Roderick David Finlayson

Roderick David Finlayson (born April 26, 1904 in Devonport , Auckland , † August 2, 1992 in Weymouth , Manukau Harbor , Auckland region ) was a New Zealand writer .

Life

Origin, conflict between rural life and studies

Finlayson was the son of John Maclennan Finlayson, who was a bank clerk at the Bank of New South Wales in Auckland, and his wife Mary Milligan Cargo. Due to gambling debts, the father fled to San Francisco in 1905 , leaving the mother behind, who raised the son with her mother from Northern Ireland in Ponsonby . After attending Ponsonby Public School from 1909 to 1917, he attended Seddon Memorial Technical College between 1918 and 1921 and graduated from the City and Guilds of London Institute in mechanical engineering in 1921 .

By 1922 he was convinced that participation in the compulsory basic military training was a mistake and developed radical sympathies. Despite his family's union background, he stood up for the Republic of Ireland. Later in the 1920s, he supported efforts for Samoa self-government . Also in the 1920s, he lost his teenage interest in science and technology as a result of his childhood experiences on farms owned and run in part by his uncle Arthur Wilson in the Bay of Plenty and Glenbrook . His uncle had vigorously rejected a mechanization in the cultivation of the land and thus became the model of "Uncle Ted" in the novel Tidal Creek . Life on these farms also introduced him to rural Māori life . He lived with the family of Māori Hone Ngawhika for several summers between the 1920s and 1931 in Pukehina and learned from them the traditional way of life in the country.

Nevertheless, Finlayson took up a job as a draftsman with the architect John Anderson in Auckland in 1923 and was soon working there for rental income and property sales. He also attended evening school, which he graduated with the matriculation exam in 1924. In addition to his professional activity, he completed a part-time study of architecture at Auckland University College between 1926 and 1929 and was associated with the Chamber of Architects (New Zealand Institute of Architects) after graduating .

Great economic crisis, beginning of the writing career and marriage

With the beginning of the global economic crisis , the order situation at Anderson deteriorated, so that Finlayson lost his job. After unsuccessful attempts as a sales representative and tobacco grower, he began his writing career in the mid-1930s, after having written novels and journalistic articles for daily newspapers in Auckland since 1924 . In the early 1930s he switched to satire to express his disappointment with "our ruthless technological and greedy society" which appeared to be in collapse. This disappointment had already developed for some time based on his experiences in the 1920s.

Around 1934 or 1935, Finlayson met the poet Walter D'Arcy Cresswell , whose radio reports he admired for their exposure of science and modernization. He became a regular visitor to Cresswell's Castor Bay near North Shore City , where he also met his future publishers Bob Lowry, Ron Holloway and Kay Holloway, but also Frank Sargeson and other authors. He showed Cresswell his satirical writings, but Cresswell was more impressed by some short stories he had built in the style of the Sicilian author Giovanni Verga . These dealt with the Pukehina community, from which he now felt as if he was living in exile , possibly due to a failed love relationship. Cresswell became his literary mentor, a role he later shared with Sargeson. Cresswell recommended his friend's work to publishers and also prepared him for possible criticism.

Cresswell also acted as best man at Finlayson's wedding to Ruth Evelyn Taylor on June 3, 1936 in Auckland. He got to know her while on vacation in 1931 in Rarotonga , her birthplace. In 1937 the couple moved to Weymouth on Manukau Harbor , where they raised their three daughters and three sons.

Second World War, post-war years and the climax of his literary work

During the Second World War and the first post-war years, he served in the Home Guard and worked in a wool shop under emergency conditions. During this time he made new friends, such as the younger author David Ballantyne .

He had his greatest success as a writer between 1938 and 1952 and won third prize in the short story category at the literary competition on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the 1940 Waitangi Treaty for "The Totora Tree". Cresswell wrote to him in the early 1940s: “Men like you & Sargeson justify our native style if we have one” ('Men like you & Sargeson are founding our native style, if we are to have any.'). Though surpassed by Sargeson, Finlayson contributed to the creation of a regional literature that the country was first to disclose critically to itself. He shared the romanticism of many of his contemporaries and celebrated what he called the poetic life, "a life dependent on the forces and powers of nature", and lamented its loss in the Village (kainga) , on the farm, in the human heart. He developed his romantic thesis in polemical essays , particularly in Our Life in this Land (1940), and fulfilled them in his texts such as the short story collections Brown Man's Burden (1938) and Sweet Beulah Land (1942) and the novels Tidal Creek (1948) and The Schooner came to Atia (1952).

Finlayson's distinctive contributions to New Zealand literature were the Māori stories in his first two collections. These portrayed a person who was trapped between two worlds. Just as urban economic development assumes its influence on traditional communities, immigrants (Pākehā) from Europe bring twists into their dispossession. Although his rendering of the Māori thoughts and speeches has sometimes been criticized as undifferentiated, his sympathetic but unsentimental stories made him an important figure in the transition between the colonial apology of forerunners like Alfred Augustus Grace and the Māori writers who succeeded him.

During this time, a spiritual realignment also took place: Finlayson , who grew up as a Presbyterian , converted to Catholicism in 1949 .

Late literary work and last years of life

Between 1952 and 1960, Finlayson wrote almost exclusively children's books and was also appointed to the Department of School Books of the Department of Education to write articles on the life and history of the Māori, as well as on his own childhood. 1958 appeared The Maoris of New Zealand , which he presented to the author James K. Baxter . In the 1950s he made close friends with authors such as OE Middleton and Bruce Beaver from Australia.

He was always forced to supplement his small income from literary publications with ordinary farm work and was partly supported by family donations. In addition, he worked as an assistant in the printing works of the Auckland City Council between 1957 and 1965 and published little during this time. The historical representations from the school books about the Māori appeared under the title The springing Fern in 1965 as a new edition. In 1972 he published D'Arcy Cresswell , a critical biography about his old mentor. The appearance of this work also meant that interest in his books grew again, so that they appeared in new editions between 1972 and 1988.

In 1972 he took his wife on a trip through Europe , where he followed in the footsteps of D'Arcy Cresswell. They also traveled regularly to Rarotonga during the 1970s and early 1980s . In addition to other stories, he published an additional collection of texts in the form of the three novellas Other Lovers (1976). He has also been writing essays since the 1960s and advocating political issues such as the defense of the land and language of the Māori and was also an opponent of apartheid in South Africa . In 1990 he became Honorary President of the New Zealand PEN Center . His services as a writer were recognized by the former city of Manukau City in 1990 and 1991 .

He died on August 2, 1992 in Weymouth.

Publications

• Brown Man's Burden , 1938
• Our Life in this Land , 1940
• Sweet Beulah Land , 1942
• Tidal Creek , 1948
• The Schooner came to Atia , 1952
• The Maoris of New Zealand , 1958
• The springing Fern , 1965
• D'Arcy Cresswell , 1972
• Browmman's burden, and later stories , 1973
• The coming of the musket , 1975
• Other lovers , 1976

Background literature

• Contemporary British short stories. Part: 1. Joyce Cary, Roderick Finlayson, Graham Greene, Sean O'Faolain, Frank O'Connor , Bielefeld, Velhagen & Klasing, 1962
• B. Pearson: Introduction to Brown man's burden and later stories by RD Finlayson , Auckland, 1973
• D. McEldowney: Introduction to Tidal Creek by RD Finlayson Auckland, 1979

Web links

• Literature by and about Roderick David Finlayson in the catalog of the German National Library
• John Muirhead: Finlayson, Roderick David , in: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand , updated September 18, 2013, accessed March 26, 2015
• Entry in NZETC