What Has Paul Theroux's Mojo Got To Do With Typewriters?

Paul Theroux and I have sat in the same spot, beside Paul Gauguin’s grave at the Calvary Cemetery above Atuona on Hiva Oa island in the Marquesas, but 19 years apart (he in 1991, me in 1972). It will probably be the closest I’ll ever get to a world-famous travel writer and novelist with a penchant for being photographed shirtless (as had Gauguin trouserless). I do consider myself a long-time good friend of Brian Stoddard, brilliant creator of Inspector Le Fanu, but Brian and his intrepid Madras policeman prefer to keep all their clothes on.

Theroux, who turned 80 in April (“The biggest cloud on my horizon,” he called the event), contributed the Diary column to that month’s edition of Literary Review. His latest novel, Under the Wave at Waimea, was about to appear. Set in Hawaii, it’s about an older surfer feeling his age and wondering if he still has his mojo. Judging by the tone of the column, it’s Theroux himself who’s reaching for the magical charm bag. Is he tiring of his eternal search for the most idyllic place in the Pacific?

Lake Kaniere, which, until her dying days, Agatha Christie considered the most beautiful place she had ever seen. And she'd seen plenty on God's green earth.

I’ve long since found my pick, a fact that was powerfully reinforced by a visit to my homeland of New Zealand earlier this month. Indeed, it’s not far from Waimea, although the waves of Waimea referenced in the title of Theroux’s new novel are a long way from the Waimea I know. As Theroux alludes in Literary Review, there are many words and place names which are common, or very similar, throughout Polynesian culture, and of course through the Māori these extend to New Zealand. An example Theroux uses is kapu in Hawaii, from which ‘taboo’ derives. In Māori it’s even closer: tapu.

The 'V's' of the Alpine Fault line, looking north from the Hokitika Gorge.

As for Waimea, in Hawaii there are places, rivers and a bay on O'ahu with that name. In New Zealand, there are plains, rivers and an inlet. The Waimeas I’m familiar with are in the Tasman Bay, the northern part of what I would argue is the most scenically spectacular strip of land to be found anywhere on God’s earth. This stretches down from the Golden Bay and is enclosed within the western side of what is known as the Alpine Fault, running alongside the Southern Alps. Being earthquake country, there are many signs of the destructive force of nature, but it remains so beautiful because, in the main, it has resisted the destructive force of man.

The icy cold waters of the Hokitika River coming down the gorge from the alps.

A man from the Tasman Waimea unleashed much of the destructive force of man. He was Ernest, Lord Rutherford, the father of nuclear physics, the New Zealander who split the atom. Rutherford, born in Brightwater, attended the same school where Bill Pickering later went; Pickering was the man behind America’s first satellite. My ties with the area are that I once worked in Nelson and my paternal grandmother was born in Belgrove in the Waimea, south of Brightwater, Wakefield and Wai-Iti. I have a nephew now living in Wakefield.

One of only two typewriters I spotted in a week in New Zealand,

this one in a bookshop window.

Theroux once wrote that “anything is possible on a train”. In my case, on my last visit, it wasn’t, so I drove everywhere I went. I didn’t get to the Waimea, nor did I get to see much in the way of typewriters (New Zealand is usually a happy hunting ground for me). But I did get to experience once again the magnificent grandeur of the place I grew up in, the West Coast. From the various places I visited, the many people I met and the things I found, I was reminded of the Coast’s rich history, from before and since European settlement in the early 1860s. Europeans, mostly Irish, went there in search of gold, and stayed on, finding themselves in surrounds which provided an almost familiar home away from home.

Theroux gave up using a typewriter because, for him, “banging at a typewriter was very exhausting”. That’s never been my experience. My “biggest cloud” is not being able to type with every type of typewriter that was ever made. While I was in New Zealand, the type of typewriter I’d have once jumped at came up for auction on TradeMe, New Zealand’s more trustworthy equivalent of eBay. A friend alerted me to a Pittsburg Visible No 10, which I gather was passed in at the starting price of just under $NZ600 ($US425). The agent in New Zealand for the Pittsburg was George Manley Yerex, mentioned in my post about his son Lowell in mid-March. I tried to tempt a couple of fellow typewriter lovers to “have a go” for the one on TradeMe, but neither did.

I’m resigned to the fact a Pittsburg Visible is one typewriter I’ll never get to use. Nor will be the nice little Brother I saw in a bookshop in my hometown – the owner understandably didn’t want to part with it. She did, however, give me the Olivetti Dora brochure and the Hermes typeface guide I posted last week. Where there’s a true typewriter lover, it seems, there’s also always a touch of good-heartedness and generosity. Such a pity Paul Theroux didn’t persevere with typewriters a little longer. He might still have his mojo in full working order.

Lake Mahinapua, where I went in search of the elusive kōtuku. This was the site of a significant battle between Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Wairangi Māori.

                                          The newspaper where I started out in journalism in 1965.

A park named in honour of our sporting family, which now includes a member of the New Zealand cricket team which won the world championship in England this week. We were mostly into the rugby codes, sailing and cycling. As for me, the illo below sums up my contribution!

The reason I went to New Zealand was to visit my eldest sister Elaine, now sadly suffering from dementia.

The West Coast is known for its gold production, and I did manage to get my hands on a nugget weighing more than eight ounces and worth almost $NZ20,000, but it wasn't mine to keep! The Coast also produces much pounamu, or greenstone, a type of nephrite jade.

Driftwood on a Tasman Sea beach identifies the town I stayed in.

If you look hard, on the left you will spot the Metrosideros fulgens (scarlet rātā, rātā vine or in Māori akatawhiwhi), a forest liana or vine endemic to New Zealand. It only flowers once in four or five years. My father was colour blind and it was a great regret in his life that he was never able to see it.

The Southern Alps stretch on as I set out to cross the Canterbury Plains and get to the Coast.

                                                     The viaduct at Otira Gorge, crossing the alps.