The Lost Pilot on The Reading

— Posted inLiterature — 3 min read

Originally posted to mimismum.wordpress.com

Just listened to the last episode of “The Lost Pilot” the latest of “The Reading” collection on Radio New Zealand National Nine to Noon show. “The Lost Pilot” is the book by NZ author Jeffrey Paparoa Holman. The Radio NZ site description says, ‘A journey of discovery and reconciliation, when Jeffrey Holman seeks out the families of six kamikaze who died attacking his father’s ship in 1945.’

The audio for the reading (by Nigel Collins) will be available for next two weeks, until midnight of 14 March NZDST (11.oo GMT). It is excellent. Please have a listen.

I also intend to read the book. The library has some copies. But I think I will try to buy a copy. Listening to The Reading audio made me cry more than once. (You all know I’m a bit of a cry-baby, right?) I don’t want to mark a library copy with my tears.

My journey to “The Lost Pilot”
I started listening to the radio again some time last year. It was initially a partly missed program, an interview on the latest book by a local photographer Rob Suisted, who I follow on Twitter. I went to Radio NZ website to look for the audio of of the interview and was amazed by the vast collections of available audio (and them being available in .ogg!) After listening to Rob’ interview, I browsed more. And realised I had been missing out a lot. I became a regular Radio NZ listener.

In a month or so, NZ was abuzz with the news of Man-Booker Award short-listing of “The Luminaries“, a novel by a young kiwi author Eleanor Catton. There were a lot of segments on Catton and “The Luminaries” on Radio NZ (reviews, interviews, whatsnot). They were all good.  Then “The Luminaries” won the Man-Booker. More interviews and reviews. I became curious and wanted to read it. Of course the library copies were all out. Eventually I decided to by a copy myself. It was a very very very good read. (And a good value for money, too: 800+ pages for the price of 400 page book!)

After reading “The Luminaries” I got curious about other shortlisters. Then I saw the elibrary has “A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki and borrowed it. “A Tale for the Time Being” has several elements that hit rather close to home: the dark side of modern Japanese school life; the dark, horrific history of the WWII Japanese military deployment of students and their “training”, and the Tsunami. I found it a powerful read, personally.

So when I heard the tag line of the new book on “The Reading” last week, I was naturally intrigued. Seemed more than a coincidence. I listened episodes and I was captivated. I laughed, uttered a remark (to myself), cried, remarked again, laughed again and so on.

 I don’t know how you will find it when you listen to the audio. But I think the journey will be worth it. 

8 replies on “The Lost Pilot on The Reading”

  1. I, myself, am a cry baby, and I am sure that I would find myself weeping before “The Lost Pilot” was over. I am a big fan of audiobooks, too, but I am having the same problem right now that I was in getting my blog moved. I just don’t have much time to sit and listen right now. I would love to be able to download the audio so I could take it with me on my phone, but it looks like you have to use the website’s online javascript player. I am going to email myself the link, and maybe my phone browser can play it anyway.

    Dee got me a Spanish ebook for Christmas, “Africanus”. It is historical fiction set in Ancient Rome; Africanus is the Roman general who defeated Hanibal in his attempt to conquer Rome. I think the book is over 700 pages in its paper edition. Given its length and my level of Spanish fluency, I figure that I’ll be reading it forever. O.O Well, I might be exaggerating. The last I looked my Kindle told me that I was 13% of the way through. I do like the fact that I can just long-press on a Spanish word that I don’t know, and the Kindle will tell me the English translation. Plus I like reading about ancient times, so it also has that going for it. 🙂

    On the audiobook front, Bob and I have been listening to Zelazny’s “Chronicles of Amber” series. We’re in the third book; it’s really creative, and the narrator is doing a great job.

  2. Hi Deb,
    I hope you get around to listening to the audio. Nigel Colins’ reading style really shows off the rustic charm of “kiwi bloke talk”. I think you’ll enjoy it. Most Radio NZ audio collections are downloadable. Shame this one isn’t for a copyright reason. Maybe you can play it on speaker, and, if you happen to have an old school tape recorder or something like that going at the same time near the speaker, not many people will know about it, will they? :whistle:

    The “Africanus” sounds very interesting. I’m not that big on ancient history, but the Japanese translation of Hans Baumann’s “Ich zog mit Hannibal (I Marched with Hannibal)”, a story of a boy who rode a battle elephant for Hannibal, was one of my favourites from the primary school library. I think a good thing about ebooks is a long book doesn’t look as daunting as a printed version would. I managed the 800+ page “The Luminaries” surprisingly quickly, making full use of the dictionary function of the ereader.

    I loved the “Amber” series! Did you know Zelazny was also a master fighter, an expert in multiple schools of martial arts such as karate and aikido? Unfortunately when my family moved, my scifi book collection went missing along with a few other boxes of stuff belonged to other family members. Maybe it’s time I revisited Amber, this time in English. (Audio books sound interesting, too.)

    I’m thinking about doing another post on reading, but this time on my essential scifi reading list. Not sure how soon, but I’m fairly certain the list will include” Amber” 😉

  3. Well, I managed to blow it, MM … I got to “The Reading” almost 24 hours too late. Bummer.
    I started the Amber series, more years ago than I care to remember, but I could never find any others. By this time, I’m so damned old and crotchety that I just can’t hardly read any more … by the time I can go in to my comfortable chair (long story; don’t ask), it’s late, I’m tired, and I fall asleep after reading the same paragraph six times.

  5. @dW
    :awww: It’s a shame. I thought about pinging you earlier but forgot. I haven’t got around to buying the book yet either. I do intend to, though.

    Repeating the same paragraph sounds familiar. Recently I started reading aloud to myself a couple of pages when I get stuck in such a ringwanderung. The Luminaries’ text is good for that.

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