NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / Lifestyle

Book review: The Bright Side of My Condition

By Elisabeth Easther
NZ Herald·
11 Apr, 2014 05:00 PM4 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Charlotte Randall has an incredible facility for creating worlds and making them her own.

Charlotte Randall has an incredible facility for creating worlds and making them her own.

The charming title of this book is a quotation from The Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe. It's rather fitting, considering it's about four convicts who escape from a Norfolk Island prison in the early 19th century and survive a period on the lam in Sydney, only to find themselves cast away on one of the Snares Islands, 200km south of the South Island.

This inhospitable island is really only suitable for seals and penguins, yet these four convicts are deposited on it with a cooking pot and a few potatoes, which wisely they plant. The captain of the ship didn't have food enough for stowaways but promised to be back within the year to collect them - and their only real instruction while on the island, aside from staying alive, is to try seal culling.

A decade later they are rescued, but it's the intervening years that form the narrative, during which time alliances form and relationships fracture.

Based on a true story, the four men do whatever they must to survive on this Godforsaken island at the bottom of the world.

One takes the role of leader and is also a dab hand at clubbing seals; another cooks, doing what he can with the monotonous food sources; a third declaims and brags and minces about while dabbling in tasks; and Bloodworth, our narrator, collects firewood and sews clothes from seal skin - a vitally important role. Liberated yet hardly free, bit by bit their stories emerge and sometimes, even, confessions are made.

To stay sane, Bloodworth spends a lot of time away from the camp, studying the natural world, which he finds fascinating, but the others do not like this. They find it queer and start to accuse him of things - of going mad, or plotting a revolution. And when he steals a few green potatoes in the hopes of getting some sort of high, the others take advantage of his transgression and punish him, confining him to a solitary cell, a hole dug in the ground. Despite them all being convicted prisoners, the moral high ground is greedily taken.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

But Bloodworth rises above the trials and uses the penguin colony as a source of escape, the basis of his naive yet heart-warming philosophising as he contemplates hubris and bliss, crime and punishment.

The penguins become for him a symbol of something bigger, connecting all living things.

"Now the sea and the fish and the birds turn out to be my chief delight. It ain't jes because them other felons is a bunch of arseholes neither, there's arseholes everywhere, and it ain't jes because there's nothing else to do. It's because I discover penguin fish have a family life and a way of doing things, and its way of living go on no matter what the lunatic King orders or the poxy Norfolk jailers think or them sad green London virgins pray for. It go on with rules and games and conversations and tragedies jes like a play and it give the lie to them churchmen that say only humans can have a show."

The Bright Side of My Condition is a brilliant read, on a par with Randall's other excellent works of fiction. She has an incredible facility for creating worlds and making them her own, speaking in voices that sound authentic to the time, character and place.

It'd make a fabulous film, too, if any producers are reading this.

Discover more

Lifestyle

Book review: No Regrets, Coyote

18 Apr 06:00 PM

Suffice to say, this book comes highly recommended and, if Randall doesn't win lots of awards for it, I'll eat my hat.

The Bright Side of My Condition by Charlotte Randall (Penguin $30).

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Follow Life & Style on Twitter and Facebook.

Save

    Share this article

Latest from Lifestyle

Lifestyle

One of Jacinda Ardern's favourite cafes closes over 'economic conditions'

08 Jul 07:00 AM
Premium
Lifestyle

Pain, sexual dysfunction, incontinence: Why men shouldn’t ignore their pelvic floors

08 Jul 06:00 AM
Lifestyle

Maccas adds fave American item to Oz menu – why isn't it coming back to NZ?

08 Jul 03:35 AM

Sponsored: Get your kids involved in your reno

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from Lifestyle

One of Jacinda Ardern's favourite cafes closes over 'economic conditions'

One of Jacinda Ardern's favourite cafes closes over 'economic conditions'

08 Jul 07:00 AM

'We have been going backwards for too long,' the cafe said.

Premium
Pain, sexual dysfunction, incontinence: Why men shouldn’t ignore their pelvic floors

Pain, sexual dysfunction, incontinence: Why men shouldn’t ignore their pelvic floors

08 Jul 06:00 AM
Maccas adds fave American item to Oz menu – why isn't it coming back to NZ?

Maccas adds fave American item to Oz menu – why isn't it coming back to NZ?

08 Jul 03:35 AM
'Scapegoats': DJ blames bosses for tragedy linked to royal prank

'Scapegoats': DJ blames bosses for tragedy linked to royal prank

07 Jul 09:08 PM
Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper
sponsored

Sponsored: Why heat pumps make winter cheaper

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP