Misplacement in Kelly Joseph’s “Transient”

Short story: Kelly Joseph – “Transient” (Huia Short Stories 5, 2003)

Belonging and misplacement are well-known feelings, I believe. At some point in life everyone has experienced the sense of being in the right or wrong place, even if it is just at a party or a friend’s house, where you don´t feel comfortable or, on the contrary, almost like being at home. In the context of our seminar Indigenous Literature from New Zealand – Roots and Routes, we read several secondary texts and other works which discuss misplacement in Māori literature. However, one short story was especially fitting in my opinion for this seminar. “Transient”, written by Kelly Joseph, draws connections between the two main topics of roots and routes. The story specifies those concepts by pointing out that roots do not only refer to your origin but also may highlight a sense of misplacement at the same time.

Misplacement was one of the subtopics in our seminar, yet I must admit that, until we read “Transient”, I never really understood the extent of feeling lost or out of place. Kelly Joseph manages to convey the importance of belonging and roots as anchors within three short pages. She describes the journey of a young woman from Taranaki, wandering through the streets of Manhattan. On her way to the Metropolitan Museum, she encounters a homeless man and gives him some change. Inside the museum she wanders around without a map and comes across an empty waka huia. The protagonist cries for the ‘lost treasure’, which is “out of place in this foreign land” (p. 149). After the same homeless man from the beginning hands her a handkerchief, she makes the deliberate decision of booking a one-way ticket home.

When I started reading the short story, I found it quite sombre. As the first-person narrator describes the “thick humidity” and how “oppressive and disorientating” (p. 147) the setting of Manhattan seems, the reader is able to imagine what the protagonist means with the description of being crushed (cf. p. 147). However, the feeling of misplacement is especially noticeable on page 147, when the protagonist acknowledges: “Now I’m lost.” Further into the story, the protagonist emphasizes a lack of belonging or identification in the context of the “displaced objects” which appear “out of place in this foreign land” (p. 149).

As a teen, I always enjoyed trips to museums since they provided new insights to other cultures and historical periods which we did not experience ourselves. However, based on my undergraduate studies and particularly this seminar, I started to understand more and more that exhibiting objects of foreign cultures is an issue worth investigating further. I started to ponder: “Where do these objects come from?”, “Who gave the museum the right to exhibit it and not return it to its rightful place where it belongs?”. Even though these questions are not answered in the short story, it nevertheeless does provide us with enough insights to understand why we should look upon exhibited cultural objects with more care and consideration.

The perception of the protagonist is that the waka huia (like other exhibited objects) is “lost to its people” (p. 149). They belong to the culture of their people and are out of place in the foreign museum in which they are exhibited. This sense of belonging to a community is also highlighted earlier when she says: “[H]omesickness is not just a longing for a place; it’s a yearning for people” (p. 147). She herself feels like she does not belong where she is right now. As the protagonist and a human being, she has the choice of where she locates herself, even though it has taken her several years to realise the necessary actions she must take to feel at home again. The objects in the exhibition do not have the same sort of agency, which might be a reason for her tears when she grieves for the ‘lost objects’.

As I mentioned earlier, a homeless man hands her a handkerchief as she cries in front of the empty waka huia. This emptiness of the cultural object, which traditionally symbolizes relationships, can be seen as a mirror of the protagonist’s feeling of emptiness and misplacement. The homeless man is the only one who acknowledges her crying and takes action to ease her loneliness. Both characters are seen as outsiders to society, which leads to isolation and a lack of interactions with others. This isolation finds relief when the protagonist acknowledges her unwellness in the last sentence: “The following day I book a one-way ticket home.” Since it is a one-way ticket, it is clear that she does not have any intentions of straying too far from her roots any time soon again.

In the light of what I wrote earlier, more specifically the fact that I was not aware of the range which the sense of misplacement could reach, it is remarkable how thoroughly “Transient” points out and highlights the depth of feelings associated with misplacement and still offers me as the reader to interpret the short story based on my own individual experiences. Disorientating, lost, homesickness are all words that I now associate with this short story. Those words remind me that we belong somewhere, even if the process of realising takes us five years, just as the protagonist of Joseph’s story. However, just like the girl from Taranaki, we have the agency to lead our routes back to our roots. Towards the place where we feel like we belong.

The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke – Book Review

You only have one life in your possession, James. Why not make it of your most magnificent imagining?

How do you go on when you’ve got no family member left and don’t know where you even belong? When you desperately want to change something about your life, but you don’t know what’s missing? These are only a few of the questions The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke picks up in much detail.

It was written by New Zealand novelist and creative writing teacher Tina Makereti, who has already won several prizes for her work, including the Royal Society of New Zealand Manhire Prize and the Ngā Kupu Ora Aotearoa Māori Book Award. Her books, essays and short stories often centre on Māori culture and identities.

What is the book about?

Her most recent novel, The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke, deals with the life and adventures of young James Pōneke, the son of a well-known Māori chief. In the beginning of the book, he loses first his mother and sister, then his father, and is raised by Christian missionaries. Later he abandons the mission and eventually finds a way back to his cultural roots by joining a group of Māori migrants – though still he is not at all satisfied with his life and is longing for a further education. When he meets a young English artist, he jumps at the opportunity and travels to London with him. There, James becomes the artist’s living exhibit at a museum and is offered an “English education”. He soon realises that people in Victorian London are way different from the people at home. During his adventures in the new city, he has to face multiple challenges, such as finding new friends and falling in love for the first time, dealing with multiple forms of racism, and seeking a sense of belonging.

How did I like the story?

I have to say that I enjoyed the characters very much. James is an adventurous, warm-hearted boy who wants to see the world, which is a character trait I can very much relate to. I loved the fact that he had the courage to leave his homeland behind in order to find his true self in a whole new country. But his best friend Billy really was my favourite character in this story.  He gives James the opportunity to just be himself and makes London another home for him. He sees James for who he is, without judging him in any way. Also, I liked his enthusiasm and honesty. Their friendship was so pure and sincere.

Though I enjoyed the characters, I can’t entirely say the same thing about the plot. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the way it was written and the message it conveyed: to let your fears behind and live the life you want to live. The quote I put on top of this text was by far one of my favourites and really shows that it’s up to you what kind of life you live and that it depends on the decisions you make. There were many text passages like this where I felt very inspired and just loved Makereti’s style of writing. It really made me think about my own life in a certain way. However, even though the characters were beautifully developed, I sometimes had the feeling that there’s not much happening in this story. It was interesting to experience Europe through James’s eyes but at the same time, I wished that there was a little more “drama”. Especially during the middle part of the book, I sometimes had a hard time going on reading as there wasn’t much happening. 

My conclusion

Summing up I can say that I enjoyed the writing style very much. There were so many text passages that left me wondering and thinking about my own decisions and the meaning of my life. Especially I wondered if I am living MY magnificent imagining or if there’s something I would want to change.  Also, I kept thinking about the fact whether I could have been as brave as James was in all those dangerous situations he encountered.

I generally recommend the book to anyone who is interested in Māori culture and the way of life back in 19th century. Even though the book had its lengths from time to time, I still liked reading all about James’s story and desperately wanted to know whether he’d find his place of belonging in the world. Now it’s your turn to find out! For me, The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke is a good 3,5/5 stars.

Makereti, Tina. 2018. The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke. New Zealand: Penguin Random House (ISBN: 978-1-78563-153-5)

Book Review: The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke by Tina Makereti

The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke by Tina Makereti tells the story of a young Māori orphan boy, James Pōneke, who has a great desire for education and to see the world.

James, who is partially raised by missionaries, meets an English artist in New Zealand and follows him to London to be a living part of his exhibition.

James quickly finds a connection in the artist’s family. During the day he is at the artist’s disposal and presents himself in traditional tribal dress to gallery visitors, who scrutinize him and do not always make a secret of their disapproval of the Indigenous population. At night, James meets his friends (who include the sailor Billy and his lover Henry, or Henrietta, who only walks around in men’s clothes because of her own freedom) and discovers the neighborhoods of Victorian London.

When I started reading the book, I was almost shocked by the sadness and cruelty. And yet, the author manages to transfer the protagonist’s hope to the reader.

Tina Makereti manages to give young James a childlike naivety without it ever seeming annoying to the reader while reading the book. I could always understand the naivety and the hope that the protagonist has at the different stages of his journey, despite all the setbacks.

Like the others who were now fitted awkwardly into the tribe, I was tolerated, and given work to do, and allowed to participate as long as I was useful. But my position was humble. I wasn’t angered by this. I did not belong to these people. If I were to follow custom, the best I could do was marry one of them to ensure my own children could claim a place.“

(Chapter 4)

Here, the boy James’ search for his identity is introduced and clarified early in the book. Even in a new tribe he finds no real place, he finds no belonging.

The boy’s search for belonging and home touched me very much while reading. His apparent acceptance of the intolerance of his environment is both confusing and sad. And yet the author manages to give him a tiny bit of hope.

Tina Makereti makes sure to project feelings and images onto the reader’s mind with her readable, metaphorical writing style. For example, James’ feelings are expressed metaphorically when he visits the zoo in London with his hosts and discovers a tiger in one of the cages.

There were no kings in the cages I saw — only poorly looking creatures with scruffy coats.“

(Chapter 7)

The striking description could be applied to James himself, who is also restricted by the displays of his origins in the artist’s exhibition and the many hostilities of London’s residents.

The Imaginary Lives of James Pōneke takes you along emotionally and it is an absolutely worthwhile read which includes themes such as friendship, freedom, family, home, belonging and identity.

I think that it is a great novel in the historical fiction genre which can also provide a good introduction to Māori literature.

Tina Makereti’s novel was first published in 2018, has 256 pages and is available as e-book (ISBN 978-1-78563-154-2) for less than 5€.

Welcome to the sub-blog “Indigenous Literature from New Zealand”

Nau mai, haere mai!

Here, you will find various kinds of contributions – ranging from short literary analyses to response papers and reviews – focussing on different sorts of ‘texts’ – including short stories, lyrics, novels, and poems. All blog posts were written by HHU students who attended the Bachelor course “Indigenous Literature from New Zealand – Roots and Routes” (winter term 2021/22; taught by Leonie John).

The contributors come from different fields of study (English and American Studies, Transcultural Studies, Media and Cultural Studies) and most of them didn’t have any prior experience with blog writing, so this was a challenging but (hopefully) also rewarding process. The results are well worth reading!

Have fun browsing and digesting their attentive commentaries on Māori literature.