Not a lot happens in the new memoir by Wellington writer Harry Ricketts, on account of the fact that nothing much happened in his life. It covers his first 29 years. He went to prep school in Kent.
He was quite a good fast bowler: “In one game I took a hat-trick.” He was unpopular. His nickname was Wet Lettuce.
He went to Trinity College in Oxford. It was kind of underwhelming. He saw the Grateful Dead in concert in 1972.
He took a teaching job in Hong Kong. It was kind of underwhelming..
. Incredibly, the book is volume one of an intended three-volume set, and the thought certainly occurs that the whole project seems to be a massive conceit. Ricketts is a fondly-esteemed former academic who taught English at Victoria University; is published by Victoria’s university press, and has the feel of the Literary Establishment at work, something in-house and cloistered, an ivory tower agreement.
The prospect of three volumes of nothing much happening is a weight that pulls down on the pages of . And yet, and yet. Its very nothingness, its moping, its 12-bar twilight blues, has a lovely and attractive sense of quietude.
The prose reads like a tone poem, like a writer carefully and deliberately engaging with his craft. It’s as though the book was written entirely in lower-case. The ego has not landed; there is no skiting, not a brag in sight, and gently wanders, dream-like, sometimes letting go of prose entirely as Ricketts – one of New Zealand’s best and consistently overl.
