8 Comments

Did the lady of about 60 really need the added description of “older”? I’m getting sensitive in my 50s. We were made to read Mansfield at school. For some reason forced reading repels me. I’ve never liked it, and haven’t ever read an author again afterwards, despite being a constant reader.

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Lucy, you are RIGHT. I have plucked it out. And I know what you mean about being forced into things, when young. I can't stand Eleanor Rigby or When I'm 64, after being made to sing them at school assemblies in the 80s

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So funny - if only Karori were not so grey and landlocked

KM led a number of simultaneous lives - there were the lovely sun-drenched houses and gardens in Days Bay, France and Bloomsbury..

But like Janet Frame, it's not the NZ part of her life we might envy - it's what they went on to once they got to leave NZ.

KM's exciting times and writing in London exchanging barbs in her uneasy friendship with Virginia Wolfe.and Janet Frame's New Yorker stint - the short stories and cocktail parties with the literati. There's a great graphic essay The Blue Fury about a High School teacher haunted by the ghosts of KM and JF - I think in a way we all are.

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Glorious Leah! Yet another glorious piece of writing. Hilarious, educating and thought-provoking all in one… thank you for another fab read! Xx

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Sam!!!! HEARTS

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LOVE the KM clapback :)

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WE LOVE YOU LEAH!

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Mwah!!!!!!!!

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