Do Not Feed The Literary Lions
Australia's literati are well looked after; we stuffed Patrick White and even lent Peter Carey to the Central Park Zoo for breeding.
This week, Australian Book Review announced the winners of its reader-voted “Favourite Australian Novel” poll. Of the 290 novels originally suggested in the poll, the top 20 are listed in ABR’s February 2010 issue. And they are a predictable bunch.
Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet was number one, with Breath making number four and Dirt Music number 13. Henry Handel Richardson’s epic, tripartite brick The Fortunes of Richard Mahony was number two.
Despite being both dead and extremely trying to read, Patrick “Australia’s Only Literary Nobel Laureate” White came in at number three with Voss, took out tenth spot with The Tree Of Man and 14th with The Vivisector.
Other familiar titles rounding out the top ten included Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey (5), My Brother Jack by George Johnston (6), The Secret River by Kate Grenville (7), Eucalyptus by Murray Bail (8) and The Man Who Loved Children by Christina Stead (9).
Filling out the top 20 were My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (11), Monkey Grip by Helen Garner (12), Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (15), Remembering Babylon by David Malouf (16), For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke (17), The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea by Randolph Stow (18), Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (19) and in 20th spot, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas.
Of these 20 novels, I have read five. Pretty lowbrow, isn’t it? What’s more, I have never read anything at all by Tim Winton. I’m sure he’s a talented writer and I won’t rule out the idea of reading his novels in future. But I just don’t feel interested in them now. I gave my unopened review copy of Breath to my mum, who was much more excited by it than I’d been.
These kinds of lists arise from a self-sustaining, self-consciously literary notion of Australiana. They seem to operate independently of Australians’ actual reading habits and the wide scope of topics addressed by Australian novelists. Rather, they reflect the tastes of a certain kind of Australian reader: someone interested in fraught family relationships and rugged individual struggles against untamed nature. These stories tend to take place in period – especially colonial – settings. What notion of ‘Australia’ do these books encourage their readers to identify with?
For over a year at The Enthusiast we have been meaning to institute a Bourgie Barometer – a tongue-in-cheek indicator of what the chattering classes are chattering about right now. Our thinking behind this wasn’t just to poke fun at the tastes of mainstream tastemakers – although this is undeniably satisfying – but rather to highlight intellectual crowd mentalities.
Why do certain themes and styles of writing, such as Tsiolkas’s sly barbecue-stopper The Slap, Helen Garner’s creative non-fiction and the collected plays of Hannie Rayson, seem calculated to appeal to the sensibilities of a comfortable, educated and politically progressive Australian audience? And why do so many Australians agree to have their sensibilities appealed to in this way?
I find it fascinating to examine the role of literary listmaking here. Another Enthusiast feature that hasn’t been as regular as we originally intended was Best Of The Bestseller Lists, in which we take a look at the titles dominating bestseller lists across the world. Bestseller lists have an important marketing role – they help shape the range of titles that get displayed in prominent retail spots, and they help create the ‘buzz’ that sees people want to buy a certain title so they can participate in the associated discussion and cultural ‘mood’.
In the past I have obstinately refused to buy into zeitgeisty books hype. If lots of people were raving about a certain title, I would deliberately avoid it, because I wanted to feel as though I ‘discovered’ books on my own. There are many excellent books that I still haven’t read because of this stubbornness. I also feel a terrible shame at being seen reading a voguish book in public.
More to the point, I have also felt powerfully repelled by the way some people use the cultural capital gained from certain books as a technique of social distinction, positioning themselves as more intellectual, more tasteful or even more moral because they’ve read certain titles… and rejected certain others. I do not want to be seen as one of these people.
It is naive to believe that we are attracted to books only because of “the journeys they take us on” or “the quality of the writing”. On some level, we read ‘in public’ and expect to be judged for our reading choices. I suppose the thing I find most offputting is when reading-for-public-approval seems to overtake reading-for-pleasure, and – furthermore – when our feelings of being validated in our tastes depend on our participation in the Australian literary scene’s crowd behaviour.
After all, as the ABR poll has demonstrated, it is a very small, parochial scene in which the same names tend to recur, and the same voices of criticism and authority ring out again and again. We should feel no shame of literary unAustralianness for not having read the top 20 books on this list. But at the same time, nor should we feel smugly avant-garde and original for forging off in other literary directions.
Perhaps the best response to literary crowd behaviour is to acknowledge it and find its mechanisms fascinating and revealing, but not to buy into the idea that certain authors and certain modes of writing are self-evidently better than others, and more deserving of praise.
“There are many excellent books that I still haven’t read because of this stubbornness.”
How do you know a book is excellent if you haven’t read it?
Well, for a start I’m not conceited enough to believe that I’m the only judge of excellence in a book. While certain much-talked-about books divide critics and readers, others tend to be generally praised, and I don’t think it hurts to go, “Well, it’s safe to say it’s a pretty good book then.”
But my use of “excellent” in this context is probably more accurately: “Based on what I know about what I tend to enjoy in a book, and what I have heard about this particular book, I would probably really love it if only I could get over the fact that reading it would make me that sort of person.”
These polls always seem to reflect what people feel they should have read more that what they actually have read. That “zeitgeisty books hype” can put me off too – I’ve so far resisted The Slap because of it, even though I loved Dead Europe. I think the chattering classes are sometimes more conservative in their cultural consumption than they would like to admit. And I agree that some people use cultural capital gleaned from a particular kind of book or movie to show others that they are more intelligent/cultured/worldly. There was an episode of the First Tuesday Book Club a while back where Mem Fox, with great distain, informed everyone that she just couldn’t bear science-fiction. I remember rolling my eyes.
And I’ve only read four of the books on the list. The last Australian book I read was one of the Phryne Fischer mysteries; it’s probably not going to make any best of lists, but it was fun.
Yeah, I like Australian literature, I’m one of the “chattering class” intellectuals with fairly pedestrian tastes, and I have an English lit degree to boot. I have not read a single book on that list.
I’ve read plenty of Carey, Garner and Malouf, just not those listed. I own several Winton books but can’t bring myself to read them.
Kat’s totally right - the lists are of what people would like to be seen to read rather than what they actually read. That BBC list of the 100 MUST READS that came out last year rang so false - “Hamlet” was one book, and “The Complete Works of Shakespeare” was another. “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe” appeared alongside “The Chronicles of Narnia”. If someone asks you what your favourite book is, and you give the title of a series of books, it’s a pretty sure bet that you haven’t read any of them.
Scal – back in 2008 I actually set my mind to read my way through one of those arbitrary ‘100 Books’ lists, and it was my plan to chronicle this ‘journey’ at The Enthusiast.
I guess this article really highlights all the story ideas that I have put on the back burner!
The first thing that struck me about this post Mel was that it seems to be taking issue with the class that creates and reads this list without saying it explicitly. Which is fine, but I think it opens a debate about “literary” vs. “mainstream” tastes. Personally I am quite relieved that there are people with lit majors or extensive art degrees that have studied the provenance of different styles of writing and can point to the skill of certain writers vs the simple formulae of others.
Also:
“They reflect the tastes of a certain kind of Australian reader: someone interested in fraught family relationships and rugged individual struggles against untamed nature. These stories tend to take place in period – especially colonial – settings. What notion of ‘Australia’ do these books encourage their readers to identify with?”
I would say that one of the central purposes of literature in any culture is to question and discuss its moorings. The books are well-regarded because they tap into concerns and insecurities that have been raised for people within a society. Authors also pick up on cultural currents, leading to significant emphasis on colonial settings etc. I think using the arts as a way to look at the past or current discomforts is a hugely important reflex.
I am also cynical about the notion of a “self-sustaining, self-consciously literary notion of Australiana”. I think this says more about the reader than the author - it seems to be cultural cringe to me. Australian authors write about Australian subjects. They are often topical, because writers (not all, but some) want to be part of a cultural conversation. Think about whether you would apply this label to American authors who set their novels in New York, or South Africans who set theirs in Cape Town. Of course it is self-conscious - they are writing about their lives and their societies. I would also say it is a lot more diverse than your portrayal.
Finally, I do understand what you mean about people defining themselves by the novels they read, and their amazing dedication to understanding suburbia etc. However, I don’t agree that novels like The Slap only “appeal to the sensibilities of a comfortable, educated and politically progressive Australian audience.” Have you researched whether people who grew up in a similar suburb might see the portrayal as particularly accurate, if not slightly more grotesque? I have had one friend tell me that it was so close to the bone for her she almost couldn’t read it.
Interesting article, interesting discussion. All I have to say is, I love “My Brother Jack”. Oh, and Tim Winton is lame.