An Indiscreet Journey | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory

An Indiscreet Journey was a short story written in 1915 by Katherine Mansfield but published posthumously in the 1924 collection, Something Childish and other stories by her husband John Middleton Murry. Initially it reads like a fairly straight forward story about a woman on a train journey to visit her aunt and uncle in the middle of the French war zone during WWI. Except she's not really visiting her aunt and uncle, she's meeting up her with her lover, a soldier. A very brief internet research also reveals this short story is based on the actual visit of Mansfield to her lover Carco in February 1915.

John Middleton Murry introduced Mansfield and Carco back in 1913. Murry and Mansfield were not married at until 1918, but their on again/off again bohemian relationship had begun in 1911. The affair between Carco and Mansfield seems to have run over the winter of 1914/1915.

With this story, we can see Mansfield exploring the idea of documenting the war as a social historian, as someone who is living through the thing she is describing. She shows us wounded soldiers, checkpoints and a mother reading a letter from her soldier son. She talks about gassing, firing lines, travel documents and curfews.

Mansfield leaves a lot unsaid here. The clandestine nature of the visit is alluded to but not directly approached. Most of the story is about the journey, not the actual purpose of the visit. The danger and tension of the war acts as a cover for the danger and tension of a secret assignation with a lover.

It turns out that the letter in the story, from the aunt, Julie Boiffard, inviting her to visit, is based on the real letter from Carco to Mansfield, that is now held in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington, New Zealand. The fake nature of this letter explains, why the niece in the story keeps forgetting the surname of her aunt and uncle. 'Again I read the unfamiliar letter in the familiar handwriting.'

One of the curiosities that caught my eye was the 'ordinary little woman' sitting in the same carriage as as our narrator. 'She wore a black velvet toque, with an incredibly surprised looking seagull camped on the very top of it. Its round eyes, fixed on me so enquiringly, were almost too much to bear. I had a dreadful impulse to shoo it away.' 

I imagined something like this in my mind's eye:

However, it more likely resembled the image below. 

Birds and feathers were a feature on hats at this time, with many cartoons sending up this particular fashion by suggesting the addition of kittens and puppies. Mansfield seems to be tapping into this humorous vein to make fun of her own distress or guilt at her secret rendezvous, imagining that all eyes were on her and that everyone knew what she was up to.

Francis Carco depicted Mansfield as a magpie, a purloiner of gems from the lives and characters of those around her, who was incapable of putting a word on paper without having personally witnessed or experienced the sentiments it expressed. For all the distortion of his caricature, there is an element of truth in his notion that she was a writer who fed off her surroundings to an exceptional extent.1 If she didn't 'prey' off life, as Carco put it, she was certainly deeply 'rooted' in it.

Parkin-Gounelas Ruth. (1991) Katherine Mansfield: Far, Far Nearer. In: Fictions of the Female Self

I'm not particular surprised that Carco was dismissive of Mansfield's writing style. The two stories that feature him in some way are not very flattering. In fact Je ne parle pas Francois (1918) shows us a very unattractive, unlikable man indeed.

In An Indiscreet Journey we see a man who seems to get off on the secretive details of the tryst - the dash in a cab, through the streets where 'policemen are as thick as violets' to the door of the aunt and uncle, before being quickly bundled inside and shut up in the white room. He drops the suitcase and paper, she tosses her passport in the air and he catches it. End scene. 

Their time spent in the unnamed town is filled with visits to the local cafe for lunch and dinner every day, where they have a special table, that she has decorated with a little vase of violets. The final scene is the woman sitting at the table on her, imagining the passing years, watching the passing parade on the other tables...until her lover and his friend arrive. At the end we see the two men, quite drunk, discussing the merits and differences between the English whiskey and the French mirabelle as they eat their way through a little charcuterie platter.

Mansfield wrote to Virginia Woolf in 1919, "What the writer does is not so much to solve the question but to put the question. There must be the question put. That seems to me a very nice dividing line between the true & the false writer".

So what is the question being asked here?

Is it, once again, the difference between the English and the French.

Who do you trust?

Escape and freedom versus fear and guilt?

The joy of these stories is that we will never really know.

The delight is in the interpretation for each and every reader.

Part of the joy for me, is the researching, as I dig deeper into Mansfield's short life. Getting to know this fascinating woman has certainly been a highlight of my 2020 reading life so far.

Facts:

• From 20 – 22 February 2015, the town of Gray, near Dijon in France, hosted a weekend of celebrations, to commemorate the centenary of the visit by Katherine Mansfield to Gray in order to see Francis Carco.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)
• Je ne Parle pas Français (1918)
• An Indiscreet Journey (1915)

#ParisinJuly

Je ne Parle pas Français | Katherine Mansfield #ShortStory

Je ne Parle pas Français, or I Do Not Speak French was written in early 1918 and published in Bliss and other stories (1920).

There is a rather long and complicated story about the publication of this particular short story. It started life as a pamphlet published by Heron Press, which was run by John Middleton Murry (Katherine's husband at the time) and his brother, Richard Arthur Murry. They produced only 100 copies of the story in this format. The press was situated in the home of Murry and Mansfield in Hampstead Heath. Of the 100 copies, 20 were damaged. From the 80 left over, about 60 were sent out to reviewers in early 1920.

Anthony Alpers (The Life of Katherine Mansfield |1980) writes that "this little private-press edition in which it first appeared is very rare... Few know the story in its intended form." 

The December 1920 Constable publication of Bliss and other stories, contains an edited version of Je ne Parle pas Français. Apparently the end of the story in the original is rather different. 

The Norton Critical Edition edited by Vincent O’Sullivan (2006) contains the unedited version. The highlighted text below reveals the original story.

One day when I was standing at the door, watching her go (the African laundress who worked for his family when he was 10 yrs old), she turned round and beckoned to me, nodding and smiling in a strange secret way. I never thought of not following. She took me into a little outhouse at the end of the passage, caught me up in her arms and began kissing me. Ah, those kisses! Especially those kisses inside my ears that nearly deafened me. 

"And then with a soft growl she tore open her bodice and put me to her. When she set me down she took from her pocket a little round fried cake cover with sugar and I reeled along the passage back to our door.

My reaction:

• Wow! That's a HUGE reveal!
• The edited version left me wondering why this memory was so significant to Raoul.
• Did the lack of attention from his parents, make the affection from the laundress significant?
• But instead, we have a situation of power and sexual abuse of an older woman over a young boy.

Raoul never yet made the first advances to any woman:

"Curious, isn’t it? Why should I be able to have any woman I want? I don’t look at all like a maiden’s dream . . . ."

My reaction:

• By this point of the short story, I was convinced that Raoul was gay. 
• The extra sentence would seem to suggestion that perhaps he was bisexual.

Towards the end of the story Raoul says goodnight to a prostitute:

Not until I was half-way down the boulevard did it come over me—the full force of it. Why, they were suffering . . . those two . . . really suffering. I have seen two people suffer as I don’t suppose I ever shall again. . . . And . . . . ‘Goodnight, my little cat,’ said I, impudently, to the fattish old prostitute picking her way home through the slush . . . . I didn’t give her time to reply.

My reaction:

• One of the few times in this story where we see Raoul thinking about others.
• The extra sentence reminds us that he inhabits a fairly squalid part of Paris, despite his higher aspirations.

And so on and so on until some dirty gallant comes up to my table and sits opposite and begins to grimace and yap. Until I hear myself saying: ‘But I’ve got the little girl for you, mon vieux. So little . . . so tiny. And a virgin.’ I kiss the tips of my fingers—‘A virgin’—and lay them upon my heart.

My reaction:

• Without the 'virgin', this paragraph reads like a boast.
• With the 'virgin' it makes Raoul sound like a pimp!

The story’s original ending continues on from the 1920 censored text:

I must go. I must go. I reach down my coat and hat. Madame knows me. ‘You haven’t dined yet?’ she smiles. ‘Not, not yet, Madame. I’d rather like to dine with her. Even to sleep with her afterwards. Would she be pale like that all over? But no. She’d have large moles. They go with that kind of skin. And I can’t bear them. They remind me somehow, disgustingly, of mushrooms.

My reaction:

• The edited end, just ends.
• A man in a cafe, thinking about his next meal.
• The original reasserts the sexual nature that infuses the whole story.
• As well as reinforcing Raoul's ambivalence about the female body.

Francis Carco 1923

Raoul is apparently based on Mansfield's lover Francis Carco, a man with whom she had a brief affair with in 1915. Alpers claims that Mansfield is referring to Carco's cynical attitude towards love and sex via Raoul. 

Her story An Indiscreet Journey (1915) is also based on her journey through the war zone to spend four nights with Carco in Eastern France. 

I wonder if Mansfield was writing a homage to Carco's style of writing or did she think that Carco was gay but didn't know it, bisexual or was this her dig at a failed lover? Either way, Raoul is about as camp as you get in 1918 literature. And a not very pleasant fellow. I suspect the affair did not end well (I hope to know more when the bio about Mansfield that I've ordered finally arrives).

Raoul's penchant for stylish clothes, his flamboyant mannerisms, delusions of grandeur, cutting remarks, and his love/lust infatuation with Dick, the Englishman are all textbook versions of Havelock Ellis' sexual inversion theory, that was prevalent at the time.

My name is Raoul Duquette. I am twenty-six years old and Parisian, a true Parisian. About my family - it really doesn’t matter. I have no family; I don’t want any. I never think about my childhood. I've forgotten it.

Raoul was a gigolo, a dandy, crass, conceited, superficial and sexually ambiguous. He was an unreliable narrator with huge gaps in his story. The whole time I was reading this story, I had a Carly Simon earworm of 'You're So Vain' playing in the background. Raoul loved being front and centre and seemed to be playing to an imaginary audience the whole time. At the same time he was a social outcast, with no family that he will speak of, hanging out in seedy bars and cafes, pretending to be something he isn't, or just hoping that acting the part will make him so.

If a person looks the part, he must be that part.

He pretends to take us into his confidence, but we can never really trust him. He ends up revealing more than he thinks, although we're still left in the dark about pretty much everything. Perhaps this is how Mansfield felt after her brief affair with Carco?

There were a number of themes explored from the use of public and private spaces, the English vs the French and life as a stage (a homage to Shakespeare perhaps?). Metaphors abound with dogs, cats and a mouse, suitcases (to be unpacked) and mirrors (that reflect the surface not the substance).

‘But after all it was you who whistled to me, you who asked me to come! What a spectacle I’ve cut wagging my tail and leaping round you, only to be left like this while the boat sails off in its slow, dreamy way . . . Curse these English! No, this is too insolent altogether. Who do you imagine I am? A little paid guide to the night pleasures of Paris? . . . No, monsieur. I am a young writer, very serious, and extremely interested in modern English literature. And I have been insulted – insulted.’

Ultimately, Raoul is not very likeable.

He's selfish and mean and judgemental. 

He's careless and thoughtless. 

One feels pity for him and fears that he will never find the love and happiness he is so desperately searching for. He may speak French fluently, but he does not know the language of love. And maybe never will.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)
• Je ne Parle pas Français (1918)

#ParisinJuly

Psychology | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

William Lipincott | Loves Ambush | 1890

Psychology is a short story by Katherine Mansfield first published in Bliss and Other Stories (1920).

As luck would have it, I've managed to select three very different types of Mansfield stories for the #1920Club reading week.

Miss Brill was set in post-war France with a focus on loneliness and that confronting moment when we see ourselves as others see us. The Wind Blows was set in New Zealand and reflected Mansfield nostalgic phase after her brother was killed towards the end of WWI. Psychology is probably set in Europe with it's mentions of a studio apartment, a sommier, and the importance of taking tea (which could be English or NZ I grant you). It is also one of her more highly developed interior stories, with narrative shifts, mutable personalities and oodles of symbolism.

All three share the Modernist style that Mansfield was renown for. Modernism is a late nineteenth/early twentieth century movement that grew out of industralism and the rise of city living. It was also a rejection of the certainty that embodied Enlightenment thinking. It reflected the chaos and upheaval felt during WWI and it's aftermath. It was a time of innovation, experimentation and embracing everything new. Old cultural norms were considered out-dated and of no use in this brand new world. Parody, irony and revisionism were employed to critique the past. Stream of consciousness, technological advances and abstraction became the new philosophy.

It's not always easy to remember that Mansfield's modern style of writing was unusual and innovative at the time; it now seems so normal and natural.

In Psychology, she explores the idea of an individuals public, private and secret self. What should be or could be revealed, what should be suppressed or ignored and what is bubbling away underneath influencing our behaviours and actions almost against our wills?

Their secret selves whispered: “Why should we speak? Isn’t this enough?”

Her two main characters torture themselves with their unspoken sexual desires versus their desire for freedom and the maintenance of their individual selves. There is an attempt to separate the sexual from the emotional with plenty of symbolism in the form of lamps, fires and tea sets.

For the special thrilling quality of their friendship was in their complete surrender. Like two open cities in the midst of some vast plain their two minds lay open to each other. And it wasn’t as if he rode into hers like a conqueror, armed to the eyebrows and seeing nothing but a gay silken flutter — not did she enter his like a queen walking soft on petals.

They complicate matters with denial and restraint and aloofness, resulting in both of them finishing the afternoon tea feeling unsatisfied and out of sorts.

A curious bohemian ending surprises us with the arrival of the 'elderly virgin, a pathetic creature who simply idolised her (heaven knows why).' Instead of turning her away as usual, this time she embraces her and her dead bunch of violets (more symbolism). It made me wonder if this was Mansfield exploring her own complicated sexual feelings about men and women.

Especially as we then see the writer at work, critiquing the psychological novel and dashing off a quick note to the gentleman that mirrors the conversation she just had with the virgin. Quixotic and contrary to be sure!

This barely touches on the depths within this brief story. I suspect I could spend hours and write pages and pages on all the symbolism, psychological nuances and themes explored by Mansfield. But I will spare you that this time, and merely suggest that if you want to experience a quintessential Mansfield short story that gives you lots to chew over, then Psychology is the one for you.

A big thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting the #1920Club.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

The Wind Blows | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

The Wind Blows was first published in the Athenaeum on 27th August 1920 and then included in Bliss and Other Stories (1920), although I have also spotted on the Katherine Mansfield Society page that they claim it was published in 1915. So I dug a little deeper.

I discovered a reference in J. McDonnell's Katherine Mansfield and the Modernist Marketplace: At the Mercy of the Public (2010) that refers to an earlier story titled, Autumns: II that Mansfield published under her pseudonym, Matilda Berry in Signature in 1915. She claims that this was an

important precursor to her mature work. Indeed, she later returned to the story, rewriting it from a first-person to a third-person narrative perspective for publication as The Wind Blows in the Athenaeum,

Phew! I'm always pleased when I can sort out a discrepancy.

I read one of Mansfield's short story collections about thirty years ago (egad! where did that time go?) on the recommendation of a friend. I enjoyed them, but remember nothing about them now. Back then, I would treat a short story collection much like a novel. I would just keep reading one chapter after the next until I tired or had something else to do. As a result, the stories blur together into an homogeneous mess.

Since then, I have learnt to take it slow with short story collections. One at a time. Let each one sit and settle before attempting another. If I'm not done with my reading time, then I change books and authors completely.

The Wind Blows is one of the stories set in New Zealand during Mansfield's nostalgic phase, it also feels rather biographical. A young girl, Matilda, all fidgety and flighty thanks to a windy day is straining against the boundaries put in place by her mother. She doesn't want to darn the socks or bring in the washing and escapes instead to her music lessons. She feels misunderstood and out of place. Until she and younger brother, Bogey, run down to the sea to watch the ships leave port.

A sudden twist in the story and we realise that Matilda is remembering this windy day by the sea with her brother. She and Bogey are, in fact, already on board the ship, leaving New Zealand for good. Liberty and freedom is theirs!

"Look, Bogey, there's the town. Doesn't it look small? There's the post office clock chiming for the last time. There's the esplanade where we walked that windy day. Do you remember? I cried at my music lesson that day-how many years ago! Goodbye little  island, good-bye. . . . "

I've been in Wellington on a windy day. It really does howl around your legs and hair and clothes, unsettling even the most placid temperament. Matilda is a typical teen chaffing against authority and the confines of family life. She's ready to fly the coop, but has nowhere to go. The windy day exacerbates her angsty feelings; it's another form of opposition.

As Bogey and Matilda sail away, we see this as Matilda (KM) saying goodbye not only to her home town but childhood as well. Gillian Boddy's Katherine Mansfield: The Woman and the Writer (1988) confirms the biographical element in this story. My understanding of the timeline is that her first draft in 1915 was written prior to her brother, Leslie's death in October. The rewrite, obviously reflects her grief at this unimaginable loss.

Clearly based on the memories she had shared with Leslie during the summer of 1915, this story has a strange power. Matilda is K.M., she used the pseudonym Matilda Berry at this time, while Bogey was the family name for Leslie, which K.M. later transferred to Murry (her husband).

Thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for once again hosting the #1920Club. Hopefully I can fit in one more short story before the end of the week.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

Miss Brill | Katherine Mansfield #1920Club

Miss Brill is a short story by New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. It was first published in Athenaeum on 26 November 1920 and later included in The Garden Party and Other Stories (1922). 

I knew I wouldn't have the time or reading energy to tackle a novel published in 1920 for this week's 1920's Club with Kaggsy and Simon; so I chose a short story (or two). Just a little dipping of the toes into the bohemian waters of 1920!

Until I read this story, I knew very little about Mansfield's rather short and tragic life. I had thought that I might find a story which referenced WWI and the Spanish Flu that swept around the world in 1919, little realising that Mansfield had enough health concerns of her own to go on with. In December 1917, she was diagnosed with tuberculosis at the age of 29. She was dead five years later.

For someone so young, she managed to leave behind a huge body of work, mostly in the form of short stories, book reviews and letters. She grew up in a 'socially prominent family' in Wellington. Her childhood included a few years finishing off her schooling in Europe. She returned to NZ and started writing seriously, but found the 'provincial life' not to her liking and in 1908 she moved permanently from NZ to London.

She enjoyed a bohemian lifestyle in London, having relationships with men and women, as well as meeting Virginia Woolf and D H Lawrence. There was a miscarriage, a couple of on again/off again marriages, eventually resulting in her mother cutting her out of her will.

Her beloved baby brother was killed in Ploegsteert Wood, Belgium, 6th October 1915 causing her to feel nostalgic about their childhood in NZ. Her reminiscences eventually lead into a prolific period of writing.

She died on the 9th January 1923 and was buried at Cimetiere d’Avon, Avon, France.

But let's get back to poor Miss Brill.

Her story may be short, but it packs a punch. Miss Brill is an ageing, unmarried woman who lives quietly on her own, her only pleasure is walking around the Jardins Publiques to people watch. The story opens with a sense of excitement and anticipation. The long winter is over; the new Season is begun. Miss Brill brings out her fox stole from storage for the occasion. She freshens it up, brushing it's fur, and rubbing the life back into it.

She heads out feeling smart and self-contained.

But, as you learn to expect from Mansfield, there is an underlying sadness or melancholy that swells up when you (or Miss Brill) least expect it.

By the end of this short story, Miss Brill is confronted to see how others perceive her. She goes from feeling like all the world's a stage with everyone a player, including herself, to realising that she is a figure of ridicule, on the outside of a brand new world dominated by youth.

Loneliness, isolation and illusion. Themes that have taken on a new meaning in our own brand new coronavirus world.

Thank you to Kaggsy and Simon for hosting the #1920Club.

My other Katherine Mansfield posts:

• Miss Brill (1920)
• The Wind Blows (1920)
• Psychology (1920)

The Three Questions | Leo Tolstoy #ShortStory

As part of our year long readalong of War and Peace (it's not too late to join!), Nick has selected a number of Tolstoy's short stories and essays to make our 361 chapter book stretch to 366 days.

At the end of Volume 1, we have the first such extension read. Perfectly timed, too, I have to say Nick!

In the final pages of this section, Prince Andrey is pondering the nature of life and death after being wounded at the battle of Austerlitz. He says,

How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life, and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I should be if I could now say: ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’... But to whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible, which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in words—the Great All or Nothing-” said he to himself, “or to that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important.                         Louise and Aylmer Maude translation

The Three Questions from What Men Live By, and Other Tales by Leo Tolstoy is a short parable about a king who also wants to know what is right, who to turn to for help and which way to go.

Because it is relatively short, I've included the complete story below as translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude.

It once occurred to a certain king that if he always knew the right time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything he might undertake. 

And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to anyone who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was the most important thing to do. 

And learned men came to the king, but they all answered his questions differently.
In reply to the first question, some said that to know the right time for every action, one must draw up in advance a table of days, months, and years, and must live strictly according to it. Only thus, said they, could everything be done at its proper time. Others declared that it was impossible to decide beforehand the right time for every action, but that, not letting oneself be absorbed in idle pastimes, one should always attend to all that was going on, and then do what was most needful. Others, again, said that however attentive the king might be to what was going on, it was impossible for one man to decide correctly the right time for every action, but that he should have a council of wise men who would help him to fix the proper time for everything 

But then again others said there were some things which could not wait to be laid before a council, but about which one had at once to decide whether to undertake them or not. But in order to decide that, one must know beforehand what was going to happen. It is only magicians who know that; and, therefore, in order to know the right time for every action, one must consult magicians. 

Equally various were the answers to the second question. Some said the people the king most needed were his councilors; others, the priests; others, the doctors; while some said the warriors were the most necessary. 

To the third question, as to what was the most important occupation, some replied that the most important thing in the world was science. Others said it was skill in warfare; and others, again, that it was religious worship.

All the answers being different, the king agreed with none of them, and gave the reward to none. But still wishing to find the right answers to his questions, he decided to consult a hermit, widely renowned for his wisdom. 

The hermit lived in a wood which he never quitted, and he received none but common folk. So the king put on simple clothes and, before reaching the hermit’s cell, dismounted from his horse. Leaving his bodyguard behind, he went on alone. 

When the king approached, the hermit was digging the ground in front of his hut. Seeing the king, he greeted him and went on digging. The hermit was frail and weak, and each time he stuck his spade into the ground and turned a little earth, he breathed heavily.
The king went up to him and said: “I have come to you, wise hermit, to ask you to answer three questions: How can I learn to do the right thing at the right time? Who are the people I most need, and to whom should I, therefore, pay more attention than to the rest? And, what affairs are the most important and need my first attention?” 

The hermit listened to the king, but answered nothing. He just spat on his hand and recommenced digging. 

Vincent Van Gogh |Bauern Bei der Arbeit | 1890

“You are tired,” said the king, “let me take the spade and work awhile for you.”
“Thanks!” said the hermit, and, giving the spade to the king, he sat down on the ground.
When he had dug two beds, the king stopped and repeated his questions. The hermit again gave no answer, but rose, stretched out his hand for the spade, and said:
“Now rest awhile – and let me work a bit.”

But the king did not give him the spade, and continued to dig. One hour passed, and another. The sun began to sink behind the trees, and the king at last stuck the spade into the ground, and said: “I came to you, wise man, for an answer to my questions. If you can give me none, tell me so, and I will return home.” 

“Here comes someone running,” said the hermit. “Let us see who it is.” 

The king turned round and saw a bearded man come running out of the wood. The man held his hands pressed against his stomach, and blood was flowing from under them. When he reached the king, he fell fainting on the ground, moaning feebly. The king and the hermit unfastened the man’s clothing. There was a large wound in his stomach. The king washed it as best he could, and bandaged it with his handkerchief and with a towel the hermit had. But the blood would not stop flowing, and the king again and again removed the bandage soaked with warm blood, and washed and re-bandaged the wound. When at last the blood ceased flowing, the man revived and asked for something to drink. The king brought fresh water and gave it to him. Meanwhile the sun had set, and it had become cool. So the king, with the hermit’s help, carried the wounded man into the hut and laid him on the bed. Lying on the bed, the man closed his eyes and was quiet; but the king was so tired from his walk and from the work he had done that he crouched down on the threshold, and also fell asleep – so soundly that he slept all through the short summer night.

When he awoke in the morning, it was long before he could remember where he was, or who was the strange bearded man lying on the bed and gazing intently at him with shining eyes. 

“Forgive me!” said the bearded man in a weak voice, when he saw that the king was awake and was looking at him.
“I do not know you, and have nothing to forgive you for,” said the king. 

“You do not know me, but I know you. I am that enemy of yours who swore to revenge himself on you, because you executed his brother and seized his property. I knew you had gone alone to see the hermit, and I resolved to kill you on your way back. But the day passed and you did not return. So I came out from my ambush to find you, and came upon your bodyguard, and they recognised me, and wounded me. I escaped from them, but should have bled to death had you not dressed my wound. I wished to kill you, and you have saved my life. Now, if I live, and if you wish it, I will serve you as your most faithful slave, and will bid my sons do the same. Forgive me!” 

The king was very glad to have made peace with his enemy so easily, and to have gained him for a friend, and he not only forgave him, but said he would send his servants and his own physician to attend him, and promised to restore his property. 

Having taken leave of the wounded man, the king went out into the porch and looked around for the hermit. Before going away he wished once more to beg an answer to the questions he had put. The hermit was outside, on his knees, sowing seeds in the beds that had been dug the day before.  

Bill Strain | "I've been sitting here all day, feeling like I need to apologize to someone." | 2010

The king approached him and said, “For the last time, I pray you to answer my questions, wise man.”

“You have already been answered!” said the hermit, still crouching on his thin legs, and looking up at the king, who stood before him.
“How answered? What do you mean?” asked the king. 

“Do you not see?” replied the hermit. “If you had not pitied my weakness yesterday, and had not dug these beds for me, but had gone your way, that man would have attacked you, and you would have repented of not having stayed with me. So the most important time was when you were digging the beds; and I was the most important man; and to do me good was your most important business. Afterwards, when that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business. Remember then: there is only one time that is important – now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary person is the one with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with anyone else: and the most important affair is to do that person good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life.”

Prince Andrey certainly needs some lessons in living in the now, as well as appreciating those around him and dealing with what is in front of him, instead of fantasising about future possibilities for heroics for himself.

I understand that Tolstoy came at this story from a religious perspective, but the whole 'live in the now' message is such a Zen Buddhist one, that I wonder if he was also influenced by Eastern philosophies?

Naturally this led me to dig a little deeper.

The short answer is that Tolstoy was interested in philosophical questions from a young age. He delved into the works of Schopenhauer as well as Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Taoist texts.

The long answer begins with a 19 yr old Tolstoy, hospitalised at Kazan (apparently for venereal disease) where he met a Buddhist monk who had been attacked and robbed. The story goes that Tolstoy was impressed by the monks principle of non-violence.

A growing dissatisfaction with the Russian Orthodox Church led him to formulate his own faith that focused on peace, harmony and unity. By the end of his life, he was a vegetarian, living an ascetic life. He believed that Christian churches were corrupting and falsifying the word of Christ. He was drawn to the teachings of Jesus, particularly the sermon on the mount, rather than any idea of a divinity or miracles.

Later in life, when he was trying to find answers to his many questions about life and it's meaning and purpose, he looked to science, but found that it asked even more questions. The scientific way of working on the finite, didn't bring Tolstoy any closer to his search for the infinite. Neither did the ancient philosophers.

In 1879, he published A Confession, where he attempted to study how the people in his social sphere managed this vexing question of existential angst.

I found that for people of my circle there were four ways out of the terrible position in which we are all placed. The first was that of ignorance. It consists in not knowing, not understanding, that life is an evil and an absurdity. From [people of this sort] I had nothing to learn — one cannot cease to know what one does know. 

The second way out is epicureanism. It consists, while knowing the hopelessness of life, in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has, disregarding the dragon and the mice, and licking the honey in the best way, especially if there is much of it within reach… That is the way in which the majority of people of our circle make life possible for themselves. Their circumstances furnish them with more of welfare than of hardship, and their moral dullness makes it possible for them to forget that the advantage of their position is accidental … and that the accident that has today made me a Solomon may tomorrow make me a Solomon’s slave. The dullness of these people’s imagination enables them to forget the things that gave Buddha no peace — the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death, which today or tomorrow will destroy all these pleasures. 

The third escape is that of strength and energy. It consists in destroying life, when one has understood that it is an evil and an absurdity. A few exceptionally strong and consistent people act so. Having understood the stupidity of the joke that has been played on them, and having understood that it is better to be dead than to be alive, and that it is best of all not to exist, they act accordingly and promptly end this stupid joke, since there are means: a rope round one’s neck, water, a knife to stick into one’s heart, or the trains on the railways; and the number of those of our circle who act in this way becomes greater and greater, and for the most part they act so at the best time of their life, when the strength of their mind is in full bloom and few habits degrading to the mind have as yet been acquired… 

The fourth way out is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the truth of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in advance that nothing can come of it. People of this kind know that death is better than life, but not having the strength to act rationally — to end the deception quickly and kill themselves — they seem to wait for something. This is the escape of weakness, for if I know what is best and it is within my power, why not yield to what is best? … The fourth way was to live like Solomon and Schopenhauer — knowing that life is a stupid joke played upon us, and still to go on living, washing oneself, dressing, dining, talking, and even writing books. This was to me repulsive and tormenting, but I remained in that position.

It's curious to see that, just like Herman Melville in the US and Charles Darwin in the UK, Tolstoy was wracked by the same existential doubt and insecurity. In their modern world, teeming with scientific discoveries, these highly educated men struggled to find a way to live a meaningful, purposeful life, that didn't involve the strict (and often hypocritical) doctrines of their childhood religions or a belief in a supreme being.

Rational knowledge presented by the learned and wise, denies the meaning of life, but the enormous masses of men, the whole of mankind receive that meaning in irrational knowledge. And that irrational knowledge is faith, that very thing which I could not but reject. It is God, One in Three; the creation in six days; the devils and angels, and all the rest that I cannot accept as long as I retain my reason. 

My position was terrible. I knew I could find nothing along the path of reasonable knowledge except a denial of life; and there — in faith — was nothing but a denial of reason, which was yet more impossible for me than a denial of life.... 

And I understood that, however irrational and distorted might be the replies given by faith, they have this advantage, that they introduce into every answer a relation between the finite and the infinite, without which there can be no solution. 

So that besides rational knowledge, which had seemed to me the only knowledge, I was inevitably brought to acknowledge that all live humanity has another irrational knowledge — faith which makes it possible to live. Faith still remained to me as irrational as it was before, but I could not but admit that it alone gives mankind a reply to the questions of life, and that consequently it makes life possible.

Tolstoy found his way through the quagmire by differentiating between faith and religion. His faith incorporated man-made philosophies from all around the world.
So, yes, the Buddhist ideas intermingled in this parable are there deliberately and by choice.

There is also a children's picture book by Jon J. Muth (most well-known for his picture book Zen Shorts) based on this tale. He uses a young boy, various animals and the weather to explore the three questions and their answers. He clearly arrives at

• The only important time is now. 
• The most important one is always the one you are with. 
• The most important thing is to do good for the one standing at your side.

I can highly recommend Muth's picture books if you are looking for a way to discuss these big ideas with young children.

Griffith Review 63: Writing the Country edited by Julianne Schultz & Ashley Hay

Image: James Tylor, Turralyendi Yerta (Womma) 2017 Photograph with ochre & charcoal.

Place. Land. Country. Home. These words frame the settings of our stories. Griffith Review 63: Writing the Country focuses on Australia’s vast raft of environments to investigate how these places are changing and what they might become; what is flourishing and what is at risk. 

How we speak of and to the world we live in requires us to make sense of where we are and where we’re going; it requires us to describe, interrogate and analyse our places from the smallest to the grandest of scales. In the second issue of Griffith Review, published fifteen years ago, Melissa Lucashenko wrote of ‘earthspeaking, talking about this place, my home’. All these years later, the need to hear all sorts of earthspeak has perhaps never been more urgent.

In the past, I would have gobbled up the stories, essays, poems and articles in a Griffith Review edition in one fell swoop. Leaving me with a general impression of the theme of the edition and a vague memory of some of the pieces. But this time, I decided to go slow.

Slow Reading is my new mantra. I want to read as thoughtfully, consciously and carefully as I can as often as I can. Obviously, not all books lend themselves to this approach. Some stories are lightly told, some favourite series are formulaic although lovable and comforting and some books are nothing more than a quick, easy holiday read. They all have their purpose, time and place.

But some books deserve more. And sometimes I deserve more!
Sometimes I want to devote more time to one book so that I can savour each moment, delve deeply and create a rich reading memory of my time with the book.

In recent times. Les Miserables was one such book, and I'm currently reading Moby-Dick with this slow reading approach. Back in February, when I acquired my copy of the Griffith Review 63, I decided to do the same. To slow read each essay and story. To let each one stand alone in my memory.

I confess, I didn't think I would still be reading it in November!

It also left me in a quandary about how best to record my slow reading experience. Giving each piece it's own post would be too laborious for me and rather dull for you, oh brave internet wanderer who landed on my page!

The passing of time has allowed the answer to present itself to me. Just like my Moby-Dick chapter posts, I will present each essay with a brief snapshot of the things that caught my eye or captured my imagination. Poems and stories I will leave for another time.

Introduction: On Suicide on Watch? The Enduring Power of Nature | Julianne Schultz (26th Nov 2018).

• societies and cultures evolve in response to the environment in which people find themselves.
• unforeseeable natural events have destroyed some civilisations...but others have been undone by over-exploitation. 
• Arnold J Toynbee quip - more civilisations die from suicide than murder.
• A classical historian and writer of comparative history.
• Hugely popular and influential in the 1940's and 50's.
• Now criticised for being more of a Christian moralist than an historian - ouch! (Encyclopedia Britannica).
• Schultz believes that we may be on 'suicide watch' but we can still feel optimistic with a 'sense of agency'.
• McLean Foundation and The Nature Conservancy commissioned writers for this edition.
• The McLean Foundation is a family foundation that has four areas of interest: protecting Australia’s biodiversity; supporting inter-city, rural and remote literacy programs for disadvantaged Australian children; rural tertiary education scholarships; and community development programs. 
• Their environmental funding to date has included establishing and supporting The Nature Conservancy Australia and their Nature Writing Prize. Robert McLean is the Chair of The Nature Conservancy Australia, a Senior Advisor to McKinsey & Co, and a Board Member of Philanthropy Australia.
• I love that people like Robert McLean exist. Read his 2011 bio in the SMH here.

Essay: Crossing the Line | Ashley Hay

• or the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef.
• There are mechanisms and consequences we can already see and understand (the known knowns).
• There are effects and impacts we can see happening without yet understanding why, or how they might impact each other (the known unknowns).
• And then there are the 'unknown unknowns', the layers of knowledge about our planet's natural systems, their requirements, their reactions and interactions that we don't know about yet. The Things that we cannot see coming.
• 30 yrs ago the CSIRO investigated what would happen if we doubled the concentration of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. 
• 'Most of the consequences that science then predicted would occur by 2030 we've already seen.' Griffith University's Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe.
• Including Perth's rainfall declining by about a quarter in 30 years. But what wasn't predicted was the decline by two-thirds of the run-off rate. 
• 'it's hotter and drier when it rains, which means there's a more dramatic reduction in run-off' - which means there is less water available to be collected when it does rain.
• A road trip is a kind of mediation. Time and space stretch a little and you pay different attention to the landscapes you move through.
• biophilia - love of nature
• The Permian-Triassic extinction, 252 million years ago, wiped out more than nine-tenths of all species. It took the ecosystems effected about 5-8 million years to recover.
• The unknown unknowns in all of this are each and every one of us: what we purchase, what we vote for and what we insist on, as much as how we live.
• Hay's solution - pay attention, witness this moment, imagine the unknowns, imagine what's coming next.

Essay: Lost and Found in Translation | Kim Mahood

• Books in books - Kangaroo (D H Lawrence), Voss (Patrick White), To the Islands, Tourmaline, Midnite, Visitants and The Merry-go-round in the Sea (Randolph Stow), Animal Farm (George Orwell), Tracks (Robyn Davidson), The Songlines (Bruce Chatwin), Belomor (Nicholas Rothwell)
• what is consistent in all these books is the presence of Aboriginal people in various configurations.
• Ochre and Rust (Philip Jones) songlines are a 'kind of scripture, a framework for relating people to land, and to show that their relationship is inalienable.'
• The major songlines, such as the Seven Sisters, are like arteries that carry the life force of the culture through the body of the country.
• songlines are fixed in the landscape
• but they can be performed anywhere, with permission.
• the land is as conscious as the people who live in it.

Essay: Boodjar ngan djoorla: Country, my bones | Claire G Coleman

• My bones are in the soul of Country, and Country is in my bones.
• No matter where we go Country calls out to us.
• I wept when I realised Country had not forgotten me even when I did not know Country. My old-people, my ancestors, would care for me.
• Truth escapes in the end, lies cannot live forever.

Essay: A Fragile Civilisation: Collective living on Australian soil | Stephen Muecke

• Ancient Indigenous civilisations and/or modern Western civilisations.
• I would like to define civilisation as planned, sustainable collective living.
• Yolngu as Indigenous example.
• If the Yolgnu have flourished for up to 50 000 years, while the kind of civilisation based on large cities could self-destruct after only a few hundred, perhaps it is time to recalibrate what we mean by civilisations.

Essay: The Planet is Alive: Radical histories for uncanny times | Tom Griffiths

• Amitav Ghosh - The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016)
• we are knowingly killing the planetary systems that support survival of our species.
• we half aware of this predicament yet also paralysed by it, caught between horror and hubris.
• Anthropocene - a new geological epoch that recognises the power of humans in changing the nature of the planet, its atmosphere, oceans, climate, biodiversity, even its rocks and stratigraphy.
• The Great Acceleration - from the 1950's when the human enterprise suddenly exploded in population and energy use.
• Or the Sixth Extinction - humans have wiped out about two-thirds of the world's wildlife in just the last half century.
• Big History - David Christian - history of the universe - global storytellers.

Reportage: A Change in the Political Weather? Forecasting the future of climate policy | Paul Daley

• Carl Feilberg - late 1800's Queensland - human rights activist & environmentalist.
• Bio coming soon by Robert Ørsted-Jensen.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)
• Daley wrote this piece Nov 2018 and talked about politicians being out of step with public opinion about climate change and that this would be evident in the federal election in 2019. Instead it showed that journalists were out of step with the broader public opinion about climate change. They were (I am) living in an inner city bubble and we all made the mistake in thinking that the rest of Australia (rural, suburban and city fringes) felt the same as us or had the same priorities and concerns.

Essay: We All Took a Stand: Margaret River versus the coal industry | David Ritter

• Loved this piece.
• I had no idea that this even happened - there is power in our stories if we choose to tell them.
• The community of the Margaret River took on the coal industry and won.
• Australia's approval systems for fossil fuel mining are antiquated and loaded towards the interests of developers.
•  In this case, the political and business elite decided, emphatically, that some things are more important than the extraction of fossil fuels.

Essay: Life and Death on Dyarubbin: Reports from the Hawkesbury River | Grace Karskens

• The Real Secret River: Dyarubbin | 2017

Essay: Rebuilding Reefs, Restoring Memory: At work in the waters of history | Anna Clark

• Clifton Springs shellfish reef restoration project, near Geelong.
• R H Tawney - doing history well meant contemplating the processes of how (and where) the past relates to people in the present.
• over 95% of native flat oyster & blue mussel reefs have disappeared across southern Australia.
• each generation remembers what fisheries were like at the beginning of their own lifetimes, so that the baseline of that ecosystem subtly changes over time...an ever-lower bar is set as the 'new normal'.

Reportage: The Butterfly Effect: Stalking a giant in PNG | Jo Chandler

• 1906 | Albert Stewart Meek
• Ornithoptera alexandrae | Queen Alexandra's birdwing - largest butterfly in the world.
• rural people do not always understand the outsider notion of 'conservation', and outsiders do not always understand what villagers think of when they imagine 'development'.

Memoir: The Suburbsm the 60's: What use a scrap of bush? | Kate Veitch

• Growing up in Vermont and Nunawading.
• An outdoor life, playing in the nearby bush.
• Naturally, we never talked about our adventures to our parents. Nor did they ask. This was an era when parents had better things to do than hover over their children, monitoring their every move.
• Healesville Freeway Reserve | 2012
• The importance of place & childhood spaces.

Reportage: Eating Turtle: Changing narratives of the normal | Suzy Freeman-Greene

• Heron Island
• the heroes of the story are scientists.

Memoir: It's Scary but Nobody Cares: Challenging Australia's reputation for deadliness | Ashley Kalagian Blunt

• A Canadian view of Australia, drop bears and other deadly creatures.

Essay: Valuing Country: Let me count three ways | Jane Gleeson-White

• In 2008, Ecuador became the first country to recognise the rights of nature.
• Rights-of-nature laws also now in Bolivia, New Zealand, India and Colombia.
• three ways of thinking about the natural world - country, natural capital, rights of nature.
• 2016 Fitzroy River Declaration recognises the river as a living ancestral being with its own life force.
• 2017 Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron).
• 2018 petition to protect the legal rights of the Great Barrier Reef.
• Capitalism is fundamentally opposed to preserving nature.
• ecological economics.
• protecting the environment is a good thing for humanity | Carl Obst

Reportage: Ghost Species and Shadow Places: Seabirds and plastic pollution on Lord Howe Island | Cameron Muir

• Runner-Up Bragg UNSW Press Prize for Science Writing 2019
• Shortlisted for the Eureka Prize for Science Communication
• flesh-footed shearwaters | mutton birds
• they vomit plastic. The parent shearwaters here are slowly feeding their chicks to death with plastic.
• the plastic blocks their digestive tracts and can pierce internal organs.
• A torrent of plastic is coming. More plastic was produced in the last fifteen years than in the previous fifty. 

Essay: The Cost of Consumption: Dispatches from a planet in decline | James Bradley

•  2018 Living Planet Report
• The sheer scale of the problem makes it difficult to think about.
• As creatures disappear, we forget them, as baselines shift we adjust, and the world as it was is lost.
• The Great Acceleration
• For while population growth has played a part, the rise in GDP and energy far outstrips the rise in population. In fact it is humanity's booming middle classes...who are the problem. The ecological footprint of an average Australian or American is three times that of a Costa Rican, and almost eight or nine times that of the average Indian or African. It is also, significantly, double that of many Europeans.
• The real problem is the insatiable consumption of the world's wealthy.
• We already possess the technologies to deal with the problem - renewable energy, sustainable farming practices...better education and literacy, especially for women...basic income...progressive taxation and economic reform...better governance....
• Environmental justice is also social justice and intergenerational justice. But it is also interspecies justice.

Essay: Climate Change, Science and Country: A never-ending story | Brendan Mackey

• the climate norm will be there is no norm.
• scientists are not catastrophists - they project rather than predict.
• Climate change may be a scientific discovery, but it is the humanities and creative arts that speak to what this means.

Reportage: Remaking Nature: Novel strategies in modified landscapes | Andrew Stafford

• Bitterns in Rice project
• Yandina Creek Wetlands

Image Source

Essay: Transforming Landscapes: Regenerating country in the Anthropocene | Charles Massey

• regenerative farming
• Many of the world's desertifying environments are the result of human activity. In Australia - as in the Middle East...
• in mismanaged landscapes the small water cycles are destroyed.
• capitalist market economy believes in continual growth. Nature is viewed as a raw material for wealth and property creation.
• to become landscape literate.
• Paul Hawken | human brain is not wired to deal with future existential threats.
• Project Drawdown
• This is not a liberal agenda, nor is it a conservative agenda...this is a human agenda.

Essay: Encounters with Amnesia: Confronting the ghosts of Australian landscape | Inga Simpson

• Judith Wright | The love of the land we have invaded, and the guilt of invasion - have become a part of me. It is a haunted country.
• Louisa Atkinson | 1853 | The Illustrated Sydney News | Nature Notes

• Eric Rolls | A Million Wild Acres | 1981
• Mark Tredinnick | The Blue Plateau | 2009
• One of the most obvious characteristics of Australian nature writingnis the tension, for non-Indigenous Australians, around how to write about our connection to the places we love, knowing that those places were stolen from others, and possibly sites of violence.
• Although thinking of ourselves as a bush nation, we are, in fact, urban and suburban - and increasingly illiterate in nature.
• Nature writing...is...about wanting to belong, a yearning for connection with the natural world and the places in which we live. To be at home....Instead of trying to write ourselves all over the landscape, it is time to hear what it is saying and write it deeper into our selves.

This is the very first Griffith Review I have read from cover to cover. 

Previously I have enjoyed the occasional essay or story when an online prompt led me to the one free monthly read I am allowed as a non-subscriber. I was, however, particularly drawn to the topic of this edition. I figured it would have lots to say about the environment, climate change, Indigenous perspectives and landscape. It did. 

My Goodreads wishlist has exploded as I pour over the individual the bibliographies and I have found new authors to explore. I have discovered new-to-me websites and environmental projects that not only provide the scientific facts about climate but also give us all hope that we can really look after this planet we live on, if we really want to.

I won't be able to devote as much time as I have for this edition to all future editions, or even to catching up on the back list editions. It will be a case of cherry-picking the topics and authors that interest me or challenge me the most.

The various essays, stories and poems in this edition, helped me to complete several squares on my AusReadingMonth Bingo card - NSW, VIC, QLD, TAS and WA. As a bonus, I also ticked off a few nearby islands - Heron Island, Lord Howe Island and PNG.

#AusReadingMonth
#NonFictionNovember

99 Interpretations of The Drover's Wives by Ryan O'Neill

This little curiosity has been sitting by my bed for over a year now. It has taken a hectic schedule and a determination to read as much Australian literature this month as possible to bring this particular book to the top of the pile.

Why?

Simply because, as the title says, it is 99 stories re-interpreting Henry Lawson's 1892 short story The Drover's Wife. With my schedule so crazy, the chance to read a stack of short stories sounded like the perfect way to get through AusReadingMonth ticking a few goals!

And it was.

99 Interpretations of the Drover's Wives was a LOT of fun. Starting with a reprint of the original Henry Lawson story to refresh our memories, O'Neill then went on to retell the story in various literary styles.

I'd love to share all 99 with you, but that would just get tedious. Which is how I also felt if I tried to read more than 4 or 5 in one sitting.

The Drover's Wives was best read in small doses so that one could enjoy each version for what it was.

My personal favourites were the Hemingwayesque, the Year 8 English Essay (which had me laughing out loud and reading parts out to a bemused Mr Books), Editorial Comments, A Gossip Column, A 1980's Computer Game, Tweets, A Question Asked by an Audience Member at a Writer's Festival and Biographical. I also enjoyed the Cryptic Crossword and Wordsearch.

Some of the interpretations left me scrambling around on google trying to understand the reference. For instance, I have never read any Cormac McCarthy, so the McCarthyesque version went over my head until I found a vocab list of McCarthy's books that explained everything!

Lipogram was another new-to-me term. Turns out this is a composition where the author systemically omits a certain letter of the alphabet. O'Neill chose the letter 'e'. Whilst Univocalic only uses one vowel throughout the whole story. Again the 'e'.

I wasn't sure what a pangram was, but figured out from the sentence - Zippy onyx snake just got squelched by fuming drover's wife! - that it was a sentence that used every letter of the alphabet.

I also discovered someone I know. At the bottom of the Political Cartoon was 'art by Sam Paine'. I thought, 'I know Sam Paine, he's a Mudgee boy, I wonder if it's the same one?' Turns out it was.

The N + 7 chapter made no sense until I discovered the N + 7 generator - a machine that converts your text by replacing each noun in a text with the seventh one following it in a dictionary. It also explained why O'Neill dedicated the book not only to Henry Lawson but the Frenchman Raymond Queneau. Queneau was one of the 1960 founders of OULIPO (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle) a group of ten writers and mathematicians who created pieces by using constrained writing techniques.

One of Queneau's most famous works was Exercises in Style, which tells the story of a man's seeing the same stranger twice in one day. He tells that short story in 99 different ways. Sound familiar?

Abecedarian was a curious choice. Until I learnt about the program for disadvantaged children and finally understood the focus on the children playing and the desire for a stable home environment.

The Drover's Wives was a playful, entertaining read.
O'Neill managed to sneak in pretty much every fact known about the writing of the original story, plus loads of biographical information about Lawson throughout the 99 versions. Imaginative speculation and creative cross-overs with other stories and authors also featured in different versions.

Recommended for readers with some basic knowledge of Lawson, his short stories and the Australian literary scene. If you have to google every single version, then you may not find it quite so amusing.

the drover's wife, 1945 Russell Drysdale

Facts:

• O'Neill was the winner of the 2017 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Fiction for Their Brilliant Careers.
• The Drover's Wife was first published in The Bulletin on the 23rd July 1892.
• Russell Drysdale's painting the drover's wife 1945 (although apparently not connected to Lawson's story).
• On 28th June 1975 Murray Bail published a story in Tabloid Story that connected Lawson and Drysdale's works.
• In 1980 Frank Moorhouse published his satire of the bush ethos in the centenary January edition of The Bulletin.
• In December of the same year, Barbara Jeffries published her feminist version.
• Anne Gambling (1986) The Drover's De Facto
• Kate Jennings (1996) Snake
• Mandy Sayers (1996) The Drovers' Wives - a critical response.
• David Ireland (1997) The Drover's Wife
• Damien Broderick (1991) The Drover's Wife's Dog tells the story from the dogs point of view.
• Leah Purcell in 2016 created a play based on the story that infuses the story with a female First Nations perspective.
• The Drover's Wife : A Celebration of a Great Australian Love Affair anthology by Frank Moorhouse 2017 which includes many of the versions above.

AusReadingMonth Bingo

It's that time of year again.
Time to start thinking about how many Australian books we can read before the end of November.

Given how many of my favourite reading events now seem to be congregating around this time of year, I will make joining in AusReadingMonth as easy as possible.

So let's pack our bags and travel this big, beautiful land by book.

Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, travel guides, short stories, audio and children's book can transport us to every state, city and major town in Australia.

Our AusReadingMonth BINGO card will help us plan our journey around Australia. You can use the card throughout November or apply it retrospectively to your reading year. Whatever works best for you.

Flyby Night

If time is of the essence, one book from the BINGO card may be the prefect option for you.

A quick getaway is better than none!

Backpacker

With their compact swags, backpackers need to travel light.

If this is you, simply select one line (horizontal, vertical of even diagonal) on the BINGO card and read three books about our country.

Grey Nomad

If you have more time up your sleeve join the grey nomads in their self-contained campervans as you travel around this big, brown land of ours. 

With every crossroad on the map, there's a choice to be made; you cannot do it all, so select two lines on the BINGO card to be eligible for Grey Nomad status.

The Whole Hog

If you're feeling a little touched by the sun, then the Whole Hog may be for you.

Read NINE books this November from all of the 8 states and territories plus one freebie.

The FREEBIE can be any book by an Australian author or a book written by an overseas author but set entirely in Australia.

Uluru, Nov 2010

Time is of the essence for most of us, yet how many times do we find ourselves combining multiple reading events! If this is you, perhaps the following AusReadingMonth reading suggestions will help.

Many of the books below are essay collections or memoirs, perfect for your Non-Fiction November or Novellas in November lists.

Short Story Collections 

• Ellen Van Neerven (Heat and Light) Indigenous author
• Robert Dessaix (Twilight of Love, (and so forth), As I Was Saying) has some fabulous short stories collections featuring fiction, essays and articles. He has also studied and taught Russian Studies throughout his career. Some of his work could help you complete AusReadingMonth, Non Fiction November and Russian Lit Month.
• Helen Garner (Stories: The Collected Short Fiction, Everywhere I Look, True Stories: The Collected Short Non-Fiction)
• Robert Drewe (The Bodysurfers, The Bay of Contented Men, The Rip, The True Colour of the Sea)
• Cate Kennedy (Like A House on Fire)
• Tim Winton (Island Home, The Boy Behind the Curtain)
• Henry Lawson
• Lily Brett
• David Malouf
• Tara June Winch (After the Carnage)
• Bruce Pascoe (Salt: Selected Stories and Essays)
• The Best Australian Science Writing 2019
• Quarterly Essay
• Griffith Review
• Meanjin
• Overland
• The Monthly

Poetry

• Omar Sakr
• Alison Whitaker
• Les Murray
• Judith Wright
• John Kinsella
• Dorothy Porter
• David Malouf
• Oodgeroo Noonuccal (aka as Kath Walker)
• Clive James
• Kate Lilley
• Omar Musa
• Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann & Robert Gray
• Australian Poetry Review
• Australian Poetry Journal

There are OODLES more to chose from, but I've focused on the authors and/or journals I've read, for now. For my fellow Aussie bloggers - can you recommend any other collections of essays, short stories or poets for our overseas friends?

What will you be reading during this year's AusReading Month?