Posts tagged 'identity'

Working with Words is a new Wheeler Centre web series, where we’ll talk to writers and publishing folk about their work – and other bookish things. This time, we talk to Booker Prize-winning novelist Alan Hollinghurst.

Alan Hollinghurst shot to a new stratosphere of literary fame when he won the Booker Prize for The Line of Beauty, his elegantly satirical social comedy about Thatcher’s Britain, in 2004. But he’d long had a devoted following among readers who’d been devouring his novels about gay life in the UK since his ‘sex-drenched’ debut The Swimming Pool Library. His latest book, The Stranger’s Child, traces the growing fame of an early-20th century poet across the generations, and in so doing dramatises the development of gay culture in Britain.

What was the first piece of writing you had published?

A poem in the Listener magazine in 1974. I had just won the Newdigate Poetry Prize at Oxford, and this felt like the beginning of a career as a poet; but it wasn’t to be, and I haven’t written a poem now for 25 years.

What’s the best part of your job?

Being self-reliant, free to invent, and master of my own time.

What’s the worst part of your job?

Having nothing to fall back on, getting stuck, rushing to meet deadlines.

What’s the best (or worst) advice about writing you’ve received?

The best advice: read, read, read.

Do you read your own reviews? If so, how do you approach them? If not, why?

I read all of them, unless particularly warned off by a kind friend: there’s no point in upsetting oneself by reading abuse. But I’m interested in how my books are received, and as I bring one out so rarely the interest (to me) is greater. As I get older I’m less vulnerable, and capable of reviewing my reviewers fairly objectively. I’ve been a reviewer myself for over 30 years, so I know what’s going on.

If you weren’t making your living by writing, what do you think you’d be doing instead?

Other than temporary teaching jobs, the only permanent job I’ve had was as an editor on the Times Literary Supplement, which I did for 14 years before leaving to follow a freelance career. If I’d not been able to leave, I expect I would still be working in that field.

There’s much debate on whether creative writing can be taught – what do you think?

Creativity can’t be induced out of nothing, but where it exists it can of course be nurtured. Writing is a craft whose techniques can be instilled and enhanced in a receptive student. We could all do with writing better.

Do you buy your books online, in a physical bookshop, or both?

I enjoy the virtuous feeling of supporting my (excellent) local independent bookshop, and paying full price; but after a few drinks in the evening I forget my principles and order books at huge discounts online. I also buy second-hand books heavily through abebooks.com, whose existence is one of the great transforming blessings of the internet era.

What’s the book that’s had the most significant impact on your life or work – and why?

Probably a school anthology called Fifteen Poets: Chaucer to Arnold, which I read exhaustively in my adolescence, and which created tastes, particularly for Romantic and Victorian poetry, that have stayed with me ever since and I suspect have become subconscious models of form, rhythm and euphony to me in my own writing. I still have swathes of Tennyson by heart.

Alan Hollinghurst will be in conversation with Michael Williams at the Athenaeum Theatre at 7.30pm on Friday 2 March. Tickets are $20 or $10 concession. You can book your tickets online.

Portable patriotism. (Source: Stephen Barnett/Flickr)

Today, ideas of national identity, patriotism, community and equity come to the fore in the Australian imagination (sharing real estate with flags and barbeques, perhaps). Drawing on events held during the past year, we’ve put together a list of viewing recommendations for your public holiday.

Prior to the arrival of Captain Cook and cohort, Australia’s indigenous population carefully managed their environment, making use of fire to rejuvenate the land and manipulate the movement of fauna, historian Bill Gammage explained.

The appearance of European colonialism planted the seed of today’s reconciliation debates. We explored this debate – covering treaty, social justice and opportunity – in our Not Sorry Enough discussion. Larissa Behrendt discussed the challenges of overcoming indigenous disadvantage, while Sarah Maddison presented an argument for how mainstream Australia can move beyond white guilt.

A South Australian Corroboree (1864) by WR Thomas, from the collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. (Source: WikiCommons)

Iconic storyteller Thomas Keneally presented his take on early nationhood and Australia’s regional racism in his Lunchbox/Soapbox presentation in December. Race and Aboriginal politics were amongst the myriad topics addressed in a marathon two-hour interview between Paul Keating and Robert Manne, with some of Keating’s sentiments echoing Manne’s earlier polemic regarding our national political complacency. Also cautioning against complacency, Susan Mitchell spoke of the potential disaster of a Tony Abbott victory.

We held many discussions on the state of our democracy. We asked whether it was broken, dumbed down or going nowhere fast, and for how long we might remain the lucky country. Tim Soutphommasane presented his case for why progressives should embrace National Service, and one of our Intelligence Squared debates focussed on the question of whether our soldiers should be in Afghanistan.

In a series of events, we paid tribute to our country’s literary heritage, whilst writerly alumni of the University of Melbourne’s Janet Clarke Hall celebrated their colleagues. As for contemporary literature, the 21 titles comprising the 2011 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards shortlist provide a compelling picture of our nation’s writers today.

Finally, in our So Who the Bloody Hell Are We? series we explored the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Doubtless, many such stories are being shared as you read this.

In this Lunchbox/Soapbox, author and academic Sarah Maddison tackles the issue of mainstream Australia’s unacknowledged, unresolved guilt over the brutality of white settlement over two centuries ago — as well as its poor relationship with the indigenous population now. How can we redress injustice and convert our awareness of the past into a productive force?

The challenge, Maddison says, is an adaptive one — and it won’t be overcome without a painful and uncomfortable process of introspection. But, she continues, “by taking account of past injustice in this work, we may have the opportunity to experience ourselves as truly moral, rather than as defensive and anxious about the past”.

At stake is also the authenticity of our national identity, or “diminishing the gap between the values people stand for, and the reality they face”. In other words, we must reconcile our closely held idea of the fair go with our racist past.

(Click to watch video.)

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Do you believe that guilt, evasiveness and awkwardness surrounding our past hinders progress on indigenous issues?

Can we rely on public institutions to lead the way on adapting to moral truth? If not, what’s the best way to address our nation’s brutal beginnings?

Manning Clark is a giant of Australia’s cultural landscape. His impact and influence on our history and our way of understanding our history constitute a lasting legacy – which is exactly what Clark would have wished. In Mark McKenna’s new biography, An Eye for Eternity, the self-styled historian-sage emerges as a deeply complex man, riddled with obsessions that included Australia’s national identity and a more personal quest to be remembered.

Mark McKenna is one of Australia’s leading contemporary historians. Seven years in the making, his biography of Manning Clark is his most ambitious project to date. Here, he discusses his work – its burdens and revelations – with Michael Cathcart, suggesting some of the material he uncovered appears to have been left by Clark for a posthumous biographer to find.

Cathcart and McKenna discuss Clark’s parents, his occasional stoushes with the academic establishment, his obsession with Australian national identity, his journey to becoming a public figure, his identification with Dostoevsky, his relationship with Patrick White, and his desire to ensure his own immortality.

(Click to watch video.)

(Click to watch video.)

We love a sunburnt country – as long as it stays on the far side of a picket fence. We partition our wide brown land into lots of little subdivisions. We replace the sprawling menace of the Australian bush with the reassuring symmetry of the Hills Hoist. We mortgage ourselves to the hilt. And we call it the great Australian dream.

In our love/hate relationship with the suburbs, do we take for granted the open space and fresh air that others can only dream of? How much should our cities be planned, and how much should they be allowed to unfold organically? And is there such a thing as “bogans”, or are they merely the projected horror-fantasy of inner-city “elites”?

As part of our So Who the Bloody Hell Are We? series exploring Australia’s national identity, we trawl the nature strips and driveways of The Quarter Acre Block.

(Click to watch video.)

Earlier this week we reported on a new campaign by Clubs Australia opposing proposed reforms to pokies venues. As part of the campaign, an ad depicted two Aussie blokes having a quiet beer and a quick flutter, agog at the idea of having a daily spend limit on the pokies habit. “It’s un-Australian,” gasps one in horror. Stoic, sports-loving, beer-drinking, emotion-hiding, hard-working, authority-bucking, laconic – this is the stereotype of Australian masculinity.

But does reality conform to the fantasy? All week we’ve been taking a good, hard look in the mirror of Australia’s national identity. In The Sentimental Bloke – the first in our So Who the Bloody Hell Are We? series of videos to be published over the next few days – Michael Cathcart, Craig Sherborne, Anne Summers and Craig Reucassel debate the finer points of the what it means to be a bloke in today’s Australia. Where are our templates of masculinity formed, and how true to life are they? How has the face of Australian fatherhood changed since decades past, and why? Do our nation’s traditionally ‘male’ pastimes and occupations still ring true? And will you be drinking beer or wine?

Will it be Christos Tsiolkas' Loaded or Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit? Or will it be something completely unrelated to GLBTI themes? Whatever it is, if you’re counting on attending the Wheeler Centre’s Literary Speed Dating for gay men and lesbians tonight and tomorrow night, you’ll be thinking about what book to bring along.

The Melbourne Library Service has published an ‘Out and Proud’ gay and lesbian reading list, featuring “a selection of great classic and contemporary gay and lesbian writing.” The list includes a selection of ‘Out and Proud’ themed young adult literature. The list is sure to inspire anyone hesitant about what book to bring tonight (for the guys) and tomorrow night (for the girls).

According to an article on the spread of literary speed dating across North America, the concept was born in Belgium in 2005. Normally held in libraries (Melbourne’s first was at the State Library of Victoria), literary speed-dating was originally intended to make libraries more accessible to a wider group of people.

As well as being a broadcaster, performer and writer, Jane Clifton, your host for the evening, is also a civil celebrant – so if things really click she might be able to tie the nuptial knot then and there. That would really put the speed into speed dating.

Congratulations to Kim Scott, who has been named the winner of the southeast Asia and Pacific regional Commonwealth Writers' Prize. Nominated for his novel, That Deadman Dance, Scott thus becomes eligible to win the overall prize.

Scott is an indigenous Western Australian writer – a descendant of the Noongar people – and he previously won the Miles Franklin Award in 2000 for his 1999 novel Benang.

Scott becomes the first indigenous Australian to win the prize, although he was quoted in The Age as taking little satisfaction from the achievement: “It bothers me a bit because it says what a history of disadvantage we’ve had when indigenous Australians have always been storytellers. It’s really sad.”

That Deadman Dance adds to a growing canon of Australian literature (including Kate Grenville’s The Secret River) re-imagining the compelling drama of early contact between indigenous Australians and the early waves of European settlers. Scott’s telling adds a specifically Western Australian dimension to first contact literature.