How you feel about
NZ author Judith White’s latest novel The
Elusive Language Of Ducks (Random House) will depend very much on your
feelings towards animals. Anyone who doesn’t care much for them is likely to
dismiss the story’s main character, Hannah, as losing the plot, fairly early in
the piece. Those who love them, however, will have more sympathy and tolerance.
Childless Hannah
is grieving for her dead mother. She is withdrawn and depressed so her husband
brings home an orphaned duckling for her to rear. It is a thoughtful act he
will come to regret. For although at first Hannah is reluctant to take on this
helpless ball of fluff very quickly it fills a gap in her life, satisfying a
need to nurture. She tends it carefully; hand feeding squashed snails and bits
of dandelion leaf. She carries it round the house, lets it sleep snuffled in the
crook of her arm. Soon the duck and Hannah bond, leaving her husband of many
years, Simon, resentful and displaced.
Increasingly
obsessed, Hannah holds long conversations with “Ducko”. She worries if she has
to leave him alone, talks and dreams about him, observes closely as his yellow
fluff turns to down and he grows into an adolescent.
By now the
non-lovers of animals will be impatient with Hannah, just as her husband is.
But it is easy enough to see why she prefers her feathered friend to most of
the humans in her life. Sulky, pedantic husband Simon, selfish sister Maggie
and her drug addict husband Toby, Eric the taciturn neighbour; her connection
with the duck seems more satisfactory than her relationship with any of them,
and certainly less complicated.
The smallness of
Hannah’s day-to-day life contrasts with the world beyond her front gate. The
Christchurch earthquake strikes and aftershocks continue, meanwhile she arms
herself with a garden rake because the duck is all grown up and prone to episodes
of amorous violence.
Still The Elusive Language of Ducks is less
whimsical than it sounds. It is a novel about human relationships, about the
elusive language of people in fact, more than anything. It is about how easily
we misunderstand each other, and how disastrously that can shake up our lives.
Apparently White
was inspired by her own reluctant duck adoption. She kept a journal on its
development which explains the level of detail about the progress from
fluff-ball to handsome Muscovy.
Her prose is quite
the best thing about this book, poetic and reflective, wry and playful at
times, compassionate and observant.
White has
published sparingly over the course of her career – this is only her second
novel plus there has been a volume of short stories. While this seems a pity I
suspect her work benefits from this long, slow cooking. Ideas are mulled over
and lived through, words polished, characters coaxed into life, flavours
gradually deepen. The result is writing to savour – even for those who only like
duck served barbecued in pancakes.
About the reviewer.
Nicky Pellegrino, an Auckland-based author of popular fiction, is also the Books Editor of the Herald on Sunday where the above review was first published on Sunday 30 June 2013.
Her latest novel When In Rome is set in 1950's Italy and was published in September 2012. Her next novel, The Food Of Love Cooking School, will be published in September this year
Footnote:
Judy White, author of 'The
Elusive Language of Ducks', will be at the Going West
Festival in september in conversation with Xanthe White.
