The Good Life: Bonfire of my vanity

NZ Herald

24-05-2025

An expert with some firewood. Photo / Michele Hewitson
I am not, as a rule, a boastful man. But I do believe, and I say this in all modesty, that I am the most prominent writer on the subject of firewood in the entirety of the great province of Wairarapa. At least as far as I know.
I have certainly spent much time considering the subject, and have regaled – if that is the right word – the readers of this fine magazine on many occasions on the sourcing, chopping, seasoning, storing and burning of firewood at Lush Places. I have, through this column, shared my many firewood mishaps along with my modest firewood triumphs.
I have expended, I imagine, almost as many words talking and writing about firewood as I have burnt sticks of firewood. If I were a boastful man, and as I say, I am not, I might even say that I am, without an atom of doubt, the Wairarapa's leading bore on the subject.
So when I heard on the grapevine that this year's annual Booktown Festival in nearby Featherston was to host Lars Mytting, the prominent Norwegian writer, on the subject of firewood, I found myself imagining it would be only a matter of time before a polite, likely handwritten letter on quality paper would arrive at Lush Places inviting me to chat live on stage with Mr Mytting about the subject of firewood for the edification of a paying audience.
I acquired a copy of Mr Mytting's evocative and useful book, Norwegian Wood: Chopping, stacking and drying wood the Scandinavian way, not long after we washed up here in the country some 100 or so years ago.
No, I was not Scandinavian. No, I was not cutting down my own trees in my own birch wood and hand-chopping it before stacking it into some sort of firewood sculpture. I was actually buying split firewood from John up the road. But as a firewood tyro, I felt I needed the sort of advice only a genuine Scandinavian firewood expert might provide.
Let me tell you what the 700,000 people around the world who have the book know: Norwegian Wood is an absolute trove of wisdom for the firewood novice. On the subject of seasoning, for example, Mr Mytting writes, 'Drying is a small science of its own. Like the fermentation of beer, the seasoning of wood should be a slow and undisturbed natural process, untouched by the bustle of life elsewhere. The time it takes is the time it takes.' What is that if not firewood poetry?
No letter arrived. Mr Mytting was instead to be 'in conversation' with a Mr John Campbell, a prominent Auckland broadcaster, but not, if I am correct, a prominent local writer on the subject of firewood. I may have seethed. But only briefly.
This snub, imagined perhaps but real enough to me, did not stop me from being part of the paying audience three Saturdays ago at the Anzac Hall in Featherston, a handsome affair featuring a native wood interior lined with patriotic flags and many, many photos of long-dead war horses, snooty generals and that dreadful Hun, King George V.
Mr Mytting proved to be a most impressive specimen. Like a birch, he was very tall, good-looking and hardly seemed foreign at all. He told us how it took him four days to carefully select and down trees for a winter's worth of firewood, and about 12 evenings to split and stack it. On occasion, he said, he uses an axe rather than a chainsaw. It made the felling process more 'ceremonial'. A lovely thought.
He offered tips, but also told us of a bizarre but successful stage play based on his book – it sounded like Waiting For Godot To Stack His Firewood – and that he has a new edition of Norwegian Wood on the way that is twice the length of the original.
When the hour was over, I was left with the well-formed impression that Mr Mytting was not just Norway's leading firewood expert, but a fine fellow to boot. As for Mr Campbell, I will say this, though I am not one to throw bouquets: he did all right. For an amateur.