Australian literature

Kate Holden, The Romantic: Italian nights and days

/ Whispering Gums / 15 Comments
kate Holden, The Romantic book cover
Book cover (Courtesy: Text Publishing)

The romantic, by Kate Holden, is hard to categorise. In an interview with Richard Aedy on ABC Radio’s Life Matters she comments that, despite the success of her memoir In my skin, she was “a little bit uncomfortable with memoir” because it felt a bit “narcissistic”. And so this, her second book, she intended writing as a novel, albeit based heavily on her experiences in Rome. However, as she tells Aedy, her editor told her that most of what she’d written was not fiction, but “life” and so she decided to write it as memoir. So why my opening statement? Well, it’s because this memoir is told in third person.

Who, then, is Kate Holden? Today she is a professional writer living in Melbourne, but she was not always so. In my skin, which I read before my blogging days, is an astonishingly honest chronicle of her twenties when she was a heroin addict and sex worker. The romantic is a sequel of sorts. It tells the story of her year or so in Rome and Naples where she went to further her recovery, to, as she says, find herself. She tells Aedy that she decided on third person to enable her to maintain “critical distance from my own former self” (since the events in the book occurred around 2003) and to give the reader the prerogative of that distance too. Which, I think, is not a bad thing – as this is one very explicit book about, as she says, “the permutations of love, sex and romance”. Sex, though, predominates this threesome, if you get my drift.

Okay, that might be a cheap shot, because Holden is, again, fearlessly honest. The book, told chronologically, is divided into 7 parts, most of them named for a sexual/romantic partner, and some of these partners overlap a little. Throughout the book she alludes to poets – particularly the romantic poets, Byron and Shelley. In fact, each part of the book is introduced with a quote from a poet. In her interview with Aedy, she said that she wanted to be “honest, sincere and authentic like the Romantic poets”. Well, she certainly seems to be that, even if much of what she is being honest about is not exactly “romantic” – unless, that is, we define ongoing self-questioning as “Romantic”.

And here, in a way, is the rub. Holden is not only a fearless writer, she is also a good one. She knows how to string a sentence together, she describes character and evokes place well, and she expresses emotion clearly. But, I’m not sure what the point is for the reader. There is a lot of detail here about relationships – and sex in particular – that is not particularly positive for her. Around the middle of the book she writes:

She wishes to be free, virtuous, brave, joyous. The men around her say she is needy, neurotic, manipulative, disingenuous, hurtful, promiscuous. She knows she is deceptive, duplicitous and cynical. Somewhere in all of this is a portrait. She thinks this; and buries her face in the pillow.

This sort of self-analysis is the flavour of the book so that, in the end, it feels more like something that is therapeutic for her than enlightening for the reader.

The seventh part of the book – a short one named Kate – is introduced by the following lines from Byron:

I am not now
That which I have been.

I certainly hope so because the Kate in this book has, by the end, still not quite found herself. However, her interview with Richard Aedy in 2010 reveals a composed, confident and articulate woman. I look forward to seeing what this woman produces next.

Kate Holden
The romantic: Italian nights and days
Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2010
240pp.
ISBN: 9781921656743

(Review copy courtesy Text Publishing)

Katharine Susannah Prichard, The pioneers

/ Whispering Gums / 19 Comments

 

Katharine Susannah Prichard

Prichard, 1927/8, by May Moore (Courtesy: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons)

Katharine Susannah Prichard (1883-1969) is probably not as well-known in Australia, let alone internationally, as she should be. She was born in Fiji, but grew up in Tasmania and Melbourne, travelled overseas and in other parts of Australia, before settling in Western Australia in 1919. She was a founding member of the Australian Communist Party (1920) and also of the Western Australian branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers. Politics and literature, then, were the twin passions of her life. Her most famous novel and the only one I’d read until now, Coonardoo (1929), was remarkable in its time for its exploration of the relationship between white men and black women.

I don’t usually commence a review with a biography, but it felt appropriate in this case – partly because she is so little known despite her significance and partly because her politics were an intrinsic part of her literature. In the foreword to my new edition of the book, her granddaughter describes Prichard’s values as:

a huge love of and respect for the bush; the importance of living your life with integrity; of caring and fighting for the underdog; of holding strong principles and remaining true to them; and of embracing life with passion.

These values are evident in The pioneers, her first novel which won the Hodder and Stoughton All Empire Literature Prize for Australasia in 1915. She went on to write over thirty works, including novels, plays, short stories and poetry. But, perhaps that’s enough prelude for now – on with the book.

It’s a simple tale really, plot-wise. It starts with a couple, Donald and Mary Cameron, arriving by wagon in an unsettled area of Gippsland (in eastern Victoria) in the early-mid nineteenth century. They clear the land, build a home and establish a successful farm. Very early in the story, while Donald is away getting supplies, Mary is “visited” by two desperate men, Dan Farrell and Steve. A tricky situation for a woman on her own but she manages to win them over and they leave her, unharmed. The novel tells the story of these people – and the others who move into the district – over the next two decades or so, as they work to make lives for themselves, some honestly and some not so.  There are archetypal characters here – the hard-working, tough, taciturn farmer; the loving, but wise and stoical wife; the loyal but unappreciated-by-his-father son; and more. There are escaped convicts, cattle rustlers, and a thoroughly bad man.

This may all make it sound rather typical and a bit melodramatic. And, in fact, it does have its melodrama. But the book is more than this. Its overriding style, or approach, is social realism, as Prichard explores the hopes and wishes of a new country struggling to come to terms with its origins and forge a more positive future. Her style is not particularly innovative and, while the combination of social realism and melodrama is appropriate for a novel set in the nineteenth century, the melodrama was a little discordant to my modern ears.  Take this, for example:

It was as if that encounter in the valley of shadows had brushed all misunderstandings from the love that was like the sun between them. Deirdre had wrestled with death for possession of him.

A contemporary review suggested that the romance – which drives most of the melodrama – was included primarily to attract readers who may not be interested in the history. This could very well be so.

Despite not being particularly innovative, Prichard’s writing is sure and shows that while this was her first novel she’d been honing her craft for some time. I particularly loved her language. It is gorgeously descriptive. She perfectly captures the paradox of a place that is both beautiful and harsh – and effectively conveys the physical and emotional impact of the landscape:

The bright hours were rent by the momentary screeching and chatter of parroquets, as they flew, spreading the red, green and yellow of their breasts against the blue sky. At sunset and dawn there were merry melodious flutings, long, sweet, mating-calls, carollings and bursts of husky, gnomish laughter. Yet the silence remained, hovering and swallowing insatiably every sound.

The plot, as I’ve suggested, is a little melodramatic and fairly predictable but it’s a well-told tale, nonetheless, of good forces fighting bad, of compromises that are sometimes made, and of bad judgement calls that come back to bite you. The characters, while tending to archetype, are nonetheless real so that you believe them and their various plights. There is, I think, something reminiscent of Dickens here.

The themes reflect very much the values identified by her granddaughter in the foreword. The main characters are imbued with a strong sense of principles that they try to live by. When Mary meets the convicts early in the novel, she says:

But if you will believe the truth it is this: My heart is with you and all like you.

In her twenties, Prichard apparently met the Austrian sociologist, Rudolph Broda, who introduced her to the ideas of socialism and suggested that, as a new country, Australia was leading the world in social legislation. This idea is reflected in the novel. Early on, Mary says to Donald:

It’s a new country and a new people we’re making, they said at home, and I’m realising what they meant now.

Little did she know, then, what this “making” would really involve but defining “a new country” is clearly the goal Prichard set for herself. The novel concludes by suggesting that the new generation will

be a pioneer of paths that will make the world a better, happier place for everyone to live in.

Corny? Or aspirational? Take your pick … but whichever way you see it, this novel makes a significant contribution to the development of the Australian psyche, to our transition from colonial convict-fearing past to an independent self-realised future. I am glad it has been re-released and hope that more people read it.

Katharine Susannah Prichard
The pioneers
Singapore: Monsoon Books, 2010 [first ed. 1915]
272pp.
ISBN: 9789810848804

NOTE: An ebook version of the novel is available at Project Gutenberg.

Garry Disher, Wyatt (Guest post)

/ Whispering Gums / 13 Comments

Some time ago I found in my mailbox a bundle of books from my lovely contacts at Text Publishing. Unfortunately, there were more books in the bundle than I could read at the time, and a couple were in genres I don’t generally read (though that’s not to say I wouldn’t read them if I had the time). So, like Lisa at ANZLitLovers and as I did for my last LibraryThing Early Reviewers copy of That Paris Year, I decided to use the Guest Post idea. For the LibraryThing guest post, the reviewer was my daughter, Hannah of Wayfaring Chocolate. This time, it’s my son, Evan. The book is Garry Disher‘s latest crime novel Wyatt, which won the 2010 Ned Kelly Award for Best Crime Fiction.

Evan read the novel while he was with us for Christmas. He has since returned to Melbourne (his home and the setting of the novel) and, while busy preparing for his flight to the USA tomorrow, made the time to please his mum by writing his review. I must say, it looks like the sort of crime novel I could enjoy. Thanks Evan …

Evan’s review of Wyatt, by Garry Disher

Gary Disher, Wyatt

Wyatt (Courtesy: Text Publishing)

Less a cops and robbers story than a robbers and robbers story, Wyatt is a new crime novel from the Australian author, Garry Disher. We are introduced to the protagonist and title character, Wyatt, as he is attempting to rob an extortionist. As one would expect in a good crime novel, it doesn’t go according to plan. Disher’s prose is terse and to the point, much like Wyatt himself, and the narrative races along, following a jewel heist and its aftermath. Set in Melbourne, which suddenly becomes dirtier and more sinister under Disher’s pen, Wyatt features many of the trappings of classic noir-ish, hard-boiled novels. This world is populated by seductive femme fatales, tough, if old-fashioned, men, and it will get the better of you if you don’t have your guard up. Wyatt is an aging, professional criminal, who is treated with reverence as a master within his field. He is cold, intelligent and calculating, yet sympathetic.

Surrounded by a host of characters, all dangerous in their own ways, Wyatt is pitted, almost indirectly over the course of the novel, against a French criminal much like him, and much his equal. However, to discuss more of the plot would be to spoil most of the fun. The pace rarely slows down, and the writing is taut and spare. The characters are archetypes, almost larger than life, but not overwritten. Disher has an invigorating, simple style. The violence, when it erupts, is abrupt and surprising and, without a hint of an overdrawn epilogue, the ending simply ends.  Wyatt is apparently the seventh book in a series featuring the title character. Despite having never read any of the others, and having a perhaps irrational bias against series in general, I am now eager to check out the others.

Garry Disher
Wyatt
Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2010
274pp.
ISBN:  9781921656811

(Review copy courtesy Text Publishing)

Monday musings on Australian literature: My top Australian reads of 2010

/ Whispering Gums / 25 Comments

Eva Hornung, Dogboy

Dog Boy: Winner of 2010 Prime Minister's Literary Award (Courtesy: Text Publishing)

In last week’s Monday musings I said that this series would resume in the New Year. But then the thought occurred to me: this is an Australian focused litblog, so why don’t I divide my top reads of the year into those by Australian writers, and the rest? That decision made, it seemed logical to devote the last Monday musings of the year to my top Australian reads, so – surprise – here I am again.

I never read as many books in a year as I would like to, but this year I did manage to read a range of Australian writers, including some older works I’ve been wanting to get to. I hope to achieve similarly in 2011. You never know, 2011 might be the year I finally read Christina Stead.

I’ll list the books in alphabetical order under categories (some being very short categories as we are talking top reads here).

Top recent (post 2000) fiction:

  • Eva Hornung‘s Dog Boy: Won this year’s Prime Minister’s Literary Award. It’s a visceral read which contemplates the nature of humanity.
  • MJ Hyland‘s This is how. I’m not really sure that we can claim Hyland as Australian. She wasn’t born here, and she no longer lives here. She did however do some secondary and tertiary education here. This is the sort of writing I love. The writing is tight, the tone is beautifully controlled, and the central character is so complex that even by the end you are not completely sure who you have before you.
  • David Malouf‘s Ransom: Although I had some reservations about this book in terms of its point, I did love it nonetheless. Does that make sense? Malouf’s writing is beautiful, and I love his humanity. I guess that should be enough, eh?

Two other recent Australian novels I enjoyed this year were Alex Miller‘s Lovesong and Peter Carey‘s Parrot and Olivier in America.

Top older (pre 2000) fiction:

  • Thea Astley‘s: The multiple effects of rainshadow. A re-read. I love Astley’s “imagistic” writing. This is a multiple point-of-view novel set in early 20th century northern Queensland, and deals with the emotional and social consequences of living in a difficult place at a difficult time.
  • Martin Boyd‘s A difficult young man. Part of his semi-autobiographical trilogy, this book explores the challenges of living an artistic life, of being a different person in an extraordinary family in an ordinary world. Martin Boyd is a member of one of Australia’s leading creative families.
  • Katharine Susannah Prichard‘s The pioneers. Won the Hodder and Stoughton All Empire Literature Prize for Australasia in 1915. It’s an historical novel exploring pioneer Australia, particularly in relation to our convict heritage, but I’ll say more in the coming review.

Three other older Australian novels I particularly enjoyed this year were Kate Jennings‘ Snake, Hanz Bergner’s Between sky and sea, and Ruth Park’s Missus.

Top short stories

Regular readers of this blog know that I enjoy short stories and try to include them in my regular reading schedule. Mostly, I read one-offs, but I also enjoy collections. I only read one collection of Australian short stories this year, but it was excellent and so easily qualifies for a top read:

  • Gretchen Shirm’s Having cried wolf. Shirm is a new Australian voice. I was impressed by the tight, controlled writing she demonstrated in this set of connected stories. I hope we see more of her.

Top non-fiction

As this is primarily a litblog, I don’t read a lot of non-fiction, but there were two standouts this year:

  • Kate Jennings’ Trouble: The evolution of a radical. This is the memoir you write when you are not writing a memoir. Jennings tells her story through thematically grouped writings from her past, each group introduced by current commentary. I loved her honesty and provocativeness.
  • Anna Krien’s Into the woods. A history – exposé really – of Tasmania’s logging history. Krien may not have been as objective as she set out to be, but the book is an insightful read nonetheless.

I am reading another Australian book at present, but I don’t expect it to quite qualify for this list – and, anyhow, this is the last Monday of the year so there you have it…

I’d love to know what your favourite Australian reads of the year were – or, if you didn’t read any, whether my list above has inspired you to read any next year!

Literary encounters, Australian style

/ Whispering Gums / 13 Comments

I’ve been remiss. I could have solved some of your Christmas shopping challenges by telling you about two books which would be perfect gifts for readers: Shane Maloney and Chris Grosz’s Australian encounters, and Susannah Fullerton’s Brief encounters. Both have “encounters” in the title, but they use the word in slightly different ways, as you’ll see when you read on …

Australian encounters book cover

Book cover (Image: Courtesy Black Inc)

Maloney and Grosz’s book is the more light-hearted of the two, and just right for the Christmas season. Every encounter involves at least one Australian, but not all are literary. Some are a little tongue-in-cheek and a couple, even, are not between people. Take for example, Esperance and Skylab. (Australians will know what this is about!). Each encounter is given a page, with text by Australian novelist Shane Maloney, and a cartoon illustration by book illustrator Chris Grosz. I’ll choose just three* to share with you:

  • Australian novelist George Johnston and Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen (1960). Cohen (25 at the time) met Johnston (48) and his writer wife, Charmian Clift, in Greece. Johnston and Clift let Cohen stay in their spare room. Cohen says “They drank more than other people, they wrote more … they helped a great deal. They were an inspiration”.
  • Banjo Paterson and Rudyard Kipling (both of whom have been featured in this blog) (1900).  Paterson (36) sat next to Kipling at a dinner in South Africa, where Paterson was visiting to report on the Boer War. They apparently discussed politics and war, and must have hit it off because they met up again a year later in Kipling’s home in Sussex.
  • Robyn Davidson and Bruce Chatwin (1980). This was an organised encounter, and occurred in London. Chatwin had heard of Davidson (30) and her camel journey across the Australian desert. You can imagine what these two remote-area travel writers talked about, can’t you? Nomads was one topic, but politics was not. Chatwin apparently found politics boring and preferred to talk about (and mimic) people. Despite this, Davidson gave him contacts in Alice Springs which he would later use for his Australian travel book, Songlines.

This is an entertaining book, great for dipping into and discovering fun facts. I would have loved it if sources were provided for the information in the encounter descriptions, but this is not that kind of book. And, knowing now that these encounters took place, I can always research them myself.

Susannah Fullerton’s book, albeit called Brief encounters, is a longer tome and describes visits to Australia by 11 literati between 1836 and 1939. The book has an index and an extensive bibliography, satisfying my historian-self. The first visitor she covers is Charles Darwin, and the last HG Wells. In between are writers such as DH Lawrence (who wrote and set his novel Kangaroo only a couple of hours from where I live), Joseph Conrad, Agatha Christie (the only woman), Mark Twain and yes, even Rudyard Kipling.

Given Kipling appears in both books, I’ll use him as an example. Fullerton describes how Kipling came to visit Australia. It had its roots, she says, in an unhappy childhood and a consequent difficulty in forming relationships with women. He set off from England in 1891:

The ostensible reason he gave for the trip was that he was going to visit Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa. What he desperately needed was to “get clean away and re-sort myself”.

His first experience of Australia was Tasmania – but only briefly – before he landed in Melbourne on 12 November. On 13 November, The Age newspaper reported him as saying:

This country is American, but remember it is secondhand American, there is an American tone on top of things, but it is not real. Dare say, bye and bye, you will get a tone of your own.

I find this quite fascinating because right now many of us feel there is an “American tone” to things in Australia, whereas back in the early to mid twentieth century the tone was distinctly British. Anyhow, Kipling said quite a bit in this early interview, both complimentary and not. His comments apparently “ruffled feathers” and he worked to smooth them over during the rest of his stay. While in Australia, he also briefly visited Sydney and Adelaide.

Now, here’s the interesting bit that ties us back to Maloney and Grosz’s book. He left Australia, Fullerton writes, rather “unenthusiastic about Australians” but this changed eight years later when he went to South Africa for the Boer War. There he met Australian troops and felt he had discovered “a new nation – Australia”. He is quoted as saying that he had never come across a “cleaner, simpler, saner, more adequate gang of men” and saw Australia as forging its own identity. Oh dear – why it is through war that our identity seems to be formed (at least in the eyes of others)?

Fullerton not only uses memoir, biographies and newspaper reports to track Kipling’s relationship with Australia, but she also quotes from his poetry and stories. One of the most significant of these is the ode he was asked to – and did – write for the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance. The last verse includes the lines:

Then they returned to their desired land,
The kindly cities and plains where they were bred…

Clearly his view of Australia had softened. Fullerton concludes her Kipling chapter with:

Kipling spent only two weeks in Australia and saw very little of the country in that time. The visit may or may not have achieved his purpose of “re-sorting” himself. But it did leave a rich legacy – an ode, the beautiful poem “Lichtenberg” and a delightful explanation of how Australia’s most memorable animal, the kangaroo, came to look the way it does.

Fullerton’s book is well worth reading if you are interested in the authors she covers and/or in Australia as a literary destination! Lisa at ANZLitLovers agrees.

Shane Maloney and Chris Grosz
Australian encounters
Collingwood: Black Inc, 2010
111pp.
ISBN: 9781863955058
(Review copy supplied by Black Inc)

Susannah Fullerton
Brief Encounters: Literary Travellers in Australia 1836-1939
Sydney: Picador, 2009
396pp.
ISBN: 9781405039505
(Personal copy, signed by the author)

* I have left out the juicy bits – you’ll have to read the book yourself if you want to know those!

Monday musings on Australian literature: Australian Christmas imagery

/ Whispering Gums / 41 Comments

As a 50-something Australian, I grew up with a big disconnect regarding Christmas. Our Christmas occurs in summer but the cards we received (and could buy) and the carols we sang (and still do) tended to be winter-focused. And then we discovered the carols by Wheeler and James. John Wheeler (lyricist) and William G James (composer) both worked for the ABC, our government-funded broadcaster. In the late 1940s-mid 1950s they wrote Christmas carols for Australians.

The most famous of the Wheeler-James carols is the “Carol of the birds”. Not only is it a lovely song, but its chorus includes, significantly, an indigenous Australian word, Orana, which means “welcome”. Our (sheet music) version of Wheeler and James’ Christmas carols comes in three sets of five carols:

  • Set 1 (1948): The three drovers; The silver stars are in the sky; Christmas Day; Carol of the birds; Christmas bush for His adorning.
  • Set 2 (1954): The day that Christ was born on; Christmas night; The little town where Christ was born; Sing Gloria; Noel-time.
  • Set 3 (1953*): The Christmas tree; Our lady of December; Golden day; Country carol (The oxen); Merry Christmas.

Paddocks in Lake George, 2005

Sheep in brown paddocks in Lake George, 2005

So, what makes these songs Australian? Most reference the Christian aspect of Christmas, as you can tell from some of the titles, but the important point is that they also evoke Australian colour and sound through celebrating our landscape, flora and fauna. Here are some examples:

The North wind is tossing the leaves,
The red dust is over the town;
The sparrows are under the eaves,
And the grass in the paddock is brown;
As we lift up our voices and sing
To the Christ-Child our Heavenly King.
(the beginning of  “Christmas Day”)

Friar birds sip the nectar of flowers,
Currawongs chant in wattle-tree bowers;
In the blue ranges Lorikeets calling-
Carol of the bushbirds rising and falling-
Chorus: Orana! Orana! Orana to Christmas Day
(Verse 3 and chorus of “Carol of the birds”)

When the sun’s a golden rose,
And the magpie carols clear,
You can say, and I can say,
On the summer morning,
Here at last is Christmas Day,
The day that Christ was born on…
(The beginning of “The Day that Christ was born on”)

Sheep in fold, Shine like gold,
As the day is dawning,
Riding by, Stockmen cry,
Welcome Christmas morning.
(Middle of first verse of “Merry Christmas”)

Interestingly, Geoff Strong, writing in The Age newspaper, believes that these songs have failed to endure, but I’m not so sure. Just because they don’t feature in shopping mall carol “musak” doesn’t mean that they’re forgotten. They are taught in schools, and recordings do exist of them. Most Australians, I believe, know at least a couple of them.

There are also more humorous, non-Christian-focused Australian Christmas songs. A couple of favourites are:

I hope you’ve enjoyed my little nod to the season. As this is the last Monday musings before Christmas, I wish all those who visit and comment on my blog, a very happy holiday season and a peaceful 2011. Monday musings will continue in the New Year.

* Don’t ask me why the date for Set 3 is before the date for Set 2, but that’s how it is.

POSTSCRIPT: The complete words to all the songs can be found on A Growing Delight’s blog.

Vale Ruth Park

/ Whispering Gums / 15 Comments

“Harp in the South silenced: author Ruth Park dead at 93” confronted me this morning on page 3 of our daily newspaper. I guess it had to happen, but it is nonetheless sad to see such a grand dame of Australian literature leave us. I have referred to her several times on this blog, three of those times being focused specifically on her – reviews of Swords and crowns and rings, and Missus, and a Monday Musings dedicated to her – so that will give you some measure of my regard for her and, really, of her standing in Australia.

Susan Wyndham, who wrote the announcement I read, concluded with the following:

Park’s publisher at Penguin, Robert Sessions, once said that she was one of three older women who had a huge impact on him, along with the writer Thea Astley and the legendary editor Beatrice Davis. All have now died.

Astley and Park both had huge stature in Australian literature and they had that rare combination of talent and strength and humility, he said.

What more can I say, except, well done Ruth, we’ll miss you – but we’ll keep on reading you.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Aussie writers and Jane Austen

/ Whispering Gums / 23 Comments

Jane Austen sketch by Cassandra

Cassandra's portrait of her sister, c. 1810

Funnily enough, I’m not the only Australian who loves Jane Austen – and so we too have our very own Jane Austen juggernaut. We see the films and miniseries, we have the Jane Austen Society of Australia – and we have academics and others researching and writing on all sorts of topics relating to her. Today, I thought I’d post about one of the lighter Australian-published books on her because it is, after all, that time of year when we tend to relax the brain power a little – or, at least, I do. The book is Jane Austen: Antipodean views (edited by Suzannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers).

I clearly remember when this book was published, nearly 10 years ago, because it included comments that I related to – that tickled me, in some cases – by some Aussie writers, and so this is what I’m going to share now.

The comment that made the greatest impression on me was the one from John Marsden, a popular and award-winning Australian children’s writer:

I’ve deliberately refrained from reading Persuasion, so that I would never get to the point where I had no more Jane Austens left to read. When the doctor, with grave countenance, gives me the news that I have only three months, the grief will be mitigated by delight that at last I am allowed to read Persuasion. In the meantime, I am avoiding crossing roads when busses are in sight.

Now, I can relate to this because I too saved a Jane Austen for quite a long time. Although I’d reread all of the others a few times, I was saving Mansfield Park for the same reason. Finally, a decade or so ago, I decided that I could put it off no longer (mainly because the Patricia Rozema film version was coming and I wanted to read the book first!). I’m glad I changed my mind and I hope Marsden has too, as rereading Jane Austen is as enjoyable, really, as reading her the first time. Why deny yourself that pleasure?

Close to that one is the following from one of my very favourite Australian writers, Elizabeth Jolley:

I find in old age, I have forgotten the novels, in particular the magic of being lifted into other lives and background. Re-reading is one of the Best Things of old age. Forgetfulness – it’s like having a present.

This one tickles me because my reading group often jokes that when we get to a certain age – and it’s moving rapidly closer – we’ll read the same book over and over because it’ll be new every time! I’ll be very happy if that one book is a Jane Austen…

My third favourite comment – and those of you who regularly read my blog will soon see why – comes from the mellifluous broadcaster and writer, Phillip Adams:

The longer I live the more bored and irritated I am by excess  – and the more grateful to find such a wide range of emotions, and such accuracy of observation, in the less-is-more prose of that remarkable woman.

“Less-is-more”. Exactly so! Need I say more?

There are many more comments along similar lines to those above but, just to be even-handed, I’ll end with the words of the award-winning but clearly unenlightened children’s book author and illustrator, Graeme Base:

Jane who?

The cheek of it!

Suzannah Fullerton and Anne Harbers (eds)
Jane Austen: Antipodean views
Neutral Bay: Wellington Lane Press, 2001
168pp
ISBN: 9780908022168

Monday musings on Australian literature: Silly names for the silly season

/ Whispering Gums / 28 Comments

Burrumbuttock sign

22 kms to Burrumbuttock (Courtesy: Carolyn I)

It’s nearing Christmas, and I’m getting busy, so today’s Monday musings will be short …

Ever since I started this blog series, I have wanted to write about Australian place names. We are not, I know, the only country to have interesting or fun place names – and I’d love it if you shared your favourites in the comments – but we do have some good’uns Downunder.

Oodnadatta,
Parramatta
Names to make your tonsils chatter
…
(From “Patter”, by Ronald Oliver Brierley)

Oodnadatta and Parramatta are just the beginning. What about Cabramatta, Wangaratta and Coolangatta? And then there’s Woolloomooloo. You have to concentrate to spell that one! (It’s a bit like, I suppose, Mississippi, isn’t it?) Many of these places appear in Lucky Starr‘s tongue twisting “I’ve been everywhere” song. You can listen to it online if you like… I love all these names. They tend to sound silly and poetic at the same time, and because of this many of them have found (and still find) their way into Australian verse and song.

Kurri Kurri Hotel

Kurri Kurri Hotel, Kurri Kurri, NSW

But, there is a type of name that is rather endemic here, and that is the reduplicated place name. The best known one is probably Wagga Wagga – “Don’t call Wagga Wagga Wagga”* – but it’s just one of many. Here are some of my favourites: Bong Bong, Drik Drik, Gatum Gatum, Grong Grong, Kurri Kurri, Tilba Tilba and Woy Woy. You can find more in Wikipedia. English comedian Spike Milligan‘s parents moved to Woy Woy in the 1950s, and Spike wasn’t above making fun of the town. In his novel Puckoon, he wrote

There is, somewhere in the steaming bush of Australia, a waterside town called Woy Woy (Woy it is called Woy Woy Oi will never know).

Finally, in a related but somewhat different vein, is the poem, “The Integrated Adjective” about the great Australian adjective. If you don’t know what that is, you soon will. The poem was written by John O’Grady, who wrote, under the pseudonym Nino Culotta, the 1957 novel, They’re a weird mob, a comic tale of an Italian migrant’s struggles to understand and fit into his new country. Anyhow, “The Integrated Adjective” is set in a bar and is the narrator’s record of the bar-time talk he overhears:

“…. Been off the bloody booze,
Up at Tumba-bloody-rumba shootin’ kanga-bloody-roos.”

Now the bar was pretty quiet, and everybody heard
The peculiar integration of this adjectival word.
…

The town of course is really Tumbarumba, but do we let that spoil our story here? Abso-bloody-lutely not!

*Song by Greg Champion and Jim Haynes.

Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America

/ Whispering Gums / 16 Comments

Alexis de Tocqueville.

Alexis de Tocqueville (Presumed Public Domain, via Wikipedia)

It’s not surprising, really, that after living in America for two decades Peter Carey should turn his pen to it. Having lived in the US twice myself, I well understand the fascination of trying to understand that large and paradoxical country. In Parrot and Olivier in America, then, Carey sets out to explore America through the eyes of two men from early nineteenth century Europe: Olivier Jean-Baptiste de Clarel de Barfleur de Garmont, a French aristocrat whose parents had barely survived the French Revolution, and John ‘Parrot’ Larrit, a poor Englishman who had been brought to France as a boy by another French aristocrat.

Olivier was born in 1805, the same year that French writer and historian Alexis de Tocqueville was born. This is not a coincidence as the novel is Carey’s loose re-imagining of Tocqueville’s trip to America, with a friend, to study American prisons. Like Tocqueville, Olivier undertakes his trip with the support of the July monarchy, but Oliver’s companion is not an equal. Rather it is Parrot, servant-class and twice Olivier’s age. An unlikely pair, really, but perfect for Carey’s purposes …

… which are to pry into, poke at, and peer under that great American experiment, Democracy. Through having two protagonists of such diverse backgrounds and perspectives, Carey is able to explore the issues from different angles, that of master and servant. And through choosing the picaresque as his form (or style), he is able to do so without being ponderous. In other words, the tone is comic, as befits a picaresque novel, and the narrative comprises a series of adventures in which our “heroes”, Parrot and Olivier, meet a range of characters along the way who test them and their ideas. The novel is told in alternating, and well-differentiated, first person voices – starting with Olivier and ending, very even-handedly, with Parrot. It is basically chronological, but there are flashbacks to fill in gaps and frequent overlaps caused by one telling a story followed by the other giving his version.

That’s the nuts and bolts of it, but how does it come across? Well, in a word, exuberantly. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its serious side, but just that it’s rather fun to read. At least, it was for me, though that could be because of my personal history with America. Here, for example, are some of the observations which caught my attention:

On not needing government (Parrot talking with a tradesman):

‘When there is enough for all,’ the nail-maker said, ‘there is no need for government.’
‘But what of the poor.’
‘No man who will work can be poor.’

A little myopic methinks – but an idea that seems to be still entrenched in America?

On the focus on money and trade (Olivier):

No matter how strong their religious sentiments, or their passion about the reform of criminals, the Americans quickly revealed themselves to be obsessed with trade and money … They had got their hands on a mighty continent from which the least of them could, by dint of some effort, extract unlimited wealth. There being so much to be extracted it scarcely mattered how they were governed, because there is no need to argue when there is plenty for all.

For all, that is, if you are able to work, are not black and not indigenous! Even aristocratic Olivier noticed some of these contradictions.

On the ability to be self-made (Peek, the banker, to Olivier):

‘Experiment,’ he cried, laughing too violently for my taste. ‘There is no experiment. We make this transformation every day. It is called rags-to-riches …’

And on the possibility of art and culture in a democracy (Olivier):

… They [paintings in Philadelphia] made me think that the taste for ideal beauty – and the pleasure of seeing it depicted – can never be as intense or widespread among a democratic as an aristocratic people.

Hmm…Peter Carey is on record as expressing concern for the survival of culture. He said in his closing address at this year’s Sydney Writers’ Festival that ‘We have yet to grasp the fact that consuming cultural junk … is completely destructive of democracy’. In other words, Olivier/Carey question whether “high” art and “total” democracy are mutually exclusive? Somewhat related to this is Carey’s ongoing interest (see My life as a fake, and Theft: a love story) in authenticity in art. He explores it here through Olivier’s love of art, and the artistic endeavours of several characters, including Parrot and his mistress.

As for the story itself, there is a lot to enjoy. Olivier and Parrot have a complex relationship that develops from mutual disdain to a cautious friendship as the novel progresses. For all his attempts to be open-minded, Olivier never totally accepts the notion of equality between “men”, but Parrot, from both his early training and a generous nature, manages to tolerate and even accommodate this. Besides these two, there are characters from all strata of society: aristocrats, printers, bankers, land-owners, artists, actors, and so on. And, of course, there are romances, with Olivier’s playing out to a rather ironic conclusion.

One little demur, though. The book did not really engage me emotionally – something I tend to expect in longer novels – and I wonder whether this is partly due to the picaresque genre whose episodic and comic nature can have a distancing effect. Is this a failing? I think not, but it was noticeable, and means that the writing and ideas have to be powerful enough to carry the reader along. And mostly they do here, largely due to the novel’s pacing.

So, what is Carey’s conclusion? Well, it’s pretty even-handed, with both the aristocrat and the servant summing up their experience of America. But, in a twist on Tocqueville, the last words are Parrot’s. As a reader who always looks to see if structure informs the meaning, I wonder if this tells us something. Then again, there could be an element of irony in it. However you read it, there is no real answer to the question in the epigraph:

Can it be believed that the democracy which had overthrown the feudal system and vanquished kings will retreat before tradesmen and capitalists? (Alexis de Tocqueville)

Prophetic words, eh.

Peter Carey
Parrot and Olivier in America
London: Faber and Faber, 2010
578pp
ISBN: 9780571253319