My review of My Hard Heart: Selected Fiction, by Helen Garner

My Hard Heart: Selected Fiction

by Helen Garner

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I loved Helen Garner's style from the time I read with awe her Monkey Grip (1977) and, until now, never got around to exploring much else of hers - that's no excuse, of course, but life and other reading just gets in the way sometimes. But I vividly remember wishing I could do what she did at that time. Such a bar raiser and role model this talented soul must have been for so many emerging wordsmith hopefuls over the decades.

Anthologies are popular reintroductions to writers, and follow-ups, after reading their novels. In the latter category, I read with intrigue in my ongoing quest to seek out seasoned Aussie writers who grab me. I enjoyed Garner's acute observations of human nature. I relished her evocative backgrounding. Her voice is richly authentic. Her fragmented sense of form I found bravely effective. Her suburban characters endeared and revolted me as much as they seemingly do their author, amounting to fine depictions. 

Although hard going in parts, the anthology's looming sense of inertia typifies a suburban Australian mindset of not long ago or even today, where intellect feels futile and family or mateship comes first. The combined greasy despondency and simmering tetchiness across the stories captures something as fundamentally Australian as its weather, if you can muster the grit to sit through it. This seems to be Garner's intended effect and, as always with this author, she nails it magnificently.

So, in some ways these pieces struck me as cathartic exercises, a soul-baring foundation of much great modern literature.

I was compelled to keep reading, with the timelessness of her human dilemmas loud and clear throughout. 

Helen Garner hardly needs my validation after her achievements. A notable Australian literary behemoth, one must admire her work's longevity in such a fast-changing scene. Whilst she has been criticised by some for merely 'transcribing her diary material into fictional form', in her defence it needs reiterating that autobiographical fiction is the chosen genre of some of the greatest writers of all time. Raw truth punches harder, for many including this reader, than even the most elaborately contrived story plotting, character arcs and formulism of much popular fiction.

My quest for home grown Aussie writers to embrace continues. Thank you, Helen Garner, for earning your place near the top of my list.

You are among our very best, always.

My review of The World According to Garp, by John Irving

The World According to Garp

by John Irving

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

After rescuing this curled up thirty-plus-year-old paperback from a railway platform waiting room bin, The World According to Garp would not be re-dumped. Rehoused and adopted, it kept me up way too late into the night, for all the best reasons.

This funny, evocative, at times poignant tale by John Irving had me hooked from the outset. It's no wonder he went on to score a raft of awards, for print and screen. The narrative chronicles the life of T. S. Garp, whose strong-minded single mother, nurse Jenny, wanted a child but no husband.

After we see Garp through his comical formative years he grows up to become an author. His mother, Jenny, also writes on the sly, eventually gaining greater acclaim than Garp. Jenny's autobiography, A Sexual Suspect, makes her a feminist icon with a cult following known as the Ellen Jamesians, named after a small girl whose tongue was cut out by rapists. Jenny's bizarre cult members cut out their tongues in tribute to young Ellen Jamesian. His mother's infamy is a bone of contention to the less radical Garp who, maintaining filial loyalty, is inwardly torn.

John Irving's characters have a quirky realism that thrills and resonates authenticity. Even the most absurd situations are engaging and credible, worthy of bringing a wicked smile to anyone's face. Central themes include gender roles, sexuality and death.

The first paperback edition won America's National Book Award for Fiction in 1980. The 1982 film adaptation, starring Robin Williams in the title role, saw John Lithgow and Glenn Close respectively nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and Best Actress in a Supporting Role, at the 55th Academy Awards.

Not my usual genre, I haven't read anything like it. Highly recommended for a lighthearted but good, solid read.

*Footnote - always check railway platform waiting room bins.

My review of Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell

Gone with the Wind

by Margaret Mitchell

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Margaret Mitchell received 38 publishing rejections before the lucky Macmillan publishers accepted Gone with the Wind. Her only novel published in her lifetime, it sold 30 million copies (with two sequels authorised by Mitchell's estate published more than a half century later). Mitchell won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for this epic of the highest order, of more than a thousand pages.

Set in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, this tracks the cunning antics of wealthy Southern plantation owner Gerald O'Hara's daughter, Scarlett, who must do what she must to survive sudden destitution.

There's a touch of the Scarlett O'Hara in the best of us. Tainted more with her father's forthright Irish blood than her gracious mother Ellen's French ancestry, she's strong-willed, self-centred, at times petulant, but ultimately practical and ever true to her own heart. This complexity makes her the great literary heroine she is and not simply a spoilt Southern princess who deserves a good slapping down. No wonder Hollywood interviewed 1400 actresses before settling on the extraordinary Vivien Leigh to capture her fabulous persona for the 1939 film, which won eight Academy Awards.

Written from the slaveholder's perspective, Gone with the Wind is Southern plantation historical fiction. Though often placed in the historical romance sub-genre, it arguably lacks all the romance genre elements and contains other elements not found in romance novels. It also fits the coming-of-age, or Bildungsroman structure, chronicling archetypal southern belle Scarlett from adolescence to adulthood.  

Mitchell's working title had been the novel's last line, Tomorrow is Another Day. Also considered were Bugles Sang True, Not in Our Stars and Tote the Weary Load. A metaphor for the end of the South's way of life before the Civil War, the eventual title comes from Ernest Dowson's poem Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae:

'I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,

Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,

Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind...'

Scarlett uses the phrase when pondering whether her home-plantation, 'Tara', is still standing or if it is 'gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia'.

Pampered Scarlett survives an extreme reversal of fortune, rebuilding Tara cotton plantation and her own self-esteem, in the post-war South. Starkly contrasting with her gentler sister-in-law Melanie Hamilton's qualities of trustworthiness, selflessness and loyalty, Scarlett displays shrewd, manipulative, deceitful, even superficial traits, her first priority being money.

Similarly contrasting are Scarlett's two main men: her sensitive, gentlemanly, almost effeminate love interest, Ashley Wilkes (played onscreen perfection by Leslie Howard). He is Melanie's cousin who marries her as promised, devastating Scarlett who wants him for herself. Too passive and earnestly principled for Scarlett, he is perfectly matched with the softer, altruistic Melanie. A planter by inheritance, Ashley represents Confederate defeat, foreseeing and too readily accepting that cause's end after the Civil War. His very name signifies blandness, invoking the colourless vision of ash. His limpid gesture at 'real men's' activities is purely tokenistic. His entire family, according to Scarlett's father, was 'born queer'. Yet Ashley is 'the Perfect Knight' in Scarlett's mind, even throughout her three marriages.

Scarlett first begrudgingly marries the shy and loving Charles Hamilton. Soon after, he dies of pneumonia, never reaching any battlefield or even seeing their son, Wade. She then callously steals her sister Suellen's fiancé, Frank Kennedy, an older, unattractive man whose money Scarlett has in mind to pay Tara plantation's taxes. This middle husband is a remote figure, never understanding Scarlett's ruthless business tenacity. After not so long he is shot through the head attempting to defend Scarlett's honour after she is attacked. He leaves Scarlett with a daughter, the homely, simple Ella Lorena.

But then comes Scarlett's third husband and other main man, the hard-drinking 'black beast' Rhett Butler (personified on celluloid by Clarke Gable). When not idling away his hours wheeling and dealing, gambling or dallying with prostitutes in Belle Watling's brothel, dandyish Rhett shows Scarlett his 'large brown hands', growls 'I could tear you to pieces with them' and even brutishly rapes her in their marital bed. Accused of being a 'damned Scallawag', Rhett is one of those Southerners who willingly accept the Republican reforms or, who Mitchell writes, 'had turned Republican very profitably'. For this injustice he is written as having a 'swarthy face, flashing teeth and dark alert eyes' and labelled a 'scamp, blackguard, without scruple or honour'. Even in the war's earlier years, Rhett is tagged a 'scoundrel' for his 'selfish gains' profiteering as a blockade-runner. Scarlett meets her match with this straight talker, who puts her firmly in her place and gives her a daughter, the strong-willed Eugenie Victoria 'Bonnie Blue' Butler.

Mitchell's cast of thousands has the reader fully absorbed, enthralled, waiting to see what happens next and to whom - and my, those frocks! Mitchell's use of colour symbolism, especially the red and green, were wisely adopted for the movie. Who can forget 'that' red dress Vivien Leigh wore to the party, or her green velvet tasselled DIY 'curtain' frock. Yet whether the inevitable comparison with the movie or not, certain characters remain forever with us. Not only those from Scarlett's household, we also become fondly acquainted with the delightful Melanie Wilkes née Hamilton (given onscreen life by Olivia de Havilland). Unforgettable too is Melanie's deliciously eccentric Aunt Pittypat Hamilton, in Atlanta, with whom Scarlett and Melanie, assisted by Prissy, go to stay at one stage. These are all Mitchell's 'goodies'. Her 'baddies' comprise a cavalcade of scoundrels incorporating Yankees, carpetbaggers, Republicans, prostitutes and overseers. Every smallest character is given immense readability.

Indeed, Tara plantation and its surrounding landscape is a character in itself, raising great speculation around its real-life basis. Of this and her players, Mitchell insisted:

'I made Tara up, just as I made up every character in the book. But nobody will believe me.'

The novel examines the old South's class system, comprising the white planter class, such as Scarlett and Ashley, and the black servants whom Mitchell splits into two types: her first is the loyal, higher-class house servants, such as Mammy, Scarlett's childhood nurse who once belonged to Scarlett's grandmother, raising Scarlett's mother, Ellen. Loyalty and longevity have made Mammy Tara plantation's 'head woman'. Closely aligning Mammy's special status is Gerald O'Hara's valet, Pork, his wife Dilcey and their daughter Prissy, Wade's nurse. These more elite slaves stand by their masters even after being technically freed by the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and 1865 Thirteenth Amendment. Mammy never considers a life away from Tara, recognising her freedom to come and go as she pleases, declaring: 'Ah is free, Miss Scarlett. You kain sen' me nowhar ah doan wanter go.'

Then there are the field slaves, working under foreman Big Sam. These lower-class slaves are mostly taken away by Confederate soldiers to dig ditches, apparently never returning. Though Mitchell acknowledged there were 'loyalist' field slaves who stayed on the plantations after emancipation, not exercising their new freedom, none are included in her novel. Mitchell's stereotypical 'docile and happy' slave depictions, with none angry or dissatisfied with their lot, were disparaged for over simplification. Critics accused Mitchell's work of fitting a convenient common white denial of the black South's interminable hardship, misery, suffering and injustices. Others, however, argued that, politics aside, Mitchell's contentious characterisations did have a certain authenticity.

Regardless of what has been said about Mitchell's 'ethnic slurs' in her narrative's portrayal of slavery and African Americans, these characters were endearingly immortalised by legends Hattie McDaniel, as stalwart Mammy (earning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, the first African American who get one), and Butterfly McQueen as flighty Prissy, whose wondrous portrayals remain etched in all our hearts and minds, e.g.

-Mammy: It ain't fittin'... it ain't fittin'. It jes' ain't fittin'... It ain't fittin'.

-Prissy: Lawzy, we got to have a doctor. I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies. 

On theme, the author said: 'If Gone with the Wind has a theme it is that of survival. What makes some people come through catastrophes and others, apparently just as able, strong, and brave, go under? It happens in every upheaval. Some people survive; others don't. What qualities are in those who fight their way through triumphantly that are lacking in those that go under? I only know that survivors used to call that quality 'gumption.' So, I wrote about people who had gumption and people who didn't.' — Margaret Mitchell, 1936: 

As a non-American I learnt from Mitchell's fine historic detail, gained insight into the American spirit that I had previously scratched my head about. This novel will surely retain longevity for endless generations of readers. 

Fiddle-dee-dee! Everyone should experience it at least once before they die.

My review of The Duchess of Windsor and Other Friends, by Diana Mosley

The Duchess of Windsor and Other Friends

by Diana Mosley

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Writing came naturally to Diana Mitford Mosley, whose formidable intellect and extraordinary life resulted in a ream of published volumes: book reviews, memoirs, essays, diaries - even her letters to various friends and relatives had such readability and were of such historical value they were published in volume after volume. 

This biography of the Duchess of Windsor, like the author's other works, makes no claim of impartiality - she wrote what she thought, through the filters of her own direct experience and famously individualised world view.

There were many more academically penned biographies of the Duchess of Windsor, but none by authors who knew her, whose personal life she had been a part of. Such is the value of this contribution to the massive Wallis Simpson canon. 

I could read anything by Diana Mitford Mosley, having a natural bias for seeing her works in a positive light. The most engaging of her writings, as has been noted by various critics of this biography, are indeed to be found elsewhere.

This is perhaps not the book a Wallis Simpson novice reader might turn to for the dry history, any more than being one a novice Diana Mitford Mosley reader might initiate themselves with - it is simply an impassioned addendum to the author's countless other literary contributions and a qualified last word to Simpson's infinite detractors.

This piece has the uniqueness of being penned by a longstanding friend, a natural authority on elements of the woman more formal biographers could not capture. Others also wrote from a more negative bias, a key agenda behind this author's wish to set certain records straight about the woman beneath the unkind myths popular history has wrapped her in.

Diana Mitford Mosley was renowned for speaking her mind on contentious topics, few topics being more so than the Duchess of Windsor. Being a fan of this author and an avid historian, there was never the faintest possibility of my disliking this biography - though I can appreciate how the uninitiated Mitfordian may find it underwhelming, as may those seeking out meatier documentations of this polarising subject.

The touching intimacy of this book's penmanship, with its tributary endnotes, is what sets it apart from less biased Duchess of Windsor biographies. It was almost certainly never meant to be of as much academic value as other Simpson biographies, being pointedly more about setting certain public records straight from an insider's perspective.  

All these things considered, this book's harshest critics are, in their blinkeredness, simply missing the most fundamental reasons for its existence. It being far from the first Wallis Simpson biography or first Diana Mitford Mosely piece I have read, my expectations were shaped accordingly.

I read it in one night and admired it for exactly what it is - the eloquent narrative of a loyal friend.

My review of Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

by Leo Tolstoy

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is one of the most gorgeous rides I've had. 

This is the tragic Russian tale of a married aristocratic socialite's affair with wealthy Count Vronsky. It also follows country landowner Konstantin Levin, who wants to marry Kitty, sister-in-law of Anna's brother Oblonsky. Events unfold against a backdrop of rapid change resulting from the reforms of Emperor Alexander II. Tolstoy's use of real historic events lend authenticity to the fictional events of his characters.

Impacting on these characters' lives and thoughts are such innovations as jury trials, elected local governments, railroads, banks, telegraph, increasing public awareness due to a freer press, and a class reshuffle as the ruling aristocracy becomes gradually upstaged by the emerging business class.

Accordingly, the narrative examines Russia's then feudal system, politics, religion, morality, gender and class structure. Themes include hypocrisy, jealousy, faith, fidelity, family, marriage, society, progress, carnal desire and passion, and personal connection to one's land.

At approximately a thousand pages divided into eight parts, this is narrated in third person, shifting between characters but focusing on the opposing attitudes and lifestyles of protagonists Anna and Levin. The tone alters according to character telling the story. Stepan Oblonsky's thoughts and actions are delivered in a markedly relaxed manner, while Levin's social encounters are decidedly tense (this character being sometimes thought Tolstoy's semi-autobiographical portrayal of himself). Part seven, depicting Anna's thoughts and ruminations, makes groundbreaking use of that stream-of-consciousness fluidity later adopted by greats like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner. 

Fyodor Dostoyevsky declared this 'flawless as a work of art'. Vladimir Nabokov concurred, admiring the 'flawless magic of Tolstoy's style'. I agree with both. I felt as if I was in the story, a bystander, a participant.

Many adaptations have eventuated, including operas, ballets and stage and radio plays, some of them jarring. A popular standout was the 1935 movie starring Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Basil Rathbone and Maureen O'Sullivan. Another was the 1977 BBC series, starring Nicola Pagett, which in ten parts successfully covered so much more than any single sitting attempt. Ardent Tolstoy fans, who often insist that no screen version has captured the genius of his writing, may be biased but correct.

Tough going at times but worth every minute. I was like a kid after Christmas when I closed the last page.

My review of The King's Speech: How One Man Saved the British Monarchy, by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

The King's Speech

by Mark Logue and Peter Conradi

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars

For history buffs, and baby boomers especially, these glimpses into the first half of the twentieth century resonate powerfully. This being the era passed down to us orally by parents and grandparents, we are intrigued by accounts of events that shaped our elders and immediate forebears. The period rekindles memories of our late loved ones, adding insight to their generational formation. 

This epoch's significance for us is its context. Our lives are rooted in these world events, even though most of us had not yet arrived. So close does it lie to our own pending genesis, we can picture the world into which we or our parents were conceived.

Wallace Simpson, Edward VIII's abdication crisis, World War II, the young Queen Mum, our own Queen Elizabeth II as a tiny girl not intended to reign – all these ingredients make for nostalgic reading. 

Whilst it was arguably the award-winning movie, co-starring Australia's Geoffrey Rush as Aussie royal speech therapist Lionel Logue, that brought this tale to the wider world, this book from which its screenwriters gleaned priceless detail is a standalone piece, co-written by Logue's grandson Mark.

Not penned in fictional form, the storytelling has a natural authenticity. Drawn from personal diaries, it takes us to the heart of things.

Australians will appreciate the early lives of Lionel Logue and his wife in a developing post-colonial land in its infancy, still many weeks' sea voyage away from the heart of empire.

For anyone who has touched on speech presentation, basic elocution, or ventured further into remedial speech therapy, insights to Logue's technique will fascinate. Two 1930s tongue twisters brought down to us are worth trying: 'Let's go gathering healthy heather with the gay brigade of grand dragoons' and 'she sifted seven thick-stalked thistles through a strong thick sieve.'    

I read this in three cosy nights and loved it.

My review of Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

Great Expectations

by Charles Dickens

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Without a doubt my favourite Dickens novel. First serialised in 1860-61, this Victorian classic, narrated in first person though not autobiographical, chronicles orphaned protagonist Pip's formative years around the Kent marshes, then in London, in the early to mid-1800s.

The story opens circa 1812 with seven-year-old Pip's frightening Christmas Eve graveyard encounter with escaped prison ship convict Abel Magwitch. The man scares the child into stealing food and a file to grind away his shackles, from Pip's custodian sister's kitchen. The next day, as Magwitch brawls with a fellow escapee, soldiers recapture the pair and return them to the ship, bound for the penal colony of New South Wales.

We next meet wealthy spinster recluse Miss Havisham, a jilted bride permanently clad in her old wedding dress, cloistered in her dilapidated house. She asks Pip's Uncle Pumblechook (actually Pip's brother-in-law's uncle) to source a male playmate for her young ward, Estella. After visiting Miss Havisham several times, at the old woman's urging Pip becomes enchanted with the petulant girl.

As they mature, Estella goes away to study, on the Continent, while Pip becomes his brother-in-law Joe Gargery's blacksmith apprentice. One day a lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, arrives at Joe's shop, announcing that an anonymous benefactor has provided Pip with a generous allowance. The conditions require Pip to move to London and become a gentleman. Assuming Miss Havisham his provider, Pip visits her to find Estella returned from overseas and more disdainful than ever.

After years pass, gentrified Pip gets himself into financial debt in London. Convict Magwitch returns from New South Wales a wealthy, self-made man and, to Pip's horror, reveals himself to be the mysterious longstanding benefactor. With a warrant out for Magwitch's arrest in England, he risks being captured and hanged. Pip and his friends Herbert Pocket and Startop hatch a plan for Magwitch to flee by boat. Pip also now discovers that Estella is Magwitch's natural daughter with Jaggers's housemaid, Molly, whom Jaggers had defended in a murder charge. Jaggers had then assigned Estella to Miss Havisham for adoption.

Pip learns that Miss Havisham's eccentric matchmaking behaviour is driven by her desire to avenge men, that she has used Estella to break Pip's heart. After Pip confronts the old woman with this in a showdown, she accidentally sets herself alight. Pip rescues her from the flames but she dies, remorseful of her cruel machinations.

Caught escaping England, Magwitch is jailed and becomes gravely ill. Visiting, Pip informs him that Estella, his daughter, is alive, but Magwitch dies behind bars, narrowly escaping his scheduled hanging. On losing Magwitch's lavish allowance after his sudden death, Pip is no longer a gentleman.

Having taken ill himself, Pip faces arrest for debt. His widowed brother-in-law Joe arrives in London, nurses Pip back to health, pays off his debt and returns to Kent. Pip realises that in his selfish pursuit of romance and riches, he has neglected kindly Joe, now alone in the world. Ready to make amends and begin anew, Pip returns to Kent to propose to his childhood companion Biddy, only to find that she has just married Joe. Pip begs Joes forgiveness anyway, and receives it. Promising to repay Joe's money and kindness, Pip moves to Egypt to live with Herbert and his wife, working as a clerk.

On another homecoming eleven years later, Pip revisits the ruins of Miss Havisham's house, where he finds the now widowed Estella, who had been harshly ill-treated by her husband, Bentley Drummle. She asks Pip's forgiveness for her past treatment of him, declaring that misfortune has changed her for the better. Taking Estella's hand, Pip leaves the old Havisham house, foreseeing 'no shadow of another parting from her.'

These characters seem deeper and more dynamic than the more widely satirical ones of Dickens' other works in a denser, more concise telling. The title refers to the 'Great Expectations' Pip holds of coming into his wealth and his elevation from bumpkin to gentleman. 'Expectations' refers to its Victorian definition, 'a legacy to come'. This title infers that wealth versus poverty is a significant theme, while others include social class, empire and ambition, love and rejection, homecoming, crime and the power of good over evil. Pip has great ambition yet fights guilt over various things almost throughout the book. The plot explores the social strata of Georgian England.

Of the numerous screen adaptations, many have been widely disappointing, the one notable exception being director David Lean's brilliant 1946 version, starring John Mills as Pip, Bernard Miles as Joe, Alec Guinness as Herbert, Finlay Currie as Magwitch, Martita Hunt as Miss Havisham, Anthony Wager as Young Pip, Jean Simmons as Young Estella and Valerie Hobson as the adult Estella.

Masterful storytelling with haunting eccentrics like the frail and embittered, but generous, Miss Havisham, never leaving her house since that fateful day at the altar, inhabiting a shadowy, unlit world of cobwebs and mice. The cold and beautiful Estella, who our hero falls for, is someone we hope will come to her senses about him. Pip's bossy sister and big-hearted brother-in-law, their extended family who come and go, somehow resonate powerfully even today.

The sounds and sights and smells of the story's many and varied scenes are remarkable.

Exquisite.