Australian literature

Margaret Merrilees, Big rough stones (#BookReview)

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Margaret Merrilees, Big rough stonesIn her latest novel Big rough stones, Margaret Merrilees seems to have done for Australian lesbians what Armistead Maupin did for the American gay community in his Tales of the city series. It is the story, spanning roughly three decades from around 1970s on, of a character named Ro and her lesbian sisterhood in Adelaide. In so doing, it also encompasses some of the feminist activism and sociopolitical concerns of those decades.

Now, Merrilees has appeared here before – with her debut novel The first week (my review) and in my post on her essay about non-indigenous writers writing about indigenous people. I’ll return to this point later …

The novel’s title comes from Miriel Lenore’s poem, “the walls of lesbos”, which is quoted at the beginning of the book. It starts:

to build a lesbian wall
take big rough stones

don’t cut to fit

The poem concludes with the idea that the strength of the wall lies in the combination of the places where the stones touch and the gaps between. This idea perfectly encapsulates the relationships in Big rough stones, because there’s a real sense of a bunch of different individuals who support each other for the long haul. There are points at which they meet. They share political beliefs, for a start, and they share their lives (sometimes as lovers, sometimes in share houses, sometimes in work). But there are also the gaps, those individual differences that either make a community stronger or break it apart. Here, they make it stronger.

Ro, we soon realise, is not the easiest person to live with, not always the most responsible or reliable person, but she’s “sturdy and energetic, descended from a Welsh pit pony and a dour Scot.” She’s idealistic, passionate, and will give things a go. She’s our focal point. The novel is told third person but mostly through her perspective. However, we also get to know several of her friends and lovers, sometimes through her eyes, but sometimes we pop into their heads for a brief while too.

Besides this occasionally shifting third-person point of view, the novel also has an interesting, almost circular, 4-part structure: Now, A while ago, A long time ago, Now. At the novel’s opening – in Now – Ro is in her 60s and learns that she has terminal cancer (so, no spoiler here). We also learn that, at this stage in her life, she wishes she still had someone called Gerry in it. We then move back in her life, eventually reaching “a long time ago” where we meet Gerry and discover why she is no longer in Ro’s life. It’s a sad story. In the final “Now”, Ro is in the terminal stages of her cancer, being cared for by her friends. We see just how strongly that wall has been built. The story reminded me just a bit of Helen Garner’s The spare room – not that Ro tries ineffective alternative medicine, but in the challenges her friends face in caring for a seriously ill person. It isn’t easy.

So, the book is about relationships – lesbian ones, yes, but there’s much that’s universal here too. However, it is also about the times – about political ideals and feminist activism, about the environment and climate change. Several of the women, including Ro, work in a Shelter for abused women. They work as a collective, and we share in some of the struggles of making such arrangements work. We sit in on a collective meeting, after Ro has missed a shift without calling in. There’s discussion and dissension about Ro’s commitment, with one member suggesting this might not be the job for her. Lovely, loyal Maddie speaks up:

I don’t like this. We’ve never been into sacking people or any of that sort of patriarchal shit.’

‘Maybe that’s our problem,’ said Tilda. ‘The place would run a lot more efficiently if we were.’

But this was going a bit too far for the others.

‘No, that’s completely against what we value,’ said the oldest member. ‘People always come first, and that includes workers. It’s up to us to honour Ro’s strengths and figure out how to work with her.’

Ro herself was struck by Tilda’s echo of her own thought. We should have a few more rules, she wanted to say.

She doesn’t say it, though. Instead, she concedes that she was wrong, and offers to work on her relationship with Tilda. An uneasy truce is achieved!

Another quote from the novel that has been used in its promotion provides a good sense of what Ro and her friends were about:

‘You thought feminism would stop violence against women,’ said Julia. ‘And that would stop war. And stop people trashing the Earth. You tried.’

‘Not alone,’ said Ro modestly. ‘I had help.’

Truth-telling

I want to end, however, with Merrilees’ concern about representing indigenous Australians in our stories. Here’s something I quoted from her in my previous post:

To write about Australia, particularly rural Australia, without mentioning the Aboriginal presence (current or historical) is to distort reality, to perpetuate the terra nullius lie. However, for a non-Aboriginal writer to write about Aboriginal people is to run the risk of “appropriating” Aboriginal experience; speaking on behalf of … There’s been too much of that already.

This, as I see it, relates to the issue of truth-telling. There’s the formal truth-telling – via, say, a truth-telling and reconciliation commission – but there’s also the more informal truth-telling that we can all do. Truth-telling is about all Australians coming to a “shared understanding of our history”, which includes “the acceptance of mass killings, incarceration, forced removal from land and forced removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families”. The now standard welcome or acknowledgement of country statements are part of this.

So, in Big rough stones, Merrilees has taken a sensitive approach. She does not, here, as she did in The first week, have an indigenous character, but she acknowledges indigenous Australians by showing her characters being aware of the “truths”. For example, Alby, one of Ro’s friends gets a job at a mine. Ro is horrified, and says:

‘Shit, Alby. How could you? Mining. Probably on Aboriginal land.’

‘Certainly on Aboriginal land. The whole country is Aboriginal land. This pub is on Aboriginal land.’

True! On another occasion, after a protest in Alice Springs against Pine Gap, Ro ends up in gaol for a night. The cells are disgusting and Ro finds it hard to engage in the political debate about the US base:

The walls were covered in graffiti. The misery and degradation of the previous occupants hung in the air, a miasma, shockingly brutal. The protest about the US base lost its urgency. Here was racism, fundamental, elemental, an Australian truth most of them had never seen before. Not close up. This they should protest about.

She realises that:

She and the others had privilege that no Aboriginal prisoner ever had. They could give up their resistance and walk away any time. And eventually they did.

I think she has hit on a way of not continuing terra nullius but, at the same time, also not appropriating indigenous experience. It may not work in all situations, but here, with politically aware characters, it does.

Fundamentally, Big rough stones is a straightforward, accessible story with a lot of dialogue that keeps the story moving along – but this is not all it is. Like Tales of the city, it offers a realistic, but warm-hearted portrayal of a time and place, with all the attendant personal and political messiness. An engaging read.

Lisa (ANZLitLovers) also liked this novel.

AWW Badge 2018Margaret Merrilees
Big rough stones
Mile End: Wakefield Press, 2018
278pp.
ISBN: 9781743055526

(Review copy courtesy Wakefield Press.)

Monday musings on Australian literature: Reading for Reconciliation

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Funny sometimes how Monday Musings topics suddenly appear to me. I was researching for a future post, when I came across a site called Reading for Reconciliation – and couldn’t go past it for today’s post.

However, the site’s Home Page needs a bit of unpicking. It has a heading, “Finalists in 2012 Queensland Reconciliation Awards”, followed by text which reads “More than a ‘book club’ – we celebrated our 10th Anniversary in August 2014.” At first, I thought the page was going to list the 2012 finalists, but then I realised that they were saying that their bookclub was a finalist in the 2012 awards? Duh, silly me! Anyhow, the accompanying text tells us that the group:

  • is diverse in background and age, and has no political or religious affiliations; and
  • seeks “to expand our knowledge and understanding of current issues impacting on Australia’s First Peoples by reading and discussing works in an informal, friendly setting”.

They are a Brisbane group, which meets every 6 weeks or so – and they welcome new readers. The way they work is for members to take turns in leading discussion of the chosen book, with this leader being expected “to provide some extra background or context, focus the discussion, etc.” I’d be there if I lived in the Brisbane area. A bit more Googling uncovered the fact that they seem to run under the banner of Reconciliation Queensland Incorporated.

Paul Collis, Dancing homeAnyhow, next on the home page is the list of books they’ve scheduled for 2018:

  • John Newton, The oldest foods on earth
  • Damien Freeman & Shirleen Morris, The forgotten people
  • Anita Heiss, Barbed wire & cherry blossoms
  • Mark Tedeschi, Murder at Myall Creek
  • Mark Moran, Serious whitefella stuff
  • Mark McKenna, From the edge
  • Nonie Sharp, No ordinary judgement
  • Paul Collis, Dancing Home

A varied list, and one that contains some titles and authors I don’t know. However, the best thing about this site is that they also have a page listing every book they’ve discussed since they started in 2004. That’s a great resource for anyone else wanting to read for reconciliation (or start such a group!) It’s worth noting that the books they read aren’t all by indigenous Australians, and they include fiction and non-fiction. They’ve read books by indigenous authors like Kim Scott and Anita Heiss, Bruce Pascoe and Jeanine Leane, for example, all of whom you have met here. Non-indigenous writers they’ve read include novelist Kate Grenville and historians Henry Reynolds and Ann Curthoys.

Understanding the past to comprehend the present

Rosalind Kidd, The way we civiliseAnyhow, I kept Googling, as I wanted to find out how this group started, and up popped an article titled “Six Books for Reconciliation Week” on an Amnesty International site! The article is by the group’s founder Helen Carrick. She starts:

In a Brisbane suburban lounge room in 2004, a diverse group aged from their 20s to 70s gathered to discuss Ros Kidd’s ‘The way we civilize’, which Professor Marcia Langton has described as a “ground-breaking history in the lives of Aboriginal people.”

They may have been diverse but their reason for meeting was not. They “all wished to learn more about Australia’s shared history – all regretted this hadn’t been learned at school.” They believe that they need to understand the past, in order to comprehend the present.

Carrick then describes the group’s history to date – including moving its home from members’ lounge rooms – and lists some of its highlights, including:

  • being a finalist in those awards I mentioned above!
  • establishing their website
  • having authors attend some meetings to discuss their books
  • the establishment of similar groups in Logan City (still Qld – you can see their 2016 list here) and Lismore (NSW)

And with this, I’ll end, making it a short Monday Musings for us all. I’ll just say that it’s great seeing a group like this – and not just seeing it, but seeing it survive for more than a decade and seeing the idea copied by others. Meanwhile, if you’re interested but can’t join a group, there’s always Lisa (ANZLitLovers)’s Indigenous Reading Week. From little things, big things grow – hopefully.

Do you take part in any reading for reconciliation programs?

Elizabeth Kleinhenz in conversation with Chris Wallace – about Germaine Greer

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Elizabeth Kleinhenz, Germaine Greer

It made for a busy night, given that the last Tuesday of the month is also my reading group night, but I had to go to this ANU Meet the Author event, because it involved Canberra academic/journalist (not to mention Germaine Greer biographer) Chris Wallace conversing with Elizabeth Kleinhenz, whose biography, Germaine: The life of Germaine Greer, has just been published.

MC Colin Steele commenced proceedings by introducing the participants, then noting that Germaine Greer’s archives had been bought a few years ago by the University of Melbourne for $3m! Not cheap, eh, but it is a significant collection about, as the back cover artwork says, “arguably one of the most significant and influential Australian women of her time.” Hmm, there are a lot of qualifications here – “arguably”, “one of the most”, “Australian”, “women” and “her time”. Whoever said this was not going out on a limb!

Anyhow, it was an excellent conversation – not just because it was about this fascinating woman, Germaine (b. 1939) but also because Chris Wallace led the conversation in a logically, but not rigidly, structured way and Elizabeth Kleinhenz was open and articulate in her responses. I’m glad I made the effort to attend.

First things first

To get things going, Wallace asked some general questions about the book itself. Its cover pic, for example. Kleinhenz responded that it was the publisher’s choice, though she was involved, I gather, in the discussion. They wanted a picture that would be attention-grabbing. And so it is.

Wallace, Steele and Kleinhenz,
Wallace, Steele and Kleinhenz, 2018, before the session

Wallace then asked about that back cover quote that I’ve already mentioned. It led to Kleinhenz talking about why she’d chosen Greer as her subject. She spoke about all the negative reactions she’d received on telling people that she was writing about Greer – comments like “that silly old bat”. But, Kleinhenz felt that Greer had made some significant contributions to women’s lives and that she’s an excellent scholar: she wanted to “set the record straight”.

She also said that Greer, despite her obvious impact on women’s lives, doesn’t like women (like me, for example) telling her that she’d changed their lives. “I didn’t change your life,” she apparently says, “you did.” Well yes, technically she’s right, but, without enlightenment from Greer, many of us may not have made the leaps we needed – or may have made them much more slowly – so I think our belief stands, whether or not Greer accepts it!

Anyhow, then, before getting into the nuts and bolts of the biography, Wallace asked Kleinhenz to say a little about her first biography on Kathleen Fitzpatrick, who is, apparently, another misunderstood woman. I won’t go into details, but Kleinhenz said she had always wondered why Kleinhenz, when offered a Professorship, had declined, saying she wasn’t good enough. She found the answer, she said, when researching Greer: it’s that women of Greer and Fitzpatrick’s generation were not brought up to be equal. Greer, said Kleinhenz, saw that women had to change themselves in order to move forward.

Wallace asked Kleinhenz how it was that we had moved from Fitzpatrick to Greer. Kleinhenz, born in the 1940s, related her own experience as a young women who, although she had a good job as a teacher, “just” wanted a house and family. However, when she got there she found it wasn’t enough. She realised, as Greer argues in The female eunuch, women could/should not blame men – doing so, in fact, cedes power to men – but must change ourselves. So, she did – she went back to work.

Early, mid and late Germaine

We then got into the guts of the conversation. With Greer now 80, how, asked Wallace, do we assess her? Kleinhenz felt that Wallace had got it right in her biography, Germaine Greer: Untamed shrew, recognising that Greer writes from where she’s at at the time. In that, said Kleinhenz, she is consistent!

However, later in her career, she said, it seems that Greer “went funny”. She is known to suffer depression. Maybe she wasn’t well. Her book, The boy (2003), about the beauty of young boys’ bodies, comes from, Kleinhenz feels, an unfortunate period in her life. But some years later, she bought the rainforest – which was in fact funded, I understand, from that sale of her archives. Kleinhenz suggested that this period marks her “return”.

Wallace, though, seemed not so sure, and asked Kleinhenz about Greer’s book On rape. Wallace is appalled by it, while Kleinhenz admitted to a “softer” response, one that she has also found amongst other women of her age. She admitted that Greer takes a very narrow definition of rape, but felt that Greer says some sensible things about the legal system, for example, and about the role of violence in rape.

Research and writing

The discussion then turned to biography writing. Wallace asked whether readers are surprised that people are, in fact, rounded, that is, not all good or all bad. Kleinhenz said that she tried not to be soft on Greer in her book, but she did find Greer an interesting woman. Greer has, in fact, a lot of friends – the implication being that she must have some good things going for her despite all her critics.

Wallace noted that Greer is charismatic, and wondered whether it’s been a problem that she has been too uncritically treated, here, rather than getting “energetic” Australian feedback. Kleinhenz agreed somewhat with this. There was some discussion, for example, about Greer’s taking a cultural relativist view towards female genital mutilation, rather than opposing it categorically. Kleinhenz suggested that Greer has been criticised in Australia – but “of the silly old bat” variety rather than more “critical” criticism, that is, serious analytical discussion of her ideas. Kleinhenz also said that it’s hard to dislike someone who makes you laugh. I understand that!

Wallace then moved onto a subject dear to my heart – the issue of the archives. Were they rich, she asked. Did they change Kleinhenz’s view? Kleinhenz, laughing, started by comparing Kathleen Fitzpatrick’s ordered 8-box collection with Germaine’s nearly 500 boxes that were not organised chronologically. She discussed her process – the role Wallace had played in her getting “more organised”, and how she handled the closing of the Greer archives for 12 months partway through her research. This turned out to be useful, because during this time she went to secondary sources and conducted interviews, so that when the archives opened again, she had a framework.

She shared some of the treasures, some of the things that stood out – such as letters from Clive James, Helen Garner, and a French girl who told a very personal story and to whom Greer wrote a personally revealing reply.

During the Q&A at the end, the issue of Greer keeping copies of the letters she wrote came up. Why did she – do some – people keep not only the letters they receive but copies of those they write? There’s no single answer of course. However, Kleinhenz did say that she believes Greer knows her “commercial” value. The words “no fee, no work” appear at the bottom of many of her letters. Wallace interjected here commenting that writers’ incomes are “lumpy”, so it’s quite likely that potential financial value drove her decision to keep her papers – and, Greer knew she was big. (However, it could also simply that she’s a hoarder, or, a historian who likes to keep her records? I can understand that.)

Kleinhenz also said that she suspects that Greer had probably removed some family-related material from the archives before she sold them. Also, there was not much “childhood stuff” in the archives, but the audio material is wonderful. Greer apparently records her thoughts, for example, as she goes for walks with her dogs.

Q & A

I’ve included some of the Q&A discussions above, because it seemed logical, but other issues were discussed, including:

  • Why did she choose Greer? Kleinhenz said she grew up with Greer. Greer is only three years older than she, but also lived in the same area of Melbourne, and they both went to Catholic schools. However, the main reason is that she felt Greer deserved it: she wanted, she reiterated, “to put record straight”.
  • What difference do her archives make to assessment of her? Kleinhenz answered that while they don’t contain much in terms of signficant new facts, they add a depth of understanding. Those letters she mentioned above, and other letters like those with John Atwood, whom she appeared to love at one stage in her life, helped here.
  • What impact did the birth control pill have? Kleinhenz said that Greer was highly aware of the pill and felt that women needed to think through the changes the pill brought, and how they would manage those changes, what they would do with them. This came out in the excellent notes she made for writing The female eunuch.

Kleinhenz added at this point, that Greer had felt a freak as a young person – she felt too tall, too noisy.

Closing the session

In closing the session, Colin Steele referred to the small Trailblazers book – accompanying Australia Post’s Australian Legends series – in which Greer says she’s not a tour operator, but wants to encourage people to think for themselves. This, in fact, perfectly sums up my attitude to Greer. She’s a bit (hmm, just a bit?!) of an iconoclast. I don’t always like – or perhaps, fully comprehend – what she says, but I love that she’s around saying it. She can always make me think – and sometimes, she makes me laugh!

I’d love to say more about Greer and some of the ideas generated by this conversation, but will, perhaps save them until I’ve read the biography.

Podcast: click this link to see if you think I’ve captured the conversation accurately enough!

ANU/The Canberra Times Meet the Author
MC: Colin Steele
Australian National University
30 October 2018

Monday musings on Australian literature: And now it’s booktubers

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Book Stack

(Courtesy: OCAL, from clker.com)

Well, actually, it’s not quite “and now” because booktubers have been around for a while – apparently. Or, so I read in an article, sent to me by occasional commenter here Neil. (Thanks Neil.) The article is from ABC RN’s The Hub program: it contains a link to the segment on the radio program, as well as a written article about booktubers. One of the booktubers has been posting videos for 9 years! Fascinating.

Here is the link on the ABC’s website, if you are interested.

It’s probably not surprising, however, that this corner of the book-internet has escaped my notice because, firstly, booktubers seem to come, primarily anyhow, from a younger generation than mine, but secondly, and probably more significantly, booktubers apparently tend to be lovers of fantasy and YA fiction, neither of which are big (as you’ll know) in my reading diet. However, we are ecumenical here at Whispering Gums in our interest in book and reading culture, hence today’s post.

So what or who are booktubers? Well, firstly, booktubers are, if I understand correctly, a subset of vloggers (ie video-loggers). In other words, they are book reviewers who, instead of writing their reviews on a blog, present them orally via a video service like YouTube.

Some Australian booktubers

  • G-Swizzel Books(Grace): Commenced 2015, with nearly 5,000 subscribers. Marvel Books, are among her special interests.
  • IsThatChami (was Read Like Wildfire): Commenced in 2014, with nearly 20,000 subscribers. She seems to do more than books, but books feature in a significant number of her vlog posts.
  • Happy Indulgence (Jeann Wong): Commenced in 2014, with nearly 2,000 subscribers. A recent vlog post of hers was about a book haul. Her audience is comparatively small, but she told the ABC that she also blogs and Instagrams about books, and has a good relationship with publishers.
  • Little Book Owl (Catriona Feeney): Commenced in 2011, with over 181,000 subscribers. According to the ABC, she’s our most popular one. Fantasy fiction is apparently her specialty. An example is her recent vlog post on unboxing book boxes.
  • Noveltea Corner (Stef): Commenced in 2014, with nearly 2,000 subscribers.
  • Piera Forde: Commenced in 2011, and now has over 32,000 subscribers. earlier this month she posted a video on setting up bookshelves in her new home. She also likes fantasy, and the ABC report quotes her as saying that “Apart from BookTube, I rarely see reviews of fantasy fiction in newsletters or in the paper.” She needs to check out the Australian Women Writers Challenge, and our Speculative Fiction Round-ups. There are many many fantasy fiction book bloggers – not newspaper reviews I know, but they are written form reviews.
  • Tilly and her Books: Commenced in 2014, with over 14,000 subscribers. YA and Fantasy seem to be her main interests.

You can find more Australian booktubers at The Noveltea Corner. I haven’t checked them all out, and some seem to have not posted for some time, but it’s a start if you are interested.

As well as talking about books, these bloggers seem to talk about their reading lives – about unpacking book boxes (their book hauls), for example, or setting up their book shelves. Apparently, according to the ABC, “book haul” posts are a “sub-genre wherein BookTubers name-check recent yet-to-be-read acquisitions.” Like book bloggers, they’ll do posts on top reads, or recommending books on a theme. Little Book Owl, for example, produced one last week for Halloween. Indeed, in my quick survey, I saw more of these general vlog posts, than ones specifically reviewing one or two books.

Interestingly, the three identified by the ABC are all young women. Most of those on Noveltea’s list are women (just a couple of exceptions) and another list I found of ten favourite international booktubers seemed to be all women too.

The ABC noted that publishers are recognising the influence of this “new wave of digital-native bibliophiles.” Digital natives they may be, but I’m loving that they love the printed book. Many of them, when describing their book hauls, comment on the physical book – on its feel, its look, its size and weight. And they do so with obvious passion and delight. They don’t seem to be heavily into e-books – which corresponds with some recent research which suggests that younger readers still prefer hard copy for their recreational reading.

Anyhow, back to the publishers … the ABC quotes Ella Chapman, who is head of marketing and communications at Hachette Australia. She says that the booktubers enable them to “tap into a readership that perhaps we haven’t been able to reach via traditional means.”

I’ve enjoyed my little introduction to this booktuber phenomenon, and love that there’s an enthusiastic bunch of younger readers out there communicating about books. Their focus seems to be different to mine, and their presentations tend to be a bit too fast and excited for me. I think I’ll stick to blogs, but supporting diversity in how we share and engage in literary culture can only be good for us all.

Have you come across any booktubers? And if you have, do you have favourites?

Queensland Literary Awards 2018 winners announced

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Hot off tonight’s twitter feed are this year’s winners of the Queensland Literary Awards. They combine specific state awards and awards for which all Australian writers are eligible.

Here is the whole suite of winners in the order they were announced:

  • Queensland Premier’s Award for a work of State Significance: Jackie Ryan’s Expo 88
  • Bri Lee, Eggshell skullYoung Publishers and Writers Award: Bri Lee’s Eggshell skull and Anna Jacobson, whose debut poetry collection will be published by UQP in 2019.
  • Queensland Writing Fellows: Michael Gerard Bauer, Laura Elvery and Jackie Ryan.
  • State Library of Queensland Poetry Collection — Judith Wright Calanthe Award: Michael Farrell’s I love poetry (Giramondo), which, says the Twitter feed, the judges found to be “a truly inventive book” 
  • Glendower Award for an Emerging Queensland Writer: Melanie Myers for her manuscript Garrison Town. The judges, says Twitter, described it as “a polished, multi-layered narrative”.
  • David Unaipon Award for an Unpublished Indigenous Writer: Kirstie Parker for her manuscript The making of Ruby Champion, which impressed the judges for the way it “seamlessly draws together the outback Aboriginal grassroots experience with the urban Black story”. The David Unaipon Award has brought us some wonderful writers in the past, of which, to date, I’ve reviewed four here.
  • QUT Digital Literature Award: David Henry Thomas Wright & Chris Arnold’s Little Emperor syndrome. The judges noted its “elegantly simple execution of a wickedly complex narrative”. 
  • Griffith University Children’s Book Award: Peter Carnavas’ The elephant (UQP).
  • Griffith University Young Adult Book Award: Cally Black’s In the dark spaces (Hardie Grant Egmont)
  • University of Southern Queensland Short Story Collection-Steele Rudd Award: Jennifer Down’s Pulse points (Text Publishing), which the judges described as “a daring, compelling and refreshing collection” 
  • University of Southern Queensland History Book Award: Jackie Ryan’s Expo 88: We’ll show the world (UQP), which the judges praised for its “achievement in analysing the many dimensions of the Expo story…with such pacey economy is extraordinary” 
  • University of Queensland Non-Fiction Book Award: Alexis Wright’s Tracker (Giramondo) which the judges said “is stunningly innovative in the way it brings the life and story of Tracker Tilmouth to the printed page”
  • Kim Scott, TabooUniversity of Queensland Fiction Book Award: Kim Scott’s Taboo (Pan Macmillan) which the judges described as “a confronting but ultimately hopeful book that probes Australia’s heart of darkness in poetic and masterly prose.” (Still on my TBR but Lisa has read!)
  • Courier-Mail People’s Choice Queensland Book of the Year Award: Beth Wilson’s Brisbane houses with gardens.

Jackie Ryan, Expo 88

Some interesting awards and books here, but Jackie Ryan is clearly the winner of the night, having won the Award for a work of State Significance, the History Book Award, and a Writing Fellowship. I should say that publisher UQP shows her books full title as We’ll show the world: Expo 88 – Brisbane’s almighty struggle for a little bit of cred.

I particularly love that these Awards include one for Digital Literature (since 2017, I believe). It’s not surprising, though, given the work being done in keeping up with new writing and publishing technologies by the Queensland Writers Centre. You may remember that last year I reviewed the Writing black digital collection edited by Ellen van Neerven and supported by the Centre’s If:book arm.

Anyhow, as always, congratulations to all the winners. What a thrill it must be.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Memorable homes in Aussie novels

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“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again” is a novel opener that many of us will recognise, I’m sure. It comes, of course, from Daphne Du Maurier’s Rebecca. For some reason it popped into my head recently, and it got me thinking, not about first lines, but about famous fictional houses – and whether we have any in Australia. I’m meaning houses that are (somewhat universally) known by their name – and/or by their strong presence – in the novel. There are many, in fact, throughout literature, and some are listed on a Wikipedia page for Fictional houses, like 221B Baker Street, Bag End, Howards End, and Thornfield Hall. One of the big ones for me is, you won’t be surprised, Pemberley in Pride and prejudice. It was when she saw Pemberley, Elizabeth Bennet cheekily tells sister Jane, that she started to change her mind about Mr. Darcy.

However, when I started thinking about memorable houses (or homes) in Australian fiction I came a bit unstuck. I’ve been pondering this – on and off – for a few weeks but, although I came up with all sorts of memorable places or locations, I’ve only come up with three identifiable homes (so you know what I’m going to ask you at the end of this post, don’t you!?) I’m listing them in chronological order of publication.

Misrule

Ethel Turner, Seven Little AustraliansFrom Ethel Turner’s Seven little Australians (1894). It was inspired by her family’s home in Sydney’s Killara and its then bushland setting.

Misrule is introduced in Chapter 1:

Indeed at Misrule—that is the name their house always went by, though I believe there was a different one painted above the balcony—

The name, of course, reflects the unruly nature of the family life that happens within and around it. As the novel ends, and after the tragedy that my Aussie reading friends will remember, stepmother Esther wishes

there might be some chance, then, of Misrule resuming its baptismal and unexciting name of The River House.

But, oddly enough, no one echoed the wish.

Thank goodness for that … Ethel Turner’s sequel was, in fact, titled The family at Misrule, reassuring us that life for the Woolcot family will, again, not be “unexciting” in this follow-up story!

Appleyard College

Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging RockFrom Joan Lindsay’s Picnic at Hanging Rock (1967). OK, so not a house exactly, but as the boarding school in Joan Lindsay’s gothic-influenced novel it was the school-year home for the novel’s girls, and featured its formidable (eponymous) principal, Mrs Appleyard. The Victorian-era formality of the school and the strict controls placed on its female students are set against the sense of freedom offered by picnic fun and the mysterious, alluring Hanging Rock. Unfortunately, though, I don’t have the book so can’t share any quotes or descriptions.

Cloudstreet 

Tim Winton, CloudstreetFrom Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet (1991). This is, perhaps, Australia’s most famous fictional house, being the home, from the 1940s to the 1960s, of Tim Winton’s two families, the Pickles and the Lambs. There are many lovely descriptions of the house, but here is Rose Pickles just after they’ve moved into the big empty house left in a will to her father Sam:

Well, she thought, the old man had a win. Cloud Street. It had a good sound to it. Well, depending on how you looked at it. And right now she preferred to think of the big win and not the losses she knew would probably come. (p. 38)

The wins and losses, in other words, that big family homes, like Misrule for example, know all about. After this follows a physical description of the house as the family moves in, cleans it up, and explores its many nooks and crannies. How on earth, they wonder, will they fill up “this great continent of a house.” And then, along come the Lambs and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, a short – and I hope – fun post this week after last week’s bunch of rather long, earnest ones.

And now, I’d love to hear of your favourite fictional homes – Australian or otherwise – but if you are one of my Australian readers, I’d really like to hear your Australian ones. I bet you’ll come up with some that make me say, “Of course!”

 

Nadia Wheatley, Her mother’s daughter: A memoir (#BookReview)

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Nadia Wheatley, Her mother's daughterIn Her mother’s daughter: A memoir, Australian writer Nadia Wheatley has written the sort of hybrid biography-memoir that I’ve reviewed a few times in this blog. All of them, as I mentioned in my recent Meet the Author post, have been mother-daughter stories, Susan Varga’s Heddy and me, Anna Rosner Blay’s Sister, sister, and Halina Rubin’s Journeys with my mother. It’s this hybrid form that I’d particularly like to explore in this post.

And the hybrid I’m talking about is one where the biography is of the subject (mothers, in these cases) and the memoir is of the writer (the daughters.) This is the more common form of hybrid biography-memoir, though my research did turn up others, such as Room to dream by Kristine McKenna and David Lynch in which McKenna’s biographical chapters on Lynch are followed by Lynch’s responses to those.

The biographer’s question

There are, of course, many memoirs by people who, in order to tell their own story, need to figure out their relationships with others, particularly their parents. However, these books remain primarily about the writer. Hybrid biography-memoirs, on the other hand, tend to be as much, if not more, about the other person as the writer. The end result might be the writer understanding themselves more, but the focus tends to be the other. This was clearly Wheatley’s intention. Indeed she told us that her biographer’s question was “Why would a nice person like Neen marry an awful person like my father?”

So, her book’s main focus, then is her mother. Nina (Neen) Wheatley, nee Watkin, was born in northern New South Wales in 1906, and died in Sydney in 1958. She lost her own mother when she was five years old. She and her siblings were separated when her father remarried, with Nina and her younger sister Boo staying with their father and his new wife. It became clear that the family expected Nina to be the parents’ carer in their old age. However, Nina managed to train as a nurse, and go overseas during the war as an enlisted nurse with the 6th AGH (Australian General Hospital), where she worked in Greece and Palestine. She returned to Europe after the war to work with UNRRA and then IRO, caring for Displaced Persons. It was during this time that she met the man – English doctor, John Wheatley – she ended up marrying. It was a bad decision: he was a womaniser, possessive and controlling, and, according to Wheatley, sadistic. Indeed, it’s very likely that, had he – and the medical fraternity more broadly – taken women’s health seriously, Nina would not have died when she did. After her mother’s death when Wheatley was 9 years old, she, an only child, lived with a local family known to her (and chosen by her mother before her death.) This was, for Wheatley, a problematic situation – but this part of the story occupies just the last 20 or so pages of the book, and, while it’s important to the overall memoir, I do want to move onto other points.

So, back to the form. Unlike Wheatley, those other three biographers-cum-memoirsts, Varga, Blay and Rubin, were able, as adults, to question their mothers. They could bring an adult’s eye to their mothers, and ask the sorts of questions an adult might ask. They all tape-recorded their mothers. Wheatley’s mother, however, died when Wheatley was nine, so concocting her mother’s story was a very different challenge. Fortunately – and how prescient of her – she realised that her memories wouldn’t last so, at 10 years old, she started writing down her memories of the happy times she spent with her mother and also the stories her mother had told her about her life. At times I wondered how she could possibly have remembered as much detail as she does. However, given Wheatley was clearly a writer from the start and given what she experienced was so powerful, it wasn’t hard to trust her authenticity. It’s these stories and  memories, together with letters, journals and interviews with family members and friends, and official records, that provide the facts for her mother’s biography.

Step one, then, is the research, but next comes how to marshall it all into a narrative. Varga and Rubin, like Wheatley, take us on a journey of discovery. As Wheatley said during the conversation with Halligan, she wanted to take the reader on the quest with her. She wanted to share the detective story of her unravelling her mother’s story, and not just present the evidence. Varga and Rubin do something similar, but they tell their story first person, sharing when their mother is reticent, when they, as daughters, are challenged, and so on. Varga makes it clear to her mother – and us – that this means “it won’t be her life story, not properly” but would be “filtered” through her “reactions and thoughts”, her “second generation eyes.”

Blay, however, is more formal, presenting her mother Hela and aunt Janka’s stories in their words as transcribed from her interviews with them. She intersperses these with her own perspective in italics. The three voices are thus distinct.

Wheatley, though, uses a different approach again. She tells her mother’s story third person, but, intermittently, will suddenly switch to first person to present her own role in the research or the story, removing us from Nina’s chronology to her own time-frame. Chapter 9, which relates her mother’s life immediately postwar, is a good example. The first 10 pages read like a standard biography, describing what Nina was doing, quoting from letters and journals to support the information, then, suddenly, after a reference to Nina’s father’s death, she flashes to nine years after Nina’s own death (and over twenty years after the time we’ve been in.) Nadia is dining with her Auntie Boo, and casually asks if she knows where Nina’s wedding ring is. Her aunt bursts into tears, saying:

‘Daddy’s will was so unfair! To leave everything to Neen! Not just Glenorie, but everything in it!’ As my aunt moved on in her attack, it turned out that I too was guilty as charged: ‘All those things that Nina and you had in that house at Strathfield, you had no right to them.’

Now, Nina’s father had left “other real estate to his other children” but leaving the family home to Nina rankled so much, writes Nadia, that “some of her siblings would never get over it.” After a page on all this, we are returned to Nina’s life, and the third person voice.

This approach ensures that as well as travelling the journey with Nadia, we also see the impact on her, and her sense of guilt, as she is growing up. There are many insertions like this, including one later in the book when Nadia remembers a time with her father when she was three years old. With this approach, Nina’s story is told chronologically, but Nadia’s is disjointed until after Nadia is born when her story is gradually folded in to the main narrative. It’s a tricky approach, but Wheatley, an experienced novelist and biographer, makes it work, resulting in something that provides both a coherent biography of her mother, and the impact on her. It doesn’t necessarily work if you are expecting a detailed memoir of Wheatley’s life, but that wasn’t Wheatley’s goal.

Defining moments

Interesting as all this is, however, the main joy in reading Her mother’s daughter lies in its social history of the first half of the twentieth century. Wheatley’s story of her mother’s experience as an active participant in World War 2 is vivid, and makes a significant contribution to a less covered aspect of that war. Her story of her mother’s life in Sydney during 1950s is significant too – but terribly so.

Nina’s War “story” was fascinating. Her reports of her early experience are cheerful, full of a sense of adventure and camaraderie, but that soon changes as her real war experience starts. She sees the impact of bombing on civilians in Greece, and she nurses casualties of the Syrian campaigns including El Alamein. She already cared about social justice before going to war, but her desire to help others firmed afterwards. Her experience of forced repatriations, of seeing “Poles packed like cattle in trucks” during her work with UNRRA, was “a defining moment” writes Wheatley. Nina wrote in her journal that “This experience will have an intense influence on all my life.”

Wheatley’s description of her mother’s work with Displaced Persons is inspiring, showing Nina to be a resourceful and empathetic woman who managed to create harmony in extremely difficult circumstances. However, her marriage to Dr Wheatley saw this confident, warm woman brought undone. Her husband’s cruel, self-centred behaviour soon soured all Nina’s hopes of a happy marriage of equals. Nadia writes that he either “provoked arguments” with her mother, or set up “elaborate games in which I was the pawn he used to take the queen.” That – and his womanising – were bad enough but, when in 1956 Nina started feeling unwell, the situation became dire because Nina fell prey to a male-dominated medical system, actively supported by her doctor husband. The belief that the ills women of Nina’s now middle-age felt were all “in the mind” resulted in her eventual destruction. It’s devastating for Nina (of course) and for Nadia from whom so much, before and after, was kept secret – but, for anyone who knows or lived through the 50s, it’s only too believable.

Unfortunately, as it turns out, not all the defining moments of Nina’s life were positive ones.

Now, once again, I’ve outstayed my welcome, so I’ll conclude by saying that Her mother’s daughter is a great read for two reasons. Firstly, it provides a thoughtful, authentic – sometimes exciting, sometimes disturbing – social history of the times. And secondly, with Wheatley’s ability to write engaging narratives, it makes for engrossing, moving, provocative reading. I do recommend it.

AWW Badge 2018Nadia Wheatley
Her mother’s daughter: A memoir
Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2018
322pp.
ISBN: 9781925603491

Dymphna Clark Lecture: Clare Wright and You daughters of freedom

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According to the University of Melbourne website, the Dymphna Clark Lecture “is delivered annually by a lecturer who exemplifies the deep commitment Dymphna Clark showed to Australia’s intellectual and cultural life.” Strangely, I can’t find a description of the lecture series on the Manning Clark House site which, I believe, is behind the lecture series. I can, however, find a list of the Manning Clark Lectures up to and including 2019 on their About Us page. Poor form I think, particularly given it was Dymphna, I understand, “who bequeathed the family home to the intellectual and cultural community with the wish that it be used to support artists and public intellectuals and provide a safe haven for the entire community.”

On Facebook I discovered that Drusilla Modjeska gave the 2016 lecture; on the above-linked University of Melbourne site that Anna Funder gave 2013’s; and on Virginia Haussegger’s site that David Headon was 2009. Drilling down to page 3 of my Google search, I found at honestyhistory that Bill Gammage was it for 2014 and on safecom that Eva Sallis was 2007. But, why can’t I easily find a list of all the Dymphna Clark lectures, as I can of the Manning Clark lectures? We could take exception to this, seeing it as, once again, sexism in action, but I’m inclined to think the reason is more mundane, and that it’s a sin of omission, not of commission. So, I now respectfully suggest that they create a new page for the two lecture series and maintain a list, with relevant links, of both series, because they are serious lectures. Clare Wright’s 2018 talk, for example, was being recorded for ABC RN’s Big Ideas program. But now, having made my point, I’ll move on to the lecture.

You daughters of freedom

Technological troubles

It was held in a lecture theatre at the ANU. Unfortunately, despite many people trying for over half an hour to get the technology working, the lecture went ahead without Wright’s accompanying slideshow. A real shame but, luckily, Wright is an excellent, engaging speaker, and easily kept our attention for the 50 minutes or so that she spoke. The lecture was, of course, inspired by Wright’s latest book, You daughters of freedom, the second in her Democracy Trilogy, she told us. Manning Clark House’s promotion for the lecture said the book:

brings to life a time when Australian democracy was the envy of the world—and the standard bearer for progress in a shining new century. For the ten years from 1902, when Australia’s feminist activists won the vote for white women, the world looked to this trailblazing young democracy for inspiration.

This epic new history tells the story of that victory—and of Australia’s role in the subsequent international struggle—through the eyes of five remarkable players: the redoubtable Vida Goldstein, the flamboyant Nellie Martel, indomitable Dora Montefiore, daring Muriel Matters, and the artist Dora Meeson Coates, who painted the controversial Australian banner carried in the British feminist activist marches of 1908 and 1911.   

I’ve started reading the book, and while I’ve only read some 40 of its 500 or so pages, I’m finding it wonderfully readable.

Anyhow, now, really, the lecture! Wright was briefly introduced by Sebastian Clark, President of the Manning Clark House and son of Dymphna and Manning Clark, and then we were off. She started by describing that famous restaurant scene in When Harry met Sally – you all know the one – which concludes with the woman at the next table saying to the server, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Wright teased out some meanings and implications of that scene in terms of women’s freedom, the #metoo movement, and, of course, her lecture’s subject, the granting of the vote to women in Australia in 1902.

“In the noonday glare”

Clare Wright, You daughters of freedomWhen Wright stated that this legislation made Australian women the most franchised women in the world, there were mutterings in the audience about, for example, New Zealand – and was followed up in the Q&A. But, I had already read Wright’s Author’s Note that opens her book, where she explains her claim. Australia was the first nation to give (white) adult women full suffrage – meaning not only could they vote on equal par with men (that is, without property qualifications, and with the same age and residency requirements) but they could also sit in parliament. New Zealand granted women the vote in 1893, but New Zealand was not a nation until 1947, and women could not sit in parliament until 1919. Finland was, in fact, the next nation to grant full suffrage to women – in 1906. I loved that she refers in this Note to something that we’d discovered on our US travels back in the 1990s, which was that women were granted the vote in Wyoming in 1869! But, Wyoming is a state, not a nation. Similarly the colony of South Australia enacted universal suffrage in 1895, including allowing women to stand for the colonial parliament, but again, it was not a nation. It was the fact that a nation had granted suffrage that apparently became a beacon for the world. Of course, proclaiming “firsts” is always risky, but Wright’s definition seems perfectly valid to me in terms of her book’s thesis.

Wright explained in her lecture that this same Act disenfranchised indigenous people. Some parliamentarians did apparently demur on this point, but those who demurred gave way to ensure that at least women got the rights. Consequently, race not gender became the dividing line. As Wright said, “white” Australia was very much the game from Federation, and, while later, some women started fighting for their “black sisters”, their first priority, after gaining suffrage for themselves, was to go to England to support the mother country’s sisters. Such were the times. Later in her lecture, Wright said that it may not be pleasing to know this about our “heroines” but it’s historically accurate!

I should confess at this point, that I’m not reporting on this lecture exactly in the order that Wright gave it but in an order suiting my main takings from it.

Anyhow, back to the granting of suffrage. Wright quoted American-born Australian suffragist Jessie Ackermann who said that this act of the new Australian nation put it/us “in the noonday glare.” Suffrage was, she said, the biggest news in the early years of the twentieth century and was simply known as “the Cause”. Australia’s actions made it/us a test site for universal suffrage and the other socially progressive laws Australia enacted in those days. Could it work? Everyone was watching – particularly of course men who feared loss of power. As Wright said near the end of the lecture:

Power never concedes anything without a fight.

Wright briefly introduced the five main women she features in her book, Vida Goldstein, Nellie Martel, Dora Montefiore, Muriel Matters, and Dora Meeson Coates, and characterised their approach to activism by giving them a canine archetype! Goldstein, the “born activist”, she described as a kelpie, for example, while Meeson Coates is a “reluctant activist” and a Weimaraner! (As past owners of Weimaraner, Mr Gums and I chuckled here.) Again, near the end of the lecture, Wright explained that she did this canine breakdown to show that these women were not all one type, and that difference is critical to the movement’s internal gatekeeping.

Wright also spoke about the challenge she faced in making suffrage, citizenship and federation exciting, particularly at this time when democracy is under attack. She quoted the recently reported Lowy Institute poll showing the surprising level of ambivalence in Australia about democracy. It’s hard to imagine in this environment, she said, that democracy and all that it involves was the hottest topic on the planet in the late 19th century. Why did Aussie women travel to England to fight for the rights for others?

Well, they were different times, of course, as Wright made clear. The turn of the century was a time of optimism. In Australia it was a trinity – new year, new nation, new century. People believed the past was being left behind; they had new Utopian visions. Women’s suffrage encapsulated all this – the ideas of rebellion, emancipation, restructuring society. Suffrage was seen as the key to unlocking repression. If women could vote, and if women could sit in parliament, women’s needs might be better cared for. As Jessie Ackermann said, the freest girls were in Australia.

The women’s suffrage banner

As she does in her book’s Introduction, Wright walked us through (our current) Parliament House to a narrow corridor past the Members’ Hall where, if you get there, you find a large banner. It was created by that Weimaraner Dora Meeson Coates in 1908 and was carried in the 1911 suffragette-organised Women’s Coronation Procession. Wright took us through its iconography/symbolism, through the implications of its depiction of Mother Britannia with Daughter Minerva. It shows, she said, the daughter Australia speaking to the mother England, the banner headline reading “Trust the Women Mother As I Have Done.” This was, she said, “allegorical effrontery.” Why had she not known about this banner, she wondered, given she calls herself a feminist historian?

Now, I could go on, but I’ve probably lost half of you by now and will soon lose the rest, so I’m going to try to become even briefer. Wright explained that one-third of her book is about how Australian women won the vote, and two-thirds about how Australian women inspired the world, In this context, she told a wonderful story about Bulldog Dora Montefiore, another Aussie woman who went to England, and her “Siege of Hammersmith”, a 6-weeks long passive resistance protest again paying taxes without representation. (She was, says Wright, seen by a young Indian man, Mahatma Gandhi!) A wonderful story. It was part of something called the Women’s Tax Resistance League. Wright also described the passive resistance campaigns against the 1911 Census: Women argued that if they don’t count, they shouldn’t be counted.

The irony of history

And so, Australian women were leaders in the suffrage movement and yet, today, British suffragettes are icons of rebellion and bravado but our Australian activists are relegated to the footnotes of academic history. BUT, she argued, Dora Meeson Coates’ banner challenges the view that this history of women’s activism is niche. The big picture is, she said, that Federation and Feminism went hand-in-glove: the banner is about colonialism, about old and new, the enfranchised and disenfranchised, about men in Australia who championed women’s suffrage and those in England who didn’t, and more …

Why then are women not sufficiently accounted for in Australian history? Because, she said, of the First World War. Federation’s optimism, she argues, was soon overshadowed by the War, which, as we all know now, precipitated a “new narrative.” So, whilst before the War, our role in the world was being seen in terms of our achievements in terms of democratic idealism, suddenly it was being seen in military terms. It was our bravery, our contribution to the war effort, that now defined us as a nation – and the rest, as they say, is history! (Particularly given, I’d add, that, as Jane Austen said one hundred years ago, “Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story … the pen has been in their hands.”) From Wright’s point of view, the War represented not the birth of a nation, but the death of the nation we were becoming. Something to think about, eh?

Clare WrightThere was still more, but even I’m running out of puff now. Wright concluded by talking about the importance of stories. The stories we choose to tell are the ones that define who (we think) we are. Why, for example, she asked, is there no statue in Melbourne memorialising that significant suffragist and social reformer, Vida Goldstein? Why, too, is Prime Minister Fisher remembered more for his statements about war (about our defending the mother country “to the last man, and the last shilling”) but not his argument about “true democracy” requiring the inclusion of “women as well as men in the electorate of the country”?

Wright said she’s wary of “learning lessons” from history, preferring to think about legacies. The legacy of the suffragists is that resistance, that grass-roots movements, can create real and lasting change. Her mantra, she said, is Dora Montefiore’s exhortion: #trustthewomen. And with that, her true colours, already advertised in the borrowed suffragette scarf she was wearing, were shown!

An intelligent Q&A lasting nearly half an hour followed, but eventually we had to finish. It was a wonderful lecture. I love that not only is Wright such an accessible, engaging historian, but that she linked the past to the present, because that is the main reason I like to read history. The past is interesting, but its true value lies in how it can enlighten the present.

And now, if you made it to the end – I thank and salute you!

Dymphna Clark Lecture
RN Robertson Theatre, ANU
17 October 2018

Prime Minister’s Literary Awards Shortlist, 2018, announced

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I don’t always announce all literary awards shortlists, but have decided to announce the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlist this year. The press release says that over 500 books were submitted across the 6 categories. Is that all? I guess I would have expected more, but it is somewhat expensive to submit, particularly for small publishers. There is NO entry fee, but 10 copies of each book submitted must be provided.

Over the years, the number of categories offered under the award, which was introduced in 2008 by Kevin Rudd, has increased, which is excellent I’d say for Australian writers, given the value of the award. Winners receive $80K, and shortlisted authors $5K.

I also don’t always announce all the categories covered by awards, but this year I’m gonna, starting with Fiction of course!

Michelle de Kretser, The life to comeFiction

  • A long way from home, Peter Carey (Penguin Random House): on my TBR (Lisa’s review)
  • Border districts, Gerald Murnane (Giramondo): on my TBR (Lisa’s review)
  • First person, Richard Flanagan (Penguin Random House): my review
  • Taboo, Kim Scott (Pan Macmillan): on my TBR (Lisa’s review)
  • The life to come, Michelle de Kretser (Allen & Unwin): my review (and winner of this year’s Miles Franklin Award)

Quite a male-dominated list this year, and generally conservative, as it sticks with tried and true authors, but nonetheless these are all, from what I’ve read or ascertained from others, good books. Still, I have liked that this award has often introduced us to something a bit different (like Stephen Daisley, and Lisa Gorton) from the other awards, but not so here. It would be lovely to see Gerald Murnane win – the only one among these not to have won a significant Australian award – given his significant contribution to Australian letters, but, will he?

I have not read any of the rest of the shortlisted books, I’m afraid.

Poetry

  • Archipelago, Adam Aitken (Vagabond Press)
  • Blindness and rage: A phantasmagoria, Brian Castro (Giramondo Publishing)
  • Chatelaine, Bonny Cassidy (Giramondo Publishing)
  • Domestic interior, Fiona Wright (Giramondo Publishing)
  • Transparencies, Stephen Edgar (Black Pepper)

Looks like that wonderful independent publisher Giramondo is one of this year’s winners, regardless of WHO wins the awards in the end. Good on them, in particular, for supporting poetry so well.

Non-fiction

  • Asia’s reckoning, Richard McGregor (Penguin Random House UK)
  • Mischka’s war: A European odyssey of the 1940s, Sheila Fitzpatrick (University of Melbourne Publishing)
  • No front line: Australia’s special forces at war in Afghanistan, Chris Masters (Allen & Unwin)
  • The library: A catalogue of wonders, Stuart Kells (Text Publishing)
  • Unbreakable, Jelena Dokic and Jessica Halloran (Penguin Random House): my report of an In Conversation event

Australian history

  • Beautiful Balts: From Displaced Persons to New Australians, Jayne Persian (NewSouth Publishing)
  • Hidden in plain view: The Aboriginal people of coastal Sydney, Paul Irish (NewSouth Publishing)
  • Indigenous and other Australians since 1901, Timothy Rowse (NewSouth Publishing)
  • John Curtin’s war: The coming of war in the Pacific, and reinventing Australia, Volume 1, John Edwards (Penguin Random House
  • The enigmatic Mr Deakin, Judith Brett (Text Publishing)

And here, NewSouth Publishing, the publishing arm of the University New South Wales, has strut its stuff. They also did well at this year’s New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards, where they won two prizes, including Paul Irish’s Hidden in plain view for the NSW Community and Regional History Prize. As I’ve said before, it’s excellent to see university presses publishing and doing well.

Children’s literature

  • Feathers, by Phil Cummings and Phil Lesnie (Scholastic Australia)
  • Figgy takes the city, Tamsin Janu (Scholastic Australia)
  • Hark, it’s me, Ruby Lee!, Lisa Shanahan and Binny Talib (Hachette Australia)
  • Pea pod lullaby, Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King (Allen & Unwin)
  • Storm whale, Sarah Brennan and Jane Tanner (Allen & Unwin)

Young Adult literature

  • Living on Hope Street, Demet Divaroren (Allen & Unwin)
  • My lovely Frankie, Judith Clarke (Allen & Unwin)
  • Ruben, Bruce Whatley (Scholastic Australia)
  • The ones that disappeared, Zana Fraillon (Hachette Australia)
  • This is my song, Richard Yaxley (Scholastic Australia)

And, in the youth literature area, congrats to Allen and Unwin, Hachette Australia and Scholastic Australia who have scooped the pool. I don’t know enough about this area to know how representative this is, but I do know that indigenous publisher Magabala Books publish children’s books. I wonder if they submitted.

The complete shortlist with judges’ comments can be seen on the website. And now, I apologise for the rushed post, but I’m running late for my afternoon commitments and will be out this evening too.

Thoughts, anyone?

Monday Musings on Australian literature: the Australasian Home Reading Union et al (2)

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Shared Reading Sign

Shared Reading (Courtesy: Amy via Clker.Com)

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I wrote a Monday Musings post on the Australasian Home Reading Union – and said at the time that I’d probably write more because I’d like to see what happened to it. Well, here is the next instalment. Please note, though, that my research isn’t as thorough as it could be – partly because I’m focusing on newspapers which, strangely enough, don’t think about what people in the future might want to know! Consequently, this “history” I’m gradually concocting should be seen as tentative rather than definitive.

Collapse of the AHRU

So, as I continued to search Trove, I found a bit of a gap in discussions of the Union in the early 1900s, though there were scattered references, such as to the meeting of a South Australian group in 1900. Then, suddenly, articles starting appearing around 1906 about something called the National Home Reading Union. Was this the same beast I wondered, or something different? This 1906 activity seemed to be mostly occurring in Western Australia. Was this simply that WA was now joining the east in the home-reading union movement? With just a little more digging, however, I found an article that explained it all …

The article appeared in Perth’s Western Mail on 11 August 1906 and concerned the visit to Australia of one Dr Hill, Master of Downing College, Cambridge. It commences by describing at some length Dr Hill’s “hobby” – the National Home Reading Union. He was one of the original founders in England and, he tells “the interviewer”, it had spread through various parts of the Empire, including Canada and South Africa. But what of Australia?

Well, you might also remember from my first post that the Australasian Home Reading Union started in Tasmania? Here is what Dr Hill says:

“When Bishop Montgomery first went to his See in Tasmania, I asked him to try to establish an Australian branch of the N.H.R.U. His efforts were only too successful. Why, in New South Wales the then Governor, Lord Jersey, took the chair at an inaugural meeting, and the Premier and several bishops were on the platform. The movement started with such eclat that the committee felt themselves strong enough to establish an Australasian Reading Union, with their own book lists, their own magazine, etc. But they did not reckon that whereas we in England can obtain an unlimited supply of scholars to write for the magazines the conditions are not equally favourable in Australia. After a short, though meteoric existence, the Australasian Union came to an end. Had it remained as it started – a colonial branch of the N.H.R.U. – it would still be flourishing. We have strong centres in Canada and South Africa, and in other parts of the Empire, and I should greatly like, before I leave, to see a branch established for Western Australia.”

Interesting, eh? Sounds like we, unlike other parts of the empire, decided to go it alone. Good on us for being independent! Anyhow, he goes on to suggest how to go about organising a new WA branch:

“It has been strongly borne in upon me since I came to Perth … that it is far less easy here to find men of leisure in need of a congenial occupation of this kind than at home. But this work is, perhaps, rather ladies’ work than men’s. It is the ladies who have the leisure to read, and they have their children to encourage in habits of reading. Many of our strongest committees at home are composed chiefly of ladies. If some of the ladies of Perth would organise themselves into a branch of the N.H.R.U., they would, I think, find that it not only immensely increased their interest in reading, but that it afforded them an effective means of advancing the cause of civilisation.”

Fascinating. Is it that we had fewer men of leisure – it probably is – or that we had fewer “in need of a congenial occupation of this kind”? And, did women (oops, “ladies”) have more time or, were they more motivated? There are, in fact, many issues we could unpick in his statement regarding class and gender, but that’s not my focus here, so let’s move on.

The interviewer then asked Dr Hill whether the Union focused on “serious works, and books of the dry-as-dust series.” Absolutely not, replied Dr Hill:

our whole object is to render reading recreative. We have, this year, courses on Stevenson, Browning, George Meredith, French novels, and many other subjects, which cannot be termed academic, and we never miss an opportunity of introducing into our lists novels, biographies, and essays, or other lighter forms or reading. We are not technical. We keep as far away as possible from bread and butter studies, and we absolutely decline to institute examinations. Our object is culture.

WA gets under way

A month later, on 15 September 1906, the Western Mail reported that a temporary committee had already been formed and that while they could not obtain all the material needed from England for some months, this committee would endeavour to put a proposal tighter “for a course of reading.”

Then, on 27 February 1907, the West Australian announced that the National Home-Reading Union was underway, though it does not provide specific details, beyond giving some examples of courses from the NHRU’s magazine. However, the very next month, another WA newspaper, The Northam Advertiser states that “A ‘men’s “circle” has been started in a small way in our midst, and some half dozen members have been enrolled. Mr. A. H. Greenwood is secretary, and the meetings are fortnightly at the Rectory.” (It’s notable, in fact, the degree to which the church seemed to be involved in this activity.) The article lists the course of reading – do click on the link to see what you think – and concludes by stating that:

The cost of the books will run from 9d to 1 /6 each, and about one or two books a month is all that will be required, so that it is within the reach of everyone to join, and the reading at home and the meetings are sure to be interesting and instructive. It is hoped to start a ladies’ “circle” as well, and Miss Janet Rickey will be glad to receive names of persons willing to join.

So, gendered groups, which is probably not surprising. And an overt reference to cost, which tells us something about their intended audience – “everyone”, not just the well-to-do.

There is more to this AHRU/NHRU story because it did seem to take off – but I’ll leave that for the next instalment.