We Belong to No Soil: Nation and Narration in the Work of Emily Perkins

Emily Perkins' work exemplifies a shift in the way the nation is represented in New Zealand fiction. In place of the cultural nationalist acceptance that the writer should attend faithfully to the New Zealand referent and seek to define the nation we find doubt, uncertainty and resistance. This shift has been observed positively in some contemporary criticism, notably in Anna Jackson and Jane Stafford's Floating Worlds (2009). But other commentary, such as Patrick Evans' 2003 'Spectacular Babies' essay, is highly negative. There is a surprisingly small amount of critical attention dedicated to contemporary New Zealand writing. This thesis will offer some reasons for this lack of commentary and propose a framework within which Perkins' work can be analysed. It will also identify the ways in which Perkins' work refers to the nation and how this differs from the way in which the cultural nationalists referred to the nation. I argue that new critical modes are required to approach contemporary New Zealand writers like Perkins that reach behind the cultural nationalist influence. Accordingly, I position Perkins' way of representing New Zealandness alongside that of early writers Benjamin Farjeon and Katherine Mansfield, to show that a non-essentialised identity can be expressed in the text. The contemporary approach to this endeavour can be compared to what I call "pre-nationalist" writing, although early avoidances of the New Zealand referent were not as deliberate as they now are. I argue that like Katherine Mansfield, Perkins' textual relationship with New Zealand is metonymic rather than referential. Her writing conjures up New Zealand without generalising it or essentialising it. In this thesis, I address three of the primary ways that Perkins achieves this in her writing. Firstly, she addresses the meaning of place and its significance in the formation of subjectivity. Secondly, she deliberately avoids taking an overt political stance and use of the Māori referent. The absences in her work contrast with detailed attention to what is there, and so appear as a presence. In this sense her work depends largely on how the reader is able to interpret the absences and provide what is unsaid. Thirdly, her attention to New Zealandisms, linguistic idiosyncrasies and her use of taboo language refer to New Zealandness but simultaneously reveal self-consciousness. I argue that the diagnosis of New Zealand identity as 'floating', while useful, is problematic because it tends to have a silencing effect on discussions of contemporary literature. Characterising New Zealand identity as 'floating' appears to signal the end of the conversation and to assume that because the literature cannot be categorised, it cannot be discussed either. This thesis will suggest alternative ways of addressing New Zealandness which open up, rather than close, new possible perspectives on contemporary New Zealand literature.

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