LiteraryMinded

David Carlin’s Our Father Who Wasn’t There

Our_Father_FNLScribe
February 2010 (Australia)
9781921640254

David Carlin was six months old when his father, Brian, ‘went to sleep and never woke up’. His mother kept a photo of him on the bedside table, but otherwise, not much was spoken of his existence to David and his two older siblings, until they were much older.

Our Father Who Wasn’t There has Carlin sleuthing and imagining his way through the history and motivations of a man who chose to take his own life. What’s remarkable about this book is the compassion Carlin has for his father – a father, he acknowledges, who is constructed through the memories of others, medical records, his own (possibly genetic) dispositions and sometimes pure imagination. Carlin reconstructs scenes in his father’s life – his childhood, his time in the army, his work life, time in hospital, and his marriage. Carlin acknowledges when chapters are written the way he has chosen to see things – or he at least acknowledges the sources of these constructions, but these chapters are so gently, beautifully written that you do want to imagine Brian the same way he does.

As an example, towards the beginning, Carlin paints vividly Brian’s trip by train from West to East coasts – including him reading, drinking, mucking about, making a friend and getting sick. In the next section he writes: ‘It occurred to me that Brian might have taken a ship across the Great Australian Bight instead of a train to Melbourne – the records I had seen weren’t clear. If so, this would dissolve at a stroke the backdrops I had grown so fond of. I decided I couldn’t bear for him to go back now, and come another way. Train or ship; it was the journey that mattered.’

In other parts, Carlin analyses the angle of the story being told to him by another – such as when one of Brian’s brothers puts himself forward as the hero of a particular anecdote, and Carlin prefers to see his father as the hero. Much of what Brian went through Carlin imagines through his own experiences of life – like the personal moments that they may have shared as young men. In this way, Carlin in many ways also gives us insight into the life and mind of the author – the fatherless man – and how the loss (along with other circumstances of his own life) has led to who he is and has led to this particular search and this particular construction – a book and the character of Brian. The section where Carlin talks about his own ‘disputes with depression’, but acknowledges that he has never ‘been to where he [Brian] went,’ is a great example of the empathy present in this book. He says:

‘Do I sound harsh towards him? I would like to be his father, to look after him, to wrap him in my arms as my child. To teach him consolation. It was not as if he didn’t try; this much is clear. It seems he pushed all his adult life to extract himself but, like a bogged car spinning its wheels, only wound his way in deeper.’

You come away from this book with a melancholy acceptance that there will always be a degree of the unfathomable, in relation to the mind, in relation to suicide. Carlin is gently, compassionately curious – for his father, as a man, as a man he never knew but can imagine through his own moments of being dragged under, following the ‘tracks’ of obsessive thought.

The book is naturally sad and moving but never heavy. It confronts when Carlin goes into the medical treatments discussed for Brian, and speculations of things that happened to him, but is mostly only confronting in a slow, deeply honest way – like when something is shown to you that you already knew deep down but are then forced to stare at – to not turn away. I haven’t been so moved by a book for some time. I keep coming back to Brian in my thoughts. There’s a deep sense of acknowledgement for the unfathomable and the dark and the sad, and loss, in general; but along with this, the recognition of the capacity to love and be endlessly curious, open and embracing. A complex, moving, but strangely affirming sadness at the ending - for all endings.

David Carlin will be appearing at Perth Writers Festival, including a session chaired by me, called ‘Beneath the Veneerwith Emily Maguire and Wendy James.

Speaking of…

The literary-minded in Melbourne need never be bored. The Wheeler Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas will begin filling our lunch breaks and evenings this month. Here’s the program for the first three months. I’ll be getting along to see Helen Garner, and I love the idea of the Lunchbox/Soapbox sessions which allow you to inhale some ideas along with your sushi during your lunch hour. I’ll be getting along to the Peter Singer one later this month.

Speaking of Melbourne, I’m on a panel this week called The Future of Reading. It’s aimed at 13 to 20-year-olds, but friends and family are welcome.

Speaking of the future of reading – are any of you reading on you iPhones? On another device? If so, what are you reading? I enjoy reading short stories on my iPhone, but not long-form stuff. The Electric Literature app is my favourite so far. Also, what would you expect to pay for an app that carried two or three original, specially commissioned short stories (quarterly)? Would you prefer something that mixed fiction and nonfiction, even graphic fiction/nonfic? And what if it were edited by me – would you buy it? There is a reason I’m asking… Feel free to reply here, or via Twitter/Facebook/email!

Speaking of emails – I am drowning in them, absolutely drowning, and I do apologise to anyone I haven’t gotten back to.

Speaking of drowning, I’m so busy at the moment with work, Perth Writers Festival prep, and, admittedly, social engagements that my other, non-festival-related book pile (the ‘tower of hope’) is looking quite neglected, so if you’ve given/sent me books and I said I’d get to them soon (and haven’t), please forgive. I am but one pair of eyes. Meanwhile – Perth Writers Festival is certainly going to be a cracker going by the amazing books I’m getting to read. I promise more reviews over the coming weeks, including one soon of David Carlin’s Our Father Who Wasn’t There.

Speaking of cracker reads, the March issue of Bookseller+Publisher will be winging its way to subscribers. We got the office copies in the other day and I’m very happy with it. It’s the second issue I’ve edited, but really the first I felt I had complete control over (in terms of commissioning stories etc.). Hope it’s informative and enjoyable…

Speaking of enjoyable: 2010, so far, has been incredible for me. In so many ways. I hope yours has been too. I’ll go into detail about some things in about a month.

Speaking of incredible:

david-bowie

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Rock on, lit-lovelies.

Guest review: Elena Gomez on Janine Burke’s Source: Nature’s Healing Role in Art and Writing

source

Allen & Unwin
November 2009
9781741759177

The meticulous research that went into this book is a testament to renowned art historian Janine Burke’s passion for art and its influences. In Source, she explores the resonating impact of nature and environment on the works of various writers and artists of the modern era. I have to admit, as soon as I saw the names Pollock, Woolf and Hemingway on the front cover, I wanted to read this. Burke’s eight brief essays offer biographical insight into the artists, while maintaining her overall theme: all artists and writers are recreating their own personal Eden – finding peace in the natural landscape they most identify with.

For American painter Georgia O’Keeffe, Eden is the desert of New Mexico, where she found not only an environment in which she could create her best work, but also solace from the heartbreak of real life in its vastness. Similarities can be found between Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf: each seeking out water, whether it be on the island of Key West, or the seaside town of Cornwall. Each, also, ending their own life, in their search for Eden. Jackson Pollock was known for his trance-like state when painting, and while his chapter focuses largely on Pollock’s alcoholism, Burke acknowledges the impact of his time in Springs, Long Island, with an evident reverence for his work.

Source offers a fascinating look into the role of nature in art and healing (as the subtitle of the book spells out pretty clearly), but what makes it interesting is the tenderness with which Burke writes about the people featured, particularly the final artist: Aboriginal painter Emily Kame Kngwarreye. Burke travelled to Nairobi, England and Key West, but this chapter, where she visits Kngwarreye’s home in the Northern Territory, offered the most personal story, partially rebutting the niggling thought in my mind about the fact that there was only one Australian artist. It’s occasionally frustrating to read, as some of the famous paintings Burke mentions aren’t actually pictured in the book, and at times the writing lacks the element of critical thought, but, if you don’t mind a little gushing here and there, Source is a touching read.

ElenaElena Gomez is an aspiring writer, blogger and journalism graduate turned publishing noob. She discovered she could write when she won the QLD Courier Mail Young Reviewer of the Year Award 2000, age 12, with a review of Luke’s Way of Looking by Nadia Wheatley. She now writes for www.withextrapulp.com.au

Eleanor Catton’s The Rehearsal

rehearsalGranta
2009

9781847081162

All the world’s a stage…

A novel as a performance, more – a novel as flirtation (the performance of flirting): self-conscious, inviting yet exclusive. The reader is all the roles, all the characters and all the actors – for in The Rehearsal there are layers of fictional existence – blended, glowing, beating with … not so much life, but with desire and imagination. Which, I suppose, are the stuff of life (for many of us). This is not a passive read but one that requires a bit of audience participation – a concentration of letting go, as opposed to a distraction or escapism. Catton questions whether art is ever really this, anyhow (passive, uninvolving). Don’t we want to see ourselves in the text – don’t we want to be seen, ourselves, like Stanley, the actor in this novel? Aren’t we frustrated by the things we don’t know, and the moments we’re left out of? Especially when we know someone intimately, such as, in this, when Isolde finds out her sister has been sleeping with her teacher and never let on?

In this are all the ways we want to perceive ourselves, all the drama of that and the wanting to ‘be there’ in a book; with someone; in the past; in this moment forever. And how transparent we are, in the roles we fill, like wordy characters spouting lines of obvious exposition.

This novel celebrates the myriad forms of attraction, desire – confusing, frightening, burgeoning, overwhelming desire (and its later manifestations of loss, as seen with the articulate, probing and deliberately contrived saxophone teacher, who is possibly the most memorable character in the novel). It is especially alive when girls find that they like other girls.

But there is something cruel in this, too (the fiction of cruelty, like the theatre of cruelty?) with those few characters/actors who will always be on the sidelines, will be unfortunate and miss out and there is no empathy for them because they were plain and they tried too hard. Will we be apathetic to their treatment? Will we forget about them, once the novel is over?

And Catton plays with our desire and expectations – for narrative, for drama, for intimacy with the text, and for control. But it’s more exciting to have no control, as in arousal, which to Isolde ‘… is like a little pocket of air has rushed into her mouth and sent a little shiver down her back and tugged at the empty half-basin of her pelvic bone. She feels a prolonged and dislocated swoop in her belly and a yank of emptiness in her ribcage, and suddenly she is much too hot. Isolde feels this way sometimes when she is in the bath, or when she watches people kiss on television, or in bed when she runs her fingertips down the soft curve of her belly and imagines that her hand is not her own. Most often the feeling descends inexplicably – at a bus stop, perhaps, or in the lunch line, or waiting for a bell to ring.’ Delicious.

If you want to see the young, award-winning, Canada-born and New Zealand-raised author Eleanor Catton ‘perform’, do come along to Perth Writers Festival. I have two sessions with her and I’m very much looking forward to them.

Go west! Perth Writers Fest 2010 program released

I’ve never been to Western Australia. Isn’t that nuts? I’ve been to Europe, I’ve been to the USA and I’ve been to Asia, but never the other side of my own country.

Lucky for me, the lovely organisers of Perth Writers Festival have invited me along this year. Besides my sessions, I am expecting to catch up with quite a few online friends, check out the beach, and visit the guys from Fremantle Press. I will, of course, be blogging as much as I can.

The festival is happening at the end of February, as part of the wider Arts Festival.

These are the sessions I’m chairing:

Beneath the Veneer
Saturday, 2pm

Some of the most interesting characters are flawed, with families and relationships providing a goldmine of material. David Carlin, Emily Maguire and Wendy James explore the emotional landscape of human behaviour.

Off Like a Shot
Sunday, 9:30am

Three debuts, three very different styles. Tom Cho has written a very original and funny collection of short fiction; Goldie Goldbloom has produced an Australian outback tale like no other; and Eleanor Catton’s novel is an examination of the power of performance. They talk about their writing.

Alex Miller in Conversation
Sunday, 2pm

Masterful storyteller Alex Miller’s latest novel Lovesong seems like a simple enough story about love, marriage and people coming undone by desire, but his distinctive voice gives this ’simple love story’ a resonance and gravitas that lingers long after you have finished the book. (Booking required.)

Girls and Boys
Monday, 2pm

The recent novels of Eleanor Catton and Craig Silveyare two very different coming-of-age stories. Eleanor Catton has broken free from the rules of realism to highlight the rituals, taboos and hierarchies of adolescent girls; while Silvey has utilised a more traditional narrative structure examining the lives of three adolescent boys and small town prejudice.

*

And of course, if you can make it, you’ll probably want to see people like Irvine Welsh and Sally Vickers, and many more. A swag of literary talent will be in attendance. See the full program and join me on the West-side…

I hope, while I am there, someone will quote Chon Wang from Shanghai Noon to me: ‘This is the West, not the East. The sun may rise where we come from… but here is where it sets.’ And then we’ll do this:

Una mas?

When they get it right – from book to film

fantastic-mr-fox

to

hd080_0030B_L1TK1_0112.dng

One of my favourites:

-hours-novel-michael-cunningham

to

the_hours_kidman_x2

Oh, Virginia! And then something like:

clockwork-orange-anthony-burgess

to

a-clockwork-orange

What are your favourite book-to-film adaptations? I love all of the above because the films aren’t necessarily 100% true to the plot and characters of the books, but are something wonderful on their own – maintaining something of the ‘mood’ of the original work. What do you think?

Here’s an older article from the Guardian to jog your memory on some.

I’m looking forward to seeing The Road also – though I haven’t read the book… (I know).

‘Obsolescence’ (an extract)

woodhousesMy short story ‘Obsolescence’ is the story representing the country of Norway (and the city of Bergen) in The Lifted Brow 6: Atlas. There are stories, songs, poems, illustrations and limericks representing every country in the world in this amazing, ambitious issue (book + 2 CDs). I’m so happy to be among contributors like Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Douglas Coupland, Reif Larsen, Christos Tsiolkas, David Foster Wallace – and some of my favourite people and writers Krissy Kneen, Chris Somerville, Fiona Wright, Josephine Rowe, Lorelei Vashti, Benjamin Law, Chris Currie, Ruby Murray and many more. The art and graphics are worth the cover price alone. The works here are creatively celebrating our shrinking, shared world and every fascinating, odd, sunny or dark corner of it (and its past, present and possible futures).

Buy the issue here, now!

Here’s a short extract from my story:

Obsolescence

Knut disposes of the guilty in the city of rain. On Friday, his shadow was thrown across Mrs Brysken’s umbrellas. She heard the clang of the door, felt the rush of ice and cocked her head up from the cache of new stock—white umbrellas with wee black owls. The man was gristly like a troll, rune tattoos over his forearms, visible where the white shirt rolled back. He didn’t seem to feel the Bergen winter. He had on a black leather vest and looked down, his eyes opening her like an item of her stock.

‘I know why you have come,’ she said, swallowed, dropped the owled umbrellas and trembled back from the counter.

Knut had been surprised to find, when he started this business, that the guilty came easily. Each was willing to confess and be punished, their conscience having burdened them too long. So now, without a word, he slipped his forearm through the small, fat lady’s and led her out into the rain. Her hands shook too much to pick up an umbrella.

Knut’s cabin was on the face of Fløyen, one of De syv fjell—the Seven Mountains—that surrounded Bergen. Beside the mountain was a steep fjord which collected day and night the city’s detritus, swept in by the eternal rain. On the rare sunny days, Knut could not conduct his business. He could travel only under the cover of grey.

His cabin was stone, with a grey sky-coloured roof; far from the red, yellow, and blue fishermen’s houses. Unlike them, he would never be long enough away to forget where it was he lived. The woman shivered in her seat by the empty fireplace, the flowers on her dress bumping and grinding, too bright for the room.

‘I ate the whole cake, every day,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to. I… felt hungry still.’

After Mrs Brysken’s body had rolled like a barrel down the mountain, a familiar sensitivity crept up on Knut. He had been sent here, to do this, to remove the quivering, false members of this city. But there was always a snag these days, just after the deed was done, somewhere near the front of his shirt. He rubbed the ræið on his chest and decided to focus on tomorrow.

In the heart of the city, facing Byfjorden, Knut is invisible to all but the guilty. But there are so many of them now. The city has its garbled faces, but some are white-round beacons of misdemeanor, depending on how closely they tie themselves to their crimes. He has also noticed, in the years since 1702, when seven-eighths of the city burned and he survived by hiding in the bay, that the nature of their guilt has changed. Once, there were thieves, murderers, rapists, pedophiles, adulterers and the incestuous. Now shone such crimes as gluttony, greed, sloth, and dishonesty. And guilt was even smeared on children’s faces, like Freia Melkesjokolade chocolate. It was on the elderly, for the care their sons and daughters disposed. It glared at him from the doors of Lagunen Storsenter, where shoppers exited with more than they had intended to buy.

He had on his list to watch: a fishmonger, an attendant at the Christmas shop, an artist and the antique dealer. The rain was abundant but the market still busy when Knut approached Wilfred’s table. The man whistled as he sliced and bagged the salmon. Knut could see the guilt weighing upon each shoulder, making the slicing slow. Wilfred looked up, and raised the knife at Knut.

‘I need you to come with me,’ Knut growled. Wilfred’s shoulders lifted a little. He set down the knife, and was led.

Read the rest by buying the world it’s contained in.

N.B. ræið is the name of a rune, old-Norse for ‘ride, journey’.

Brows will be lifted…

liftedbrow* New short story of mine in The Lifted Brow 6: Atlas, being launched this Friday! My story ‘Obsolescence’ is a bit of a dark, modern fable set in Bergen, Norway, where my relatives are from. The issue is going to be awesome, with a piece of writing about every country in the world (not to mention, fiction by David Foster Wallace, and a CD). More info about the issue can be found here. And, Melburnians, the launch info is here. I’ll be there, dressed as a Norwegian fisherperson, scribbling in your copy of the book – if you’ll let me.

* Tara Moss has been doing a very cool series on writers’ desks: ‘I’ve shown you mine now you show me yours’. And I showed her mine. She calls me Lit-Hunter (*blush*). Check it out on her blog, The Book Post, here.

* I have a piece in A Cafe in Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal. Contents and ordering details, here.

* The lovely Rachel Hills has some good news for emerging writers: Jean Hannah Edelstein – who’s signed to Random House in the UK and used to work at a literary agency – has offered to assess and offer feedback on a reader’s submission packet for free (something she’d normally charge some decent pounds for). This is a really awesome opportunity for an aspiring author, and Rachel thought it might be something LiteraryMinded readers would be interested in. I agree! Here’s the link.

* I also have this coming up…

The Future of Reading

Is reading headed in the direction of iPhone applications and kindles, or will books and newspapers outlast new technologies? With Karen Andrews, Angela Meyer and Louise Swinn.

Wednesday 10 February 2010 from 7.30-8.30pm.

Write, think, speak … get published

Express Media @ Signal for 13-20 year olds, but older people welcome (parents, teachers, friends)!

More here.

* I just found out one of my blog posts will be published in Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing No.1. It’s not out until April, so I’ll tell you more about it closer to the date.

* Other things… can’t wait for you to see the March issue of Bookseller+Publisher (out mid-Feb), we’ve been working very hard on it (you can check out the emag of the summer issue on the B+P website). And soon I’ll post more details about Perth Writers Festival, Adelaide’s Format Festival, and a few other things I’ve been working on…

Collected Stories – Richard Yates

collected-stories-of-richard-yatesVintage
9780099518549

When a man is fired from his job in the story ‘A Glutton for Punishment’, he realises he has enjoyed the failures in his life. The character in this – like many of the other characters in Richard Yates’ Collected Stories – runs over a conversation in his head, with his wife, before the actual conversation takes place. Reading this book is having a conversation with failure – your own projected shortcomings (gone over in your head), the misfires of your past, and the failures of everybody around you (including those who fail to perceive said failures).

Yates is often called a ‘depressing’ writer, but most of these stories are as equally humorous as they are sad. ‘The Best of Everything’ is about a couple on the day before they wed. Revealed to the reader are their niggling doubts – all the things we know will become stalwart issues in their marriage, itches turning to reddened sores – such as the way the man says ‘terlet’ for toilet; the way he needs his mates; and the way he doesn’t notice her new negligee. It’s humorous because anyone who has been in any kind of romantic relationship will recognise the compromises, and will smile at their depiction. It’s sad for much the same reason – because these unfortunate perceptions ring true.

Another joy of these stories is Yates’ charming, unencumbered (very American) prose. Unlike something like The Catcher in the Rye, the language doesn’t feel dated, here, but drags you back a few decades while simultaneously making you realise how much is the same (in intimate human relationships). Even Yates’ later stories (none are actually dated here, which is a tad annoying) have this element of ‘politeness’ – a façade of ‘getting along’ when there is ohso much bubbling beneath the surface. Many of the characters do seem resolved to their fates, despite moments of piercing aloneness, such as the characters in the tuberculosis ward in ‘No Pain Whatsoever’; or Ken, in ‘A Really Good Jazz Piano’ – who accepts the fact he is perpetually over-eager and physically awkward.

There are a couple of stories set in the TB ward. Yates himself spent time in one after the war. Other settings include domestic spaces, offices and in military training facilities and war zones (though combat is not explored). The stories are set mainly in the state of New York – the city and its affluent suburbs; London; and LA. The LA story ‘Saying Goodbye to Sally’ is another one of my favourites, and all because of this:

‘By the time Jack had taken to drinking heavily and not writing much – not even doing much of the anonymous, badly paid hackwork that had provided his income for years, though he still managed to do enough of that to meet alimony payments – and he had begun to see himself, not without a certain literary satisfaction, as a tragic figure.

‘His two small daughters frequently came in from the country to spend weekends with him, always wearing fresh, bright clothes that were quick to wilt and get dirty in the damp and grime of his terrible home, and one day the younger girl announced in tears that she wouldn’t take showers there anymore because of the cockroaches in the shower stall. At last, after he’d swatted and flushed away every cockroach in sight, and after a lot of coaxing, she said she guessed it would be okay if she kept her eyes shut – and the thought of her standing blind in there behind the mildewed plastic curtain, hurrying, trying not to shift her feet near the treacherously swarming drain as she soaped and rinsed herself, made him weak with remorse.’

Some of the stories are from the point of view of children, such as ‘Doctor Jack-O-Lantern’, where a disadvantaged, lonely new kid, Vinny, both seeks and pushes away the care his teacher bestows on him. Her caring is so alien and difficult for him it causes him to act out. It’s incredibly moving (as most of them are) and so skillfully rendered – you’re right there in the microcosm of this classroom with its smells, strange intimacies and dangers.

In fact, one of Yates’ biggest strengths is the way he gets you in so close to the characters – so close you can hear their thoughts and plans and see their hearts ticking – yet simultaneously at a distance so that you may see how they are perceived in the greater scheme of things. Yates suggests both compassion and pity through this kind of writing – and not just for the characters on the page, but for the person sitting next to you, and even for your own stupid, small (and often joyous) existence.

I love this book. I have talked about it to everyone as I’ve been reading it. I found all my friends in it. I found myself, uncomfortably, romantically, sadly, truthfully, in it.

Sally says to Jack in ‘Saying Goodbye to Sally’: ‘Why don’t you just come over here so we can sort of fall all over each other.’

It’s a book to sort of fall all over… again and again.

You might like to revisit the ‘Read and Seen’ review of Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road, by myself and Mr Celluloid Tongue.

Nabokov, you sly ol’ dog

How can someone be this amusing (and amused) and articulate? I’m in love and fascinated and repulsed all at the same time, just as I was reading Lolita

While we’re here:

Nabokov in audio.

Martin Amis on Nabokov.

Shelley Winters breaks my heart in Kubrick’s film version (for which Nabokov wrote the screenplay):

Winters

What say you?