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An Ode to .. Maurice Gee

An Ode to .. Maurice Gee

Newsroom22-06-2025
The death of Maurice Gee last week came as no real surprise. At 93, he had outlasted most of his contemporaries of late 20th Century New Zealand literature. But it struck me harder than I expected. I had never met Maurice Gee, never heard him speak, never seen him in real life. Yet his presence, or the presence of his work, has been with me for a very long time, locked in from when I first read his children's novel Under the Mountain.
The battered cover of my long-lost copy I remember well. After 40-plus years, my original reading of the book is tangled up a little with the original TV adaptation. That version featured DIY special effects that were nonetheless highly effective at the time. I found the book compulsive reading, and I returned to it several times.
I did again when I heard of Gee's death. His adult novels formed a backdrop to my later reading, but nothing quite had the same visceral sense of evil of Under the Mountain. Other books by other authors had adventures with goodies and baddies. But Gee's story, which in lesser hands could have just been a rollicking adventure with alien baddies, still leaves a chill after decades.
From the opening pages, where the twins Rachel and Theo Matheson are mysteriously rescued by a strange alien force – known as Mr. Jones – there is a brooding sense of foreboding.
Jones is the last of an alien race, 'The People Who Understand.' He is fading out. His only mission is to stop the remnants of another alien race, the Wilberforces, emerging from their long sleep under the dormant volcanoes of Auckland to ravage Earth and continue a trail of mindless destruction across the galaxy. As for the self-congratulatory name of his all but extinct race, Mr. Jones drily reflects, 'We suffered from pride, you see.'
Gee effortlessly fills in enough to locate us in space and time for this showdown. The Hauraki Gulf, the North Shore, Rangitoto – and Lake Pupuke, the deep freshwater lake on the North Shore formed by volcanic craters.
My partner grew up very close by. I asked her whether Lake Pupuke was as scary as it was in the book. Yes, apparently. There were several stories – of learning to sail in an Optimist sail-boat, of dislocated shoulders from wind surfing, of alcohol-fuelled teenage swims, even of being attacked by swans from the lake one day as a small child. Legend has it that sunken waka and unrecovered bodies lie at its bottom. Slimy logs or eels might brush your leg. Lake Pupuke, a tranquil breeding ground for nightmares. And the home base for Gee's great fantastic invention, the alien worm-slug symbiotes, the Wilberforces, the 'people of the mud, who conquer and multiply.' This picturesque harbour and suburban enclaves were the setting for a cosmic struggle.
Mr. Jones describes the Wilberforces as having as much empathy as a school of sharks. The New Zealand speculative fiction writer Octavia Cade has importantly noted how they are intelligent, lethal, and amoral. 'The amorality is key – the Wilberforces have no better nature to appeal to, no pity and no kindness. Yet neither do they appear to have any malice. They kill out of instinct.'
Kill or be killed. The Wilberforces seek to eliminate any threat as quickly as possible. They are implacably driven to expand and consume, to destroy, then move on. Yet Mr. Jones, using the Matheson twins and their special powers, also seeks in turn to destroy their race.
This lack of standard-issue villainy gives the Wilberforces their alien nature, but a nature that is not altogether alien. 'They're creatures of tremendous will – no imagination, no conscience, no feeling. They remind me of some of the leaders of your race,' explains Mr Jones.
Their shape-changing ability is compromised when a Wilberforce comes under stress. A Wilberforce trying to break into the twin's house starts to melt down from its human form (literally) when it comes up against resistance, and returns to its efficiently slug like self, piece by piece.
As the struggle continues inside the house, the Wilberforce is momentarily confused and 'gives a quack of surprise.' Gee, the master at work. Anyone else would have a snarl or a roar in the mouth of the monster – but the otherness of the quack is a moment of beautiful strangeness.
There is no happy ending. The Wilberforces are 'given the gift of oblivion' – utterly destroyed. And Mr. Jones, the last remnant of 'The People Who Understand' dissolves into the air after expending the last of his life energy in the desperate battle.
'His voice passed quietly through their minds. It died. They raised their heads and saw a pale flame floating over the crater. It turned into a mist. The wind broke it and flung it away.'
Theo and Rachel walk back into the city of Auckland, where dormant volcanoes have erupted, creating devastation.
Years later, I would come across Gee's adult novels. Plumb is the obvious masterpiece, a brilliant portrait of a moralistic Clergyman involved in the political and moral debates of the early twentieth century, whose unbending nature eventually wreaks havoc on his own family. Plumb was modelled on Gee's grandfather, the Rev James Chapple.
My favourite adult novel of Gee's would have to be Going West, a psychological study of the flawed but decent Jack Skeat, recently retired archivist, and his major life relationships – his wife, his mother, his long dead father, and the complex friendship with the poet Rex Petley. In these relationships lie complexities and secrets that Jack, freed from a busy working and family life investigates, as well as examining his own life with some trepidation: 'I shine my torch back into the dark. Stupid bugger! Don't go there.'
Going West threads its way through the social divisions of class, adroitly fictionalises the New Zealand literary scene (sometimes waspishly), and slowly pulls back the layers on the devastating consequences of secrecy, sexual puritanism and emotional constriction on the lives of Jack's parents.
In a review in the Listener, the late Kevin Ireland (a contemporary of Gee) described Going West as 'full of cunning touches of craft and stunning insight.' To go a little further, Gee has a startling ability to describe psychological states with a physicality and acuteness. To put into words subjective experiences that are hard to describe, or rarely described.
Going West was published in 1992. Society has changed a lot in the intervening years. Jack Skeat notes changes already taking place when visiting his old haunts in Loomis (West Auckland) in Going West. The world Gee writes about is Pakeha, lower middle or middle class, with occasional characters from the fringes. I suppose Gee could be consigned to irrelevance, a chronicler of the 'Old New Zealand', but it would be hard given the quality and depth of his writing.
Gee was a left winger and an atheist, which comes out in the way his writing is sensitive to corruption and power relationships between people. Yet it doesn't come across as didactic, nor does it draw from an overtly religious framework.
As the world sinks further into violence, genocide and the machinations of 'our leaders' (some of whom reminded Mr. Jones of the Wilberforces), his writing seems to me ever more relevant.
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An Ode to .. Maurice Gee
An Ode to .. Maurice Gee

Newsroom

time22-06-2025

  • Newsroom

An Ode to .. Maurice Gee

The death of Maurice Gee last week came as no real surprise. At 93, he had outlasted most of his contemporaries of late 20th Century New Zealand literature. But it struck me harder than I expected. I had never met Maurice Gee, never heard him speak, never seen him in real life. Yet his presence, or the presence of his work, has been with me for a very long time, locked in from when I first read his children's novel Under the Mountain. The battered cover of my long-lost copy I remember well. After 40-plus years, my original reading of the book is tangled up a little with the original TV adaptation. That version featured DIY special effects that were nonetheless highly effective at the time. I found the book compulsive reading, and I returned to it several times. I did again when I heard of Gee's death. His adult novels formed a backdrop to my later reading, but nothing quite had the same visceral sense of evil of Under the Mountain. Other books by other authors had adventures with goodies and baddies. But Gee's story, which in lesser hands could have just been a rollicking adventure with alien baddies, still leaves a chill after decades. From the opening pages, where the twins Rachel and Theo Matheson are mysteriously rescued by a strange alien force – known as Mr. Jones – there is a brooding sense of foreboding. Jones is the last of an alien race, 'The People Who Understand.' He is fading out. His only mission is to stop the remnants of another alien race, the Wilberforces, emerging from their long sleep under the dormant volcanoes of Auckland to ravage Earth and continue a trail of mindless destruction across the galaxy. As for the self-congratulatory name of his all but extinct race, Mr. Jones drily reflects, 'We suffered from pride, you see.' Gee effortlessly fills in enough to locate us in space and time for this showdown. The Hauraki Gulf, the North Shore, Rangitoto – and Lake Pupuke, the deep freshwater lake on the North Shore formed by volcanic craters. My partner grew up very close by. I asked her whether Lake Pupuke was as scary as it was in the book. Yes, apparently. There were several stories – of learning to sail in an Optimist sail-boat, of dislocated shoulders from wind surfing, of alcohol-fuelled teenage swims, even of being attacked by swans from the lake one day as a small child. Legend has it that sunken waka and unrecovered bodies lie at its bottom. Slimy logs or eels might brush your leg. Lake Pupuke, a tranquil breeding ground for nightmares. And the home base for Gee's great fantastic invention, the alien worm-slug symbiotes, the Wilberforces, the 'people of the mud, who conquer and multiply.' This picturesque harbour and suburban enclaves were the setting for a cosmic struggle. Mr. Jones describes the Wilberforces as having as much empathy as a school of sharks. The New Zealand speculative fiction writer Octavia Cade has importantly noted how they are intelligent, lethal, and amoral. 'The amorality is key – the Wilberforces have no better nature to appeal to, no pity and no kindness. Yet neither do they appear to have any malice. They kill out of instinct.' Kill or be killed. The Wilberforces seek to eliminate any threat as quickly as possible. They are implacably driven to expand and consume, to destroy, then move on. Yet Mr. Jones, using the Matheson twins and their special powers, also seeks in turn to destroy their race. This lack of standard-issue villainy gives the Wilberforces their alien nature, but a nature that is not altogether alien. 'They're creatures of tremendous will – no imagination, no conscience, no feeling. They remind me of some of the leaders of your race,' explains Mr Jones. Their shape-changing ability is compromised when a Wilberforce comes under stress. A Wilberforce trying to break into the twin's house starts to melt down from its human form (literally) when it comes up against resistance, and returns to its efficiently slug like self, piece by piece. As the struggle continues inside the house, the Wilberforce is momentarily confused and 'gives a quack of surprise.' Gee, the master at work. Anyone else would have a snarl or a roar in the mouth of the monster – but the otherness of the quack is a moment of beautiful strangeness. There is no happy ending. The Wilberforces are 'given the gift of oblivion' – utterly destroyed. And Mr. Jones, the last remnant of 'The People Who Understand' dissolves into the air after expending the last of his life energy in the desperate battle. 'His voice passed quietly through their minds. It died. They raised their heads and saw a pale flame floating over the crater. It turned into a mist. The wind broke it and flung it away.' Theo and Rachel walk back into the city of Auckland, where dormant volcanoes have erupted, creating devastation. Years later, I would come across Gee's adult novels. Plumb is the obvious masterpiece, a brilliant portrait of a moralistic Clergyman involved in the political and moral debates of the early twentieth century, whose unbending nature eventually wreaks havoc on his own family. Plumb was modelled on Gee's grandfather, the Rev James Chapple. My favourite adult novel of Gee's would have to be Going West, a psychological study of the flawed but decent Jack Skeat, recently retired archivist, and his major life relationships – his wife, his mother, his long dead father, and the complex friendship with the poet Rex Petley. In these relationships lie complexities and secrets that Jack, freed from a busy working and family life investigates, as well as examining his own life with some trepidation: 'I shine my torch back into the dark. Stupid bugger! Don't go there.' Going West threads its way through the social divisions of class, adroitly fictionalises the New Zealand literary scene (sometimes waspishly), and slowly pulls back the layers on the devastating consequences of secrecy, sexual puritanism and emotional constriction on the lives of Jack's parents. In a review in the Listener, the late Kevin Ireland (a contemporary of Gee) described Going West as 'full of cunning touches of craft and stunning insight.' To go a little further, Gee has a startling ability to describe psychological states with a physicality and acuteness. To put into words subjective experiences that are hard to describe, or rarely described. Going West was published in 1992. Society has changed a lot in the intervening years. Jack Skeat notes changes already taking place when visiting his old haunts in Loomis (West Auckland) in Going West. The world Gee writes about is Pakeha, lower middle or middle class, with occasional characters from the fringes. I suppose Gee could be consigned to irrelevance, a chronicler of the 'Old New Zealand', but it would be hard given the quality and depth of his writing. Gee was a left winger and an atheist, which comes out in the way his writing is sensitive to corruption and power relationships between people. Yet it doesn't come across as didactic, nor does it draw from an overtly religious framework. As the world sinks further into violence, genocide and the machinations of 'our leaders' (some of whom reminded Mr. Jones of the Wilberforces), his writing seems to me ever more relevant.

'An intergenerational legacy': Tributes flow for Maurice Gee
'An intergenerational legacy': Tributes flow for Maurice Gee

Otago Daily Times

time15-06-2025

  • Otago Daily Times

'An intergenerational legacy': Tributes flow for Maurice Gee

By Victor Waters of RNZ The death of Maurice Gee has prompted many New Zealanders to pay tribute to the late novelist. Considered one of New Zealand's greatest novelists, his work extended over 50 years. The author, who died recently aged 93, wrote about ordinary people and ordinary lives, often with the narrator looking back at events that caused damage and unhappiness. Publisher and literary commentator Fergus Barrowman said Gee's work hugely influenced his life. "I read Plumb when it came out in paperback in 1979, and I was 18, and it was the first New Zealand book I read that really sort of fired my imagination and gave me a sense of how sort of diverse and interesting and challenging this country was. "I read everything else, and he's really shaped my view. "I know that his books have stayed in print and been widely read, and the fact that he was at that point turning to write children's books as well meant that there have always been new generations coming on, so people are still reading him as a contemporary," he said. Barrowman said he knew Gee for more than 40 years and had worked with him from time to time. That included Gee's 2015 biography - written by his sister Rachel Barrowman - Maurice Gee: Life and Work. "He was dedicated from early on, but he didn't strike gold quickly," said Barrowman. "He took some time to learn to write and was in dialogue with Charles Brasch, the stern editor of Landfall, with his early stories. "At a certain point when he really felt that he had come of age as a writer, he left secure employment and lived by his writing, his adult novels, his children's books, and writing for TV thereafter, so that dedication has been an inspiration for a lot of writers. "I think he had an inner core of steel and grasped his own significance, but he was also a very humble and modest man who didn't like being the centre of attention. "I think it was interesting that when he did publish a memoir, it was three memoirs, three shorter pieces, which had been written about his family, and for his family he wasn't trying to foreground himself. "It was really his books that he wanted to see recognised and out in the world, and the books are known internationally as well as locally." "Though I haven't seen a lot of him recently, he does leave a hole in my life," said Barrowman. The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi said we they were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Gee, describing him as "one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most celebrated novelists, a literary giant, and a quiet revolutionary". General manager Jessica Palalagi said this was cemented by Gee earning the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship in 1992 and being among the inaugural Icon Whakamana Hiranga recipients in 2003, among numerous other awards. "He has left a strong intergenerational legacy for us all through his work," said Palalagi. "To me, that's what becoming an icon is really. It's that ability to make work and to be an artist that lasts across generations. "I think his writing for children also meant that a lot of us grew up with his literature and then they were turned into sort of like motion pictures and TV shows. "It was world building, he created worlds through his words," she said. Palalagi said The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi had been trying to organise a rare interview with Gee, which unfortunately was not able to materialise. She said even in his final years, he still shied away from the limelight. "I had been actually trying to reach out to him since last year. So we've been talking to him via his daughter because we were trying to organise a sort of a profile piece on him. "He was kind of like, 'oh, why is everyone making a fuss about this work that I did?'. So I think he was just incredibly humble. "He was actually very generous in saying that he doesn't actually do a lot of interviews, but he was happy to sit down and have a chat so I felt very humbled in that way to be able to have that time, but we just couldn't quite get there. "It's quite sad in a way to think that we could have had one sort of last conversation," she said. Gee was born in Whakatāne in 1931 and educated at Auckland's Avondale College in Auckland and at Auckland University where he took a Masters degree in English. He worked as a teacher and librarian, before becoming a full-time writer in 1975. He spent much of his later life in Nelson, where he became a loved consituent. Nelson MP Rachel Boyack said the late novelist made a big contribution to the South Island city. "He was involved in groups like 'Friends of the Maitai', who have done a huge amount of work to protect out river that runs through inner city Nelson. "In a recent interview he spoke of the important of the Maitai river, in terms of teaching his daughters how to swim and so while he didn't grow up here he spent his later years of his life here. "It's really sad, wonderful that he was able to live such a full life into his early 90s but it's always so sad when we've lost someone who made such a significant contribution to our nation." "Nelson people are very proud that he decided to live and retire here in Nelson," said Boyack. Those sentiments were shared by another politician, Minister for Arts, Culture & Heritage Paul Goldsmith. "It's a very sad day, Maurice Gee has been a greatly loved writer and novelist for many decades. "People of my generation grew up on Under the Mountain being a great local story, some of his other great novels like Plumb have had international acclaim but also being part of our literary cannon as it used to be known as," said the minister. Goldsmith said Plumb was his favourite novel written by Gee. He said parliament could look to pay tribute in some way to the late writer in the coming days, but said there had been no discussions yet.

'He's left an intergenerational legacy': Tributes for author Maurice Gee
'He's left an intergenerational legacy': Tributes for author Maurice Gee

Otago Daily Times

time15-06-2025

  • Otago Daily Times

'He's left an intergenerational legacy': Tributes for author Maurice Gee

By Victor Waters of RNZ The death of Maurice Gee has prompted many New Zealanders to pay tribute to the late novelist. Considered one of New Zealand's greatest novelists, his work extended over 50 years. The author, who died recently aged 93, wrote about ordinary people and ordinary lives, often with the narrator looking back at events that caused damage and unhappiness. Publisher and literary commentator Fergus Barrowman said Gee's work hugely influenced his life. "I read Plumb when it came out in paperback in 1979, and I was 18, and it was the first New Zealand book I read that really sort of fired my imagination and gave me a sense of how sort of diverse and interesting and challenging this country was. "I read everything else, and he's really shaped my view. "I know that his books have stayed in print and been widely read, and the fact that he was at that point turning to write children's books as well meant that there have always been new generations coming on, so people are still reading him as a contemporary," he said. Barrowman said he knew Gee for more than 40 years and had worked with him from time to time. That included Gee's 2015 biography - written by his sister Rachel Barrowman - Maurice Gee: Life and Work. "He was dedicated from early on, but he didn't strike gold quickly," said Barrowman. "He took some time to learn to write and was in dialogue with Charles Brasch, the stern editor of Landfall, with his early stories. "At a certain point when he really felt that he had come of age as a writer, he left secure employment and lived by his writing, his adult novels, his children's books, and writing for TV thereafter, so that dedication has been an inspiration for a lot of writers. "I think he had an inner core of steel and grasped his own significance, but he was also a very humble and modest man who didn't like being the centre of attention. "I think it was interesting that when he did publish a memoir, it was three memoirs, three shorter pieces, which had been written about his family, and for his family he wasn't trying to foreground himself. "It was really his books that he wanted to see recognised and out in the world, and the books are known internationally as well as locally." "Though I haven't seen a lot of him recently, he does leave a hole in my life," said Barrowman. The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi said we they were deeply saddened to hear of the passing of Gee, describing him as "one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most celebrated novelists, a literary giant, and a quiet revolutionary". General manager Jessica Palalagi said this was cemented by Gee earning the prestigious Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship in 1992 and being among the inaugural Icon Whakamana Hiranga recipients in 2003, among numerous other awards. "He has left a strong intergenerational legacy for us all through his work," said Palalagi. "To me, that's what becoming an icon is really. It's that ability to make work and to be an artist that lasts across generations. "I think his writing for children also meant that a lot of us grew up with his literature and then they were turned into sort of like motion pictures and TV shows. "It was world building, he created worlds through his words," she said. Palalagi said The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi had been trying to organise a rare interview with Gee, which unfortunately was not able to materialise. She said even in his final years, he still shied away from the limelight. "I had been actually trying to reach out to him since last year. So we've been talking to him via his daughter because we were trying to organise a sort of a profile piece on him. "He was kind of like, 'oh, why is everyone making a fuss about this work that I did?'. So I think he was just incredibly humble. "He was actually very generous in saying that he doesn't actually do a lot of interviews, but he was happy to sit down and have a chat so I felt very humbled in that way to be able to have that time, but we just couldn't quite get there. "It's quite sad in a way to think that we could have had one sort of last conversation," she said. Gee was born in Whakatāne in 1931 and educated at Auckland's Avondale College in Auckland and at Auckland University where he took a Masters degree in English. He worked as a teacher and librarian, before becoming a full-time writer in 1975. He spent much of his later life in Nelson, where he became a loved consituent. Nelson MP Rachel Boyack said the late novelist made a big contribution to the South Island city. "He was involved in groups like 'Friends of the Maitai', who have done a huge amount of work to protect out river that runs through inner city Nelson. "In a recent interview he spoke of the important of the Maitai river, in terms of teaching his daughters how to swim and so while he didn't grow up here he spent his later years of his life here. "It's really sad, wonderful that he was able to live such a full life into his early 90s but it's always so sad when we've lost someone who made such a significant contribution to our nation." "Nelson people are very proud that he decided to live and retire here in Nelson," said Boyack. Those sentiments were shared by another politician, Minister for Arts, Culture & Heritage Paul Goldsmith. "It's a very sad day, Maurice Gee has been a greatly loved writer and novelist for many decades. "People of my generation grew up on Under the Mountain being a great local story, some of his other great novels like Plumb have had international acclaim but also being part of our literary cannon as it used to be known as," said the minister. Goldsmith said Plumb was his favourite novel written by Gee. He said parliament could look to pay tribute in some way to the late writer in the coming days, but said there had been no discussions yet.

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