Whispering Gums on Deformed Pines

/ Whispering Gums / 10 Comments
Black Pine overhanging pond, Korakuen, Okayama

Black Pine over hanging pond, Korakuen, Okayama

I am slowly but surely working my way through Isabella Bird‘s Unbeaten tracks in Japan. While we were still in Japan, and enjoying its wonderful gardens, I came across the following passage from early in Bird’s travels:

After running cheerily for several miles my men bowled me into a tea-house, where they ate and smoked while I sat in the garden, which consisted of baked mud, smooth stepping-stones, a little pond with some goldfish, a deformed pine, and a stone lantern. (From Unbeaten tracks in Japan, 1880, Letter VI)

Hmm, I thought, was the pine really “deformed” or is this a case of Bird’s anglocentric eyes missing the beauty of Japanese pines? Because for me, besides of course the overall design, the three things I love about Japanese gardens are the stones, the lanterns and the pines. I cannot resist photographing these “objects”, particularly if I see them in combination. The stones, though, are stones, albeit beautifully chosen and carefully placed. And the lanterns – usually made of stone – come in a range of sizes and forms but are recognisably lanterns. The pines, however, are something else. They come in two main varieties – Red and Black. They are often supported by poles tied to the tree with rope, and their trunks may be protected by a bamboo “coat”. And, they are very particularly pruned, to shapes that I suppose could be described as “deformed” if you didn’t realise there was a plan and a purpose.

Korakuen scene, Okayama

Lantern, stones, pine and water at Korakuen, Okayama

Water, stones and pines are the critical elements of Japanese gardens. And each has its meaning. For now though I’ll just focus on the pine. Pines, we were told by our Korakuen guide, represent longevity. My research for this post confirmed this but added that they also express happiness. I suppose happiness goes with long life? (At least it would be nice to think so!). I also discovered that Japanese red and black pines represent in and yo, “the soft, tranquil female forces and the firm, active male forces in the universe” (From the UCLA Hannah Garden Center). I would have expected from this that red and black pines would usually be found (more or less) together in Japanese gardens, but while we certainly saw both types of pines I wasn’t aware of their being in any obvious relationship with each other or even of regularly being in the same garden. Perhaps I’m reading this symbolism a little too literally. I will do some more research on this one … but, if any of you readers out there are experts in Japanese pines I’d love to know more.

Alex Kerr, in his award-winning book Lost Japan, has some critical things to say about modern Japanese gardens, but as I haven’t finished that book  (either) I will reserve comments for now. Meanwhile, though, I hope you have enjoyed this admittedly little foray away from gums into the world of the Japanese pine!

Monday musings on Australian literature: Writers from our north

/ Whispering Gums / 10 Comments
David Malouf picture at book meeting. (Taken b...

David Malouf, 2006. (Courtesy: Dariusz Peczek, via Wikipedia, using CC-BY-SA 3.0)

Queensland is the state of my birth, and that makes it special to me! It is a large state and one of our most geographically diverse, ranging from the tropical north to the arid west, from the subtropical south to the temperate inland southeast. It has one of Australia’s most popular tourist destinations, the Great Barrier Reef, and our best-known commercial tourist (and, retirement) mecca, the Gold Coast. It is unlikely, though, to be the first state people think of when asked about Australian writers …

Nonetheless, many significant writers have come from Queensland, including the indigenous poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Of our contemporary writers, though, the best known Queenslander has to be David Malouf. Like most Queenslanders, he “emigrated” from there long ago and has lived in England and Tuscany as well as Sydney, but that doesn’t mean that his ties aren’t strong. Johnno, his first novel and the first one I read, is, like so many first novels, somewhat autobiographical. It describes a young boy growing up in Brisbane in the 1940s and 1950s and, as I recollect, evokes the place and time well. One of my favourite novels of his, Fly away Peter, is partly set in the (above-mentioned) Gold Coast and partly on the Western Front during World War 1. It’s a beautiful novella which explores friendship, love and life, not only against the challenges of war but also of class. And, while his most recent novel, Ransom, re-explores the story of Priam and Achilles, it was inspired by his introduction to the story of Troy in his schoolboy days. It seems, with Malouf, that you can take the boy out of Queensland but you can’t take Queensland out of the boy!

Like Malouf, Janette Turner Hospital left Queensland in early adulthood, and has spent most of her life in the United States and Canada, though she does return down under occasionally. She’s a writer who’s not afraid to take risks, and can push metaphors, sometimes to their limits (as in Charades and Borderline). Her novels range over the countries in which she’s lived, including for example, southern India in The ivory swing. Due preparations for the plague is one of those post 9/11 novels that deals with terrorism, and Orpheus lost also explores what happens when people get caught up, inadvertently for the most part, in political action. Few of her novels are set in Australia, but there’s often an Australian character.

By contrast, Andrew McGahan has remained in Australia, even if not in Queensland. He currently lives in Melbourne (I believe). His first two books, Praise and 1988, are the only books I’ve read in the “grunge” style – and I liked them. His Gen X characters are pretty aimless, and were an eye-opener for baby-boomer me. They are primarily set in Queensland. His novel The white earth won the Miles Franklin award, and is set in the Darling Downs of Queensland. It’s a coming-of-age story in which the protagonist is caught between his (white) uncle’s obsession with land and his growing awareness of indigenous people’s connection to land.

And this brings me to Alexis Wright, an indigenous Queensland writer whose larger-than-life wild-ride of a novel Carpentaria also won the Miles Franklin award. It deals with indigenous disenfranchisement, with how disconnection from the land results not only in conflict with white society but also within indigenous groups. Wright cleverly marries tragedy with comedy, and tosses in a little surrealism and magic, to demonstrate just how complex the situation is. The following excerpt captures something of the tone of the novel:

Old stories circulating around the Pricklebush were full of the utmost intrigues concerning the world. Legends of the sea were told in instalments every time you walked in the door of some old person’s house. Stories lasted months on end, and if you did not visit often, you would never know how the story ended.

That’s probably enough really, except I can’t finish without briefly mentioning two writers who were not born in Queensland but have strong associations with it. One is Thea Astley who wrote several novels set in Queensland including The multiple effects of rainshadow which I reviewed some time ago, and the poet Judith Wright about whom I must post in future. Wright used poetry not only to celebrate the landscapes she loved, but to promote issues of concern to her, including indigenous rights and environmental degradation.

Have you noticed the high proportion of women writers in this post? Queensland is often the butt of jokes in Australia for being conservative and yet, without design, I have come up with more women than men to represent writing in this state. Go figure (as they say)!

Delicious descriptions from Down Under: Adrienne Eberhard on stones

/ Whispering Gums / 9 Comments
Porcupine Rocks, Kosciuszko National Park

Porcupine Rocks, Kosciuszko National Park

Having just returned from Japan where stones are revered, I thought it might be apposite to share one of the poems from Adrienne Eberhard’s section “The Magic of Stones” in her suite of poems about Jane, Lady Franklin.

Blocky, grain-growing, cast in the stance
of a thousand others
Embedded, spore-emblazoned, lying in layers
of limb-lost wist
Forging, fossil-jawed, timing the hours
of a mute universe
Gravelled, facet-shattered, your end
is never nigh
Stoning the earth, shelving the soil
(“Rock”)

It’s not my favourite poem in the book, but I like the way it conveys the paradoxical nature of rocks – their longevity and their mutability. Their time, geological time, is almost beyond human (at least, my) comprehension and yet they do change, which gives an organic (life-like) dimension to their inorganic nature. Lichen grows on them, water and wind act upon them, trees and other plants force their roots into them. The original shape-shifters perhaps!

Anyhow, it’s no wonder, I think, that stones/rocks are a common symbol across time and space. They feature, for example, in the Arthurian legend (with the sword-in-the-stone) and in Christianity (with Peter, the rock). A well-known Australian representation is in the book/film, Picnic at Hanging Rock, where the rock has multiple meanings from the earthy (sexuality and loss of innocence) to the mystical/spiritual. Paradox again … but that’s rocks for you.

Kate Chopin, A morning walk

/ Whispering Gums / 6 Comments
Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin (Public domain, via Wikipedia)

It’s been some time since I read (and therefore reviewed) a Library of America offering, but when I saw another Kate Chopin offering pop up a few weeks ago, I couldn’t resist it. And so, I printed it off, but have only just managed to read it. Well, what a surprise…

I thought about starting this post with “And now for something completely different” because this story, “A Morning Walk” (1897), is significantly different from my previous three Chopins – her novel The awakening, and the two short stories I’ve previously reviewed here. All is explained though in the brief but useful introductory notes from LOA:

Chopin gained fame (and notoriety) during the 1890s startling readers with her handling of topics considered bold for the era, but she also continued to publish light or pleasant fiction for local magazines. Among these latter stories are several holiday tales – a genre whose prevalence, along with its promise of good pay, proved attractive to writers during the nineteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic, from Charles Dickens and Washington Irving to Robert Louis Stevenson and Willa Cather (who published under a pseudonym).

And so to “A Morning Walk”. It is a short short story about Archibald’s morning walk. It was originally published under the title “An Easter Day Conversion” which gives a clue to its meaning. Archibald is around forty, not concerned about looking older than he is, and inclined to focus on the practical rather than emotional or sentimental things in life. In the fifth paragraph we are told that:

Archibald has started out for a walk, not because the day was beautiful and alluring but for the healthful exercise, and for the purpose of gathering into his lungs the amount of pure oxygen needed to keep his body in good working condition.

However, the language in the third paragraph hints at something else going on around him, even if he’s not consciously aware of it: the irregular streets “cuddle up” to the houses, “riotous colours” are abroad, and there is “a velvety gust” which “softly” beats his face. And in the fourth paragraph we are told that these sensations of spring “for some unaccountable reason … were reaching him to-day through unfamiliar channels”. Instead of his usual interest in flowers being “to dismember their delicate, sweet bodies for the purpose of practical and profitable investigation”, on this morning “he saw only the color of the blossoms, and noted their perfumes. The butterflies floated unmolested within his reach …”.

On this walk, and in this frame of mind, he meets a young woman, carrying lilies. His thoughts take a sensual turn as she reminds him of “peaches that he had bitten; of grapes that he has tasted; of a cup’s rim from which he has sometimes sipped wine”. The references to the lilies – which tend to symbolise innocence and purity – are even more pointed: their “big wax-like petals” risk being “bruised and jostled”.

And so he accompanies her to church, surprising the congregation with his presence, and hears the beginning of the traditional Easter sermon, “I am the Resurrection and the Life…”. Life seems about to change for Archibald, for the better, as he senses and accepts “the poet’s vision, of the life that is within and the life that is without, pulsing in unison, breathing the harmony of an undivided existence”. The aforementioned “lilies” – and their bruising – add a little edge which I’d expect of Chopin, but the reading is, I believe, intended to be a positive one.

Note: My other Kate Chopin reviews are A respectable woman and Désirée’s baby.

Monday musings on Australian literature: Where are our women writers?

/ Whispering Gums / 39 Comments

Miles Franklin, 1902, by H.Y. Dorner (Presumed Public Domain, from the State Library of New South Wales)

It might be just me, but it seems that women writers (I know the adjective should be female but it just doesn’t feel right in this context where “women writers” is short-hand for “women who are writers” or “writers who are women”) are somewhat thin on the ground in Australia at present, at least in terms of major visibility on the literary scene. There have been two, I think, significant flowerings of women’s writing in Australia in the last century. The first occurred in the first three to four decades of the twentieth century, and the second from the 1970s to 1990s.

My simplistic – read, not thoroughly researched but off the top of my head – explanation for these two bubbles is that they represent responses to the two major phases in the women’s movement of the last century – the suffrage movement of the late ninetheenth-early twentieth century, and the second wave of feminism which occurred in the 1960s-1970s. Certainly, in Australia, women writers were highly visible in the 1920s to 1940s, with writers such as Miles Franklin, Katharine Susannah Prichard, Marjorie Barnard, Eleanor Dark,  and Christina Stead. And again, in the 1970s to 1990s, we had Thea Astley, Elizabeth Jolley, Jessica Anderson, Kate Grenville, Helen Garner, to name a few. These women were all highly visible in literary circles and they managed to win some of the prizes going. In the last decade or so, though, women seem to have fallen behind again … though they are there, such as Eva Hornung who took out last year’s Prime Minister’s Literary Prize, Joan London, Gail Jones, and Amanda Lohrey to name a few. Grenville and Garner are still around. And yet, overall, these writers are just not highly visible. And visibility is the clue. I would hazard the “wild” guess that the first names off the tip of the tongue when people think current Australian literary writers would be Malouf, Winton, Carey, Miller, to name a few. Great writers all, but not, I think the only great writers we are producing.

I’m not the only one concerned. After deciding to write a post on this, I did a little research and there’s been quite a bit written recently on the issue. In fact, just earlier this month Angela Meyer of Literary Minded wrote a post titled Let’s read writing by women in which she reports on a new committee being set up:

to pursue equal rights for women writers in Australia. Besides research, lobbying and setting up mentorships, the committee is looking at establishing a literary prize for Australian women writers, along the lines of the UK’s Orange Prize. The steering committee (including novelist and publisher Sophie Cunningham, critic and former Miles Franklin judge Kerryn Goldsworthy and novelist Kirsten Tranter) feel the move is unfortunately, necessary, due to the unequal recognition of books by women in major literary award shortlists and in the book pages of the major newspapers in this country.

It’s unfortunate that this is needed … but I agree that it is needed. Gender shouldn’t matter. After all, what we like to read is good writing. But it’s hard, when you look at the facts (percentage of women published, shortlisted for awards, winning awards, being set for study) not to feel that there is some gender bias going on in the literary fiction world. I’m not going to second guess here how it happens, or what’s the chicken and what’s the egg, but I don’t like feeling that I may be missing out on good writing. Nor do I like to think that women writers are missing out on the opportunities their male peers are obtaining.

Do women only become “visible” – and achieve accordingly – when feminist movements flourish? Do you agree there is an issue regarding women writers on the literary scene (that is, not the genre scene) if you are Australian and, if you’re not, how do you see the situation in your country*? Do you agree that “affirmative” actions like gender-based awards are the way to go? Let’s get talking…

* Back in February, I reported on the VIDA Report on book writing and reviewing in the UK and the USA, so the “problem” is being noted elsewhere.

On the literary (and linguistic) road in Japan: 3, Matsue and beyond

/ Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

This will be my last post on our Japanese adventures (unless something specific inspires me to write again – always leave yourself an out is my motto) and I’m going to share a few particular experiences, so here goes.

Matsue and Lafcadio Hearn

Our prime reason for going to Matsue was to visit the Adachi Museum of Art, and its famous garden. However, Matsue is also famous for having one of Japan’s best original castles, so we visited that on the day we arrived – and then explored the castle environs. And here we found a house and museum devoted to Greek-born Irish writer Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904). He only lived in Matsue for a short time, but he met his wife there and the town has taken him as their own. I have downloaded the eBook version of one of his best known books, Glimpses of unfamiliar Japan (1871) which was published just a little earlier than Isabella Bird‘s Unbeaten tracks in Japan.

For now though, I’ll just share two little tidbits that attracted my attention in the museum. The first is that Lafcadio Hearn was apparently the person who introduced the word “tsunami” to the rest of the world. He wrote, in 1897:

From immemorial time the shores of Japan have been swept, at regular intervals of centuries, by enormous tidal waves – tidal waves caused by earthquakes or by submarine volcanic action. These awful sudden risings of the sea are called by the Japanese “tsunami”. The last one occurred on the evening of June 17, 1896, when a wave nearly two hundred miles long struck the northeastern provinces of Miyagi, Iwaté, and Aomori, wrecking scores of towns and villages, ruining whole districts, and destroying nearly thirty thousand human lives. (from “A living god”)

The second is another quote the museum included from Hearn, this one on Japanese gardens:

Now a Japanese garden is not a flower garden, neither is it made for cultivating plants. As a rule a Japanese garden is a landscape garden. Another fact of prime importance to remember is that, in order to comprehend the beauty of a Japanese garden, it is necessary to understand – or at least to learn to understand – the beauty of stones. Not of stones quarried by the hand of man, but of stones shaped by nature only. (From “Glimpses …”)

He’s right, though I hadn’t quite thought of it that way, but stones are a significant part of Japanese gardens and you can’t help but notice and ponder them when you stroll around gardens here. At Korakuen in Okayama, an English-speaking guide told us that stones represent “prosperity” and would often be given as gifts.

Okayama and folk tales

Okayama manhole cover featuring Momotaro, the Peach Boy

Momotaro and friends on Okayama manhole covers

Japan, like many countries, is rich in folktales, and we came across several during this trip. There was one particular story, though, Momotaro, the Peach Boy, that I think is somewhat known in the west – at least, I came across it when our children were young – so it was rather meaningful to meet him in his home, Okayama. The Momotaro story involves his fighting marauding demons with the help of a dog, monkey and pheasant. The demons may, according to Wikipedia, have been from the island of Megishima – and we did visit the demon cave there some days later (but that’s a whole other story). What I want to introduce here instead is the topic of Japanese manhole covers. Each town seems to have its own design (or two) – and if you search Flickr you will find a goodly number of them. They are appealing and are just one of those little details that make Japanese travel fun. Anyhow, for Okayama the design is based on the Momotaro story.

Ogishima and John Masefield

One of the most surprising literary experiences of the trip was finding, within sight of the lighthouse on the little island of Ogishima, a beautifully polished marble stone monument engraved with the three verses of John Masefield’s famous poem “Sea fever” . I haven’t been able to find out what Masefield has to do with Ogishima, and perhaps it’s simply that it’s an applicable poem for a little sea-focused island, but with Japan’s close relationship with the sea I would have thought it had its own famous sea poems to use in such a situation. Whatever the case, this westerner rather enjoyed coming across something familiar in an unfamiliar place.

Onomichi and the Path of Literature

Engraved writings by Suiin Emi, Onomichi

Suiin Emi's stone on the Path of Literature

There is, as the Rough Guide to Japan will tell you, a long temple walk you can do in Onomichi, that takes you up and down the hillsides that line this little port town. We decided to follow the Rough guide’s advice and just do selected components of the walk, which happened to include the Path of Literature. According to an Onomichi Travel Guide the path was developed because Onomichi is known to have inspired many poets/writers because of its “beautiful scenery and quiet life style”. The walk contains 25 stones (stones, again), each inscribed with some words from a particular writer and each accompanied by an interpretative sign which includes the writer’s name in English. (Nothing else was in English, but the name’s a great help for later research.)

I have chosen the Suiin Emi stone to illustrate this post because he was born in nearby Okayama. Basho is, of course, represented … as he is also in the little fishing town of Tomo-no-ura.

An apparent incongruity

Japan is a country of contrasts, paradoxes even you could say, and so I thought I’d illustrate this with something from our second day in Japan when we visited the quiet little town of Obuse (which I mentioned in my first post for its Hokusai connection). We walked out of the station and across the rather empty little street to discover what appeared to be a restaurant (albeit closed at the time) with the following sign on its door:

We have NO relation with Yakuza.

We are still pondering that one …

Every folkie knows … Leonard Cohen

/ Whispering Gums / 6 Comments
Leonard Cohen at Centennial Vineyards

Leonard Cohen at Centennial Vineyards, 2009

I recently wrote about the National Folk Festival in relation to Australian stories and history, but I can’t resist also writing a little post about “the man” because he was, it seemed, everywhere. I’m exaggerating of course but he – Leonard Cohen, of course – did seem to keep popping up.

There were performers who sang his songs, such as Ami Williamson who commenced her show with “Hallelujah”. You might think that is a little cliched but nothing about Ami is cliched … she put her own stamp on the song and got us in the mood for an energy-packed show that ranged through pop, folk, country and opera, both covers and her own original creations. Her “Daughter-in-law’s lament” is a hoot. She is a versatile gal.

Ruth Roshan, with Tango Noir, also did a Cohen song, though her choice was “Everybody knows”. The ambience was more 1930s French salon, and the dusky, sensual mood of the tango, but somehow Cohen fit right in there and Ruth pulled it off, despite her gentle voice and inviting smile.

Other performers though struck out into something different – into songs inspired by and/or featuring Cohen. Margret RoadKnight sang a whimsical song by Canadian singer songwriter, Nancy White, titled “Leonard Cohen’s never gonna bring my groceries in”. In case you don’t know it, here are a few lines to give you a flavour:

I’ve a husband and a baby, there’s another on the way.
And, like Leonard, I am aching in the place I used to play.
But really, I’m enjoying all this domesticity.
Hey, I never have to deal with Warren Beatty’s vanity.
But there is one thing I regret, and my regret is genuine.
Leonard Cohen’s never gonna bring my groceries in.

Since RoadKnight – and most of her audience – were of a certain age, this song went down very well!

And finally, it wasn’t only Australian performers who paid homage to the man. There was also (the rather lovely, I must say) English performer, Martha Tilston. She spoke of her envy of Cohen’s songwriting ability and said his line from “The stranger song”, “He was just some Joseph looking for a manger”, made her feel like hanging up her songwriting hat”. Instead though, she wrote a song about her inspiration, “Old Tom Cat”. Its opening lines are:

The tilt of your hat
Old tom cat
You wear truth like a necklace
It hangs around your poetry.

… and it includes references to Suzanne, Maryanne, Hallelujah and, of course, Joseph.

Funny how all these performers all women! That’s how it goes …

Delicious descriptions from Down Under: Elizabeth Jolley on gums

/ Whispering Gums / 2 Comments
Xanthorrhoea

Xanthorrhoea (once called Blackboys)

Just a little one today from Elizabeth Jolley‘s somewhat quirky memoir, Diary of a weekend farmer:

For some reason the great trees have been left standing and the bush, the blackboys and the wild flowers have not been cleared on our 5 acres. The wandoo trees very beautiful also jarrah and something called Black Butt? Red gum has white flowers? White gum which has red. Rough wild bark. Leaves fall all the time and new leaves come, stained bark. (from 11th November 1970)

Jolley learning the land …

Monday musings on Australian literature: Travel writers on Australia

/ Whispering Gums / 8 Comments
Art installation-restaurant, Teshima

Don't panic (or, art installation-cum-restaurant by Tobias Rehberger, Teshima)

Don’t panic, I told myself, the universe with still continue if I miss one week’s Monday musings. You see, after having been in Japan for over two weeks now, my thoughts have strayed rather far from Australian literature. But then, necessity being the mother of invention, an idea came to me. While I’ve been travelling, I’ve been dipping into travel literature about Japan, such as Isabella Bird‘s Unbeaten tracks in Japan (1880), Donald Ritchie’s The inland sea (2002 Ed.), and Alex Kerr‘s Lost Japan (1994). And that made me wonder about travellers to Australia and what they read.

This is not an area I’m expert in. After all, being Australian, why would I actively read up on travel literature about my own country unless, of course, I want to see what others are saying about us? And of course sometimes it’s good to hear what others are saying, and so I have read some writers on Australia (foreigners, of course, because travel literature is, by definition, written by those foreign to the shores they write about). I’ll share a couple I’ve read though it’s been a while since I read them, and I don’t have them in my backpack to refer to now. I would love to hear if you know of others, and whether you would or would not recommend them.

Bruce Chatwin‘s The songlines (1987)

Most of you have probably heard of Bruce Chatwin and his travel writing. I have his In Patagonia on my virtual TBR though when (or if) I’ll get to it is a good question. I did enjoy The songlines, which I read about twenty years ago now, though I recollect that as a travel book it’s a bit problematical. How much of it is nonfiction, how much fiction? But perhaps you could say that about much travel writing? Anyhow, I particularly liked his discussion of indigenous songlines in Australia, and his use of that as a motif for his own travels. I also enjoyed the “snippets” he presented in the second half of the book comprising various thoughts generated by his experiences… They reminded me a little of a “commonplace book”, albeit one composed primarily of one’s own thoughts.

Bill Bryson‘s In a sunburned country (or, Down under) (2000)

Bryson’s book was published under different titles in Australia and overseas I believe. It’s a hoot of a book really and not to be taken too seriously. For example, he made it sound as though Australians face dangers everyday – from snakes, spiders, crocodiles, sharks, and various poisonous sea creatures – but that, while being good for a laugh, is of course an exaggeration. These creatures and associated dangers do exist and most Australians will come across some of them in their lives but we are far more likely to die on the roads or from melanoma than we are from dangerous animals.

What Bryson does well though is, in his lighthearted manner, give you a flavour of the Australian character and what you can expect to see and enjoy on your Australian travels. (You can take this as great praise from one whose city he rather panned, but Aussies themselves pan it too so what’s new?)

These are two recent books, but there has been a long tradition of people writing about Australia, from the First Fleet on. One of the earliest is Watkin Tench’s A narrative of the expedition to Botany Bay (though my copy is titled 1788). It’s an insightful read but perhaps a little too specific to be of interest to the general traveller.

So, do you read travel literature (as opposed to travel guides) when you travel and/or do you read travel literature to armchair travel? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Helen Garner, Postcards from Surfers

/ Whispering Gums / 10 Comments

Helen Garner is a fiercely honest writer – and a prolific one too. She has written novels, short stories, essays and non-fiction books. All are generally well-acclaimed, though not always without controversy (as I mentioned in my recent Monday musings). Certainly, I haven’t always agreed with her … but I do admire her honesty and the quality of her writing. The book I’m reviewing here, Postcards from surfers, is a collection of short stories and provides an excellent introduction to her writing and her (fictional, anyhow) concerns.

Helen Garner, Postcards from Surfers

The collection was first published in 1985, but it has been recently rereleased (2010) by Penguin in their Popular Penguins at a Perfect Price series. Penguin also did an edition in 2008. That says something, I think, about the standing of this collection.

Unlike the last short story collection I reviewed, Leah Swann’s Bearings, this one takes its name from one of the stories in the book, the first to be precise. There is nothing in my copy to indicate whether the stories were written for this collection or whether some or all had been published before. The Resident Judge in her review said that several of the stories had appeared elsewhere before being collected here. I’d like to know when and where: I’m one of those people who always reads that part of the front or end matter for short story collections.

Anyhow, on with the stories. There are 11 of them and while there is an overall theme – the theme that we expect of Garner, that is love and relationships, particularly from the point of view of failure and loss – they are surprisingly (and wonderfully) varied. They vary in length from the little 4-page “The dark, the light” to more hefty first one (the title story) that runs for over 20 pages. The point of view varies: six are told in first person, and five in third person. So does the voice, from a girl child to a male drunk in a bar, from a female friend to a rejected lover. And the style varies. This was its most surprising aspect for me. There is, for example, the seamless flow across place, time and ideas of the first story (which is the more typical Garner), the disjointed vignettes of “The life of art” chronicling a long standing friendship, and the nicely sustained drunken first person rave of “All those bloody young Catholics”.

The subject matter varies too. The title story is about an adult woman coming to visit her retired parents and aunt at Surfers Paradise, leaving a broken relationship and a not fully successful life behind her. I was ready for something more discontented in this story, but the sense we’re given is that she’s matured and has learnt to be content with (tolerant of, perhaps) her imperfect family:

If I speak they pretend to listen, just as I feign attention to their endless looping discourses: these are our courtesies: this is love. Everything is spoken, nothing is said.

(Doesn’t that have a lovely flow to it? Garner’s writing is delicious.) This being Garner, several stories are about broken or past relationships, but there are also stories dealing more generally with families and parenting (“Little Helen’s Sunday afternoon” and “A happy story”) and friendship (“The life of art”).

I once heard Garner in an interview express admiration for the way Elizabeth Jolley reused and retold stories. I felt (though my memory may be failing me here) that she admired Jolley’s risk-taking in doing this (would it irritate or bore readers?) as well as her ability to spin more out of a character or situation. It seems Garner decided that if Jolley could do it, so could she. There is a character, a previous lover, Philip, who appears twice in this collection. He sounds very much like the Philip in Cosmo cosmolino. He represents the lost true love and often appears in her work (under that name or others). Where he is, some pain is usually there too. Here are two excerpts from “Civilisation and its discontents”:

He [Philip] woke with a bright face. ‘I feel unblemished’, he said, ‘when I’ve been with you’. This is why I loved him, of course: because he talked like that, using words and phrases that most people wouldn’t think of saying.

and

I wanted to say to him, to someone, ‘Listen, listen, I am hopelessly in love’. But I hung on. I knew I had bought it on myself, and hung on until the spasm passed.

Helen Garner wears her emotions openly. She’s never afraid to hang out the dirty laundry, to show the darker, more unpleasant sides of human relationships – the selfishness, the jealousy, the unkindness, and of course the pain – but it is always underpinned by a willingness to understand and accept our humanity rather than condemn it. Garner’s world is very much the real world. It’s not hard, I think, to find something in it you recognise (whether you like it or not!)

Helen Garner
Postcards from Surfers
Camberwell: Penguin Books, 2010 (orig. 1985)
ISBN: 9780143204909
154pp.

POSTSCRIPT: I wrote and scheduled this a couple of weeks before my Monday musings post. When I came back to check it I was rather relieved to find that I had not contradicted myself.