The
Axeman’s Carnival, by Catherine Chidgey.
‘The Axeman’s Carnival’ tells a story which may be all
too familiar to some: marital violence
perpetrated for distressingly common reasons:
a livelihood going down the tubes;
jealousy; loss of control (‘I’m
sorry! I’m sorry! It’ll never happen again!’) when the guilty
one has had ‘a skinful’, and a gradual build-up of resentment and rage so that
each destructive episode repeats itself sooner or later in varying degrees of
cruelty.
Catherine Chidgey doesn’t spare the reader as she
describes the lives of Rob and Marnie who farm sheep on a high country station
in Otago. Rob’s family have owned the
farm for generations, but it is losing money steadily, regardless of Rob’s 24/7
efforts to keep it afloat – no wonder he loses control and hits the missus
sometimes when he’s had a few; she has
no idea the pressure he’s under! Women
are pretty clueless all round, really, and look what she’s done – brought home
a bloody magpie that’s fallen out of its nest:
it’s just a hatchling, it’ll never survive (it certainly won’t if Rob’s
got anything to do with it!) and she should be out working instead of teaching
it words. Bloody women! Just because she lost a baby last year she’s
gone all clucky. It wasn’t really a baby
anyway, and Rob couldn’t help punching her – not his fault she had a
miscarriage!
Poor, anxious Marnie manages to stand firm, however, in
her determination to keep her little Magpie whom she baptises Tama, short for
Tamagotchi, but also Maori for boy or son, and Tama, who narrates this
beautiful, terrible story is well aware of the poisonous atmosphere in that
creaky, rotting old farmhouse, of the nine golden axes hanging above the
marital bed, and Rob’s overwhelming desire to win a tenth at the next Axeman’s
Carnival, sealing his reputation as the best Axeman ever.
Ironically, Tama’s facility for language – he can imitate
perfectly every human word with ease – earns him a huge following on Twitter,
thanks to Marnie thinking he would look cute in a selfie or two; in fact he becomes, thanks to his internet
following and eventual clever marketing, the saviour of the family finances. Rob will have to eat his words and curb his
impulses. But can he, especially with
his jealousy running rampant and a skinful consumed at the Axeman’s Carnival?
Ms Chidgey has excelled herself: in beautiful, lyrical language she tells a
savage story of Man the Wrecker against the Environment, elemental and
capricious, always battling each other.
Who will win, and at what cost?
And what happens to Rob, Marnie and the unbelievably intelligent and
hilarious Tama? There’s only one way to
find out – be the happy captive of this mighty story. SIX STARS.
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