期刊名称：Journal of Post-Colonial Cultures & Societies
印刷版ISSN：1948-1845
电子版ISSN：1948-1853
出版年度：2010
卷号：1
期号：1
出版社：Wright State University
摘要：Witi Ihimaera's career as a novelist displays a distinct trajectory, shaped by anongoing preoccupation with what it means to be M¨¡ori in a world increasinglydominated by the values not only of P¨¡keh¨¡, but also of a globalising worldcommunity grounded in Anglo-American cultural and economic practices. There arefour discernible stages tothis trajectory. In the first, comprising Ihimaera's earlyworks,Tangi(1973) andWh¨¡nau(1974), he presented an image of M¨¡ori living anidyllic life within the protective "greenstone"world of their traditional culture. ByIhimaera's own admission, these early works offered "tender, unabashedly lyricalevocations" in a manner that was essentially depoliticised.1In the second stage, onesees a movement into anger and towards resistance, as Ihimaera, prompted by themilitancy (and criticism) of M¨¡ori nationalists, took up the cudgels to protest againstinjustices that M¨¡ori had suffered at the hands of the P¨¡keh¨¡.2This is most evident inIhimaera's epic novel,The Matriarch(1986), in which his declared aim, as one whohad by this time become "radicalised", was to "go for the jugular" in an effort to "hurtthe Pakeha".3The third stage, most evident inThe Dream Swimmer(1997), the sequeltoThe Matriarch,and in Ihimaera's two gay novels,Nights in the Gardens of Spain(1995) andThe Uncle's Story(2000),shows a deepening problem of self-definition,with Ihimaera expressing doubts concerning the viability of the M¨¡ori nationaliststance he had adopted earlier, and about the extent to which homosexuality could beaccommodated within traditional M¨¡ori culture. The fourth and final stage (to date) ofthis trajectory consists of Ihimaera's attempt to resolve the issueswith which he hadbeen wrestling by presenting the image of a "rewritten" self¨Cexpressed,symbolically, in a literal re-writing of his first two novels,Tangi, in particular, whichreappeared together with a sequel asThe Rope of Manin 2005. Whereas inthetormented novels of the third phase Ihimaera had presented his heroes as"disconnected from the umbilical of destiny", and separated from the "tiny vessel ofunfulfilled dreams" that circles for ever out in the dark universe, "trapped in aneddy",4henow offered an image of a hero who is largely reconciled with the world,and with himself¨Cmetaphorically speaking, connected umbilically to his source ofsecurity like the astronaut in2001 Space Odysseywho is connected to his spaceshipin order to take a space walk.5
