Boden Black (A Novel) and With Axe and Pen in the New Zealand Alps: Differences Between Overseas and New Zealand Written Accounts of Climbing Mount Cook 1882-1920 and the Emergence of a New Zealand Voice in Mountaineering Literature

摘要

This thesis has two components: creative and critical.The creative component is the novel Boden Black. It is a first person narrative, imaginedas a memoir, and traces the life of its protagonist, Boden Black, from his childhood inthe late 1930s to adulthood in the present day. The plot describes various significantencounters in the narrator’s life: from his introduction to the Mackenzie Basin and theMount Cook region in the South Island of New Zealand, through to meetings withmountaineers and ‘lost’ family members. Throughout his journey from child to butcherto poet, Boden searches for ways to describe his response to the natural landscape.The critical study is titled With Axe and Pen in the New Zealand Alps. It examines thepublished writing of overseas and New Zealand mountaineers climbing atAoraki/Mount Cook between 1882 and 1920. I advance the theory that there are stylisticdifferences between the writing of overseas and New Zealand mountaineers and that thebeginning of a distinct New Zealand mountaineering voice can be traced back to thefirst accounts written by New Zealand mountaineers attempting to reach the summit ofAoraki/Mount Cook.The first mountaineer to attempt to climb Aoraki/Mount Cook was William SpotswoodGreen, an Irishman who introduced high alpine climbing to New Zealand in 1882. EarlyNew Zealand mountaineers initially emulated the conventions of British mountaineeringliterature as exemplified by Green and other famous British mountaineers. Thesepioneering New Zealand mountaineers attempted to impose the language of the‘civilised’ European alpine-world on to the ‘uncivilised’ world of the Southern Alps.However, as New Zealand mountaineering became more established at Aoraki/MountCook from the 1890s through to 1920, a distinct New Zealand voice developed inmountaineering literature: one that is marked by a sense of connection to placeexpressed through site-specific, factual observation and an unadorned, sometimeslaconic, vernacular writing style.