wanted to record a little of his impressions of growing up and of his discovery of new experiences, especially those experiences that nice people (including his own parents) preferred not to know about. He wanted to chip a few idols of stuffiness and shock the outwardly stern Presbyterian souls of Otago. Had the book appeared then, he would have succeeded. Now, it has a wonderfully dated ring. Looking back, with Baxter, is to recall that everyone was so damn nice in New Zealand, 30 and more years ago. Even the vices

were gentle and the criminals no more than clumsy. Baxter wanted to shock. He even told one or two very good jokes {hat had come home with the troops from World War 11, but that no-one put into print. Some of his characters will be easily recognisable to people whose memories go back far enough. One hopes their descendants will chuckle" over their behaviour seen through Baiter’s sharp eyes. Gid customs come back — beer was bought in thin, stapled cardboard cartons; "shagging” was a very bad word; vomiting (known as “spewing”) was an essential part of social life; the .worst one could say about oneself was “pud-puller.” The hero, Timothy Harold Glass — Baxter written just a little larger than life — drifts from job to job, trying to write bad verse. His danger is collapse into being a dutiful son. Hungover (he frequently was), he reflects on suicide and writes a graveside scene: "Why did he do it? Nobody knows; He was a strange boy. If he’d lived he might have been a great Writer. The doctors think he must have had some secret worry.” < Not shy of his own talents and future, even then, our James wasn’t.— Literary Editor.