Finally, finally, I have gone back to reviewing theatre. After three and a half years of avoiding crowds and staying out of the city of Melbourne, I could not stand it any longer. I missed going to the theatre and the process of deliberating on the show afterwards. And I missed being able to share my thoughts almost instantly, giving others a chance to experience something entertaining or invigorating or just plain funny.
I chose to see Mary Coustas's one-woman show at the Arts Centre. It was only an hour long; it took a memoir-style look art her life; it was said to be inspirational; and it was funny. Perfect.
The show, This is Personal, was all of that, and more. Check out my review on Australian Stage Online. The Melbourne leg of her show is over, but you can still see it in Canberra (September) or Darwin (October).
https://www.australianstage.com.au/2023/07/02/reviews/melbourne/this-is-personal-|-mary-coustas.htmlSmall Successes
A quick brag about a couple of shortlistings for my work this year.
My personal essay ‘Blood Sisters’ was shortlisted for the 2022 AAWP/Westerly Life Writing Prize. The Australasian Association of Writing Programs joined forces with Westerly Magazine to offer this life writing prize to both emerging and established authors.
Prior to that my short story ‘Down the home straight’ was shortlisted for the Margaret Hazzard Short Story Award, run by the Society of Women Writers (Victoria).
It is always a boost to get some recognition for work that has been sent out a few times and has finally made a connection! Now I’m back at the desk, refining these pieces, aiming for publication.
Reading Agatha Christie, An Autobiography
A picture is worth a thousand words. A writer might disagree, but I must admit I devour the photos first if they are on offer. Before embarking on Agatha Christie’s 540-page autobiography, I pored over the pictures of Agatha as a chubby toddler with blonde curls; with Archie, her first husband, and surfboard at Honolulu; with her second husband, Max, excavating in the Middle East. What an adventurous life, where family, friendships, travel and practical work dominated. Writing, it appears, was more of a sideline.
To those of us with literary pretensions, it is absurd that Agatha Christie, the best-selling writer of all time, had trouble thinking of herself as a bona fide author. Maybe writing was too much fun. She would start a book by inventing the characters and hatching the plots in her head, before writing them out in snatches between nursing, photographing archaeological artefacts, running a household, buying and doing up houses, and caring for children, relatives and friends. For many years she had no dedicated workspace and parked her typewriter on any convenient table.
Her motivation to write was often fired by the desire to fund her various projects. In later life, when she had plenty of money, she would make a present of her stories to relatives and friends, who would reap the royalties. During the air raids of World War II, aware of the likelihood she would being killed, she wrote a Poirot book for her daughter Rosalind, and a Miss Marple book for Max. Something to cheer them up after the funeral, she told them.
This autobiography is not so much a literary memoir as the fascinating story of a strong, creative woman whose life spanned the late Victorian era, two world wars and on to the frivolous 1970s. Her memory was prodigious. A large part of the book is devoted to her vivid recollections of childhood, before unfolding through two world wars, when she worked as a hospital dispenser, and two marriages, not to mention the creation of dozens of books. After the war, there was a romantic but gruelling journey to the Middle East with Max, and the start of her work in archaeology. The only time we hear her complain is when she rails at Max for making her ride for fourteen hours across the Peloponnese on a mule!
The tempest of her life abated somewhat around the age of fifty. She welcomed this calmer period, ‘the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations…It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.’ It was at this stage she tried her hand at writing plays. ‘The Mousetrap’ opened in 1952 and is still running seventy years on. Not bad for an amateur.
She wrote the final words of her autobiography in 1965, at the age of seventy-five. Although she was a fast writer, this was a side project and took her fifteen years. It is no-nonsense account of a down-to-earth woman, who faced life with hope and pragmatism. She saw it as, ‘not so much a journey back through the past, as a journey forward – starting again at the beginning of it all – going back to the Me who was to embark on that journey forward through time.’
Fairy tale bonanza
Fairy tales are not my first choice of reading matter, although I’m sure they were a huge influence on my mind as a child. So when I was sent a copy of South of the sun: Australian fairy tales for the 21st century, I didn’t suspect that I would soon be riveted by this magical book.
I am now halfway through the volume and still reading! Here, some of our best storytellers and illustrators engage with this genre in ways that are entertaining, funny, and relevant to our times. These are stories for adults and are about a lot more than fairies. Myths, legends and allegories are reimagined with a 21st-century spin and strong female characters, set in Australia. The stories unfold in the bush, between the dark towers of Docklands, or at the Botanical Gardens.
Favourite authors Carmel Bird and Cate Kennedy give an assured start to the book and lesser known ones take up the baton. Delightful tales by K.Z. Barton and Gabi Brown, involving a homeless man and a Melbourne tram, lead on to a hilarious new take on ‘Jack and the beanstalk’ by Lindy Mitchell-Nilsson, with sparkling dialogue and enough bureaucratic red tape to stand in the way of any good Aussie giant-killer.
Other stories hark back to ancient myths and cultures. Louisa John-Krol’s ‘Pomelina the Pomegranate Fairy’ is a luscious, lyrical tale, originating on the Silk Road in Persia and transferred to Bendigo. It is one of several tales here that took root at the Australian Fairy Tale Society, who published this anthology. The book itself is silky to the touch, edited with care, and illustrated magnificently.
I am now converted to the fairy tale in its modern, adult incarnation. What an excellent, light-hearted way to capture the essence of Australian life, to depict our trees and plants and creatures, to celebrate and satirise our society! I must read on…
Back in the day
I’m sure she would hate it, but I call Irish author Anne Enright ‘Aunty Anne’ behind her back. An aunt I can snuggle under the covers with and share delicious secrets and laugh at what we did ‘back in the day’, as she would say. The phrase smacks of nostalgia: not just any old day, but the day when life was better, or at least more vivid, than today. My friend Sylvia in Galway uses it whenever we reminisce about the 1970s, messing about in MacGillycuddy’s Reeks.
Last week Readings Bookshop hosted a surprise event: our own Jane Sullivan was to interview Anne Enright on Zoom. A chance to catch up with Aunty and have a giggle. And for the author to promote her latest novel, Actress, as it lands on Australian bookshelves. No hard sell with her: she is closer to shooting herself in the foot, as she berates herself for writing the same book over again. I wouldn’t let that put you off.
Now I have a copy of Actress in my hand, I am delighted to find that same voice, the wry Dubliner with the rapier wit, on the page. I believe, after six acclaimed literary novels (The Gathering won the 2007 Man Booker Prize), she has loosened her literary stays and found a voice that is no less eloquent for all its cheeky familiarity.
In the interview with Jane Sullivan, she champions her fellow Irish authors Sally Rooney, Eimear McBride and Anna Burns, who have broken away from masculine tradition with a voice of their own. And yet, even-handedly and in spite of her fight against misogyny, she says ‘Irish masculinity can be a lyrical, poetic tradition, the nicest thing.’
Aunty Anne gives us the best of both worlds: the lyrical tradition of Irish literature and the outspoken female Irish voice of today. The key to her style is her love of language. For her, it is language that drives her, and leads her one way or the other in her storytelling. And there the magic lies.
‘I don’t know’, says the writer
I’m waiting for a knock on the door. One of the upsides of lockdown, and Melbourne is now in lockdown again for five days, is that some bookshops offer to drop off books to any reader within a five-km radius. Last night I ordered a couple from my local store, Jeffrey’s. Same day delivery – just like Christmas, without the wait.
In case you’re curious, the two books are Lyn Yeowart’s debut novel The Silent Listener, and Pip Williams’s The Dictionary of Lost Words.
During last year’s lockdown, Jeffrey’s popped a bag of books on my doorstep, among them two of Colum McCann’s books. The Irish-American author had just brought out his seventh novel Apeirogon, about two friends, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, each united by the loss of a young daughter in the conflict. That was definitely an essential purchase. At the same time, I bought his slim volume Letters to a Young Writer.
I watched a broadcast of Colum McCann conversing with Mark Raphael Baker of Melbourne Jewish Book Week last June. He talked mainly about Apeirogon, of course, because of the Jewish connection. About his love of birds, and their role in the novel. Birds go freely across borders, while humans cower behind fences and take pot shots at each other. Birds migrate, spreading the story.
It was lovely to see the man himself, still with his Irish accent, in his home in Long Island, talking in his garden at 6am on a summer’s day. Wriggling on his seat, he said he had a favourite phrase at the moment: I don’t know. It reminds me of the phrase a cloud of unknowing that has always haunted me. To remain ignorant, in a state of unknowing, but exploring all points of view. That’s his style.
If you want to hear more about Colum McCann, you can listen to my podcast on Melbourne Writers Hub website:
‘The perfect is the enemy of the good’ – Voltaire
‘The perfect is the enemy of the good’ is a quotation from Voltaire, one that the Oxford-educated author Vikram Seth tossed up during our interview in 2006. I hunted out that interview this year, when I picked Seth’s novel An Equal Music off my bookshelves, a juicy read for our extended COVID-19 lockdown in Melbourne.
I may not have been blogging, but I have been reading. And, after the initial period of panic and distraction, I have managed to settle into a daily writing routine. What has emerged is a glorified plague diary, full of stats and lockdown trivia, but also plenty of commentary on the books I have been reading.
In March I had to cancel my plans for a new creative writing class. With no opportunity to do public readings or face-to-face teaching, I have decided to record some podcasts for Melbourne Writers Hub, using my lockdown reading and the authors who inspire me as a focus. What lessons can we learn from paying close attention to our favourite authors?
My first podcast is on Vikram Seth, and can be found on Melbourne Writers Hub website:
Songs for Nobodies
My Christmas treat has been reviewing Bernadette Robinson’s encore performance of her show Songs for Nobodies at the Arts Centre, Melbourne. Ten years on from its debut, the show is still wowing audiences, both here and in London’s West End.
I don’t believe anyone else could perform this show, which demands a unique blend of expertise: a talent for accents, an ability to sing in any range and genre, and acting versatility. A born mimic, Robinson excels at all these skills. And who else could switch between the big-sky warmth of country singer Patsy Cline to the existential howl of Billie Holiday’s final years, or between the growling reverberations of Piaf’s chansons to the divine bel canto of Maria Callas?
Check out my full review at Australian Stage: https://www.australianstage.com.au/201912209103/reviews/melbourne/songs-for-nobodies.html
Quizzical pursuits
The ways of the central nervous system are a mystery to me.
Last month I was laid up in a hospital bed, blindsided by ‘multiple trauma’ after falling downstairs, and the only activity I was capable of was cryptic crosswords. Forget reading – my brain could not drag itself from one sentence to the next. I managed just a few pages of The Tao of Pooh in the six days I was there. But my brain could do flip-turns and spark up the neurons needed to solve the cryptic teasers set by David Astle and his fellow cryptographers – no problem.
I may have missed my calling. Last week we watched The Imitation Game, the story of WWII British code-breakers, who were selected in this fictional version of events by a crossword puzzle in the Times. With a pang of jealousy I watched Keira Knightley ace the crossword test and help cryptographer Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) solve the mystery of The Enigma machine. Although she was a woman and therefore not officially a member of the team, her neurotransmitters were up to the task.
Why wasn’t I offered this career advice when I left school in the 1960s? Maybe there weren’t too many code-breaking jobs by that stage, but the idea of subterfuge and spying always appealed to me. For women who were good at languages, the only jobs on offer were teaching, interpreting and the Foreign Office. I vaguely remember filling in an application form for the Foreign Office, but the Civil Service wasn’t presented as a glamorous option and I either lost interest or failed the entrance exam.
Instead, I went on to study languages at university, with no career path in mind. I was fascinated by the way each culture develops in tandem with its native language, and the way translation straddles cultures. It would be years before I became a journalist and even longer before I focused on ‘creative’ writing, but this fascination with words has been a constant in my life.
Does anyone remember ‘My Word’, the BBC quiz show? In the highlight of the show, two doyens of verbal wizardry, Frank Muir and Denis Norden, gave their fictional origins of aphorisms or quotations, such as ‘A stitch in time saves nine’ or ‘Come into the garden, Maud’, manipulating the phrase to produce a new one. I was spellbound by these improvised fabulations, a cross between cryptic puzzles and oral storytelling.
It seems that code-breaking plays some part in manipulating language, to translate or author a new work. Writers often talk about allowing the puzzle to solve itself, giving time for the unconscious to sort through the material. I wonder how the synapses and neurotransmitters delegate the tasks. Why could I do the code-breaking before the reading? Does reading require subtler connections?
And where does writing fit in the hierarchy of brain activity and creative thinking? Our everyday language is already there for simple communication, but there is always the possibility of building up new verbal representations of our world, to explore and share our experience.
Can anyone enlighten me?
The songs that made Memphis made us
Memphis, Tennessee. Home of Sun Records, where many of the greats – B B King, Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash – got their start, and where rock’n’roll was born (allegedly!) And I was there, in virtual Memphis, at the Clocktower Centre, Moonee Ponds, believe it or not, on Saturday night, when a bunch of fine local musos performed their long-running show, Sun Rising: the songs that made Memphis.
They had me at the opening number, a grinding blues by Howlin’ Wolf and kept me swinging through the 1950s with lesser known songs by B B King (She’s Dynamite) and Elvis (Baby, let’s play house) to old favourites by Jerry Lee Lewis (Great Balls of Fire and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On). There was certainly a lotta shakin’ goin’ down in the Clocktower that night, if not the sort that the song was originally banned for!
The show has been going for seven years and is tight, professional and fizzing with energy. The musos were clearly having as much fun as we were. As a one-time bass player, I was knocked out by the talent of the rhythm section. Drummer Adam Coad and bass player (upright and electric bass) Trent McKenzie are formidable players. The two superb guitarists (David Cosmo and Adrian Whyte) and virtuoso pianist (Damon Smith) took the vocal leads. Elvis, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis were all there in spirit, not impersonated but recreated with a dash of individual spark.
Sun Records is still there, in Memphis. A friend in the US emails me excitedly to tell me about her trip there with her teenage son, many years ago. ‘There was a diner next door,’ she recalls, ‘where you could order Elvis’s favourite grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich (I passed).’ Another friend in the States agrees: that is ‘her kind of music, firmly fixed in the ‘50s and ‘60s’.
Music, the great uniter, our common heritage.
Sun Rising is a tribute not just to the stars, but to Sam Phillips, who discovered all these artists and gave them a break in his modest studio, launching them into the big time.
Thank you, Sam.
Carol Middleton 