JAMES JOYCE'S DUBLINERS- THE FIRST 8 STORIES

I AM really enjoying James Joyce's DUBLINERS at present. One story per bus ride, then re-reading at night at home. Various examples of living life in Dublin just after the turn of the century. Great insight into working class life. The first few stories deal with life as a young person, or adolescent, the others more about working life, and complications on love or marriage. All with something fascinating inside them, and usually daring and full of meaning, and lovely prose, and people trying to survive.




DUBLINERS



SISTERS-


A story of how the death of a priest- Father Flynn- takes hold of the imagination of a young boy. When he looks up at the window of the house he died in, the word PARALYSIS continually comes to his mind. The rest of the story takes place in the boy’s house where a small group gather to talk about the priest and his life. The boy is young and therefore silent, unassuming. It is a cloying, claustrophobic attitude. The word PARALYSIS comes to mind, and it reminds us that 1) Joyce found Dublin suffocating and not conducive to the development of a literary career, and 2) Joyce was wildly influenced in the early stages of his development as a writer by Ibsen- paralysis, suffocation, repression all important themes in Ibsen’s writing about Norwegian society.

AN ENCOUNTER-

Another childhood story, fairly unremarkable. The narrator and his imaginative friend wag school and cross the Liffey in a ferryboat in a planned sojourn to the Pigeon House. The ‘encounter’ referred to in the title occurs between the young narrator and an old man who is unthreatening but enthusiastic on the topic of whipping boys. The most interesting bits for me were the parts that foreshadowed Joyce’s need for exile- ‘But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad.’ Moreover, the young boy is keen to see if the sailors aboard a Norwegian vessel at the Dublin docks have green eyes. Norway was to become the source of a developing interest (Ibsen), and again it is interesting this thing about thinking abroad.

ARABY-

‘Araby’ apparently was the name of a bazaar that took place in Joyce’s time in Dublin to raise money for charity. The young male narrator of the story is extremely keen to go to the bazaar, but must wait for money from his father, which takes an interminably long time to arrive. It’s a fairly charming story that captures well the awkward adolescent sexual fascination of an older woman. The streets of Dublin are alive with passion: ‘We walked through the flaring streets , jostled by drunken men and bargaining women, amidst the curses of labourers, the shrill litanies of shop-boys…’. There is also a strange interior passion inside the boy:

‘Her name sprang to my lips at moments in strange prayers and praises which I myself did not understand. My eyes were often full of tears (I could not tell why) and at times a flood from my heart seemed to pour itself out into my bosom…my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires.’ What a great description of something that is so alien and troubling and intoxicating for a boy! Thus ends the trio of stories written from the point of view of boyhood.

EVELINE-

Another superior story, the first from an adult point of view (a woman) and probably more sophisticated than the preceding ones. It has one of the loveliest opening lines in Dubliners: ‘She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue.’ Even though this story is told from the point of view of ‘Eveline’, I was captured in the end by the pain felt by the male character, Frank, a sailor. He seems to love her deeply. It is doubtful Eveline loves Frank. She seems to simply want to escape her suffocating environment (suffocating Dublin again), especially her dependent father who disapproves of his daughter’s union. Nineteen year old Eveline thinks she is ready for a new life, for modernity, for a new place overseas. It’s only the idea of marriage that troubles her. In her naïve and inexperienced mind she thinks she needs saving, and romantically she thinks it is Frank who should be the one to ‘save her.’ But when it comes to the crunch, in the station at the ‘North Wall’, she can’t take the leap into the darkness. And poor Frank, who is sold on his ‘Evvy’, shouts out desperately to her as she passes beyond the barrier, but she doesn’t budge: ‘Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.’ Joyce will be in this position with Nora in a time not too far in the distance- this boat sojourn together into the unknown. I wonder if he contemplated Nora doing the same thing? Every man’s nightmare.


AFTER THE RACE-


It appears that this story may have originated as an exercise by Joyce after witnessing a real motor race through the streets of Dublin in 1903. There is probably some really interesting sub-text occurring here, nevertheless the story left me cold and I thought it was one of the weakest in the collection. There is some good, lively writing- ‘The cars came scudding in towards Dublin, running evenly like pellets in the groove…’. However, I didn’t find myself becoming terribly interested in the French drivers and their celebrations. I thought the great car race that begins in Clockwork Car Town in ‘You Funny Little Noddy’ (Enid Blyton) was much more interesting.

TWO GALLANTS-

This is a daring, absorbing story that sounds like it is straight out of Joyce’s adolescent days. Not surprisingly it ran into trouble with the censors in conservative Ireland. It is a completely charming story about two roguish youths named Lenehan and Corley, who attempt to have their way with a young housewife. There is plenty of slang, some of it risqué in nature- ‘I spotted a fine tart under Waterhouse’s clock’, and ‘she’s up to the dodge’, and ‘she’s on the turf now.’ It is the lively language and the great fun the two friends have in trying to dupe the woman that makes it a fun story to read. It also has an enigmatic ending involving the stealing of a ‘small gold coin.’ But the thing I like best about this story is the way it is so regional, so Dublin. It is something that the contemporary Dubliner, Colm Toibin, sometimes adopts, and that is the liberal use of place names and street names. In this story we have references to Rutland Square, Dorset Street, Pim’s (retail outlet), Dame Street, Waterhouse’s Clock, Baggot Street, Donnybrook, the South Circular, Earl Street, Trinity College, Nassau Street, Kildare Street, Stephen’s Green, Hume street, Merrion Street, Shelbourne Hotel, Duke’s Lawn, Grafton Street, Capel Street, City Hall, George’s street, Westmoreland Street, Egan’s (pub), Ely Street…’, the list goes on! And all in only a dozen pages! First of it all it tells us what a great walker Joyce was in his day. It tells us how well he knew his home city. How even in exile how much he thought about his home city (it never left him). And it makes you wonder if he was the first writer of Dublin to put these places on the map. He creates a great historic atmosphere, and makes you long to go there (again).


THE BOARDING HOUSE-

A story that has some basis in truth (as many of the stories do), loosely based on a Joyce family scandal. Mrs Mooney runs the boarding house, and as with many institutions like this, interesting things go on within its walls. See Roald Dahhl’s ‘The Landlady’, or M J Hyland’s chilling ‘This Is Now’ as good examples.

We aren’t talking murder here though, just good old fashioned pre-marital sex- in Ireland of all places, near the turn of the century.

Polly, we are told, is a ‘slim girl of nineteen.’ And she attracts lots of male attention. Her first job was as an office typist, but a ‘disreputable sheriff’s man’ notices her, and that puts paid to that. So Polly finds herself working in the boarding house with mum, doing housework. But that becomes problematic- you see, Polly is a ‘lively’ girl- she flirts with the young male boarders, and is probably lucky she doesn’t end up in one of the Magdalene Laundries.

Mrs Mooney knows the truth, but when she decides to intervene it comforts her to hold the line that (Mr Doran) has ‘taken advantage of Polly’s youth and inexperience.’ But there is a dead giveaway as Joyce tells us in lovely prose:

‘He remembered well, with the curious patient memory of the celibate, the first casual caresses her dress, her breath, her fingers, had given him. Then late one night as he was undressing for bed she had tapped at his door, timidly. She wanted to relight her candle at his for hers had been blown out by a gust. It was her bath night. She wore a loose open combing-jacket of printed flannel. Her white instep shone in the opening of her furry slippers and the blood glowed warmly behind her perfumed skin. From her hands and wrists too as she lit and steadied her candle a faint perfume arose.’

So she is a temptress! What would our feminists say of all this? Polly has seduced Mr Doran, now she is without honour, and teary, and Mrs Mooney has secured Mr Doran’s unhappy promise. Joyce ends his story in typical enigmatic style: ‘Then she remembered what she had been waiting for.’

A LITTLE CLOUD-

Quite interesting and quite charming, this story seems to take its life from Joyce’s friendship with a character (in every sense of the word) that he grew up with in Dublin called Gogarty, a man who it is said modelled his life on Oscar Wilde (in this story he is ‘Ignatius Gallaher’). Ignatius tells his unworldly friend, Little Chandler, about all the exotic delights of life abroad, in particular Paris. Under Gallaher’s influence, Little Chandler starts to see the restrictions of living in Dublin. Capel Street he describes as having ‘dull inelegance.’ According to Little Chandler, as the young Joyce always felt, ‘if you wanted to succeed you had to go away’ (which is the story of the literary life of Dublin, as Wilde, Beckett, et al would testify).

Gallaher is full of himself and is an awful snob. Dublin has become ‘dear dirty Dublin’ to him. Joyce has great fun at his expense- ‘I’ve been to the Moulin Rouge…I’ve been to all the bohemian cafes. Hot stuff!’ Even though Gallaher is back slumming it in Dublin, he calls out to the bar waiter ‘Here garcon, bring us to halves of malt whiskey, like a good fellow.’ (What French!). Of course it is inevitable that Gallaher knows about the ‘cocottes’, and that there’s ‘no woman like the Parisienne.’ Little Chandler, by contrast, on the topic of places visited, can only confess ‘I’ve been to the Isle of Man’(!). What’s more, Gallaher professes to be an expert on vices- Berlin wins the prize for being the most immoral city in Europe. At this stage he is starting to sound a bit like old Carl Luce from ‘Catcher in the Rye’, who impresses Holden with his knowledge of ‘flits.’

After his heightened experience with Gallaher, Little Chandler goes home to his depressing domesticity. His wife Annie is cross, and he is having doubts about his feelings for her, and there is a certain squalor that envelops him as he sits unhappily in the house. Even worse, the child starts crying then screaming when Little Chandler screams at him, and his wife becomes accusatory and snatches the child from him, leaving Little Chandler feeling helpless and morose, and useless all at the same time- ‘tears of remorse started to his eyes.’

It’s a depressing ending, but an excellent snapshot of a tawdry domestic existence, contrasted really well with Gallaher’s seemingly free and glamorous lifestyle. It irks Little Chandler, because he feels that Gallaher is his ‘inferior in birth and education’, yet he is the one who is ‘trapped for life.’

I have consulted D H Lawrence’s published CUP letters- all 8 volumes of them- and I can’t find any reference to Lawrence having read ‘Dubliners’, although he probably did. There is a passage that strikes me as very Lawrentian in its passion and grimness. It could easily fit into ‘Sons and Lovers’- you can just hear Mr and Mrs Morel:

‘The door was burst open and a young woman ran in, panting.

“What is it? What is it?” she cried.

The child, hearing its mother’s voice, broke out into a paroxysm of sobbing.

“It’s nothing, Annie…it’s nothing…” He began to cry…

She flung her parcels on the floor and snatched the child from him.

“What have you done to him?” she cried, glaring into his face.’

                             

                                                       

PREMATURE DEATHS

JAMES JOYCE AND D H LAWRENCE: A SERIES OF COMPARISONS


1. THE SEARCH FOR HEALTH

I FIND myself becoming intrigued by the life of James Joyce, burrowing deeply into a new book- JAMES JOYCE A BIOGRAPHY, by Gordon Bowker (Weidenfeld & Nicolson). I was at the local library the other day, intending to look, not borrow, as a new thick book from ‘Book Depository’ had just arrived in the mail. But here I was picking up the Joyce and re-discovering that he wrote puzzling novels, found fame in his lifetime, was married to Nora Barnacle and lived in exile. Without knowing too much more, I couldn’t resist taking it home, and here I am nearly finished just a few days later, enthralled with what I am reading.



D H Lawrence has lived with me inside my head for about twenty years now. Lawrence and Joyce never met- but I can’t help thinking of Lawrence the whole time I am reading this book. They were born roughly the same time, although Joyce lived a whole decade more. And there are interesting parallels.

Lawrence suffered a major affliction his whole working life that made writing difficult, especially for the last six or seven years until his death in 1930. This was tuberculosis and the constant search for an improvement to his health. As a result, towards the end, novels and stories were few and far between. A short walk would tire him out. He would spend most days sitting up in bed. Lawrence was always outwardly in denial about his tuberculosis. He often referred to ‘trouble with his bronchials’, or his ‘miserable bronchials, as if it were a passing thing. When he began spitting blood, and after one or two haemorrhages, the writing must have been on the wall. We know from reports that this was happening by 1924 when Lawrence and his wife were living in New Mexico, just after their Australian adventure. The following year, in Mexico City, Lawrence was formally diagnosed with tuberculosis, in one lung. When he returned to Europe he would keep other guests from hotels he stayed in awake with his nocturnal coughing.


The first time he nearly died was in 1901 with pneumonia, then again when he was a teacher when a young man in Croydon in 1911. Lawrence’s health would always be precarious, especially after the age 21. He is thought to have been born with a weak chest.

Joyce, similarly, struggled with a major impediment in the same period, beginning mainly it seems during the long gestation of Ulysees. It was his numerous eye afflictions with his left eye in particular, and sometimes his right. I lost count of the number of eye operations Joyce had, as well as the amount of references to eye troubles there were referenced in Bowker’s book. Words like atrophied retina, abnormal optic nerve, glaucoma, capsulotomy, episcleritis, scopolamine poisoning, conjunctivitis, calcified cataracts and traumatic iritis abound throughout. By the mid to late thirties Joyce was often using a magnifying glass to read his own work. This was coupled with serious stomach ulcers, and in the end badly damaged intestines which eventually killed him.

Lawrence lived for 45 years. He was very weak towards the end and was mostly writing shorter pieces of work, like poetry and reviews. Joyce lived considerably longer- until the age of 58- yet wrote very little of significance in the 10 years he outlasted Lawrence. He had started what would become Finnegan’s Wake by 1924, and this is what primarily absorbed him until his death in 1940. Some people believe Finnegan’s Wake was ultimately unreadable and a waste of time. If this is true, then in literary terms he may as well have ended his life the same time as Lawrence, or even before. But of course it would depend on who you talk to.

                                  

A true third person account of teaching in Nottinghamshire, mildly censored

George had been at the hellish school for three days now. The only pleasant thing about each school day was the lovely drive. Every morning he would depart from his Nottingham home at 8 o’clock and slip the Nick Cave cassette on in his car. The music was buoyant, with bold, pulsating rhythms: The music not only woke him up; it also seemed to instil in him some confidence, some Dutch courage he needed to just simply arrive at his destination. The drive was thirty minutes and the pretty roads wended their way through tiny villages, some with friendly post offices and proud little community churches. It was winter and the fields were green and usually wet with rain. Every day so far on the same bend he would see black birds all in a row alight from a wire fence. Relaxed and nodding with the music he would greet cows and sheep with a toot from his horn. School children from various district schools were always waiting by the side of one of the narrow roads, holding an umbrella and text messaging at the same time. He didn’t quite have the courage to toot them as well, although he always wanted to.



The lovely uplifting drive ended each day at the black, sombre school gates. The English co-ordinator this particular day smiled at him, grateful it seemed that he was back for the third day now. A silent understanding between them as if to say ‘we appreciate the fact that that you’re hanging in’. She was diminutive and  looked, George had told his wife, just like the malevolent dwarf in the Julie Christie film ‘Don’t Look Now’. As was the pattern so far there was very little chatter in the staff room. Tired mouths sipping coffee. Looks of resignation. Foot weary soldiers who know they are about to lose yet another battle.

George crept away to his form room and saw several students in the corridor leaning against furniture, talking loudly. Unlike other schools he’d taught in, he couldn’t find any art work or posters on the cream- coloured walls. A couple of empty glass display cabinets and a student’s yearly planner on the floor. As he arrived at Room 41 to place his key in the lock he noticed that for the second day running somebody had forced pencil shavings and bits of paper in the lock. It took several minutes to dig it all out. He wondered who had done this and why. What was the point? At least this time there wasn’t saliva on the door handle as well.
Time stretched inexorably towards 9 o’clock. The form meeting with the year 11’s passed without too much trouble. George even had some banter with a girl he called ‘Polly Page’ because she looked like Polly Page. ‘The calm before the storm’ he prophesied to himself. Soon, outside the door, the day’s first class announced itself with a loud thud against the wall, someone rummaging for last place with some obnoxious shouting and swearing.

This was a Year 10 English class that George spent some of the night worrying about. He hadn’t done any photocopying, yet he knew some of the students wouldn’t have their anthologies. They ‘filed in’ in an ugly mass. After setting some comprehension work that only about half the class had bothered listening to, George left them to it, interjecting now and then with an unassertive ‘Get back to your work!’ and ‘A bit quieter so we can all think!’

George knew this had little effect, and he now spent several minutes tuning into some conversations. He couldn’t believe his ears. Courtney and her friends were compiling a list of boys’ names and drawing bar graphs. Noise he could tolerate, however obscenity offended something deep in his consciousness. He lurched forward and yelled at the group and told them to continue with the set work. His voice, louder and more urgent this time, drew a few furtive glances in the first rows, and only amusement at the back.

Nevertheless this surprisingly settled things down somewhat. In a one- hour lesson, only half an hour remained. George contemplated asking for quiet to see, as a class together, whether or not they could co-operate enough to discuss the first answers. Then, suddenly, the mood of the classroom changed.
Courtney decided to yell a question at one of the girls she disliked near the back of the room. It was loud, insistent, and received a huge reaction. ‘Charlotte, is it true you….’ His temperament inflamed, George dealt with it quickly. ‘Ok, get out! I’m sick of your disgusting conversations. Your behaviour isn’t good enough for my room. Out now and shut the door after you!’

Courtney did go, arching her spine and walking haughtily towards the door. As she passed George she looked at him steadfastly and repeated a further obscenity. George simply uttered ‘charming’ and to his surprise there was no more than a snigger floating across the floor. It was clear that some sort of mutual moral code had been broken, and over twenty people at that moment agreed that Courtney had to go.
Only a few days here, and already George knew that things were done by telephone at this school. He rang the Deputy Head, Mr P, who had shown him around at the beginning of the week. ‘Yes, yes, I know Courtney, I’ll speak to her myself’.

In the ‘palatial’ surrounds of the staffroom George was delivered the sobering news from seasoned staff members: ‘Forget it. The girls at this school, and especially the pretty ones like Courtney, have Mr P wrapped around their little finger. She’ll say ‘now would I speak like that Mr P?’ and he’ll say ‘Well I hope not, Courtney, that doesn’t sound like you’, and she’ll say ‘Now Mr P you know I’m always a good little girl’ and he’ll say ‘Well I hope I don’t hear any more stories about you upsetting your teachers..’
In the circumstances George felt it might be better approaching the Head of Year 10. He didn’t want the little vixen in his class again without an apology. He told Mr P that this was his preferred option, and it was all sorted out, albeit rather haphazardly. “Oh, alright, I’ll take your class then, but I can only give you fifteen minutes!”

George met the Year 10 Head in rather unfortunate circumstances in the corridor near her office some twenty minutes later. “Are you the teacher that I’ve been told I’m having a meeting with period five? Well thanks very much, that’s my only spare for the entire day.”

Her office was, to put it simply, a mess. The school had in place a system in which teachers would make a report about student misconduct on either blue or pink forms: blue was for the more mild transgressions, and pink was used for more serious classroom breaches of discipline. George had filled in a pink form for the incident with Courtney earlier. There were a few blue forms scattered on top of the Head’s filing cabinet. For the pink forms, there was a large pile. George estimated about forty or fifty. Books about accounting and legal studies were lying on the dirty shagpile floor, and a spectacular poster advertising Cumbria was wrinkled and coming away from the wall. A cheap desktop calendar displayed ‘June 30’ which was a Friday about three months ago.

The Head, herself, was hardly a sight to inspire. Greasy hair. Tired, bulging eyes. A grimace as she got up to stand beside her desk. And a large mass of fat circling her waist making a wobbling ring. George would feel several emotions whilst he was inside the Head’s office. The first of these was pity.
“Take a look at me. What do you see?”
“Sorry?”
“I’m fat, aren’t I? Look at me. Do you think I’m happy in this job? Do you know how much work I’ve got to do? I won’t even get to have my lunch today. This job’s driving me crazy. Can you tell I’ve let everything go?”

George began to tell the Head she should resign, that it isn’t worth it, when Courtney knocked on the door.
The interview wasn’t going very well- Courtney had her back to George much of the time as the Head asked for assurances of better behaviour. These assurances were so pathetic that George decided he must be firm. He wanted Courtney to sign a statement stipulating that she would only talk in George’s room if she was asked to- by George. After all George ‘couldn’t be confident about what might come out of Courtney’s mouth’. Furthermore, if she broke this necessary rule, George would have no choice but to tell her she must leave.

It seemed that both The Head and Courtney were so anxious for this meeting to end that within a minute or two the form was signed and the meeting was over. As unsatisfactory as the meeting was, Courtney didn’t come to George’s class again after this. So in a sense there was a positive outcome. Not long after George received a blunt letter from Courtney’s mother telling him he was ‘spineless’, or words to that effect. For four more weeks George and Nick Cave made the trip every weekday morning and evening. Then it all came to an end when another window opened in Gloucestershire, which offered a much sunnier and all ‘round more pleasant vista.


                                                   

Why Is Life Worth Living?

‘Why is life worth living? That’s a very good question. There are certain things that make it worthwhile.’ So says Woody Allen in a typically self-indulgent- yet brilliant- scene in ‘Manhattan.’ So if Woody Allen can be self-indulgent, then I can, again. First here’s Woody Allen (as Isaac):


'Life is worth living because of Groucho Marx; Willie Mays; the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony; Louis Armstrong's recording of Potato-head Blues; Swedish movies; Sentimental Education by Flaubert; Marlon Brando; Frank Sinatra; those incredible apples and pears by Cézanne; the crabs at Sam Wo's; and, of course, Tracy's face.’

A nice selection, and I can see where he’s coming from. For what it’s worth here’s mine (leaving aside obvious family connections).

For me life is worth living because of ‘Van Morrison asking “Can you feel the silence?”, Colm Toibin’s prose, catharsis in the films of Mike Leigh, Shropshire and Yorkshire in England, running in the warm winter along the sands of the beach at Port Douglas, Vincent Van Gogh’s letters, the sweet tenderness in the short story ‘Snowdrops’ by Leslie Norris, the Villa Mirenda outside Florence, Kelmscott Manor, my collection of D H Lawrence books and dreams of living in the countryside surrounded by lambs, calves, ducks and border collies.

Saturday Reflections

I DREAD these public transport days on occasional weekends, especially train trips. I have never enjoyed train rides, probably connected to some hostile experiences at night on trains when I was younger. Sometimes it can be quite interesting though. Recently I had with me a National Geographic that contained an article about Amelia Earhart that was fascinating, and completely absorbed me until the train trundled slowly into Flinders St Station. I found out that she once travelled in her plane during a storm in which visibility was almost non-existent. It must have taken incredible bravery. They say she wasn’t the best pilot, male or female, of her time. But maybe she was the most ambitious and most courageous.


Last weekend the trip was in mid-afternoon from Preston to the city. I read the opening chapters of Alex Miller’s novel ‘Journey To The Stone Country.’ It didn’t grab me all that much but at least the time went quickly enough, so I must have been reasonably absorbed. I have read quite a bit of Alex Miller. I once wrote to him when he lived in Carlton about ‘Conditions of Faith’, his 2000 novel which is one of the best books I have ever read. I don’t like his other books nearly as much, although several are still very good. I am partly seduced by the Chartres Cathedral sections, where some of the significant action takes place. It is my favourite cathedral in the world. I love how you can see it on your approach for miles- how it totally dominates the town. How many lives have been directly influenced by it, whether involved in building it, maintaining it, working in it, or merely visiting it? There must be people who live in Chartres or its environs who visit it every day, and know all its intricacies. I find it fascinating that writers visit places (like film people looking for film locations) obsessively so they get to know the place intimately, in order to cover it faithfully in their stories. Much like Colm Toibin visited Henry James’ Lamb house many times for the relevant sections in The Master.’ Miller knew Chartres Cathedral well to write his novel.

The purpose of my trip to the city on Saturday was to meet Alex Miller, for the first time (oh, and to get him to sign some of my books). But first there was another train journey, this time to Glenferrie Station, to take me to a book launch at Hawthorn Readings, on Glenferrie Road. I didn’t feel like reading as much, so I observed this time. Sitting diagonally opposite me was a young couple, probably both about 18. They weren’t interesting per se, just really into each other and looking out the window, and pointing a lot as if it was the first time they had caught a train ride through the inner suburbs. He had pale skin and blonde hair, good looking in a classical Rupert Brooke private school style, a bit like the boy who is the object of interest in the film version of ‘Death In Venice.’ She was also blonde and tall and thin like Twiggy. Sitting opposite them was a middle aged man, probably mid-40’s, and he found them- her in particular- fascinating, to the point of rudeness. Even though he was sitting on the adjacent seat and in close proximity, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the young couple. I couldn’t stop looking at him for his brazenness and yet they didn’t appear to even notice him.

The book launch of the new novel, Autumn Laing, was very late. I used my time though. Alex Miller was alone more or less (I was a half hour early), and he looked just like he does on book dust jackets. He wore a yellowish/ green suit jacket and looked preoccupied, maybe a bit overwhelmed. He might be one of those writers who don’t really like being the centre of attention. I walked over, very nervous myself, thinking of that beautiful, beautiful writing. Hand extended, I said ‘I have been wanting to meet you for a long time.’ I received a blank expression. I then went on to tell him I have taught ‘Conditions Of Faith’ before, and explained a couple of the passages that students have written closely on, like Emily returning to the ‘boat hire lady’ for the first time since she was a child. Again, a blank expression, when a smile was what I was expecting. Worse, I then nervously said ‘Conditions Of Faith’ was my favourite book of his. As I said earlier, it was written in 2000. So if you think about it, I am more or less saying that his eight or nine subsequent novels aren’t as good. Whoops. I didn’t get far with Alex Miller, but to his credit I was bumbling along not making a lot of sense, and he was understandably preoccupied.

There was a good hour after that before his publisher from Allen & Unwin had something to say. I was surrounded by strangers but I went up and introduced myself to some people. There were people who live in Miller’s home town of Castlemaine who were friendly. One man didn’t seem to know his novels terribly well, but he has a coffee with him every Saturday morning so I guess that’s pretty good. Another man I soon discovered is the Head of Art at La Trobe, Bendigo. He has written several books- ‘coffee table books’ he described them- and he talked about the writing process, and that writers don’t make much from their books- it’s the prize money that makes money for you, if you are good enough. Finally, and it was interesting, drifting from person to person- a man who is head of www.materialthinking.com , a website I have looked at since and can’t make a lot of sense of. I was curious to meet him because he and his partner had earlier given Alex Miller a huge hug.

But the highlight was Stephanie Miller. I introduced myself and told her how lucky she is to have a book like Conditions of Faith dedicated to her. He showed her bits and pieces as he was writing it. The beautiful Sophie, from the convent in Chantilly, evidently is based on his mother. Stephanie Miller was kind enough to write down their address in Castlemaine on a piece of paper.

I felt light headed as I caught a train back to the city around tea time. Some of the Caulfield Cup crowd was on the train. I watched a group of about five people, all around sixteen, seventeen, all dressed immaculately in suits with expensive looking jewellery. What caught my eye was a Japanese boy, with flashy, flamboyant dyed blonde hair, very sculptured, wearing black boots, black suit, very sophisticated for his age, he could have been in the new film ‘Norwegian Wood.’ His friends or associates were a bit like him as well, and the whole atmosphere of the train was a bit Caulfield Cup like, if you know what I mean.

I was walking around the city for a good hour, killing time until an engagement, walking past an amusement game shop, one of those dirty, tacky ones in Bourke Street, when lo and behold! There inside I discovered the Japanese group from on the train. And what’s more, they were really into some stupid, simulated game, stamping their feet and carrying on, and suddenly these sophisticates looked like a bunch of kids. Very amusing. I really read them wrong.

This was a great day for great conversations. I wandered into a nondescript DVD shop. There on display were all the best foreign language titles you could ever wish for. Lots of Bergman, Bertolucci, whoever it was that made ‘A Short Film About Killing’, etc and lots of Russian titles. I bought ‘Moloch’, directed by Sokurov. I got into conversation with the owner, and discovered that he too has seen almost every Bergman film. We agreed that ‘Scenes From A Marriage’ was close to our favourite.

So the night more or less finished with meeting a special friend I haven’t seen for ages. We drank outside The Elephant & Wheelbarrow. We go back quite a long way, but we only talked about current things, not much about the past. It was a lovely way to finish off a highly stimulating day.

The train ride home was dull, but safe. I continued reading Alex Miller, with fresh eyes because at last I have met him.

Following is a letter I wrote to Alex Miller back in 2005, which he kindly replied to.




December 31 2005

Dear Alex,



I felt inspired to write you a quick letter after spending the afternoon yesterday totally ignoring the cricket and reading ‘Prochownik’s Dream’ instead. I received the book as a present and took it with me to my sister-in-law’s house. We are minding their home whilst they are on holidays- she has air-conditioning. The house is around the corner from Bridge Road- this unforeseen connection with your novel enhanced my enjoyment of it.

I teach Literature at a school near Melbourne. During the past three years I have taught Conditions of Faith as one of the texts- a hugely enjoyable experience for me and my students. I am especially drawn towards it because Chartres Cathedral is one of my favourite places in the world- I love making connections between novels and places I have seen. Another example of its type is Lincoln Cathedral and its importance in The Rainbow. We have had a lovely time with Conditions of Faith as I have said, my students amused by my attraction towards Sophie. I think that some of the best passages are those involving Sophie and Emily.

Now that my wife J is pregnant, this time the novel held more meaning for me, and I am pleased to say that J is far more sensible than Emily in these matters. And as far as I know there wasn’t any clandestine meeting with strangers in her case- perhaps I will learn otherwise when the baby is born in three weeks time!



Getting back to your newest novel, this held resonance for me as well. I mentioned that I read it here in Richmond, which is where I spend a lot of time because of family connections. There were a lot of references to Mount Macedon. This is where a close friend lived until they sold their house near Waterfalls Rd in 1998, and it is where the two of us first met in 1993, at The Mountain Inn. I also enjoyed the reference to Beverley Farmer. Do you know her? She is someone that I exchange emails with- we are both members of the D H Lawrence Society, and we share an interest in lots of writers and artists.

The two novels I have read of yours are both full of ideas, and both have left me asking lots of questions about life and of myself. I found it interesting that you have created two people who are so alike in lots of ways- I am referring here to Emily and Toni. They are both so driven by what interests them- research and painting- and their intensity means that there is a huge impact on their personal lives. Both Emily and Toni find it virtually impossible to chase their dream and be able to include and sustain their partner and their daughter. In both cases it seems their work and their dream are ultimately too important for them to compromise, even at the expense of their own family. It makes me think of all those writers and musicians and artists out there who don’t forsake their relationships, thereby compromising, and becoming mediocre as a result. Living alone and apart, like Vincent Van Gogh, means you can thrive in your work because your work has priority, and yet you miss out on other good things so much, too, as he acknowledges so much.

A great contrast in your two novels lies in the characters of Georges and Teresa. Both these people are frustrated and are scared to death that their respective marriage is going to collapse. They make little concessions of their own to try and ride out the time during their partner’s obsession. The way in which they deal with the ultimate collapse is so different. I am glad that you didn’t make Teresa passive, like Georges. It gave me an opportunity to see what you are like when you are writing about someone with anger and violence in them, and it was so melodramatic compared to Georges’ quiet acceptance of discovering that Emily is leaving him around the time of the jazz concert.

Well I am sweltering in the backyard in my little study/ bungalow surrounded by all my books and pictures and posters. I will finish now and say that I hope this letter has somehow reached you. Prochownik’s Dream will stay with me for a long time like Conditions of Faith has. I can see that Toni, like Emily, has great ambition and hope for his work, and that it goes beyond what his friend, Andy wants, and that is making lots of money.



I will finish with a couple of little questions-



a) Where can I get a book or a poster of Chartres Cathedral for my study?

b) Does The Red Hat really exist?

c) Have you spent time yourself in Mt Macedon and is ‘Plovers’ there?

If you get time to respond I would love to hear from you.



Yours, Darren Harrison

norwegian wood (not the song, or the book, but the film)

NORWEGIAN WOOD (dir: Tran Anh Hung), was long and good to look at but I didn't find it particularly engaging. The settings were beautiful- lots of wintry landscapes of snow and rain, beautifully lit interiors- and the actors were nice to look at- the male lead handsome and young with a soft face, a nice freckle on his nose- the young women beautiful as well with young faces and nice hair and lovely expressions. The dialogue was simple and easy to follow. The music was nice to listen to. I especially loved hearing the beautiful Doors song 'Indian Summer', even though it was suddenly cut off. One of the women sang 'Norwegian Wood' on a little guitar, and it was beautiful and simple, and of course 'The Beatles' did it as well at the end.



One of the women gets sick when her boyfriend kills himself. She moves to a retreat in the middle of a beautiful Japanese landscape. She ends up killing herself too, but not until about two hours into the film. The male lead kind of has to choose between this woman with all the psychological problems, and another beautiful young woman who is sort of is and sort of isn't available, so it's very difficult for him.

I kept thinking that Bergman would have done something much better with the script which meandered around and around and didn't go very far- possibly handicapped by the fact that it is based on a novel- and he would have had better dialogue (it was very vacuous at times), and he wouldn't have worried about the beautiful settings, because his script and actors would have been able to sustain something great without it. Maybe I'm getting old, but all the young people talking about erections and periods and so on didn't particularly interest me.

So I was glad when the film finally ended, even though everything about it was easy on the eye.

                                                                

On A Whim, A Letter To Pauline

Dear Pauline,


I hope all is well with you and Simon. It’s been almost ten years that I finished at Maidstone Girls’ Grammar School, and J finished at Maidstone Hospital. I’ve been thinking about England a lot, but no more than usual. I still miss it terribly and what a beautiful year J and I spent in Maidstone in 2001.

I still remember arriving at Bearsted Station in the pouring rain, then to be met by Simon. I felt a tingling excitement to be in England at last. It was getting late if I recall correctly, and in the morning I will never forget sitting in your conservatory, cradling the thick ‘villages of Britain’ book on my lap, searching hungrily for information about little Kent villages, noticing Leeds (which was close by),  and Edenbridge in particular.

I have such a fondness for little details about our stay that I will never forget. Playing games with your two beautiful cats on the stairs. Walking with gum boots in the expansive back yard  with grey skies overhead. Seeing Simon in his workshop and going to see films at the cinema in Maidstone. We were even going to the gym regularly then. And those great day visits to places like Chartwell and Sissinghurst, and Marden to see Caroline and the kids.

                                                        

And of course teaching at MGGS which has been the best year I have ever had as a teacher because the students were wonderful and the school was run in such a supportive, civilised fashion which you do not often experience.

It is early as I write and I woke this morning with the urge to get something down, because my dreams were filled with England last night. A lot of the time I was standing by a harbour or a beach in some undisclosed place that could have been Cornwall. I was alone and watching the dark waves crash violently, as in ‘Break, Break, Break’ by Alfred Tennyson. The sky was pale and my emotions were surging. I felt like the figure in ‘Monk By The Sea’ in the picture by Caspar David Friedrich.

                             


I hope we will all see each other again soon. Well before it becomes twenty years, at any rate.

Much love, DH XXX

Notes:

- Leeds, Kent is where Leeds Castle is. Van Morrison played a gig there about two months before we left.
- Edenbridge, Kent is where D H Lawrence used to visit not long after his marriage to Frieda. He stayed in a house called The Cearne, owned by his mentor Edward Garnett who played a big role in Lawrence's earliest publications and became an early editor.
- Chartwell, as in the principal home of Churchill and his wife from 1922.
- Sissinghurst, as in the fabulous garden and property owned by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicolson from 1930.
- 'Monk By The Sea', Caspar David Friedrich, 1809 (German Romanticism) - all about, it seems to me, how small we are in the vast Universe- just one tiny grain of sand.