The Dyehouse | Mena Calthorpe #AWW

Written with unerring skill and insight, The Dyehouse is a masterly portrait of postwar Australia, when industrial work was radically transformed by new technologies and society changed with it. Mena Calthorpe—who herself worked in a textile factory—takes us inside this world, vividly bringing to life the people of an inner-Sydney company in the mid-1950s: the bosses, middlemen and underlings; their dramatic struggles and their loves.

The inner-city Sydney suburb of Macdonaldtown is the setting for Calthorpe's story about workers in a fictitious textile dyeing factory in 1956. And as Fiona McFarlane reminds us early on in her Introduction: The Art of Work, 'Calthorpe was a socialist, and it's impossible to read The Dyehouse without noticing its political commitment.' This might make for a dry, earnest sort of story in some hands, but Calthorpe is also a humanist. Her characters come alive in a convincing, sympathetic manner. Therefore, this becomes a story about everyday people and how they approach a working life. What it means to them, how it affects them, financially, physically and emotionally and the conditions and expectations that are placed on them by society, religion, family and friends.

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Every strata of the factory is covered. We meet the bosses, the managers, the office staff, the workers and the cleaners. We see them at work and at home. Calthorpe gives us insights into their thoughts and emotional states. We see their poverty, their dreams and hopes, their despair, fear and pride.

Reading this with a modern sensibility, it comes as a shock to be reminded of times gone by when one's working life was so inflexible and all-encompassing. The days were long, the work was hard, often physically demanding, and the weeks were even longer. It was a time when the worker had almost no rights and no recourse for compensation, compassion or simple leave. A time where all the power was on the side of the bosses, who were more concerned about the bottom line, than the daily lives or well-being of their workers.

This example of the 1950's class and gender divide also reminds us that times may change, but
human nature doesn't. The double standards that applied back then are different now, less obvious perhaps, but they still exist for those who want to see them.

The idea that all progress is good and that growth is inevitable still dictates the way we approach work and our economy. Technology, change, economic rationalisation and personal advancement at the expense of others still divides the bosses from the workers; the haves from the have-nots. Modern worker's may have more rights and avenues for compensation, but loss of work is still the financial and psychological devastation today as it was for Hughie.

I'm extremely grateful that Text Classics rediscovered this lost story about a time and place in Sydney that is now also lost. The old slum terraces may still exist, but they are slums no longer. The occasional smoke stack may still grace the horizon of many an inner-city skyline, but they are now ensconced in modern refurbished, re-purposed renovations. An aesthetic reminder of our industrial past surrounded by coffee shops, restaurants and modern art.

The Dyehouse was a perfect example for Bill @The Australian Legend - Gen III - 1919-1960 - reading week. This era of Australian literature is defined by social realism and modernism. Social Realism 'depicts the harshness of working life in order to critique the forces giving rise to it....By contrast Socialist Realism, which was the mandated style for Communists around the same time, idealises the (post-Revolution) Worker' (wikipedia). Modernism focuses on the decay and alienation of the individual, in direct opposition to the earlier Romanticism that embraced an idealised version of progress and growth, love of Nature, beauty and imagination.

Oliver, the new vat worker, sums up this disconnect between worker and boss, reality versus idealisation, when he says,

'We ain't got much. But some of these bastards want to strip us down. Maybe after a while they get to feeling that we aren't built like them either. Where they've got lungs and heart and guts, and blood in their veins, maybe we've got wheels and gears and cogs. Maybe they don't mean to be bad. We're just not human. Not in the way they are. They'd strip us down, all right. And mainly we let them.

King St, Newtown 1950's - note the chimney stacks at the end of the street.

Philomena (Mena) Ivy Bright Calthorpe was born in 1905 in Goulburn, NSW. Her father was a droving contractor and Catholic. Her mother was a Protestant. It's hard to imagine now, how disturbing and unusual that was considered at the time.

After school, Mena taught in small country schools for a decade before marrying Bill Calthorpe, a sheep farmer from Yass. His family were forced to sell the farm in 1933, so Mena and Bill moved to Paddington to start up a shop. It was unsuccessful. Mena joined the Communist Party in 1933 while Bill became involved in the trade union movement. Mena worked in various office jobs, including in a textile factory, and wrote in her spare time.

She left the Communist party a few years later because she couldn't afford the cost of being an organiser and joined her local Caringbah branch of the Labor Party instead. Another factor for joining the Caringbar branch was B. A. Santamaria's Catholic faction, the Groupers. They were also based in Caringbar. They actively opposed Communist involvement in the trade union movement and Mena actively opposed them! (I would be keen to read her second book, The Defectors (1969) that goes into branch and trade union politics.)

She joined a writers group which included Katharine Susannah Prichard, Sally Bannister and Dorothy Corke. Mena also attended meetings of the Fellowship of Australian Writers with Dymphna & Mary Cusack and Florence James.

The Dyehouse was the first of three novels. Mena died in Sutherland, Sydney in 1996.

“It might be easier for the boy,” Barney thought. “Sixteen or seventeen years is a long time. And the future could be different. Yes, a man could bank on that. The future would not be the same.”

“I’d like to have a lot to give you, Patty. A new house in one of the outer suburbs. Lovely clothes. We haven’t got much. All our lives we’ll be working and just trying to hang on to what we have. Blokes with money will make more and more. People like us will make it for them. And all the time we’ll be lucky if we can just hang on.”

Time has been kinder to The Dyehouse, than some of the reviewers of the time. R.R. from the Canberra Times | Formula Story set in Factory Scene | 16 Sept 1961 | said,

Yet the book is badly overwritten and pretentious. It needs ruthless pruning of its "literary" passages. Even moderate editing out of such schoolgirl words as "clatter," "click clack," and "tic tac," which jangle irritatingly through it, would improve it immensely.

The numerous vulgarities are forced and unnatural.

She has considerable skill as a writer, her great strength appears to be story construction. When she stops fascinating herself with her own clever prose, throws away her thesaurus, and gets down to telling a story simply, economically, and honestly she may well be a force to be reckoned with on the Australian literary scene.

Thankfully, Fiona MacFarlane is able to see the value of Calthorpe's 'restrained lyricism' and the 'playful attention to sound' when referring to these same aspects of the writing. As for the vulgarities, I have to assume that they referred to all the 'old bastards' and 'poor bastards' littered throughout the worker's dialogue. Unnatural perhaps, insofar as these curses have been watered down by Mena so as not to really offend the reading public!

It's hard to believe that this Miles Franklin Award shortlisted book and author could have been forgotten or overlooked for so long.

Sali Herman (1898 - 1993)
The Women Of Paddington, 1950

Favourite Quote:

Past Redfern, where they changed, the cottages with their little squares of gardens flashed past. The backs of the houses faced the railway lines. The sun beat on the sloping roofs of rust-marked corrugated iron, slates or grimy tile. Between the paling fences rose a medley of of clotheslines. Choko vines screened verandahs and outhouses with their cool green. Pumpkins were ripening on the tops of skillion roofs, their green skins flecked with yellow and orange.

Facts:

• Shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award 1961
• 100th book in the Text Classics series

The Death of Noah Glass by Gail Jones

Sometimes a reading experience is not as straight forward as you might first think. There are some books that demand more of the reader. The Death of Noah Glass by Gail Jones was one of those books for me.

I feel a little guilty about confessing that this was my first Gail Jones. One of my former colleagues (who is very arty and whose book tastes often, but not always, match my own) loves Jones' ouevre. It has taken this year's Stella longlist nominations to finally get me there though.

The Death of Noah Glass could simply be read as a tender, moving story about the sudden death of an elderly, but still physically active and able father in mysterious circumstances. Martin and Evie struggle with their grief and memories, although, ultimately, it is these memories that provide them with solace and connection.

I quickly felt, though, that there was more going on here. There was a lot of Italian art history and art theory being thrown around (as you might expect when one of the characters was an art historian and one an artist) and the discussions on time, space and memory felt layered and purposeful.

So after about 50-60 pages, I googled.

Piero della Francesca was the obvious place to start, as he was the Florentine artist that Noah Glass studied. I quickly discovered that Weng-Ho Chong, the cover designer, had used part of one of the frames from Piero's The Legend of the True Cross for his stunning book cover design. This frame is titled, Dream of Constantine and features a sleeping figure (Constantine) and a relaxed servant in the foreground. The servant, dreamily sits in the left hand corner of the cover, whilst the angel, prophesying victory, has been moved to the other side of the cover.

The Legend of the True Cross 1454-1458, Bacci Chapel, Church of San Francesco, Arezzo

I've also thought many times in the past year, that the blue cover was a nod to Brett Whitely's, The Balcony 2. Given the very Sydney setting of the story, the choice of this particular blue on the cover feels deliberate and significant.

And then I discovered Robert Dixon's article in the Sydney Review of Books, September 2018.

My brain almost exploded with art references and philosophical debates way beyond my ken! However I did take on a few new-to-me terms, and thanks to wikipedia, managed to grasp their meaning:

In Western art history, Mise en abyme is a formal technique of placing a copy of an image within itself, often in a way that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence. In film theory and literary theory, it refers to the technique of inserting a story within a story.

A type of frame story. Sometimes a story within the main narrative can be used to sum up or encapsulate some aspect of the framing story, in which case it is referred to in literary criticism by the French term mise en abyme.

Ekphrasis has been considered generally to be a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness.

In this way, a painting may represent a sculpture, and vice versa; a poem portray a picture; a sculpture depict a heroine of a novel; in fact, given the right circumstances, any art may describe any other art, especially if a rhetorical element, standing for the sentiments of the artist when they created their work, is present.

Knowing this, gave my reading of The Death of Noah Glass a little extra depth. I could see, and enjoy the various layers that Jones was exploring, even if I didn't completely understand why she wanted to, or needed to do this.

After finishing the book, I found Caroline Baum's review in the Sydney Morning Herald, 6th April 2018, which helped me to understand Jones' intentions a little more,

Acknowledgments are handy for literary snoops: they provide invaluable clues to a book's emotional undertow, especially when the writer is as private and reticent as Gail Jones....

"I'm a novelist of ideas," she continues, as if slightly insulted by the notion that she might entertain even for a moment switching allegiances from the literary side of the fence to populist genre fiction. 

"Novels are machines for thinking as well as feeling. Plot points are really engines for dispersed, unstable ideas about art, family and time. Especially time, and the way it folds and crumples, its patterns and repetitions, how it stops in front of a painting."

 ...Perhaps in spite of herself, Jones' novel reveals her own feelings about what it means to lose those we love. "There is no closure and that is a good thing," she says with certainty. "Other people live on in us, as a kind of secular afterlife. Art consoles us. That is its power."

As someone who has experienced that profound stopping and folding of time in front of certain paintings and in certain historical sites, I honour and admire other people's revelations. I certainly found some consolation in The Death of Noah Glass and hope that Jones did to in the writing of it.

Shell by Kristina Olsson

I wanted to love Shell so much. I thought it would be easy.

I adored the beautiful pearlescent cover on the hardback edition. It's dreamy quality felt nostalgic and apocalyptic at the same time (rather like Sydney last week during the dust storm)!
I love historical fiction. The building of the Opera House combined with Vietnam War issues should have been fascinating for me.
But most importantly, I was utterly mesmerised by Olsson's earlier memoir, Boy, Lost. I still think about how graciously and generously she explored her own family story within the context of 1950's Australia politics and culture. It was moving and powerful stuff.

I had heard from other bloggers, who raved about Shell, that the story was a slow burn, so after picking it up, then putting it down after about a dozen pages last year, I decided to try again recently, now that I have a bit more slow time up my sleeve.

But the same problem confronted me.

The start is not only a slow burn, but I also found it clunky with truncated sentences and phrases. This choppy sentence structure doesn't stop. I never felt a sense of rhythm or flow. It felt like Olsson was trying to hard to be poetic and clever. The effect didn't grab my attention or suit my mood. As she herself said about the Australian language (through the voice of Axel, the Swedish glass maker),

Its sentences were without rhythm, flat, featureless....He wondered if it was a matter of sophistication or history or even weather, this difference. This leaning into or away from another's sentences, or into or away from landscape, or surroundings. The things you were willing to reveal, what you were willing to hear.

Sometimes he would stand on the quay and let the streams of people part around him like water, and he would listen. Words, phrases, perhaps a whole sentence....what was in the words that made these people. Did their language make them feel a different way? 

But my biggest disappointment was my lack of affection or connection to the two main characters - Pearl and Axel. I never really felt like I was inside their heads or their hearts. I struggled to care for their issues or dilemmas.

I persisted past my usual stopping point of the 50 page mark, thanks to the number of comments about the slow burn, but by page 122 I realised that Shell simply wasn't working for me. I had given enough time to a book that wasn't getting under my skin, into my head or heart.

It's disappointing to anticipate a book so much only to find that you've fail to find a way in. Normally not finishing a book doesn't worry me too much - life is too short and there are too many other books I could be reading, but this one has left me with a sense of failure. What have I missed that so many others got? Why was I not able to appreciate the writing style or connect to the characters when so many other bloggers have?

Because I loved Boy, Lost so much, I feel the need to be fair to Shell and Olsson and share some of the reviews that rave about it so that you can make up your own mind.

Sam @Sam Still Reading

Lisa @ANZ Lit Lovers

Theresa @Theresa Smith Writes

Becky @My Becky Blog

Cass @Cass Moriarty Author

• Longlisted for the 2020 International Dublin Literary Award.

The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright

The World Was Whole by Fiona Wright is a difficult book to review. It's a personal collection of Wright's essays, anecdotes and snippets. They are revealing and specific, almost like reading someone's private journal. Yet, all these sketches are written with such emotional intelligence and compassion that they become universal, finding their own connection with each reader.

I underlined so many sections and googled so many poems so that I could read the whole after being tempted by the snippet (one example being Aubade by Louise Gluck) which is always a sign that a book has affected me or moved me deeply. Wright has a lot to say, from her perspective as someone who has anorexia nervosa, about our bodies, how we perceive ourselves, space, environments, nature, food, habits and rituals.

We only half notice the truly extraordinary landscapes, places and situations that we move through. 

I learnt a lot about the complex nature of anorexia. As someone who derives as much pleasure from food and eating out as I do, it was challenging to hear of how complicated all this gets when you have an eating disorder.

Our days are consumed by making choices about food, by worrying over the things that we might eat or have just eaten.

Yet, most of the women I know have had body issues at varying points in their life. It is hard to escape societal expectation, (false) media images that become the norm and all the conflicting guidelines about how much, how little, what, when and where.

Behaviour, despite what fiction would have us believe, cannot tell us everything, or even very much, about a person.

I enjoyed her observations about the changing face of Sydney suburbs and found a lot to compare about her time in China, where it's 'hard to feel significant' amongst the overwhelming crowds, with my own time there 20 years ago.

But there were also times when I felt incredibly old and maternal towards Wright. I wanted to bundle her into my now, much older arms, (along with my younger self), and plead with them not to be so hard on themselves, to let go the angst and conflict and insecurities that absorb(ed) their days. This time feels like it crawls by at a painfully slow pace, yet it's gone in the blink of an eye. And suddenly you find yourself in your 50's, calmer, at peace, comfortable and secure, in a way that your (my) younger self would have scorned and envied at the same time.

It is complicated, but most of the time we make it more complicated than we need to. It's a journey we all have to go on, at our pace in our own way. I believe it's possible for everyone to eventually feel a sense of belonging and acceptance. You just have to give it time. And be kind to yourself along the way.

The Story of a Baby by Ethel Turner

The Story of a Baby by Ethel Turner was a rather sad, and unexpected excursion into young love, an early marriage and societal expectations about gender roles. In this short story, Turner also took a rather nostalgic look into the changing face of Sydney and it's outer suburbs in the late 1890's.

In cool weather the Red Road was very pleasant walking. It wound up hill and down dale for many a mile till it reached Hornsby, and branched away into different country.

All the way there were gum trees - gum trees and fences; here and there were closer palings and garden shrubs indicating human residence, but they were far apart and the road was lonely. Parallel to it and showing in places between the trees was the single line of the railway. It did not spoil the scenery at all, it rather gave a friendly look to it and reminded the pedestrian that in spite of the bush silences, the towering trees, the vista of the blue hills and mountain-like freshness of the air, he could be in all the buslte and happy fellowship of town in half-an-hour....

In a few years the beautiful countryside will be commonplace suburbs;there will be stucco villas and terrace houses, shops and paved roads; the railway has broken its fastness and the change is inevitable.

The smooth grass slopes, the wooded stretches will live only in memory. The great read and black and silver-limbed gums will be hewn down to make way for spreading civilisation. The blue gracious hills will be thick with chimneys and advertisement boards. There will be a double line of railway, no longer picturesque, and big spreading stations instead of primitive sidings where one held up a 'flag by day and a light at night' to be picked up of the passing train. 

I do love these glimpses into a time gone by. What looks old-fashioned and parochial to our modern eyes was once modern and new to those who lived it. It's a good reminder that our modern times will one day be considered old-fashioned to future generations. It's an idea I wish I could impart to B21 and B18, who seem utterly oblivious to history and their place in it.

Struggling to find one's place is a major theme of The Story of a Baby. Sadly this struggle becomes a battle of wills that ends disastrously for the young family. Dot believes that 'no one literally interpreted that word 'obey' in the marriage service, now that the equality of the sexes was recognised'. Whereas Larrie believes that 'I am your master, and I intend you to know it from this day.' Things rapidly go downhill from here.

Neither parties were particularly sympathetic characters and I ended the story feeling rather sorry for the young baby who was caught in the middle.

I wasn't expecting a battle of the sexes to be at the heart of a story written in 1896. But according to Turner, this kind of thinking was commonplace in the younger generation,

She was going to make this strike for her rights, and in future have the independence due to the nineteenth century married woman.

Perhaps the reason I've been woefully unaware of the nineteenth century feminist perspective before this, is that most of the authors I've read from this era are male?

I read this book as part of Bill @The Australian Legend's Australian Women Writer's Gen II reading week.

Previous Ethel Turner posts:

Seven Little Australians

In the Mist of the Mountains

Three Wishes by Liane Moriarty

Regular visitors to my blog know that at Christmas time I need safe, easy reads to get me through the crazy season in one piece. This year Three Wishes played its part perfectly.

The story of a set of triplets - two identical, one fraternal, seemed a bit contrived at the outset, but after a little settling in period, I was quickly on board with Moriarty's very first story concept.

She had me hook, line and sinker, by the time her characters were dancing to Bananarama's Venus - the song Mr Books and I danced to on our very first date 30 years ago! This book is also Moriary's most Sydney-centric story. Her characters go to Balmain markets (when that was the thing to do), eat out in the city, and live in houses with glimpses of the harbour. Reading books set in your own neighbourhood that make your own life and your own story seem book-worthy are powerful things indeed!

But the thing that makes Moriarty so readable is her authenticity. Her main characters are just so REAL. They could be your best friend, they could be your neighbour, they could be your colleague...they could be you. Her characters fart during yoga class, get drunk and make out with the boss and send emails and text messages when they shouldn't.

Relationships are what keep her stories spinning round - sisters, brothers, parents and children are the focus of this story with all the steps, halves and ex's that our modern society expects. Her characters love far more drama and self-imposed complications that I would be comfortable living with, but that's part of the fun. Revelling in the foolishness and over the top behaviour of others is what makes Moriarty's books just so darn enjoyable.

This may be Moriarty's very first book, but it's a stand out story and a very impressive debut. Her books always have plenty of heart and soul and humour - Three Wishes is no different. And I will never view forks and their projectile possibilities the same way ever again!

I'm now all caught up with Moriarty's back list. Which means waiting patiently for her next book...which I believe is scheduled for later this year - wahoo!

Chronological Order:

Three Wishes (2004)

The Last Anniversary (2006)

What Alice Forgot (2010)

The Hypnotist's Love Story (2011)

The Husband's Secret (2013)

Big Little Lies (2014)

Truly Madly Guilty (2016)

My Favourites - from most loved to not so much:

Big Little Lies

What Alice Forgot

The Husband's Secret

Three Wishes

The Hypnotist's Love Story

The Last Anniversary

Truly Madly Guilty

Happy September Equinox

The September Equinox is upon us. For those of us in the Southern Hemisphere, it is the Vernal (or Spring) Equinox; for our cousins in the Northern Hemisphere it is time for the Autumnal Equinox.

Daffodils & jonquils from my garden

The September equinox occurs when the Sun crosses the celestial equator. This is the imaginary line in the sky above the Earth’s Equator from north to south. On every other day of the year, either the Southern Hemisphere or the Northern Hemisphere tilts a little towards the Sun. But on the two equinoxes, the tilt of Earth's axis is perpendicular to the Sun's rays. This means that the time for our day and night is basically equal all around the world today (hence the word equinox). How equal the ratio between day and night actually is though, will depend on your latitude. Which means that Sydney actually had our day of roughly equal night and day on the 18th September.

The actual equinox though, happens either on September 22, 23, or 24 every year. The image below may or may not help!

The official time for the Equinox in Sydney was September 23rd at 6:02am (AEST).

In Japan, the equinox is celebrated with a week long Buddhist festival called Higan (which is translated as the Other shore). It's a time to reflect on your daily life and renew your commitment to Buddhist ideals. The focus is on moving from a world of delusion to one of awakening. Six key concepts are taught to help one reach the Other shore or Nirvana - giving, precepts, perseverance, diligence, zazen, and wisdom. It's also a time to visit the graves of ancestors to express gratitude.

Image Source

Normally the Equinoxes are a time to rejoice in moderate temperatures. However our spring equinox will be made more memorable this year with predicted all-time record breaking weather. Sydney is on course for two days of 33℃ (91.4℉) while some areas in Western Sydney and Western NSW could reach 40℃ (104℉). That's middle of summer weather, not the beginning of Spring!

Wherever you are, whatever your weather, I hope the September Equinox is kind to you and full of the beauty of one's heart and mind.

A beautiful wisteria I walk past on my way to work every day

The Hypnotist's Love Story by Liane Moriarty

I've needed a lot of comfort reads this year, so it was only a matter of time before another Moriarty made an appearance!

Her stories are light-hearted fun, featuring characters that we all know. The Hypnotist's Love Story had less characters to get to know and love, than most of her other stories, but you still ended up feeling quite attached to them all by the end - even the stalker!

And that's the charm of Moriarty. She writes believable characters, in (almost) everyday situations. She never sensationalises the issues - actually that's not true. I've just realised why I didn't enjoy Truly, Madly, Guilty as much as the others.

Empathy and the ability to walk in someone else's shoes are her strong points. She doesn't demonise or victimise her characters, she also doesn't put them up on a pedestal. She shows us normal, functional people who suddenly cross a line they never thought they would.

The climatic moment in The Love Hypnotist's Love Story featured an early morning scene with a

strange, eerie orange-yellow light. It was like there'd been a fire, except there was no smell of smoke....where Ellen would normally see the beach and the ocean, all she could see was a haze of apocalyptic orange.

There really was a day in 2009 (22nd September to be precise) when we all woke up to a Sydney bathed in dust. It was eerie and other-worldly. Normally we had a lovely view across the harbour to Cockatoo Island and the morning sun shone through our lounge room window.

But on this day, it felt like the world might really come to an end. It was frightening and exciting at the same time. It was a day of heightened senses and emotions. The perfect day, in fact, to set a pivotal scene in a book.

My reviews for Moriarty's other books - only one more to go!

Unless she writes a new one soon.

Big Little Lies

The Husband's Secret

The Last Anniversary

Truly Madly Guilty

What Alice Forgot

Sydney Writer's Festival - Part 3 and a Half

It's time to bring this baby home!

My final sessions and thoughts about this year's Sydney Writer's Festival.

Town Hall, Sydney - Vivid-style

On Friday evening, Mr Books and I went into Town Hall to hear George Saunders, Colson Whitehead, Mona Chalabi and Julia Turner discuss the topic American Carnage. The term references the point in Trump's inaugural speech when he said, 'the American carnage stops right here, right now.' The ideological divide and 'trusted' information sources being the central themes.

Sadly all four struggled to get their thoughts together and present a coherent, compelling discussion. Perhaps they were jetlagged or tired of talking about this subject or being seen as spokesmen for their entire country. But I wondered if the rather shambolic nature of this discussion also represented how muddled many Americans feel right now. Four months has not been long enough to get their heads around the new world order they are living under.

Saunders suggested the divide was like a castle. Some people imagine a castle and automatically bring to mind a Game of Thrones style castle; others see a Monty Python one.

Chalabi talked about the problems of predictive journalism and how quickly things become 'normalised'. Given they were talking at a SWF event, I would have liked more insight into how it was that Trump managed to be the one to tell the most compelling stories.

Are compelling stories simply those that tell the reader/listener what they want to hear? Or are they the stories that make the reader/listener stretch, grown and learn?

Mr Books and I shared a lively chat on the way home about the difference between Australian politics and American. It was very clear at the beginning of the talk that the Australian audience was very proud of our mandatory voting system which forces everyone to engage in the political process.

I wonder if the talk would have had more direction and structure if there had been a non-American on the panel?

Saturday morning was another glorious autumnal morning in Sydney. I only had one session booked for 3pm, but I went in a couple of hours early to soak up the atmosphere. I enjoyed a chat with a friend and a coffee in the sun before heading into one of the free events featuring Peter Polites author of Down the Hume.

Gay crime or queer noir is not my usual fare, but Polites gave me a lot of food for thought re our class system and political philosophy. He showed that rises in noir writing occurred during times of economic change. The problems of economic casualisation were explored, although he nearly lost me when he declared that 'if Henry James were alive today he would watch Real Housewives of Sydney.'

The session I was looking forward to the most was with Nadja Speigelman.

She didn't disappoint.

Speigelman is articulate, funny, generous, thoughtful, open, honest and gracious. Everything I loved about her memoir, I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This, was on display in person.

The talk was led by Abigail Ulman, who I had never come across before. However, she thoroughly impressed me with her ability to listen carefully and ask knowledgeable questions that guided the conversation naturally. She was granted a Wallace Stegner Fellowship from Stanford University and won the 2016 SMH Best Young Novelist Award. I will now be on the lookout for her story collection, Hot Little Hands.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling rather exhausted, but I pushed through the pain barrier and headed out the door.

Yet another sunny day on the harbour; more autumnal book bliss; and another coffee break whilst soaking up the glorious sunshine.

It's a hard life, but someone has to do it!

I started the morning with a panel celebration of Melina Marchetta's YA classic, Looking For Alibrandi. Can you believe it's 25 years?

The discussion was modelled on the Have a Say Day section of the book where Josie and Jacob meet. Various authors and actors had their say with Alibrandi being the central idea on which to talk. Pia Miranda hosted the panel that included Melina herself, Yassmin Abdel-Magied, Mark Di Stefano, Gen Fricker, Brodie Lancaster and Rajith Savanadasa.

Between them they covered the immigrant experience, feminism, cultural biases, guilty pleasures, embarrassment, love and the importance of seeing ourselves in stories.

My final session for the festival was one of the big ones. Lion: A Long Way Home featured Saroo and Sue Brierley talking about their experiences with adoption, being lost, then found and their journey into the book and movie world.

I have managed to avoid every single interview and review of this book and movie, yet I know all about it. I don't like feeling like my emotions are being manipulated towards a certain state. Every article or chat show seemed to have it's own angle or agenda, so I kept them all at bay.

Having the opportunity to see and hear Saroo and his adoptive mum, Sue, in person felt like the only authentic way to get their story. Naturally they have their own angles and agendas, but it's their story, and I could live with that.

Saroo honoured the three amazing women in his life. The woman he lost (& who waited for him to return one day), the woman who found him on the streets of Calcutta and helped and the woman who raised him to be the man he is today.

His journey is an incredible one and I now feel ready to watch the movie.

I have never spent so much time at one festival before.
It was exhausting, in an over-stimulated kind of way.

The rest of my experiences can be found below.

Part 3 - Public Transport Rant
Part 2 - Thursday
Part 1 - Opening Night Party

Overall, it felt like a mixed bag.
I didn't come away with a long list of new authors or new books to read like I have in previous years. But I didn't see many of the free talks this year...and that's where I have found the hidden gems in the past.

I enjoyed some of the talks - a lot.
But some left me underwhelmed.

When you can pay up to $35 for a ticket, you expect more for your buck. You expect little pearls of wisdom and surprising insights. You expect thoughtful questioning and attentive conversationalists.

I attend writer's festival to learn something new; not to be told the same stuff I already knew because I had read the book. An interviewer or moderators job is to bring out the best in their panel. This is a skill and not everyone displayed it this year.

Next festival I plan to see more of the free events to see if I can find the love again.

Getting from A to B

In my previous post, Nancy asked me how long it takes to get from A to B, in reference to the lovely ferry trips I took into the Sydney Writer's Festival last week. I told her how long each ferry trip took and left it at that.

However as I was drifting off to sleep, exhausted after my big week, but finding it hard to switch my brain off, I thought about all the other factors that I had to take into account to actually get me from A to B on public transport. A being my front door and B being Walsh Bay.

If, on a Sunday evening, Mr Books and I suddenly get the cravings for dumplings, Lotus at Walsh Bay is our first choice. We can jump in our car and be there in under 10 mins (no peak hour traffic at that time of the day!) For a few dollars in parking, we can park right out the front of the restaurant, relax, eat, enjoy a glass of wine and be home again in about an hour and half. A lovely quick, easy evening out.

However, if we decided to do the same thing with public transport, it would probably take close to the hour and a half just to get there and back again...and cost a whole lot more!

This week it cost me well over $50 in public transport fares...and a whole lot more in time travelling.

As the crow flies, it's probably about 2 km's from my front door to Walsh Bay.

To catch the bus in, I have to walk 7 mins to the nearest bus stop and then travel about 10 mins to Sussex St. It is then about a 20 min walk to Walsh Bay (I walk pretty quickly, so a more leisurely stroll might take the average walker half an hour). Let's call that 45 mins.

I could also catch this bus up to the QVB (15 mins), walk into Town Hall train station and catch a train to Wynyard (probably 10-15 mins), then walk 10 mins to Walsh Bay (or for the SWF pay a gold coin donation to the driver of the shuttle bus that runs every 15 mins between Wynyard and the festival). Another 45 mins.

Or I can walk 7 mins to a different bus stop, catch a bus to Balmain East Ferry stop (5 mins) and take the ferry into Circular Quay (15 mins). Then walk about 15 - 20 mins up and over George St to Walsh Bay. Just over half an hour most days, assuming I was lucky enough to actually get a bus to the ferry in Balmain.
If there isn't a bus to the ferry at the right time, it's a fast 20 min walk from home to Balmain East with a couple of steep hills in between - good for my cardio-vascular, but god-awful on a hot, steamy day or a wet one! About 45 mins all up.

It's also possible to catch this ferry going in the opposite direction - to Darling Harbour and the new Barangaroo terminal. This would be a 10 min ferry ride and a good 20 min walk to Walsh Bay. An easy 45 mins.

Balmain is serviced by two ferry routes, so I can also catch a ferry from the Balmain wharf. It's a 15 min walk from home (no bus option for me for this one), a 10 min ferry trip (no stops along the way on this particular route into Circular Quay), then the 20 min walk up and over George St. 45 mins once again.

This doesn't factor in any of the waiting time between forms of transport, late arrivals or no-shows.

When the opposition groups for new road projects like Westconnex say 'spend more money on public transport', they don't factor in the time and cost it takes to get anywhere on public transport in Sydney...and I'm one of the lucky ones. I live in a very well connected (by public transport) suburb that is close to the city.

We are not London or New York City where a large city is built on a smallish amount of land. It is relatively easy to connect these densely populated areas with great public transport services.
However Sydney is a huge, sprawling city. Getting from one suburb to the next via public transport often involves two different buses, light rail or trains. And lots of time.

I'm a greenie by nature.
Really!

I have a coffee cup at work, so that I don't use the throw-away cups from the cafe every day. I mostly remember to take my green bags to the supermarket. I compost our food scraps at home, recycle paper, glass and plastics and avoid harsh cleaning products when a greener options (with elbow grease) will do the trick. I almost never drive around my suburb as I enjoy the invigorating walks up and down our hilly streets. And if I have the time and the weather is nice, I love catching the ferry into the city.

I think that good, efficient, cost-effective public transport has to be an option. But we also have to be realistic. In Sydney, public transport will not get us to all the football fields we travel to each weekend with the boys in a time efficient or cost effective manner. It will not allow me to visit my family and friends in Central West NSW or Victoria in a timely or cost effective way. Perhaps if we had fast trains (and tunnels through the mountains), that didn't stop at e v e r y  s i n g l e  s t o p along the way, then public transport could become a weekend away option.

However, if time or money or inclement weather (or lots of luggage) is a factor, then the car is the only way. Especially if Mr Books is joining me. For both of us to catch the bus and ferry in to see a play at the Opera House it would cost us together about $15 (and 45 mins in time) each way.
To park under the Opera House for a few hours is less than that and we can drive there in under 20 mins. For a few dollars more we could also get an Uber there and back, for quick, easy door to door service.

Sadly, in Sydney, public transport is not quicker or cheaper.

The rumour is that next year the SWF will be held in the Carriageworks near Newtown/Redfern whilst the Walsh Bay area undergoes renovation (see my previous post about this).

To get there by public transport I will need to take at least 2 different bus, ferry or train routes and just under an hour in travel time (without factoring in any walking to and from bus stops).

Or I could drive there in 15-20 mins.

Rant over!

Sydney Writer's Festival - Part 2

Thursday at the Sydney Writer's Festival was another glorious May day in the sunshine. Over breakfast I planned my session times. Two were pre-booked and paid, but I also hoped to fit in the free session called And the Award Goes To....

Setting out on the ferry in the morning was a tad crisp, but the view coming into Circular Quay is always worth any wind-chill factor that goes with sitting at the front.

My first session, Do We Turn Into Our Mothers? was at the end of Pier 4/5 which took me on a lovely long walk down the entire length of the pier.
The Theatre Bar at the End of the Wharf provided encouragement and inspiration along the way!

The double-decked finger wharves around Walsh Bay were built in the early part of the 1900's.
The old wool stores have now been converted into an arts precinct.
At the end of this year's festival, the area will be closed for 2 years while it undergoes refurbishment and rejuvenation. Apparently there will be a square erected over the water between the two wharves.

Watch this Arts Precinct space for more details.

I was curious to learn a little more about the history of the area, because even though these buildings are old and cold and draughty, I love the tall, dark spaces, the light through the high windows and their relationship to the harbour.

I hope the redevelopment maintains the feel and history of the place but with a few more mod cons, like proper toilets!

The Walsh Bay website tells me that,

At the end of the 19th century, without a seawall, the Walsh Bay foreshore was awash with rubbish and infested with rats. A major disaster changed everything in 1900 when Arthur Payne, a van driver, became the first person to contract the Bubonic Plague, which arrived in Sydney in January. 

The rats were brought under control and by August the outbreak was over. 

In October that year The Sydney Harbour Trust was established to rebuild the port of Sydney. Wharves were renewed and whole streets disappeared as the cliffs were cut down to form Hickson Road.

I arrived with enough time to enjoy a coffee in the sunshine whilst reading my book - Joan Lindsay's bio Time Without Clocks. I was very grateful for my view of clean, sparkling water and colourful flags - not a rat insight! 

Do We Turn Into Our Mothers? was led by Louise Asler, and the conversation included Caroline Baum (author of Only), Nadja Spiegelman (author of I'm Supposed to Protect You From All This) and Jessica Friedmann (author of Things That Helped).

All three have written books about their parents and parenthood although it was their relationship with their mothers that was the particular focus today.
Within that was the idea of narrative - how we constantly rewrite our own histories and the push/pull effect of differing memories within families.

Going into this session, I knew that I already loved Spiegelman's memoir. I realised very quickly it was because that Nadja herself, was a funny, warm, articulate, generous, thoughtful and entertaining person in the flesh.
Nadja explained that her book was 'a shaped telling not a tell-all'.
Her comment about how the process of writing this book allowed her to see the girl in her mother and for her mother to see the woman in her struck a chord.
But I'm sure I will have more to say about this by the end of her individual session on Saturday.

Baum discussed the difficulty of balancing ruthlessness and compassion when writing a memoir and I loved her descriptions of her family as being 'champion sulkers'. I suspect I will be reading her book, Only, now.

Friedmann was harder for me to define or discuss lightly.
She has been through some major periods of depression, including a traumatic post-natal depression time that informed her book of essays.
Body image and boundaries have been her life themes so far. There was an intensity about her presence and her comments that overwhelmed my senses. I felt challenged by her and uncomfortable. Jessica's intelligence shone through everything she said but it wasn't always easy to hear what she had to say. I'm not sure I can read her book.
Her journey has been very dark at times and I can only admire her courage and determination - from afar - a little at a time.

And the Award Goes To... featured three of the NSW Premier's Literary Award winners.

I was hoping that Heather Rose would be attendance as the winner of the Christina Stead Fiction Award, so imagine my delight when I walked in to see this!

My review for Museum of Modern Love is here.

Also in attendance were the co-authors for One Thousand Hills, James Roy and Noel Zihabamwe. They took out the Ethel Turner Award for Young People's Literature.

We spent the hour exploring friendship, their writing processes and the idea of hope and kindness in literature. 

Having researched both books and authors for the reviews I previously wrote, I didn't really learn anything new. But I was thoroughly entertained and heartened by the creative impulses that drive our talented authors.

My final session for the day was in The Loft on Pier 2/3.

The views of the bridge through the high windows are gorgeous while the sounds of the trains going across it are occasionally distracting!

This session was with Kate Grenville discussing her book about The Case Against Fragrance with moderator Caroline Baum. The same Caroline Baum that I had seen earlier in the day talking about mothers, reminding me that the Australian arts scene is often very self-contained.

As I was walking back to the ferry in the fading afternoon light, I reflected on my day.

It had been thoroughly enjoyable and stimulating, but I'm not sure I learnt anything new. I didn't discover any new-to-me authors or feel compelled to add any more books to my wishlist.

Perhaps the weekend sessions will change my mind?