Review: Where in All the World

‘We are ever your safe harbour.’ These are the reassuring sentiments of Harriet Watson's family when she seeks adventure far beyond the shore of provincial New Zealand. It is 1895, and with the approaching turn of the century, Harriet, like the rolling years, is shaking off her fledgling coat. In her early twenties, she has grown up privileged by the banks of the Rakaia River. Her homestead, Rawahi, 'the other side', is where her aristocratic, Scottish bridge-building father has put down roots. It is a landscape wild, with nor'westers which can never be stilled, and from where she can see the South Island's "dragon-like spine'. Though thrilling, with caves full of bones, fossils, waterfalls and scree slopes, it lacks the wild beasts of countries far away.

Harriet's impatience has been compounded by the arrival of two dashing Cambridge graduates, Messrs. De Courcy and Holt. Their reasons for visiting Rawahi are obscure, yet once they have swept in, Harriet can no longer be satisfied with life at the edge of the world. She hears De Courcy's tales of valiant fighting in African wars, and of his future designs on mapping parts of that continent, as well as plans to locate ostensibly "lost" explorer, Sir Avery Goodwin, and is intrigued.

In this involving debut novel by Canterbury-based writer Vanessa Croft, we travel alongside the protagonist from rural New Zealand to Victorian London and onwards to the wilds of Africa. Where in All the World is Harriet's narration of events both personal to her and of international significance, and she proves a lucid, in-depth teller of stories. She recounts the complicated journeying from her birthplace to the far beyonds, charting alongside this her emotional states and her increasing doubt the further she travels from from her safe harbour. Guided not by bombast or overarching ambition, characteristics of other, villainous characters, she instead documents her care for others. Confessional letters to and from her sister Maddy are inserted into the diary account.

Croft's use of first-person narration allows us into the state of mind of an honest and courageous character. She is aware of her fallibility and records it. Harriet addresses an assumed reader at times, so we feel as if taken into her confidence rather than lurking without consent. Through her we learn about the wretched state of the Congo under Belgian torment, and the ruthless acts of megalomaniacal men. Harriet's voice, understated, measured, and eloquent, is clearly of an educated, privileged woman. She often writes metaphorically, placing great store in meaningful objects. The compass, for example, symbolises directions she should take in life; Rawahi is a kiln where one ‘must endure its furnace to harden our resolve’; and her father's brass orrery with its orbiting planets holds existential meaning. Her father's bridge-building too forms an all-encompassing arc, holding her close to him, and providing a metaphorical narrative structure. 

It is difficult to criticise Croft's novel as it is so well-crafted and the narrative both satisfactorily complex yet realistic. The secondary characters form a strong buffer that buoys Harriet through her life. One quibble would be that Mr Holt, such a genial character, continues to hold Mr De Courcy in such high esteem when it is clear to us all he is a villain.

This story gains an extra dimension when we read the end notes. Croft has closely based her novel around an historical figure, Gertrude Edith Watt, whose husband Ewart Grogan was, like De Courcy, an explorer who documented his tales. His account, From the Cape to Cairo, still exists in print today. She reimagines how different Gertrude’s life could have been, given more agency. Much of this geographical terrain is also known to the author. Croft had a far-flung childhood, and, like her protagonist, is the daughter of an engineer. 

All these dimensions come together in Where in All the World to produce a hugely inventive work that sweeps us up in its tempests and keeps us hoping that Harriet will somewhere, somehow find her safe harbour.