Writers on Writers: Josephine Rowe on Beverley Farmer #AWW

 

Writers on Writers

In the Writers on Writers series, leading authors reflect on an Australian writer who has inspired and influenced them. Provocative and crisp, these books start a fresh conversation between past and present, shed new light on the craft of writing, and introduce some intriguing and talented authors and their work.

Published by Black Inc. in association with the University of Melbourne and State Library Victoria.

Josephine Rowe on Beverley Farmer was my first foray into the Writers on Writers series. It was a very literary affair. A non-fiction novella if you like (and I do, which means this can also be part of Novellas in November!)

I confess that I did not know very much about Farmer prior to reading this book, and I'm not sure I know a whole lot more now. But I suspect, she was that kind of person. Very private. Extremely shy. But I am curious to know more.

"This far, and no further. A familiar refrain of Farmer's throughout her writing life."

As Rowe explains, 'her characters are outsiders, foreigners, fringe dwellers. Expats and exiles, those returning home after long absences...' much like Farmer (and Rowe) themselves. It certainly seemed that part of Rowe's fascination for Farmer, was for what Farmer's life and work could tell her about herself as well. 

Most of the essay consists of Rowe discussing the nature of writing (her own and Farmer's) and what it means to be a reader (especially of Farmer's work). She notes that the 'conditions from which we enter, and to which we return when we lift our attention from the page, have bearing on wherever we are taken from the time in between.’ 

Rowe reveals Farmer's habit of notebook journaling and her ability for close, sustained observation as well as her belief in the age-old advice about keep on writing until something poetic pops out. 

every encounter with a text is influenced by the circumstances in which we read.

Like Farmer and Rowe, I am drawn to wondering about the life not lived. The shadows in our past and our 'reckonings with the past' that can produce a longing for elsewhere that we have all, no doubt, felt at times. This longing, though, seemed to drive Farmer constantly - as a source of creativity and a way to fend off loneliness.

Across Farmer's works there has always been an attraction to those beings who occupy two worlds...Once one has lived elsewhere, lived differently, it doesn't matter whether she stays to forge a new life or turns back towards the old, or moves on once again; there will always be the shadow, the after-image, of the life not lived.

Farmer was also on a mission for authenticity, with a 'fastidious concern for accuracy... for the evolutions of language in all its slipperiness.' She concerned herself with the all the opportunities we have to misunderstand each other and for being misunderstood ourselves. The power she has given to words, makes me feel a little nervous about reading her work. What if I don't understand? Or misunderstand? How would I even know?

Rowe was finishing this book as coronavirus escalated from epidemic to pandemic. 'We speak of this time as an intermission, a hiatus.' It made me wonder if that is a position that those of us in Australia are privileged to hold. We have had some lockdowns and spikes over the past nine months, but we basically have the virus under control for now. Being an island state has given us the ability to quarantine any and all incoming visitors. Since we cannot travel overseas easily or safely, the Australian tourism industry is, subsequently, booming, simply because we're all holidaying at home. It's easy to feel that any suffering we have had has been 'an intermission, a hiatus', a time in which we could be creative, recharge our batteries and declutter our homes! But I'm sure there are many here and abroad who feel very differently. Maybe what we're both trying to say here, though, is that solitude, or hiatus, and the reason for that intermission, is just another one of the circumstances that can play on a reader and a writer in different ways.

I am curious to see what kind of Covid-Lit emerges from this time. At the moment it seems to mostly be a little aside at the end of the book, where the author reveals how far through the editing process they were when the virus changed all our lives. It's like a place marker. 

I'm sure, though, that as part of the hiatus, many writers are penning their next book, that may or may not be set in a Covid-normal world. Whatever choice they make, their future readers will also bring their own understandings - to compare experiences or to wonder why the author chose to ignore it completely. Interesting times makes for interesting reading, we hope.

Rowe is the author of the novel A Faithful, Loving Animal (longlisted for the 2017 Miles Franklin) and three short story collections including Here Until August (shortlisted for the 2020 Stella Prize & QLD Literary Award).

Favourite Quote:

Our relationship with the past and those who populate it is constantly shifting, as is our awareness of the ways in which it has shaped us....In returning to our first stories, those most deeply etched, are we seeking the comfort of...the familiar arrangements and foretokenings a means of retelling the story ourselves so that we might reconcile ourselves to an ending? 

Facts:

• Beverley Farmer - born in Melbourne 7 February 1941 
• Died 16 April 2018
• Short story anthologies:
• Snake (1982)
• Milk (1983)
• Home Time (1985)
• Collected Stories (1987)
• This Water: Five Tales (2017)
Novellas:

• Alone (1980)
• The Seal Woman (1992)
• The House in the Light (1995)
Other:

• A Body of Water: A Year's Notebook (1990)
• The Bone House (2005)
• A Body of Water has just been republished by Giramondo Publishing.
• 1984 – NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction for Milk
• 1996 – Miles Franklin Award shortlist for The House in the Light
• 2009 – Patrick White Award
• 2018 – The Stella Prize longlist for This Water
• Stan Grant on Thomas Keneally due May 2021.

#AusReadingMonth2020

#NovellasinNovember

#NonFictionNovember

#AustralianWomenWriters

Only Happiness Here | Gabrielle Carey #AWW

 

Gabrielle Carey, with this book about Elizabeth von Armin, had the honour of being the very first author event by zoom, that I participated in during this Covid year. Also in attendance was Lisa from ANZLitLovers, who had alerted me to the event in the first place. It was lovely to be able to wave hello to someone I knew before proceedings started proper. For a thorough account of the author talk, please read Lisa's post here.

I had not read Only Happiness Here prior to the event, but it was high on my list for AusReading Month possibilities. By the end of the discussion, though, with Jessica White, it had moved up to be next on the pile! As had my desire to read Elizabeth and Her German Garden. 

Only Happiness Here refers to the sign that Elizabeth von Armin had over the door of her Swiss chalet. As Carey states in her book, Elizabeth may have been one of the 'earliest proponents of positive psychology.' It was this approach to happiness that attracted Carey. Enough so for her to reread all twenty-one of von Armin's books before embarking on a trip to the British Library to read her letters and diaries as well.

This is very firmly in the camp of biblio-memoir or bio-memoir. Carey is very much a part of the story, as she rereads the books and interprets what she finds there. It is also her personal search for happiness and peace of mind, as she delves into von Armin's life, looking for clues or signs on how to be happy. 

My quest was about how to understand Elizabeth's temperament and her way of seeing things, how she maintained such buoyancy, such apparent relish of daily living.

She eventually hits upon nine Principles of Happiness According to Elizabeth von Armin - freedom, privacy, detachment, nature & gardens, physical exercise, a kindred spirit, sunlight, leisure and finally, creativity. 

Carey developed each principle into a chapter or section that interspersed von Armin's writing with known facts about her life. Of which, there are not as many as a biographer would usually like. This was all part of von Armin's desire to remain very private, and happy. Towards the end of her life, she burned a large number of her 'notes and diaries in what she referred to as "the holocaust"'. Which, naturally, leads the rest of us to surmising stuff about how she felt and thought via the actions and words of her characters. 

So the first fact many of you may not know about Elizabeth is that she was born in Australia. In the prestigious suburb of Kirribilli in Sydney, to be precise, on the 31st August, 1866. She was christened Mary Annette Beauchamp, and known as May by her family and friends. Her home for the first three years of her life was most likely Beulah House (converted into an apartment block in 1908 and now only remembered by the name of nearby Beulah St and wharf). I've said it before, but Australians are hopeless at commemorating the birth places and homes of our well-known authors.

Her father, Henry Heron Beauchamp, came from an artistic, well-to-do family in London. He emigrated to Australia in 1850 to set up a business as a shipping merchant. His business thrived and in 1855 he married Elizabeth Weiss Lassetter (known as Louey). All six of the Beauchamp children were born in Sydney.

One of Henry's brothers, Arthur, moved with his young family to New Zealand in 1869. His son Harold is the father of Katherine Mansfield, making May and Katherine first cousins once removed. Katherine's last letter, before her untimely death, was to her cousin May.

In 1870, Henry and his Lassetter brother-in-law, decided to move their families back to the Continent. Enjoying three years in Switzerland together, before settling in London.

As May got older, she kept her Australian heritage very quiet. Any odd accent or 'twang' that people noticed in her voice, she would put down to 'Irish connections'.

Being a 'colonial' in class-conscious England was not much fun and could often be a hindrance to making one's way into good society. Curiously, this slur of the 'convict stain' still loomed large in the imagination of many of the Brits that I got to know in the year I lived in London (1991). I imagine that the 'good-natured' ribbing I received was a watered down version of attitudes a hundred years prior.

Carey wonders if May's 'awareness of her Australianness (was) just another one of Elizabeth's deep secrets?'

She married Count Henning August von Armin-Schlagenthin on the 6th February, 1891, effectively becoming a Prussian Countess overnight. She had three daughters in quick succession - Eva (1891), Elisabeth (1893) and Beatrix (1894), after which, the Count was apparently banished from her bedroom...until 1899 when Felicitas was born, then Henning-Bernd in 1902.

At the beginning of 1898, she sent her first manuscript, Elizabeth and Her German Garden, off to the publishers. It was published in September of that year under the pen-name, Elizabeth. After an initial celebratory remark in her diary, the following days were scrawled angrily with 'rows with H'. May never provided any detail about these rows, which leaves the reader to look for clues in her novels.

If happiness was something she often enjoyed privately, depression was also something she believed should be borne individually....Elizabeth believed that sharing misery only increased the gloom and risked infecting others. 

We know some of the basic facts about the less happy times in Elizabeth's life - the Count's arrest for embezzlement, the death of Felicitas as a teenager, her fear of ageing, the loss of their family home in Pomerania and Henning's sudden death in 1910 - but not how May felt about them. Once again, the only clues are in her books when her characters go through similar experiences.

Despite times of depression and sadness, May continued to find joy and solace in nature, especially gardens and appreciating beauty.

The rest of her books where published with the tag 'by the author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden' causing a lifetime of supposition and speculation in literary circles, although her friends, like E. M. Forster, H. G. Wells and Bertrand Russell, were well aware of her writing.

I finished Carey's book with a very strong desire to get to know May better. I will try to source her two more recent biographies, but in the meantime, I will start at the beginning of EvA's oeuvre with Elizabeth and Her German Garden, which will have the happy coincidence of counting for an #AusReadingMonth title as well as the #NovNov challenge.

Did Carey also find happiness in the end?

Like the rest of us, and like May, the answer is yes and no.

The trick, it seems, is to focus on the happy.

Not long after, the lockdown was announced and during the weeks of working from home, I took to having lunch under the frangipani tree. Oftentimes, following my salad and cheese and seeded bread, I stretched out on the picnic blanket, and as the world turned in turmoil, I lay in the dappled sunlight pretending I was Elizabeth von Armin.

Facts:

• The International Society Devoted to Scholarship on Elizabeth von Armin has some amazing articles and essays, including the one that led me to them, Family Life on Kirribilli Point in the 1860's: The Enigma of Elizabeth's Birthplace (Jennifer Walker, posted October 27. 2019). This piece includes a copy of G W Peacock's Government House ca 1850, which when blown up to expose the background, we can clearly see Beulah House and its gardens.
• There is a 1958 biography by one of her daughters, Elizabeth of the German Garden.
• Another in 1986 by Karen Usborne, Elizabeth the Author of Elizabeth and Her German Garden.
• And again in 2013 with Jennifer Walker's, Elizabeth of the German Garden - A Literary Journey.

Elizabeth von Arnim Monument in Buk, Poland

#AusReadingMonth2020

AusReading Month - Promotion

 

AusReadingMonth has three ways to share your love of Australian literature - celebration, anticipation and promotion. You can combine all three in one post or spread them out over three separate posts. 

 

This week I'm in PROMOTION mode.

• This is your chance to shout-out your favourite book event, bookshop, or blogger that features Australian books. You can also promote a publisher or author website that has caught your eye this year.
• During this 'unprecedented' year, our usual way of hearing about new books by attending events at our favourite bookshops or literary festivals has changed. How have you found out about new online book events featuring Australian authors and books?
• Which ones stood out?

I have a number of Australian reading events  and bloggers that I would like to promote this year. Given that I found out about most of the events below thanks to other bloggers, I would like to pay this forward, to help you also find new Australian bookish events to explore.

• Writing NSW hosts a yearly event honouring an Australian author who has played a significant role in our literary culture. This year's event was Honouring Katharine Susannah Prichard. I was all set to attend in August, when a certain virus changed all that. The lovely folk at Writing NSW have redesigned the event to suit an online format. The celebration will begin on Monday 9th November. Many of my regular readers will not be surprised to hear that Nathan Hobby will be playing a pivotal role in proceedings.
• Bill @Australian Legend hosts an Australian Women Writers Gen reading week in January. He encourages us to think about how different generations of women writers fit into the social and cultural contexts of their time. January 2021 will see us tackling Gen III Part II. This year I read Mena Calthorpe's The Dyehouse, which slots in under the 'social realism' tag. In 2021 I will finally read The Pea-Pickers by Eve Langley (one of Bill's favourites) to capture the 'modernism' strand. I hope he considers running Gen III Part III the following year, so I can complete the set with Bush/Pioneering.
• Every year in July, Lisa @ANZ Lit Lovers host Indigenous Literature Week to encourage us to read and review books written by Indigenous authors. I've been meaning to read Kim Scott's award winning Benang for years, so I'm putting it out there, that this will be the book I read for 2021!
• The Australian Women Writers Challenge is a year-long commitment to read books by Australian women and to link your reviews to the site. The aim is to build up a bank of reviews to 'redress' the gender imbalance still evident in most major publications and newspapers.
• Avid Reader Bookshop in Brisbane have done a tremendous job during Covid to keep their author event program going. I've attended two of their free online events so far. Support their efforts by buying a book or two while you're at it. Visit their extensive events page here.
• Gleebooks in Sydney also has an extensive free author event program. I've only attended one so far, mostly because their events have often clashed with other things I have on (like bookclub and late work nights).
• My bookshop has also held a few free online author events. Our point of difference is a live filming of the author chat with a covid-safe number of guests. Everyone else is able to view via our facebook events page at home, or later, at their own convenience, via the youtube link. I have attended all but one of these events. 

I look forward to hearing about which book events you may have attended or discovered this year. I'm sure I can always fit one more into my schedule!

#AusReadingMonth2020

Where I'm At Right Now...

You know those phases when writing and blogging don't seem to gel? I've been in one of those funks all year. I'm reading like mad, choosing books I want to read, for pleasure. And if I'm not enjoying it, I stop and move onto something else. But the though of writing about them, makes me want to go 'meh'.

Writing, the thought of it and the doing, is driving me spare. I'm not inspired or feeling creative.

Every now and again, I have a nice little writing run, like when I wrote my recent response to The Death of Noah Glass. I enjoyed writing and researching it and I felt satisfied when done, but it has been quite a while since I've had that feeling.

So in an attempt to tidy up my thoughts and desk, I thought it was time for a list or two.

List #1 - What I'm Reading Right Now

My main read is How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn, interspersed with chapters of  Accidental Feminists by Jane Caro. Loving both.


List #2 - Books I'm Struggling With - Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Don Quixote - This is my chapter-a-day readalong book but I'm just not finding it funny or even amusing. It's absurd, ridiculous and convoluted. I had heard that Part 2 was more interesting than Part 1, but so far the first few chapters of it are not inspiring me either.

Sad to say, but Becoming by Michelle Obama has now hit a wall. I loved hearing about her younger years growing up, going to school, family life, meeting Barack, but her work life dilemma's are not so interesting to me. I'm reluctant to pick it up now.

The Dark Interval: Letters for the Grieving Heart by Rainer Maria Rilke

Not as inspiring as I had hoped it would be. Too intellectual, not enough heart.

List #3 - New to the Pile

Writing the Country - Griffith Review 63
Memories of the Future by Siri Hustvedt
The Complete Stories by Anita Desai
This is not a Border - Reportage & Reflection from the Palestine Festival of Literature
Curiosities and Splendour - An Anthology of Classic Travel Literature (Lonely Planet)

List #4 - Books I've Finished But Haven't Reviewed

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata.
I loved this quirky Japanese story and will try to respond more fully here, since it's my book club book for April, but for now all I want to say is how much I enjoyed it.

The Skylarks' War by Hilary McKay.
Fabulous historical fiction for kids and adults. I couldn't put it down last weekend. This will win more awards I'm sure.

The Novel of the Century by David Bellos.
A fascinating insight into all things Les Miserables - glad I saved it for the end days of last year's readalong though - lots of spoilers.

Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India by Shashi Tharoor.

Interesting, somewhat angry discussion on the lingering history and after effects of English colonialism. A book that came about when Tharoor's 2015 Oxford Union speech about "Does Britain owe reparations to its former colonies?" went viral.

Narrow Road to the Interior by Basho.

This is the starting paragraph that has been sitting in draft since May last year:

Oku no Hosomichi is the title of Matsuo Basho's classic travel journal (奥の細道, originally おくのほそ道). In translation it can be either Narrow Road to the Interior or The Narrow Road to the Deep North. It's a genre called haibun, a Japanese literary form blending memoir, prose and haiku. According to wikipedia, Richard Flanagan's Man Booker prize winning book took it's title from Basho's work. 

I read this whilst travelling by train in Japan last year, in the northern region that Basho walked through. I've had all sorts of plans since then, about writing a post that used my photos and Basho's haiku, but it's time to release myself from this commitment.

Phew!

That feels better.

A load off my conscious...and my work desk.

Now back to the books :-)

My Purple Scented Novel by Ian McEwan

As many of you know my thing with Ian McEwan teeters on the love/hate spectrum. I suspected that the gimmicky 70th birthday short story My Purple Scented Novel would tip the scales into the negative, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Firstly, the short story was written prior to the gimmick. It was published in The New Yorker on the 28th March 2016. Fast forward to June 2018 and Penguin Random House decide that it would be a nifty thing to celebrate one of their most well-known authors 70th birthday with a bookish treat.

The short story form seems to be undergoing a renaissance in recent years. Perhaps they are the perfect way (even the only way) to engage the easily distracted modern reader from their devices. A short story can be read during a lunch break (like I read this one) or on the bus ride home. The modern short story doesn't involve any deep level commitment of time or energy. At least this one didn't for me.

My Purple Scented Novel remind me of, or perhaps sat closely next to Sweet Tooth in theme, in that it discusses, dissects and lampoons the literary world that McEwan inhabits,

We were ambitious. We wanted to be writers. famous writers, even great writers.

It features his usual exploration of deceit, loyalty and memory, with a topical nod to fake news. A self-referential moment about halfway through made me laugh out loud,

Or an episode in a novel I'd read the year before, The Information, by Martin Amis. I'm reliably informed that Amis himself derived that episode from an evening drinking with another novelist, the one (memory fails me) with the Scottish name and the English attitude. I heard that the two friends entertained themselves by dreaming up all the ways one writer might ruin the life of another.

Which basically gives you the premise for this story as well.

My Purple Scented Novel is a cautionary tale for the modern wannabe novelist. A bite-sized taste of McEwan at his cynical best.

The Child in Time
On Chesil Beach
Amsterdam
The Best & Worst of McEwan (featuring Enduring Love, Atonement, Saturday, On Chesil Beach, Solar & Sweet Tooth)

One of those days....

I'm having one of those days, when I WANT to write, but have done everything possible to make it NOT happen.

I started two posts (another JA on the screen post & another CBCA post) early this morning but neither were working so I cleaned the kitchen instead - top to bottom - the silver is gleaming, the splashbacks are sparkling and all that crappy stuff (a broken magnet from the fridge, dead batteries, dust gathering mini-candle holders (used once) & some kind of screw/hook thingy) that were cluttering up the edges - GONE! With bonus points for emptying the food & rubbish bins as well.

Which made me realise I needed to do a grocery shop that included a tour down the cleaning aisle, via a stop at my favourite cafe on the way. A load of washing, a few chapters of my book over lunch, followed by cleaning out the kettle and sorting out the wine & shoe cupboard (a new delivery (of wine not shoes) arrived yesterday).

I sat down to write again, but got distracted by emails and online banking before deciding to clean up the apps on my phone. The whole time, with one ear tuned to the radio to hear if anything else was happening with the leadership challenge (groan) happening in Canberra.

Enough was enough, so I swept the front porch and watered the garden and pot plants.

And guess what?

I still WANT to write, but what to write?

Isn't it awful to have the desire, but not the creative flow.
To be willing and able, but not inspired.

What to do?

Publish this.
Shut down the keyboard once again.
Hit the pavement.
Get some fresh air.
Smell the roses (or the new spring blossoms at least).
Get moving.
Try again later.

What do you do when you want to write but the muse goes missing?
#justsaying

Words, Words, Words

Have you ever been lost for words?

I'm in the middle of (although hopefully coming to the end of) a blue funk with words.

I've got nothing to say.

But I have been reading.

And walking - a lot.

When the words do come back you can expect a flood of catch up posts!

For now, though, I'm still searching for my centre, my reason and my motivation.

This bleak, grey, dismal June is almost over.

The winter solstice is almost upon us.

 And slowly but surely the days will once again lengthen and the sun will come out.

My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

My Name is Lucy Barton might seem like just another simple mother/daughter story, but like all of Elizabeth Strout's stories there is much more going on under the surface than first meets the eye.

Lucy Barton is in hospital for an extended medical procedure. Her husband, busy with his work and their two young girls, arranges for her mother to come and stay awhile to help out while Lucy slowly recovers.

Simple, right?

However, we soon learn that Lucy and her mother haven't spoken in years, that Lucy's mother naps in the bedside chair rather than staying in a hotel or with her son-in-law, that they avoid talking about Lucy's husband or children or her New York life and they tread very carefully around Lucy's childhood memories.

How do we find out what the daily fabric of a life was?

The effects of abject poverty and dysfunction, the understanding that people can only do they best they can in any given situation and that that best is often not enough for those dependant on them, imbue this slight book.

We all love imperfectly.

Perspective, memory and compassion are also significant themes for Strout. Themes that she loves to tease out and explore via her characters.

She was not telling exactly the truth, she was always staying away from something.

I suspect that My Name is Lucy Barton was also a chance for Strout to address some of her ideas about the nature of writing and being a writer.

I like writers who try to tell you something truthful.

She wrote about people who worked hard and suffered and also had good things happen to them.

Her job as a writer of fiction was to report on the human condition, to tell us who we are and what we think and what we do.

I wonder if anyone ever 'accused' Strout of writing with a softness of compassion like they did her character, Sarah Payne? And why anyone would think that that was a bad thing?

The power of language and words to hide, reveal or obfuscate the truth gets a look in,

How smooth must be the language of the whites, when they can make right look like wrong, and wrong like right.

as do some simple home truths on how to treat (or not treat) others.

I think it's the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down.

Do not ever think you are better than someone.

I don't normally fill a post with book quotes, but I just adore Strout's use of words. I love how she can pack a great deal of emotional truth into a few simply turned phrases.

They deserve to be highlighted and savoured.

My Name is Lucy Barton was longlisted for the 2016 Baileys Women's Prize and the Man Booker Prize.