SOURCE: "Linguistic Transformation and Reflection in Janet Frame's Living in the Maniototo," in World Literature Written in English, Vol. 27, No. 2, Autumn, 1987, pp. 320-26.

In the essay below, Ross analyzes Frame's use of language in Living in the Maniototo, concluding that Frame is able to transcend conventional narrative structures through the manipulation of language.

Janet Frame has travelled often to the "Is-Land," the "Table" where the angel hovers, to "Mirror City," then returned to tell the truth allotted her. But she owns only language to transform this "view over all time and space" into a coherent vision that reflects the "treasures" she beheld and touched during her travels. Often, she admits, "the medium of language" fails, for the revelations she attempts "have acquired imperfections … never intended for them … have lost meaning that seemed, once, to shine from them." Frame has, nonetheless, consistently demonstrated that the tradition-bound barriers of language...