final draft newsletter december 2012 · 2019. 3. 20. · if hugo becker and hugo heerman are in the...

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Issue 13 December 2012

ISSN 2040-2597 (Online)

Detail from Katherine Mansfield Memorial, Crans-Montana, Switzerland KATHERINE MANSFIELD CELEBRE ECRIVAIN NEO-ZELANDAISE VECUT ICI EN 1921-22 ET Y ECRIVIT SES OEUVRES LES PLUS CELEBRES / THE CELEBRATED NEW ZEALAND WRITER KATHERINE MANS-

FIELD LIVED HERE DURING 1921-22 WHERE SHE WROTE HER MOST FAMOUS STORIES

Inside: KMS News and Competition Results ………………………………………………………………………... Page 2 Musical Chairs in Quartet Portrait by Martin Griffiths …………………………………………………….. Page 3

End-of-year Report from KMS Vice-Chair by Janet Wilson …….…………………………………………. Page 5

Katherine Mansfield: Masked and Unmasked Update …………………………………………………….. Page 6 An Interview with Sarah Lang (reprinted from Pikitia Press) ……………………………………………….. Page 7 A Sparrow’s Flight by Lesley Sharpe …………………………………………………………………………. 0

Photographs from Katherine Mansfield Society Birthday Lecture 2012 ………………………………….. Page 15 Katherine Mansfield’s Thorndon by Kevin Boon …………………………………………………………… Page 16 KM Comes to Glebe by Helen Rydstrand …………………………………………………………………….. Page 19 Katherine Mansfield’s Other Passion by Norman P. Franke ………………………………………………... Page 20

Report on Katherine Mansfield Symposium, Crans-Montana, Switzerland by Alison Lacivita …………. Page 23

Report on ‘Modernist Moves’ Conference, Brunel University by Susan Reid …………………………….. Page 26 Announcement: The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Fiction of Katherine Mansfield and Katherine Mansfield Studies ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Page 27

COMPETITION

Last issue, we offered you a chance to win a copy of Mansfield with Monsters, Matt and Debbie Cowen’s mon-

strous rewrites of KM’s short stories published by Steam Press and recently named as one of the New Zealand Listener’s Top 100 books of the year! Thanks to all who entered with their responses to the question posed by

Steam Press publisher Stephen Minchin:

Which Katherine Mansfield line is most open to monstrous misinterpretation?

Congratulations to the winner Rachel Bernard, who offered the following selection from KM’s Journal: ‘L.M.

is also exceedingly fond of bananas. But she eats them so slowly, so terribly slowly. And they know

it―somehow; they realise what is in store for them when she reaches out her hand. I have seen bananas turn

absolutely livid with terror on her plate―or pale as ashes’. Your prize is on it way!

This time round, we’re offering you a chance to win a copy of Martin Griffiths’ cd Music by Arnold Trowell 1887-1996. To be in with a chance, simply answer the following question, set by Martin himself:

Who was Katherine Mansfield’s cello teacher in New Zealand?

Please email your answer to the editor at: [email protected]

Closing date: 31st March 2013 Published by the Katherine Mansfield Society, Bath, England

KMS News

Welcome to the thirteenth issue of the KMS Newsletter, which also marks our 4th anniversary! To cele-

brate, we’ve put together our biggest collection yet of articles, reviews and reports, including an end-of-

year update from KMS Vice-Chair Janet Wilson on page 5, which gives an overview of an eventful year

for the KMS. Last issue, we covered one of the year’s most exciting developments—the discovery of pre-

viously unknown KM stories—and this time round we’re following up on the Trowell family photos that

were discovered alongside KM’s stories. Turn to page 3 to read Martin Griffiths’ response to Chris

Mourant’s article from the August issue, which adds further intrigue to the matter. On page 20, you can

also read Norman P. Franke’s account of Martin’s September concert on the theme of Katherine Mans-field, Cellist, performed in Hamilton, while Helen Rydstrand offers her thoughts on a different KM-

inspired performance on page 19—Rosanna Easton’s revival of The Case of Katherine Mansfield at the

Sydney Fringe Festival in September. KM continued to provide inspiration for scholars and creative art-

ists at a number of KMS events in the last few months, most recently the Third Annual Birthday Lecture,

which was held on 14th October in London; turn to page 10 for KMS member Lesley Sharpe’s imagina-

tive response to the day’s proceedings, and check out some photos from the day itself on page 15. In Sep-

tember, the second KM conference of the year—this time organised by Simone Oettli—was held in the

glorious surroundings of Crans-Montana, Switzerland, a full account of which by Alison Lacivita can be

found on page 23. Looking ahead to 2013, there will be another opportunity to gather to discuss KM’s

writing at ‘Katherine Mansfield: Masked and Unmasked’, a major conference to be held in Wellington in

February 2013. The latest update on proceedings can be found on page 6. In addition, you can read Kevin

Boon’s account of one of the routes of his KM walks on page 16, and start looking forward to following a

similar trail during the conference itself! What’s more, KM continues to make a strong showing at other

conferences too, as evidenced by Susan Reid’s report on the ‘Modernist Moves’ conference on page 26.

Finally, for something completely different, check out the interview with novelist and cartoonist Sarah

Laing on page 7 (reprinted from the website of Pikitia Press), as she looks ahead to her planned graphic

novel on KM. And if that’s not enough reading for you, check out the ad for The Edinburgh Edition of the Collected Fiction of Katherine Mansfield edited by Gerri Kimber and Vincent O’Sullivan on page 27—

that should keep you busy till the next issue of the KMS Newsletter!

Don’t forget to email the editor with feedback and submissions for the April issue of the KMS Newsletter

at [email protected]—in the meantime, happy reading! Jenny McDonnell

Newsletter Editor



Musical Chairs in Quartet Portrait

Chris Mourant is to be congratulated on unearthing photos and documents relating to Kathe-

rine Mansfield and the Trowell family at King’s College in London as detailed in his article

‘FromThe Archives: Trowell Family Photos’ in the KMS Newsletter, Issue 12, August 2012.

While several of these images are duplicated in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Welling-

ton (PA1-q-983 and PA1-q- 984) some are viewable for the first time and Mourant correctly

identifies the Trowell twins and other family members. However, he is probably mistaken

regarding the persons in the photo of the string quartet reproduced on page 4. With the ex-

ception of Garnet, the other musicians remain unidentified.

If Hugo Becker and Hugo Heerman are in the photograph as Mourant contends, they appear

to have swapped chairs and instruments: Becker seems to be sitting on the left with a violin

(he was a cellist), and Heermann has a cello on the right. (See the photo of the Frankfurt

Quartet above.) Why would these artists play musical chairs for the camera? Given that the

image may be a souvenir with Garnet posing for the real second violinist one should not be

surprised if the others decided to join the charade. After all the Belgian Jean Gerardy (who

was, like Arnold Trowell, a cellist and favourite of Katherine Mansfield) exchanged seats

with George Ellwood for a similar portrait (see the photo overleaf).

The Frankfurt Quartet Photograph courtesy of die Universitätsbibliothek Frankfurt, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany

Ref: S36_F03768


Alternatively the photo, which Mourant states was taken in 1903, may have been taken in

Belgium from 1905 to 1906 or London in 1907-1908. The violinist on the left resembles

Jan van Oordt (see above right) who was a close associate of Garnet and an assistant pro-

fessor of violin at the Brussels Conservatoire. The cellist may be Francois Bouserez or Ar-

nold Godenne, who were both assistants to Edouard Jacobs, Arnold Trowell’s teacher at the

same institution. Unfortunately without portraits of either, it is impossible to make a posi-

tive identification at this stage.

The Turnbull Library has a variation of this photograph without the unidentified man stand-

ing in the background. In my estimation this man, who has a knowing smirk on his face, is

the most intriguing figure of them all. Was he the real fourth member of the quartet whose

seat Garnet has temporarily taken or just the photographer? Given the male-dominated mu-

sic world in Europe, then and now, it is intriguing also to postulate on the identity of the

woman playing the viola.

Martin Griffiths

Hamilton, New Zealand

Jean Gerardy and George Ellwood Ellwood was a New Zealand cellist and studied with

Gerardy from 1911 Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Library,

Dunedin.

Jan van Oordt Van Oordt was teaching assistant to César Thomson

at the Brussels Conservatoire between 1905 and 1906

Photograph courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington


End-of-year report from KMS Vice-Chair

This has been an outstanding year for the KMS and for Mansfield studies in particular, with

two KMS international continental conferences, one held at Ruzomberok in Slovakia in

June (organised by KMS member Dr Janka Kaščáková) and another at Crans-Montana in

Switzerland in September (organised by another KMS member Dr Simone Oettli). I also

presented on Mansfield at the ‘Modernism, Christianity and the Apocalypse’ Conference

held in Bergen, Norway in late July. There were TWO panels of papers on Mansfield at the

‘Editing Modernism in Canada’ Colloquium on ‘The Exile’s Return’ held at the Sorbonne

Nouvelle in Paris and a Mansfield presence at the inaugural conference of the New Zealand

Studies Network (UK and Ireland) held at Birkbeck in early July, with papers by Gerri

Kimber and Aimee Gasston, a doctoral student at Birkbeck. What is exciting is to hear the

work of the new and emerging scholars like Aimee and Elizabeth Welsh, who spoke at the

Paris conference, and who are moving into quite new areas in their research. In this respect

it is worth noting that the Society’s Chair, Gerri Kimber, has this year taken up a part-time

post at the University of Northampton, and she and I are currently supervising our first PhD

student on Mansfield; this is Louise Edensor, a KMS member and familiar to us all from

past conferences. There are other possibilities for doctoral research on Mansfield as well. In

collaboration with Dr Erik Tonning, in the Department of Foreign Languages at Bergen

University, who runs the ‘Modernism and Christianity’ project funded by the Bergen Re-

search Foundation, I am coordinating a PhD bursary, co-funded by our respective institu-

tions, on ‘Modernism and Mysticism’, and have hopes of attracting someone with an inter-

est in Mansfield alongside the other authors advertised, such as Woolf, Beckett and Joyce.

The other major KMS event and highlight this year was of course the Annual Katherine

Mansfield Birthday lecture, which fell on the very day itself, 14th October. This year’s, the

third Birthday Lecture, was co-hosted by the University of Northampton, the Open Univer-

sity and Birkbeck, University of London, and was held in what seems the ideal location for

Mansfield: the newly refurbished Keynes Room in Birkbeck, 43 Gordon Square, London.

Since Mansfield knew Keynes and may even have visited this room, which was originally

his library, it seems more than fitting to pay tribute to her within its walls, and Gerri and I

have hopes of making this the standard venue for all subsequent Birthday Lectures. There

was a great turnout, and the two magnificent addresses, Salley Vickers on Mansfield’s influ-

ence on her, and Ali Smith’s highly entertaining story, ‘The Ex-Wife’, about the influence

of Mansfield on its protagonist, were enthusiastically received. Birkbeck has been a very

generous host to New Zealand Studies in general over the last five years and has given

space to seminars, colloquia and the conference held by the New Zealand Studies Network

(UK and Ireland) in July, so I would like to record our gratitude to Birkbeck for extending

this hospitality to the KMS.

Other unexpected developments have been well-recorded in the press and on air, and are

now familiar to you all: the chance discovery by Chris Mourant of four new Mansfield short

stories in the ADAM archives at King’s College and the donation to the ATL in Wellington,

of the entire archive of papers and letters belonging to John Middleton Murry, by the Murry

family. These unexpected windfalls will surely inaugurate a new phase in Murry/Mansfield

studies.


Finally, the year is not over yet! What remains is the launch in the New Zealand High Com-

mission of Gerri Kimber and Vincent O’Sullivan’s wonderful two-volume edition of Mans-

field’s short stories, followed by the main launch in Wellington in February 2013. The vol-

umes are now available from Edinburgh University Press, and give us all pause to reflect

that the growing momentum in Mansfield studies has reached yet another high point. And to

look ahead, the next big conference will be held at Victoria University of Wellington in Feb-

ruary 2013, on ‘Katherine Mansfield: Masked and Unmasked’, at which Gerri and Vincent

will talk about their work on preparing this edition. This will be the first Mansfield confer-

ence held in her home town since the big 1988 Centennial Conference celebrating her birth;

furthermore, given this venue, it seems appropriate that Volume 5 of Katherine Mansfield Studies, on which the editors are now beginning to work, will be a special issue on

‘Mansfield and the (Post)-colonial’ (and essays on the topic will be submitted for the 4th KM

Studies essay prize). This focus once more brings us back to complex questions of her rela-

tionship to her origins, her nationality, her concept of belonging.

Altogether 2012 has been a very satisfactory year in terms of Mansfield scholarship, criti-

cism and general appreciation, providing more than ever the sense of a growing, internation-

al KM community.

Janet Wilson

University of Northampton

Katherine Mansfield: Masked and Unmasked

February 8-11, 2013

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

‘Don’t lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath—as terrible as you like—

but a mask,’ wrote Mansfield in a letter to John Middleton Murry in July 1917

Victoria University welcomes Katherine Mansfield scholars to Wellington in 2013 to share and discuss

recent developments in Mansfield scholarship, in the year of the 90th anniversary of her death. To coincide with the conference, it is anticipated that a new Katherine Mansfield sculpture, ‘Woman of Words’ by Vir-

ginia King, will stand newly mounted in Lambton Quay, and the landmark publication of The Collected Fiction of Katherine Mansfield, edited by Gerri Kimber and Vincent O’Sullivan, will be launched by Edin-

burgh University Press. This collection includes new fragments and variants, and other rarely published,

previously uncollected stories.

Keynote speakers include Angela Smith and Sydney Janet Kaplan

Gerri Kimber and Vincent O'Sullivan will introduce and

discuss the new edition of the stories

Other exciting KM-related events are also planned during the four days of the conference. Please go to

http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/wellington-2013/ where registration details will shortly be made

available.


Auckland cartoonist Sarah Laing was re-

cently awarded a six-month University of

Auckland residency from the Micheal

King Writers’ Centre to work on a graphic

novel about Katherine Mansfield that is

part-biography, part-memoir and part-

fiction. Laing’s comics have frequently

appeared in Metro magazine and she is

also a novelist, graphic designer and moth-

er of three. A prolific output of auto-bio

comics have featured on Laing’s blog ‘Let

Me Be Frank’ in recent years. I asked her

a few questions via email about her up-

coming residency.

Q: Are you the first author to receive a

Michael King Writers’ Centre residen-

cy to work on a cartooning project?

A: I’m the first at the Michael King Writ-

ers’ Centre, but it’s a joint University of

Auckland residency and I see that Dylan Horrocks was awarded it in 2006: http://

www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/dylanhorrocks But yes, it’s rare for a cartooning/graphic novel

project to be chosen for a residency! It’s great that such a project is now being considered a

serious contender.

Q: When did you first experience Katherine Mansfield’s writing?

A: Somebody read me ‘The Doll’s House’ when I was in primary school and it all came

alive for me—she’s such a visual writer; I can still picture everything she described. I re-

member my grandmother telling us that Mansfield’s family, the Beauchamps, lived down the

road from her family when she was a child in Karori. My first writing prize was for a poem I

wrote in 7th form, called ‘At the (York) Bay’, after Mansfield’s story. I spent lots of summer

holidays in Eastbourne as that’s where my grandmother and great aunts lived. Later I lived

in a little lane off Tinakori Road in Wellington, where Mansfield was born. My first

book published by Random House was a collection of short stories, and I felt like I was fol-

An Interview with Sarah Laing

Novelist and cartoonist Sarah Laing has just been awarded a six-month residency at the Michael

King Writers’ Centre to work on a graphic novel on Katherine Mansfield. Matt Emery (Pikitia Press

publisher) recently interviewed Sarah for his website http://pikitiapress.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/

sarah-laing.html

The interview is reproduced here with kind permission. All images copyright Sarah Laing 2012.


lowing in a tradition established by her. She really is still the most amazing short story writ-

er, the way that she sets up a scene and then disrupts it entirely. Her writing still feels very

contemporary.

Q: Will your project be purely

comics or a combination of prose

and cartooning?

A: This project will be a cartooning

one—a book-length graphic novel.

Language does play a big part in

my comics though, and I will be

working hard on that. There is so

much of the visual world to ex-

plore— Mansfield was stylish—she

had that great bob—and she lived in

the 1920s and 1930s (sic), and she

hung out with all the modernists

and the Bloomsbury set (Virginia

Woolf, D H Lawrence). She pushed a whole lot of social boundaries, redefined literature,

had lesbian affairs, was the only writer that Virginia Woolf was jealous of. She moved to

France and Germany to try and cure her TB, but she died young, at the age of 34. Recently I

read ‘Kiki of Montparnasse’ and I think graphic novels are such a great way of bringing his-

torical figures to life.


Q: What will your residency at the Writers’ Centre entail?

A: I will be given a studio to work in at the top of Mt Victoria in Devonport. It was built in

the late 19th century, so I’m hoping it will get me into the right era. Also I will have an of-

fice at the university and access to the library, where I hope to read lots about Mansfield. I

think I might have to give lectures at the English department too, so I’ll be hustling comics

and graphic novels.

Q: Do you have a projected scope for the size of this project and when you’ll complete

it?

A: I’m hoping it will take me no longer than a couple of years. But then I’m still finishing an

illustrated novel (to be published in July 2013) that I

started almost 4 years ago! I want to explore Mans-

field’s life, and also I want to couple that with mem-

oir, exploring how my own fascination with her (sic). I

imagine that this will be a reasonably big book—300

pages maybe, and I want to do it all in inks and water-

colour. I’ve recently been reading Brecht Evans and I

love his style and his way of storytelling. I’m also a

fan of Joann Sfar and Vanessa Davis, who also use

watercolours a lot.

Q: How was the experience of your short term residency at the Michael King Writers’

Centre in 2008?

A: It was really great—it was just for 6 weeks but I really got to concentrate. At the moment

I work at home, on the dining room table, and I have 3 kids, so when they’re at home I have

to clear everything away or else they’ll want to augment my art. The other thing that I’ve

done when I’ve been on residencies is minimise my internet access. I waste such a lot of

time! Then again, it’s a brilliant resource for picture references so I won’t be able to cut my-

self off entirely.

Q: You’ve indicated on your blog that you’ve had an interest

in doing a longer comics work for a while, did applying for

the residency help consolidate commencing this project or

was it already underway?

A: I thought this would be a good kind of project for a University

writer-in-residence—I’d have access to all the English depart-

ment expertise and a library full of books! I also had a lot of oth-

er ideas jostling around—mostly memoir ideas. I still have a

whole host of short stories I want to draw in comic form—I’m

hoping to get a few of those started before the residency begins.


A Sparrow’s Flight

‘And after all, the weather was ideal. We took the cable car right up to the top. Near Crans-

Montana. That’s what it’s called now, but it used to be Montana-sur-Sierre, back when she

and Murry were there.’

Molly found herself between two women, one of whom was describing a recent trip to Swit-

zerland. A loose scoop of hair, pinned back, threatened to unravel as she talked, but her dark

fringe, thick and straight, was unmoved, slicing across her forehead high above her eye-

brows. She flashed dark eyes at Molly, briefly, and seemed to catch her shadow self, the one

Molly had discovered she could hide. The other woman was her own mother, eager, nod-

ding. They were speaking across her, the way grown-ups often did, and it was true she hard-

ly seemed to be there. The curve of the brown seat was not quite shaped to her body, or was

it her body that was not quite curved to the seat? Molly wasn’t sure. She’d have liked her

body to be more curved, she knew that. After all, she was twelve, nearly thirteen. Her mother

had brought her along to this talk – a Birthday Party she’d called it – but what kind of party

was it where you had to sit in rows?

‘The mountain air was sharp and clean. I felt so alive,’ the woman was saying, a ghost of

perfume hanging around her. ‘I can see why Mansfield loved it so much up there.’

The room was humming. When they’d first come in, Molly had noticed a table, wide as an

altar, at the front. Behind it, the first-floor windows reached up from floor to ceiling, framing

the trees outside. Carousels of small cakes waited on another table at the back of the room,

piped with swirls of icing, pale as sugared almonds, pink, green, yellow. But now the seats

her mother had chosen carefully, three rows from the front, were being closed in by a forest

of bodies, and coats flung onto chairs. Molly couldn’t see anything. She looked up. The plas-

terwork ceiling shimmered like a wedding cake.

‘The ones on each side are the novelists,’ said her mother – the ones they had come to hear.

But even when she sat as high as she could, Molly could only just see the tops of their heads.

A woman in blue was standing between them, her silver earrings gleaming like coins.

Afternoon light glanced across the room, pale on a gilt frame above the fireplace. Molly

traced the patterns of its gold carving with her eye.

‘That painting’s by Vanessa Bell, Virginia Woolf’s sister,’ said her mother. ‘It’s a very natu-ral scene. That’s why the colours are so muted. Can you see the barns?’ Why was she al-

ways trying to educate Molly? ‘Virginia Woolf’s the one who’s famous for saying that

Mansfield was the only writer she’d ever been jealous of. Remember?’

Molly ignored her. Mansfield. Woolf. Bell. Her mother was always name-dropping. ‘Let’s

go to the theatre to see the new Chekhov production. Let’s go to the Bloomsbury exhibition

at the Courtauld.’ Let’s not, thought Molly. None of her friends’ mothers were into this

The Third Annual KMS Birthday Lecture took place on Sunday October 14th 2012 in the glorious surroundings of Keynes Library, Gordon Square, London. KM aficionados gathered to hear Salley Vickers and Ali Smith (chaired by Susan Sellers) speak about ‘The Legacy of Katherine Mansfield’, and celebrate KM’s birthday over tea and cakes and ices! The occasion inspired KMS member Les-ley Sharpe to respond to the legacy of Katherine Mansfield in the form of a short story of her own, which the KMS Newsletter is pleased to share with all members below.


stuff. They all went out to Nando’s, or the cinema. Or shopping. Molly had only come be-

cause a) she wanted to wear her new hat and b) she wanted to avoid her homework. But it

was mainly the hat. It was soft, rose pink, cabled, and she wore it carefully with just a curl of

brown hair showing at each side of her face, pinned to her cheeks. Her eyes looked bigger,

deeper, framed this way. She’d caught sight of herself in the hall mirror before they’d left

home, and seen the blush of pleasure reflected there. In that moment she’d almost forgotten

where they were going, had forgotten to be angry. And the image had hung in her mind as

she walked along beside her mother, a reality confirmed in the reflection she glimpsed in

every shop window they had passed.

Small booklets were still being handed out at the door.

‘They’ve printed the talk, so you’ll be able to follow it more easily,’ her mother said. ‘The

women on each side are giving the talks. They’re both novelists.’

They could have been zebras for all Molly cared. ‘You’ve already told me that. And what’s

the point of reading what they’re saying? When I’m sitting here?’ It wasn’t like missing

Chemistry and having to work out from her friend Lucy’s hopeless notes what had hap-

pened. And wasn’t it supposed to be a party? ‘What are they going to talk about anyway?

And when’s it going to start?’

‘You need to be patient. Wait and see.’ Her mother, fluffed out in a pale green angora cardi-

gan, was scanning the room.

Molly knew from experience that middle-aged authors always spoke about their childhoods.

Their favourite books. Sooner or later. They used words like legacy. Influence. Molly hoped

it wouldn’t start that way. But secretly, so secretly she hardly knew it herself, she also hoped

that the aquarium effect would end – that she would somehow find herself inside this world

of books and words, instead of looking at it.

***

Ten minutes. Five more. One of the Novelists jumped up, hands tucked in the pockets of her

jeans, then out, gesturing, arms flung forward. There was something mercurial and unpre-

dictable about her that alarmed Molly, as if she seemed ready to jump onto life and nab it,

like a wriggling thing, even wrestle it to the ground.

‘I was thinking…shall we just start?’ she said. ‘Even if not everyone’s here …’

But someone had arrived with news from the world below.

‘Piccadilly Line…someone under a train…all the usual delays…’

The words passed like a rumour round the room, and vanished.

Someone under a train – but who? The horror of it filled Molly’s mind, like the toll of a bell

that just kept on reverberating, and wouldn’t stop. She looked round urgently. Her mother

was smoothing her black silk skirt, and picking off the tiny flecks of green angora that had

strayed there.

‘Well, let’s start anyway,’ said a voice. And they did! The door was closed as if a train was

just about to depart, as if a silent whistle had been blown, and the lady in the blue dress drew

herself up – was an aria about to burst out? – and beamed. The jostling of bodies was stilled,

the whispering ceased. The party had begun. Confused, Molly read the title of the booklet:

The Legacy of Katherine Mansfield. There were anecdotes. Someone had found unknown stories, someone else had a box of let-

ters, pictures, recipes, pressed flowers. Molly thought of her own diary at home. She also


drew pictures in it, and wrote about her day. She had a section at the back: Questions I would

like to know the answers to. These were things she hadn’t been able to look up on Google,

questions that wouldn’t go away, like, what will I feel like in two years’ time? Or four, or

six. The future always presented a blank face when she tried to peer at it. Underneath she had

penned possible answers, and set herself one goal: I will have a boyfriend by the time I am

fourteen.

Outside the blue autumn sky was floating. Leaves spread themselves out in the low light.

And the aquarium effect began: words were swimming past, clustered in phrases like shoals

of little fish.

‘One of the greatest short story writers in the English language… witch-like cruelty…’

But one story she caught whole. She loved the picture of Carson McCullers reading Mans-

field’s stories so often that the library copies had fallen apart. She couldn’t imagine doing it

herself, but began to feel she could follow what was being said.

Now the First Novelist was standing up, her hair falling slightly across her face, shoulder

length. Small flowers had scattered themselves on her dress, their tiny blooms light on the

dark cloth. She was reading from her script, calm, poised, like someone who was presenting

a problem, and solving it at the same time. The effect was almost invisible, just as sugar slid

off a spoon into hot tea and vanished, but changed its taste all the same. The Novelist was

describing herself winning reading competitions at school, or wearing high heels, make up

hidden in her bag. Picking up boys. Molly looked closely. Another author with a faraway

childhood.

Molly thought of her own stilettos, hidden at Lucy’s house. She’d found them in a charity

shop but didn’t dare take them home. But Lucy’s mum didn’t mind what she wore, didn’t

even keep track of what Lucy had, unlike her own mother. She thought of the make-up they

put on carefully in the back of the bus, high on laughter, high on the top deck, naming the

boys they hoped would notice them. But even as she saw these things (the slash of red lip-

stick across Lucy’s pale face like a wound) the Novelist’s voice moved into her conscious-

ness again. ‘Your heart will ache, ache…because no one wants to kiss you now.’

The words brushed her skin, tragic, whole.

‘…the greater doom is not merely that life takes us ineluctably towards death…’

Her mother passed the booklet and pointed to the place on the page. ‘Ineluctably,’ she whis-

pered. ‘Something you can’t avoid or escape.’

‘Like homework?’

‘Sort of. More like, um, fate. Shhh. You’ll miss the next bit.’

But Molly’s eyes had travelled back up the page, catching again on the same words. ‘Your heart will ache, ache…because no one wants to kiss you now.’ No one? Why not? But now she realised these were words quoted from a story, by Mans-

field, of course. They weren’t real, but for a moment she’d forgotten the Novelist actually

speaking.

Absorbed, she followed the text at her own speed in a parallel universe. Then sounds touched

her again, and although the words seemed to live at the edge of her hearing, like a pale echo

(no matter how hard she reached for them), she felt them with a new kind of closeness.

‘She survives this first wounding and it will not be mortal. But to the reader the world she has entered, which has seemed through the prism of her untried adult consciousness, so vari-ous, so beautiful, so new, is transformed into a darker, much more dangerous place.’


Prism sounded like prison, but when Molly thought about it harder, she could see rays of

colour fanning out.

The leaves outside were more dappled in the longer light, the tree bark reptilian. The Novel-

ist was still reading from her papers.

‘Mansfield knew, with the Venerable Bede, that life is a sparrow’s flight through a great hall.’ A sparrow’s flight. The words swooped across the sky of her mind, forming tiny black wings

drawn in ink. There was a symmetry in it all Molly couldn’t quite grasp, but she thought of

the person under the train. She remembered that they had come on the Piccadilly line, she

and her mother, without any delay, because it hadn’t happened yet. While they’d been travel-

ling, had someone, that someone, been thinking about it? Someone who later had actually

jumped in front of a train, stepping over the long yellow line on the platform – she remem-

bered looking at it herself, seeing the thick, glossed paint, the way it invited rebellion, the

way boundaries did, just by being boundaries. She’d seen the metallic rails, trailing away

like shiny strands of liquorice into the dark tunnels. Mice scurrying, camouflaged by soot

and dirt. But she hadn’t thought of jumping. She had just imagined standing perilously close

to the edge. Would the train have rushed past her then, galvanising her with the force of air,

electric energy, life?

But that person, whom none of them knew, had had the courage, if it was courage. Molly

wasn’t sure. Something would have stopped her, even if she’d had the idea. She hadn’t even

been able to jump off the middle board of the swimming pool. It had quivered so much under

her feet, her careful movement along it to its end creating so much more vibration, that she

hadn’t been able to steady herself to leap into the water. Had this person felt that quiver in

their feet, and done what she could not imagine being able to do?

But now the Novelist was describing ‘a sense of the marvellous which lies ready to spring out at us from the quotidian world…which, typically for Mansfield, resists any explanation.’

Molly was getting lost again.

‘Mum, quotidian?’

‘Things that happen every day. Nothing you’d normally make a fuss about.’

Like the person under the train? ‘That covers most things,’ was all Molly said.

‘Well, things just being themselves. The way they just are,’ said her mother. ‘And maybe

suddenly feeling special, when you least expect it.’

‘…as though you’d swallowed a bright piece of the late afternoon sun and it burned in your bosom, sending out a little shower of sparks into every particle, into every finger and toe.’ Outside the windows, autumn light was netted in leaves, wide and flat as open hands. Closer

now than her own skin.

***

Now the Other Woman was up, talking about cats. They had names like Wing and Charlie

Chaplin, and they seemed to be in her story. Or was she talking about Mansfield, who’d

owned these cats? Molly struggled to find her place in the booklet. She thought of the cakes

still sitting at the back of the room. As if alert to the movement of her thought, Molly’s

mother was handing her a Starburst from her pocket. Molly ran her nail under the waxed pa-

per, folded tightly like a little envelope, and levered it up. She wondered how long it took to

wrap all the sweets. The stickiness of the sweet glued itself to her tongue, then her teeth, as it


began to dissolve. Pink.

The Second Novelist was speaking fast, her dark brown hair swinging as she grew and

transformed into the character whose story she was telling, someone who was batting words

with another, invisible, person.

‘sepulchral…you know what sepulchral means, you’d say. Yeah obviously, I’d say, everyone knows what sepulchral means.’

Molly turned the remaining strand of sugar in her mouth.

‘Sepulchral – gloomy, melancholy,’ her mother said, passing another sweet. Green. ‘Death

and tombs.’

But Molly didn’t need to know. There were some words you could feel, without knowing

what they meant. They were instinctively dramatic.

The Second Novelist spoke fast, her Scottish accent rolling round words, pinning them in

place, marking each with its own distinction. It was like one of those poems they’d made up

at school where you could take up the whole page, and let the words form themselves into

loops that moved around at will, or shaped themselves in imitation of the thing they were

describing – a bird’s wing, or the coil of a snail shell, or a spiral or waves. In this river of

words, Molly was carried, mesmerised, words glinting, yes, like little fish, but silver in the

late afternoon light. Outside the leaves were glistening too with a new seriousness, their

bronze hue deeper, more significant, but signifying what? Molly couldn’t say.

‘Supposing, she said, ones bones were not bone but liquid light.’ Molly seemed to float inside the image, as the story wrapped itself around her.

‘Though the park was full of people it was like there was nobody left in it either.’ ‘Molly, are you alright?’ Her mother was prodding her gently, and pointing to a paragraph

in the booklet. But Molly wasn’t sure whether she’d been miles away, or whether she felt

more fully here. She knew from inside the hard stone of the fireplace, the texture of the coat

in front of her, the close weave of its fibres ridged by twists of brown wool. A scarf trailed

from another seat, scattered with little hummingbirds, whose wings almost lifted off the silk

with a secret life of their own. Life is a sparrow’s flight through a great hall. Each wing was

inked in with a closeness Molly knew she would never forget. But the thick colour of the

walls – was it blue, green? Molly would be unable to remember afterwards, but she would

feel the density of its pigment searing her, even in memory. There had been cake too, of

course, and the popping of champagne corks flying out unaided when someone mentioned

‘the bliss moment’.

Life was, life was…but what life was, Molly couldn’t say.

Lesley Sharpe

London, UK

To purchase your own record of events in the form of the KMS Birthday Booklet for the bargain price of £4/€5/NZD$8 (including P&P), please visit the KMS shop online: http://www.katherinemansfieldsociety.org/2012-birthday-lecture-booklet/


KMS Birthday Lecture 2012 ‘The Legacy of Katherine Mansfield’ Speakers: Salley Vickers and Ali Smith

Chair: Susan Sellers Sunday 14th October 2012, Keynes Library, Gordon Square, London


Katherine Mansfield’s Thorndon

Although over one hundred years have passed since Katherine Mansfield lived in Welling-

ton, a surprisingly large number of buildings and locations that were familiar to her, and that

inspired some of her stories, are still in existence and preserved in a relatively unchanged

state. In Karori the property known as ‘Chesney Wold’ that her family rented from 1893 to

1899 is still in existence. It was the location for ‘Prelude’ and several of Mansfield’s other

stories. However, it is much changed, with verandas and balconies removed and several

houses built on the extensive gardens, orchards and paddocks that surrounded the house.

From the house you may take the same walk that Katherine and her sisters would have made,

of approximately one mile along Karori Road to the School on the corner of Donald Street.

The original block of three classrooms was demolished in 1981, but there is a memorial to

Katherine in the playground, and it is possible to imagine the scene, as children sat under the

trees eating their lunch, described in ‘The Doll’s House’.

Eastbourne, the setting for ‘At the Bay’ is another area well worth a visit, whether one trav-

els around the harbour by car or bus, or across it on the ferry, as Katherine and her family did

on the Duchess or Ducco. Both the house at Muritai Road, which the family rented for sum-

mer holidays from 1899, and the cottage at Number 3 Marine Drive that Katherine’s father

had built on Downes Point at the northern end of Days Bay in 1905, are still in existence. As

with ‘Chesney Wold’ these properties have undergone change and several other properties

have been built around them, but some of the charm and atmosphere of ‘Crescent Bay’ may

still be appreciated.

The suburb of Thorndon, where three of the houses that Katherine and her family lived were

located, is the focus of this article. It includes several buildings and sites that were familiar to

Mansfield and figured in her stories. It is possible to devise a variety of walks that take in

many of these locations and the one I am describing begins and ends at her Birthplace, at 25

(formally 11) Tinakori Road.

This house was built for Harold Beauchamp in 1887 for a sum slightly in excess of 400

pounds. It has had several owners since the family sold it in 1893. The Katherine Mansfield

Birthplace Society is now responsible for the property. They maintain the house and its gar-

den in excellent order and have added many interesting features and displays associated with

Katherine Mansfield and her family. The story ‘A Birthday’ is set in the house and surround-

ing area. It describes the morning of Katherine’s own birth, if we ignore the German names

and the little twist at the end. Chapter 2 of ‘Prelude’ also describes Katherine’s last memories

of the house, as Kezia wanders from room to room waiting for the cart to convey her and her

sister Lottie to Karori.

We now take a short detour down Tinakori Road to the zigzag, which leads to the Esplanade

(now called Thorndon Quay). We are following in the footsteps of Laura (Katherine) and her

brother, as described in the final passages of ‘The Wind Blows’. One can almost guarantee

Wellington will provide suitable atmospheric conditions to accompany a reading.


Retracing our steps up the zigzag and along Tinakori Road past the Birthplace we turn left

into Hobson Street, proceed across the motorway bridge and cross the road to ‘Katherine

Mansfield Park’ on the right hand side of Fitzherbert Terrace.

There are many associations with Katherine in the park, including a memorial to her and a

plaque commemorating Fitzherbert Terrace School (sometimes referred to as Miss Swain-

son’s) that she and her sisters attended from 1900 to 1903. The school later moved to Karori,

where it became Marsden College. On the left side of Fitzherbert terrace is Katherine Ave-

nue and at the far end is the United States Embassy, which is built on the site of Katherine’s

last home in New Zealand, before she departed for England in 1908.

We take a short cut along a pathway in front of the Embassy to Murphy Street and make our

way east towards the city centre. On our left, near the corner of Pipitea Street we see the en-

trance to Wellington Girls’ College, which Katherine and her sisters attended from 1898 to

1900. Unfortunately none of the original buildings remain. We now proceed into Mulgrave

Street. On our left is the impressive wooden church now known as ‘Old St Pauls’ where

Katherine and her family attended services. It is well worth a visit.

Continuing along Mulgrave Street past the National Archives Building we cross the road to

the Thistle Inn, often described as New Zealand’s oldest Public House. We may enjoy a fine

lunch in the dining room where Katherine Mansfield dined and where there is a poem on the

wall that she donated. At a more leisurely pace, we retrace our steps back up Mulgrave Street

and turn left into Aitken Street. When we reach the corner of Aitken and Molesworth Streets

we may observe (or visit) the National Library, which houses a large collection of Katherine

Mansfield’s original manuscripts, letters, journals and memorabilia.

Across the road, on the corner of Molesworth Street and Hill Street is the General Assembly

Library that also served as a public library in Katherine Mansfield’s time. She was a frequent

visitor and there is a record of the various books that she borrowed using her ‘reader’s tick-

et.’ Further down Molesworth Street the former Government Building (now housing the Vic-

toria University Law School) may be seen on the opposite side of Lambton Quay. It is one of

the world’s largest wooden buildings and was constructed of timber at a time when earth-

quakes were still fresh in the memory. Katherine Mansfield described sheltering under one

of the cabbage trees in its grounds during a rainstorm. Further up Lambton Quay on the cor-

ner of Willis Street is the former head office of the Bank of New Zealand, where her father’s

secretary typed up some of her earliest published stories (presumably with his permission).

We now proceed up Hill Street, past the Catholic Cathedral, and turn right up Guildford Ter-

race to the grounds of St Mary’s College. This is the short cut that Katherine often took after

visiting the library, and where she sat one day listening to a music student receiving tuition

from one of the nuns. It was the setting for the story she later wrote titled ‘Taking the Veil’.

Retracing our steps down Guildford Terrace and proceeding along Hill Street we reach its

intersection with Tinakori Road. On the opposite side of Tinakori Road is Premier House

where the Prime Minister of the time, Sir Joseph Ward, held a farewell party for Katherine

before her departure for Britain in 1908. Further up this road are Wellington’s Botanical Gar-

dens, which Katherine often visited and which were also referred to in ‘Taking the Veil’.


Leaving the gardens for a future visit, we proceed down Tinakori Road, past the Hawkstone

Street intersection to a railed walkway, located in a depression alongside the road. This was

the site of Little George Street, where ‘the narrow lane with mean little dwellings’ described

in ‘The Garden Party’ was located.

Overlooking this walkway, on the opposite side of the road stood the ‘big white-painted

square house with a slender pillared verandah and balcony running all the way around it.’

This was the setting for the ‘Garden Party’ at 75 Tinakori Road and was Katherine Mans-

field’s residence in Wellington from 1899 to 1907. Sadly it had to be demolished, along with

many other houses, to make way for motorway development.

We will have to rely upon photographs and our imagination to visualise the scene and also to

imagine the variety of horse-drawn traffic, including the ‘dreadful jolting busses’ drawn by

three horses that passed up and down Tinakori Road in Katherine’s day. However we will

pass many of the same houses that Katherine would have observed, although they are no

longer ‘all painted white with red rooves’, as we make our way down the road to our starting

and finishing point at Katherine’s Birthplace.

Kevin Boon

Wellington

Katherine Mansfield Plaque, Wellington Writer’s Walk 2002 Photographer Unknown

Delegates at the ‘Katherine Mansfield: Masked and Unmasked’ conference, to be held in Wellington in February 2013, will have an opportunity to accompany Kevin on a similar walking tour of some of KM’s Wellington haunts.


KM Comes to Glebe Report on The Case of Katherine Mansfield by Cathy Downes Sydney Fringe Festival September 2012, at Mr Falcon’s, Glebe

New Zealand-born Sydney-based actress Rosanna Easton wanted to bring the Sydney Fringe

festival to her suburb, so she approached the folk at Mr Falcon’s and asked if she could put

on a show about her idol, Katherine Mansfield, upstairs in their little bar in Sydney’s

scruffy, bohemian inner west. The venue was an inspired choice—set in a Victorian terrace,

the little room is painted a faded purplish grey and old floorboards groan underfoot. A juliet

balcony looks out onto Glebe’s main drag—early in the piece a youthful KM flings the

doors open and calls out into the busy street. The show was a hit: the audience crammed in,

clutching their drinks, with many left standing around the periphery. During the perfor-

mance we hear the far-off sound of fireworks. The

fusion of old and new is perfect for a play about a

figure like Mansfield, whose voice is at once fixed

in a time now past, yet still refreshingly bold.

The Case of Katherine Mansfield, written and first

performed in the 1970s by Kiwi playwright Cath-

erine Downes, is a one-woman show composed

entirely of notebook entries, letters and stories

written by Mansfield herself. As such, the play

poses a challenge to any would-be performer, es-

pecially since the original has such a decidedly

complex personality, and whose language is char-

acterized by nuanced rhythm and subtle tone.

Easton told me that getting this right was one of

her foremost concerns in bringing the writing to

life. The play weaves KM’s words, both published

and personal, in such a way as to give the audi-

ence a sense of her staggering talent, as well as

the tragic shortness of her life, brought home with

some spine-chilling coughing fits from Easton. A

layered electric cello accompaniment from Sime-

on Johnson, developed collaboratively in rehearsals, and the updating of the poses called for

in the play (notably the ‘Mushroom Pose’, which physically echoes KM’s comparison of

true and false love with mushrooms and toadstools) proved clever and enriching additions to

the original play. Hearing Mansfield’s exquisite prose performed onstage is a treat, and this

production succeeded in showing the continuing relevance of her work and life.

Helen Rydstrand

University of New South Wales, Australia

Directed by Ashley Hawkes Cast: Rosanna Easton as Katherine Mansfield; Alex Bryant-Smith as John Middleton Murry

Cello: Simeon Johnson.

Helen Rydstrand and Rosanna Easton


Katherine Mansfield’s Other Passion

Had Katherine Mansfield continued to pursue her other artistic passion after 1908, chances

are that major parts of her biography would have to be rewritten. Many of Mansfield’s read-

ers are aware that several of her stories contain hints as to the significant part that music

played in her artistic and personal development. It is a little known fact, however, that she

herself was a very accomplished cello player who was well familiar with contemporary com-

positions for the instrument. She even contemplated becoming a professional cellist. It is

thanks to the musical duo Martin Griffiths (cello) and Christine Griffiths (piano) that a wider

New Zealand audience will be familiarized with this fascinating facet of Katherine Mans-

field’s life and work. The two outstanding musicians perform an homage to Katherine Mans-

field and late 19th century cello music entitled Katherine Mansfield, Cellist. They gave the

first concert of Katherine Mansfield, Cellist on 21 September at the Gallagher Academy of

Performing Arts at the University of Waikato. On the occasion of the 125th anniversary of

Katherine Mansfield’s birthday next year, there are more concerts to follow in Wellington

and in Cambridge.

The programme for Katherine Mansfield, Cellist is comprised of pieces by European com-

posers David Popper (Warum? from ‘Maskenball Szene’ Op. 3 No. 2), Léon Boëllmann

(Variations Symphonique Op. 23), Georg Goltermann (Alla Polka) and Antonín Dvořák

(Waldesruhe/Silent Woods Op. 68 No. 5), as well as New Zealand composer Arnold Trowell

(Serenade Op. 20; Chanson Triste Op. 22m; Barcarolle Op. 20; Waltz Scherzo Op. 52 No 1;

Le Rappell des Oiseaux Op. 3 No. 2). Popper’s Warum?, the Goltermann Polka and Boëll-

mann’s Variations are all mentioned in Katherine Mansfield’s 1904 Notebook.

Mansfield studied the cello since at least her student days at Wellington Girls’ College

(1899). On her first stay in Europe between 1903 and 1906 she met often with fellow New

Zealander Arnold Trowell. A gifted cellist and composer, Arnold Trowell encouraged her to

pursue the instrument. During her return to New Zealand in 1906 Katherine Mansfield at-

tended cello lessons with Arnold’s father Thomas Trowell in Wellington. It was not until

1908 when her writing became increasingly important to her that Katherine Mansfield

stopped her dedicated practice of the instrument. She planned to take up the instrument again

shortly before her death, when she moved to George Gurdjieff's ‘Institute for the Harmoni-

ous Development of Man’ in Fontainebleau in October 1922.

On Friday 21st September 2012, Martin Griffiths and Christine Griffiths paid tribute to Katherine Mansfield and Arnold Trowell with a programme of music at the Whare Gallagher Academy of Per-forming Arts, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. Senior Lecturer at the University of Waikato Norman P. Franke shares his thoughts on this event below. In addition, Martin recently appeared on Radio New Zealand with a special programme on Arnold Trowell. To access the show, please visit: http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/programmes/appointment/audio/2539231/arnold-trowell-cellist-from-the-colonies


In 1923, Katherine Mansfield’s friend Millie Parker recalled:

Windy days and a cello is my first impression of Kass Beauchamp (Katherine Mans-

field), for it was in Wellington and for trio practices that we met. A neighbour, whose

sons were at that time studying music in Brussels, had received a composition from

one of the boys, (I refer to the now noted cellist Mr Arnold Trowell) a trio for violin,

cello and piano. Kass Beauchamp came with her cello, I was asked to help with the

piano part, and with the proud parent of the young composer playing the violin, some

tremendous practicing was done. And so a delightful acquaintance began. … [F]rom

that time until seas came between us, Kass brought her cello to our home every

Thursday morning without fail. [Cited in Mantz 1933, 250]

The Griffiths’ Katherine Mansfield programme is both an artistic and an intellectual treat.

All pieces are expertly performed by a duo that masters the dramatic as well as the lyrical

passages of the often quite challenging pieces with confidence and ease. Bringing the excit-

ing transitional period of (Western) Classical Music between late Romanticism and Modern-

ism to life, they succeed to such an extent that the audience finds itself transported into the

early 20th century Wellington and London salons and drawing rooms in which Katherine

Mansfield and her artistic friends held their concerts and discussions.

As principal cellist of the Opus Orchestra (Waikato/Bay of Plenty), Martin Griffiths also

performs with Waikato Baroque and Kowhai Baroque. He has appeared as soloist with Uni-

versity of Maine Orchestra (Orono) and with the Auckland Symphony Orchestra. He teaches

the cello at the University of Waikato, at Hillcrest High School in Hamilton and St Peter’s

School in Cambridge. Christine Griffiths studied performance piano at Auckland University.

Together with her husband and tenor David Griffiths, she has performed on recital tours in

New Zealand, Europe, America and China. Christine is a recording artist for Concert FM.

Christine and David have promoted the music of New Zealand composers such as Douglas

Lilburn, David Farquhar and Chris Marshall.

The Katherine Mansfield, Cellist programme strikes a careful balance between the rendition

of the period pieces and spoken interludes in which Martin provides the audience with back-

ground information about the biography of Katherine Mansfield and the composers whose

music she played. Based on his own scholarly research, Martin’s concise introductions to the

pieces enable the audience to contextualize them within the framework of European and

New Zealand history and cultural politics of the time, thus empowering the audience to be-

come active listeners or even ‘informed listeners’ in the sense of Adorno’s typology of mu-

sic listeners.

Although it seems impossible to draw direct links between individual pieces of music that

Katherine Mansfield played or was interested in as a cellist, and the texts that she wrote at

the time, one cannot but wonder how, on a general level, the superbly crafted and often very

subtle suspense of her musical repertoire impacted on her writing.

Katherine Mansfield’s repertoire was comprised of the music of a wide range of contempo-

rary composers. Prague-born David Popper (1841-1913) was an outstanding virtuoso who

had performed with the likes of Johannes Brahms and Leopold Godowsky and with the Ber-


lin Philharmonic under Hans von Bülow. His instructional pieces, particularly his ‘Hohe

Schule des Violoncellospiels’ (High School of Cello Playing), are still used for the training

of young cellists today. He was the principal cellist at the Vienna Hofoper before he ob-

tained a teaching position at the Budapest Conservatory’s string department. In Europe he is

remembered for both his seminal cello concertos and his light music. Georg Goltermann

(1824-1898), who concluded his career as the Kapellmeister (Main Director) at the munici-

pal theatre at Frankfurt am Main, was another well-known composer at his time with his

Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 14 being one of the most played pieces for cello and piano

in the early 1900s. Best-known today for his Suite Gotique, Paris-based Léon Boëllmann

(1862-1897) was a renowned artist whose fame had spread beyond the borders of France in

the late 1880s. Martin Griffiths is convinced that the fact that Katherine Mansfield could

play Boëllmann’s Variations requires her biographers to reconsider the date when she actu-

ally started to play the cello, as the piece is so complex and difficult to perform that it seems

obvious that she must have taken up cello-lessons well before her time at Wellington Girls’

College. As Martin Griffiths also pointed out in the concert, it is a little known fact that both

Katherine Mansfield and Arnold Trowell greatly admired the music of Antonín Dvořák.

The programme of Katherine Mansfield, Cellist has a special focus on the artistic and per-

sonal relationship between Katherine Mansfield and Arnold Trowell, as Martin Griffiths

wrote his University of Waikato PhD on the life and music of Arnold Trowell. Like David

Popper, Wellington-born Arnold Trowell (1887-1966) wrote a significant number of peda-

gogical compositions that have stood the test of time. Having spent his student days in Brus-

sels and Frankfurt, Trowell was also well aware of musical developments in French- and

German-speaking Europe in the first half of the 20th century. As a Professor of Cello at the

Guildhall School of Music and the Royal College of Music, Trowell recorded frequently

with the BBC. It is to be hoped that Martin Griffiths’ academic re-discovery of this im-

portant composer and pedagogue will soon be available in book form. In the meantime,

those interested in Arnold Trowell may refer to a forthcoming article in the next issue of

Crescendo: the newsletter of the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and

Documentation Centres, (New Zealand) Inc (see http://www.iaml.info/IamlNZ/).

Martin Griffiths’ programme Arnold Trowell: Colonial Cellist and Composer was broadcast

by Radio New Zealand Concert on Wednesday 5 December at 7pm, and is now available on

the Radio New Zealand website for on-demand listening. Martin’s work at the intersection

of music and literature and the cultural transfer between New Zealand and European cultures

cannot be praised enough. Nor can his work as a cello teacher. Martin has contributed to the

development of many outstanding cellists including students with social and intellectual dis-

abilities.

Norman P. Franke

University of Waikato, New Zealand

Don’t forget to enter this issue’s competition to win a copy of Martin Griffiths’ cd, Cello for a Song: Music by Arnold Trowell 1887-1996! For full details, turn to page 2.


Conference Report ‘Katherine Mansfield Symposium’

22-23 September 2012 Crans-Montana, Switzerland

‘The cleanliness of Switzerland! It is frightening. The chastity of my lily-white bed! The waxy-fine floors! The

huge bouquet of white lilac, fresh, crisp from the laundry, in my little salon! Every daisy in the grass below has a starched frill—the very bird-droppings are dazzling.’

KM to JMM from Baugy, Switzerland (7 May 1921)

Sadly, tuberculosis brought Katherine Mansfield to Switzerland towards the end of her life,

in 1921 and 1922. This year, the Katherine Mansfield Symposium followed her footsteps to

the beautiful resort of Crans-Montana. Mansfield spent four months in hotels in Montreux,

on Lake Geneva, and Sierra, in the valley below Crans-Montana, and several more months

with JMM. at the Chalet des Sapins in Montana. While in Switzerland, Mansfield worked on

some of her most celebrated stories, including ‘At the Bay,’ ‘The Doll’s House’ and ‘The

Garden Party.’ Among many topics, this year’s Symposium explored Mansfield’s time in

Switzerland, and pondered what it was about Switzerland that drew her to such reminis-

cences of her New Zealand childhood.

The weekend began with a wonderful welcome in Māori by Witi Ihimaera and by the New

Zealand Am-

bassador to the United Nations, Her Excellency, Dell Higgie. Witi and Dell delightfully set

the stage for the Symposium, and the opening concluded with singing, with extra energy

supplied by Jan Kemp. Witi’s keynote speech later on in the day, ‘Aimez-Vous Mansfield?’,

addressed his Dear Miss Mansfield and the relationship between Mansfield and Māori writ-

ers.

As could be guessed, many of the papers during the weekend addressed Mansfield’s time in

Switzerland and the country’s impact on her work. Using Mansfield’s letters, Delia de Sousa

Correa explored the strange fact that Mansfield persisted in seeing Switzerland as ‘very Ger-

man,’ despite living in the Suisse Romande. Correa compared Mansfield’s comments on

Switzerland to her representations of Germany in the In a German Pension stories, showing

simultaneous veneration and distaste for both cultures, and also highlighting Mansfield’s

nostalgia at this period of her life. Correa discussed the fact that Switzerland would have

struck Mansfield as seeming much more German in comparison to the French Riviera she

had recently left, and would have triggered memories of her time in Germany and of speak-


ing the German language.

As mentioned above, a significant theme was the fact that

Mansfield wrote her famous stories about New Zealand

while living in France and Switzerland, and Alice Bailey

Cheylan spoke of the ways in which Mansfield wished to

return to New Zealand and how this was manifested in

her work and correspondence. Jan Kemp spoke on dislo-

cations of place, and read several of her own poems relat-

ing to Mansfield. Several participants proposed theories

for what, precisely, may have made Mansfield think of New Zealand in Switzerland—

perhaps Lake Geneva reminded her of the sea, or perhaps the ‘outsider’ status of Switzer-

land, or perhaps the alpine flowers.

A few talks addressed Mansfield’s relationship to other writers in terms of friendships, style,

influence, as well as what Mansfield herself was reading while in Switzerland. Ranjana

Banerjee spoke of the relationship between the life and work of Mansfield and Anton Che-

khov. Hannah Wen-Shan Shieh contributed to the fascinating topic of Mansfield’s connec-

tion to Chinese writers. In 1922, while Mansfield was briefly in London, a Chinese poet,

Zhimo Xu, was invited by Murry to visit her at their lodgings in Hampstead. Because of her

failing health, the meeting lasted only twenty minutes. However, Mansfield granted Xu the

right to translate her work into Chinese, and Xu introduced Chinese to her work, both

through his translations and through his own pieces. In 1923, he wrote not only ‘Elegy for

Mansfield’ but also an article recounting his meeting with Mansfield.

Eleonor Biber and Jennifer Walker both spoke on Mansfield and her cousin, Elizabeth von

Arnim. Both focused on their mutual love of music, and Biber noted how Mansfield com-

pared her cousin’s style to the music of Mozart—no small compliment! Walker expanded

upon this love of music in her ‘Musical Affinities’ talk, aligning the passion for musical

structure and rhythm to the love of gardening.

Though there were many highlights to this Symposium, the walk led by Jennifer Walker,

past Elizabeth von Arnim’s Chalet de Soleil and to the

Hôtel d’Angleterre, could not have been more beautiful.

Switzerland put on its Sunday best for us, charming us

with fields of crocuses, friendly cows and glorious moun-

tain views on our walk. Upon reaching the Hôtel

d’Angleterre, we had a lovely picnic lunch and meditated

on Mansfield’s time at the Hôtel, as well as the sorry state

of the Hôtel today.

Following our glorious picnic, our next panel shifted the

mood a bit, focusing closely on death. Continuing with the theme of death, Verita Sriritana’s

visually engaging presentation on Mansfield’s ‘The Fly’ and Woolf’s ‘The Death of the

Moth’ explored how their understanding of death was often pinned down (pun intended) by a

particular insect. The insects in both stories symbolize the struggle of life against the reality

of impending death. Drawing on Heideggerian notions of death, Sriritana argued that while


Woolf’s ‘moth’ reflects attempts to remember and ‘re-

member,’ or re-create the zest and energy for life by

means of writing and imagining, Mansfield’s ‘fly’ re-

flects an attempt to ‘dismember,’ or expose and under-

mine, the significance and sublimation of death. Janet

Wilson then spoke on ‘Mansfield’s “Rewriting of the

contract with death”: the years 1921-22,’ in which she

discussed Mansfield’s assessment of her own life during

her final years.

Angela Smith’s keynote speech, ‘Mansfield and Switzerland,’ served to crystallize many of

the topics touched upon during the first day of talks, and explored what Mansfield was read-

ing during the last two years of her life. Smith asked what Mansfield was reading about Switzerland and what she was reading while in Switzerland. As Banerjee explored earlier in

the day, Smith discussed Mansfield’s reading of Chekhov, and focused particularly on R.O.

Prowse’s A Gift of the Dusk, an account of a tubercular protagonist’s stay in a Switzerland

sanatorium. Mansfield was also reading Elizabeth von Arnim’s Vera (1921), and together,

Smith demonstrated that Mansfield’s reading was largely

about themes of death. The last keynote speech, presented

by Gerri Kimber, focused on Eastern mysticism, using

Zen philosophy as a way of reading Mansfield’s spiritual

journey. The book Mansfield was sent by Orage while

she was at the Chalet des Sapins in Switzerland was Cos-mic Anatomy and the Structure of the Ego, whose Eastern

mystic philosophy she would wholeheartedly embrace,

and which eventually led her to Fontainebleau and Gurd-

jieff. Kimber revealed how this Eastern mysticism had

been embraced by Mansfield years before. Her well-

received talk offered exciting possibilities for further re-

search in this area.

One of the loveliest parts of this Symposium was the ef-

fort on the part of the organizers to show us the greater

area around Crans-Montana. On the first day, we were

taken to lunch in Lens and treated to a traditional Valasian meal, complete with the region’s

excellent Dôle wine. On the Saturday evening, our conference dinner was a fabulous Swiss

meal in the beautiful wooden chalet of Le Bistrot des Ours. In addition to our Elizabeth Von

Arnim walk, we were also invited to tour the hotel Mansfield stayed in in Sierre, the Hôtel

Château de Belle Vue in Sierre, and were guided by the Mayor of Sierre no less.

Our sincere thanks to Simone Oettli and her family for all their hard work. Mansfield’s sen-

sitivity to place was an important part of her work, and it is wonderful that the Katherine

Mansfield Society is able to host conferences in locations such as Crans-Montana that were

so important to her life and work.

Alison Lacivita

Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland


Conference Report ‘Modernist Moves’ 7-8 December 2012 Brunel University

It was wonderful to see KM so well represented at a modernist conference—with three pa-

pers on KM (matching the tally for Eliot, Joyce, Lawrence and Woolf) and several KMS

members in attendance, including the conference organiser, Wendy Knepper. But given the

themes of the conference, KM’s profile is not surprising. In some ways, ‘Modernist Moves’

was a response to the grander ‘Moving Modernisms’ conference at the University of Oxford

earlier this year, but more tightly focused on affective responses to changes in senses of

place and spatial relations, smaller, and able to generate stimulating debates about the future

direction of modernist studies. The opening keynote address by Susan Stanford Friedman

immediately invited us to rethink the parameters of modernism as a planetary phenomenon

beyond the constraints of specific periods and locations, using a case study of the Mongol

Empire. Her forthcoming study, aptly titled Provocations: Modernist Studies for the Twenty-First Century, promises to be genuinely groundbreaking.

Accordingly, a number of papers stretched the received periodicity and geographies of

modernism to encompass: Greco-Turkish war refugee testimonial narratives (Christina

Britzolakis); Caribbean modernism (Gloria Maestripieri); and the ‘intermodernism’ of 1930s

poets (Robert Fraser, Nick Hubble, Siriol McAvoy). And if Andrew Thacker’s keynote

speech seemed to stray back towards the familiar territory of the modernist city in its consid-

eration of Bryher’s relationship with Berlin, his introduction of the concept of ‘geographical

emotions’ opened up new areas of enquiry about the affect of place. This second theme of

the conference—at times difficult to reconcile with the trajectory of equally suggestive phil-

osophical engagements (for instance, by William Watkin on Agamben, Badiou and Mandel-

stam, or Jane Goldman on Woolf, Derrida and Defoe)—was also explored by papers on

place and memoir (Rod Rosenquist), sentiment and transport in Flaubert and Joyce (Philip

Keel Geheber), emotional equilibrium and the trope of the tightrope walker (Susan Reid),

and a wonderful panel on the affects of language (Claire Davison-Pégon, Patricia Moran and

Erica L. Johnson).

The conference was notable, too, for productive comparisons between modernist authors and

the papers on KM were no exception: Jan Kemp spoke about resonances between KM and

Rilke, not least in her own poetry, Patricia Moran about homelessness in KM and Jean Rhys,

and Alison Lacivita on how KM, Lawrence and Joyce, among others, responded to Switzer-

land in their work. Other papers discussed writers who would also seem ripe for comparative

study with KM—Claire Davison-Pégon on Elsa Triolet, Siriol McAvoy on Lynette Roberts,

and Jane Goldman on Woolf’s response to islands—while emerging approaches to memoir

(Rosenquist) and literary geography (Daniel Weston) might also suggest fresh ways of locat-

ing Mansfield—altogether, a fertile area for new scholarship.

Susan Reid

Buckinghamshire, UK

final draft newsletter december 2012 · 2019. 3. 20. · if hugo becker and hugo heerman are in the...

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