Moby Dick and Breath

I can’t forget Breath, Tim Winton’s latest novel about daredevil surfers. I’m reminded of it now as I finish watching Moby Dick on ABC1, also about dying/drowning and manhood. Such strong narrative themes.
I discovered a copy of Breath in a B&B at Mt Macedon and just had to read it. Sex, death and surfing – what a heady mix. It’s meaningful, exciting and scary. When I came to the end and closed the book, I was moved to tears by the power of the writing.
And yes, it is about breath, the breath we take for granted but that is the difference between life and death, as any surfer knows. And if, like me, you’ve never managed to stand up on a surfboard, read the book for vicarious surfing.
Later, in a second-hand country bookshop, I came across a first edition hardback of The Turning, Winton’s book of short stories that I had to have. A perfect weekend!

Boner McPharlin’s Moll

I recently discovered a short story by Tim Winton that blew my socks off. Boner McPharlin’s Moll has the heightened reality and menace of a Flannery O’Connor story, with Winton’s graceful touch. I discovered it in The Australian Long Story, (ed Mandy Sayer, Hamish Hamilton 2009), but it was originally published in The Turning, 2005.
The narrator is a fifteen-year-old girl, Jackie, who gets off with the local bad boy, Boner. He’s been expelled from her high school in a country town. The year is 1970, down to a T, with the boys in their Monaros and Chargers, wearing Levi cords and Dr Scholls. Johnny Farnham is out and David Bowie is in. Jackie accepts a ride in Boner’s car, and from then on their fates unravel.
Jackie has a reputation as Boner McPharlin’s moll, but the reader knows more than her schoolmates about what is really going on. This is a story about innocence and betrayal, about truth and deception. It is moving, harrowing even, and reveals how our actions, however innocent, have consequences. It moves forward on recurring motifs - Boner’s Johnny Reb boots, and his earrings - and springs to life in offhand, deadbeat dialogue. In the last page or two, the mystery lifts and we glimpse the truth. It’s like a punch in the guts for Jackie, and left me reeling.
Unlike most stories, this one is unforgettable. Read it!

My inner roadie

Still milking my 15 minutes of fame after winning second prize in The Age short story competition. My story 'The Devil's Music' about an ex-roadie living in a rooming house in St Kilda is still up on the Age website if you want to have a look:
http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/the-devils-music-20110125-1a3vg.html
The best thing about this win was getting published in The Age A2 (on Saturday 15 January) and receiving emails from my readers. Instead of the usual remarks by fellow writers about the niceties of style, I had some enthusiastic responses from men who have been roadies, musicians or work with the homeless in St Kilda. It was great to hear that in channeling my inner roadie, Billy, I'd hit a nerve with these readers. Makes it all worthwhile. Thanks, guys.

Judi Dench's memoir

'So you got your memoir published?' said one of my writing students when she saw Judi Dench's memoir 'And Furthermore' on the desk. The book was upside down and my student could have been forgiven for mistaking me for the woman with short bleached hair, pale complexion and Botox-free wrinkles on the cover. But I am twice Judi's height, twelve years younger and am not a star. I had to laugh. It was ironic that even someone else saw a connection between us.
Because there are some. That was why I had to read her memoir. The main connection is that I saw her first major performance at the Old Vic, London in 1957, as Ophelia, with John Neville as Hamlet. And again in 1960 as Juliet with John Stride as Romeo. It's fabulous to read her account of the performances and the inside dope on her fellow actors, to read about her passion for the stage which echoes my passion as a stage-struck youngster. I never went on to become a professional actor, but those early experiences of Shakespeare and the theatre have been major influences in my life.
One of her anecdotes echoes my own experience. She was playing Lady Bracknell in 'The Importance of Being Earnest' at the National Theatre, London, when she suddenly skipped half a page - a vital one with the first reference to the infamous handbag - and suffered a miserable Christmas because of it. A few years ago I did the same thing in an amateur production of Wilde's play at Como House in Melbourne where, as Lady B, I asked Miss Prism 'Where is that baby? and then forgot to elaborate the story about the perambulator and the three-volume manuscript, and left poor Miss Prism in the lurch, before I realised I was the one who had forgotten my lines. I haven't done any acting since.
Unlike the formidable Miss Dench. She got over her mistake, has a gruelling work schedule and plans to stay on the stage until she drops dead, like her hero John Gielgud. As I procrastinate and doubt myself as a writer, I can still look to Judi to inspire me to keep on keeping on.

Back home in Oz

OK, so I made it home and now have three piles of books on my bedroom floor waiting for a space on the shelves. One of my favourites is a first edition of Frieda Lawrence's Not I, But the Wind, the story of her life with DH Lawrence, which I picked up in Hay-on-Wye. I didn't explore DH Lawrence country in the end, but did find myself walking in Jane Austen's footsteps on several occasions in Dorset and Hampshire. I visited her house in Chawton and stood in awe at her writing desk, a tiny three-legged round table, where she sat after breakfast by the window. It put me to shame. It was here she wrote her best work.
On the Dorset coast, I walked along Cheshil Beach and relived the memorable story by Ian McEwan. It was only three months since I had lain in bed listening to the audiobook that McEwan recorded of On Cheshil Beach and here I was! Such an unexpected pleasure, and such a clear example of how landscapes can be immortalised in fiction or poetry. And them, in the same day, I am in Lyme Regis, the seaside resort of kings, where Jane Austen set Persuasion and where The French Lieutenant’s Woman was filmed. The author John Fowles was curator of the local museum, now flourishing and full of fossils from the local Jurassic coast, as well a displays about local writers. Among the fossil display I found a 'Cabinet of Curiosities', an absurd fantastical contraption made by my old friends Forkbeard Fantasy, a Brit theatre group I haven't seen for 25 years. So hello, guys, from me in Oz!
Yes I am back here and feeling guilty about contemplating a bigger desk to accommodate my writing needs. Think miniature, think Jane Austen.

On the road

It's been a long time between posts and now I'm snatching a few moments of Wifi access in an English B&B to pin down a fragment of life on the road, coming across writers and books in France, Scotland and England. In Paris I bought two books at the Village Voice bookshop by Mavis Gallant, who has lived in France most of her long life. I discovered her short stories recently in Australia and find her a great inspiration.
In Scotland, I caught the edge of the Edinburgh bookfest and saw Margaret Drabble talk at St Andrews, Scotland, about her new book A Writer's Britain and was caught up in her involvement with the relationship of writers to their landscape. She described coming up to St Andrews by train and the writers' locales that she travelled through. I am driving the other way, south, passing through writers' haunts and picking up books as I go. The Minster Gate bookshop in York yielded four bargains - and I never got further than the bookshelf on the stairs up to the literary section! There is still Hay-on-Wye with its thirty-plus bookshops to visit.
Now I'm in Nottinghamshire, home of DH Lawrence, where the young men speak like Paul Morel. Another shrine to worship at, as well as the great cathedral at Lincoln.

possums in the library

I have a contender for my library of books. Yes, I know I have too many to read in my lifetime, but that's no excuse for possums trying to take over the bookshelves. Three times in the past week I have woken to the scrabbling of little paws and twice to the crashing of glass - first a lamp, and then a vase. When confronted by a woman in pyjamas, the creature has calmly looked up from the bookshelf into my face and turned tail. Each time I have managed to coax her out the way she came in, through the window. Is she looking for a place to nest? Or are possums taking over the world? It seems possible in our corner of Melbourne. In that case, is she selecting suitably civilising authors: Proust, Austen or Orwell? She is still scratching at the window now it is closed.
Does any one else have possums in their library?