Philip Neilsen

Germany, offers much to admire. Apart from the many historical mon- uments, the bookshops alone - the range of titles they carry, the service they provide if what one wants is out of stock - are enough to drive one crazy. As a holiday-maker, however, as a visitor whose stay cannot be long, one is apt, in the excitement of exploration and discovery, or in rushing to the theatre or to this or that concert, to imagine cultural opportunities necessarily mean more here than at home. The fact, that one is experiencing the culture through the medium of a language acquired by study, inclines one to be impressed, easily pleased and optimistic. One tends, maybe, to construct and preserve in one's mind an image of city and society as charming and misleading as the Budden- brook facade. But what, one might ask, do the history and traditions of Luebeck mean to her stevedores, for example? How many teenagers in the city know who Thomas Mann was, or could truthfully say they read even one of his stories? And what of poetry, so little regarded in Australia, the concern, outside classroom and lecture theatre, seemingly of poets and pretenders only? Does it really engage more of the public's time and intelligence in North Germany than in North Queensland? The brevity of my stop-over in Luebeck does not permit me to answer such questions with authority. I can only report that on December 12, 1985, in the Zentrum on the corner of the Mengstrasse and An der Untertrave, a fascinating, totally committed performance of "Lyrisches Koerpertheater" was loudly applauded by an enthusiastic audience of ten.

PHILIP NEILSEN

WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS

AN INTERVIEW WITH PETER CAREY

PN: You once said: "It took me three novels to begin to know how to tell a story". PC: Well, I think that when I started writing, all of the books that I admired were like, for example, Beckett's novels. Admiration of Beckett's novels doesn't necessarily lead a young writer into thinking about a well-constructed story. They're just a conti- nuum of humorous despair or something. And similarly, I suppose, you can look at Kafka, which is somebody I like a lot. Never realising back then, that he was a comic genius. I didn't know anything then about ordinary story-telling - stories with beginnings and endings and everything. 66 PN: So, are you talking about getting the reader's interest, keeping them going, curiosity? PC: Yes, things like not boring people. There was a time when one would have thought of just telling a story as being almost reactionary. PN: What about the stories that Harry and his father tell in Bliss? PC: The first part of it I suppose is that Harry tells stories in this brainless way: he is like a transmitter, and he never even thinks about what they mean. There is a story he tells at Palm Avenue where everybody criticises him and he gets upset. And he is criticised really for not having any awareness of what it is he is talking about, so that's the first part. And I suppose what one feels at the end is that Harry's storytelling is done with some more knowledge of what the stories that he has been carrying mean. Secondly, he has found a social niche or role in that community. That is, an important part in that culture. Which is probably just a writer's wish-fulfilment, living in a community full of people who think making concrete tanks is more important than anything. Not that different to this wider society! PN: You also said, the last time I interviewed you - in 1980— that one of your great undiscovered talents was as a humourist, and that we'd see that in your new work, which turned out to be Bliss. But this satirical talent you discovered is even more evident in the new novel, Illywhacker. PC: Yes, I see that comment sometimes, because I look at that interview from time to time - and I think that when I first wrote, people would meet me, having read The Fat Man in History, and I didn't seem to be the kind of person that wrote those stories. And I suppose I found in Illywhacker probably a truer picture of my personality. I can still go on being sort of - bleak - but have a laugh as well. So, whenever people tell me that they have laughed a lot, when they've read the book, I feel really happy. PN: The theme in Illywhacker of American colonialism - which was certainly in Bliss as well - you've developed it further. Obviously people have got to pick that up. Do you want them to see that as a major theme? The pet shop theme? PC Whether it's American or English, that's one of the things it's about and it's where I started, and so you would have to say that was a very strong force. But, as the book develops you start to bring in other strands. I worry also sometimes, that the book will be read too much for its allegorical or even didactic element so, yes, it's all there and it is very important to me, obviously. 67 PN: Does Herbert Badgery, the central character of Illywhacker, believe his lies? PC Sometimes. If you look at the structure of the book, in a sense it starts in 1919 when Herbert picks up this snake to show off, and Phoebe says "What is it"? and he says "It's a pet". Abso- lute bulishit, but he wants the admiration of a woman so he will risk death to do it. PN: And he has to persist with that. PC: Yes, so the whole book builds on that until the very end. I'd like to think I'd planned that very clear line of development, because I wanted to end up with a pet shop, and I suppose it sounds more neatly planned to start with a pet. PN: I'd like to give you a chance to defend yourself - because I think you have come under unfair criticism from some critics. They don't seem to want to grant you the status of novelist yet. They want you back being a short story writer. The allegation is that these novels are short stories stitched together or that "within this novel is a great short story". PC: Well, that shits me, but also now, sensing not so much my own arrogance or my own worth, but just smelling out different opinions among people whom I want to listen to . . . (laughter) I think Illywhacker works and I think it is a thing of worth and I think a lot of people whose business is reading, don't know how to read. There are so many people, even people who enjoyed the book, who can't actually sense its architecture and yet they criticise. I don't mind that they can't sense it, but when they can't sense it and then criticise me because they can't see it - well, Ijust think they mightn't look silly this week but they will look silly sooner or later. PN: But I assume you read Peter Pierce's review in the National Times - he seemed to be more on the right track. PN: Peter Pierce was an interesting example, on the positive side, of what happens with reviewing in this country. There are aspects of the book that he thought, from his perspective were failures and that's fair enough, but he celebrated the book and he went into it with a generous spirit. And I think that separates him from some others. The other thing, is just bloody mean- minded. And it doesn't celebrate anything. So, one doesn't mind criticism of course, just the mean-mindedness, it's really pathetic. PN: But of course, these critics belong to a pretty conservative, formalist school. Ideologically they're predisposed to think a

68 novel that deals with political or economic issues is a bit dodgy - just a tract. For instance Adrian Mitchell's review showed he was uneasy with the historical sweep of Illywhacker, and that the book was suspect in terms of "organic unity", as he would see it. Perhaps the big test from a conservative critical perspective would be Leonie Kramer's opinion. PC: She was one of the judges in the Miles Franklin the year Bliss won. She came up and said "Congratulations, I'm Leonie Kra- mer and I think it is a great book." PN: Well, there's no equivocation there. While we're on the subject of criticism, I'd like to raise the issue of the women in your novels - for example, Bettina Joy in Bliss. It has been said that you're not aware of how horrible you make her in some ways. That she is physically repulsive. But you're not aware of that. They can see that you are trying hard to be fair, that there are basically feminist tendencies in the book, but . PC: It's a book about the women; I mean, Harry is a fool . . - and you notice this when you're looking at the film, also. Harry basically reacts to things that happen. It becomes more and more apparent that he is an extraordinarily passive character in many respects and it is the women that have the drive and the ideas. I like Bettina, she's a much more interesting character than Harry is and she has got more passion, more drive. She is all fucked up and she has got it all wrong, but he has got it all wrong too. Why is he nicer because he is more passive? The people who criticise Bettina, for the most part . - . that sort of thing John Tranter reviewing Bliss says - is that Carey is at his best when he has targets - targets such as ambitious women. Well I mean, John's a fine poet, but I thought that was quite a sexist comment. People are saying there is sexism in my des- cription of Bettina. I would think it would portray their own sexism, not mine, because if it was a male character, no-one would be saying. "Oh his targets are ambitious men". PN: But there is another argument: that you cheat Bettina of a victory. Because just when she comes good with her creativity and is given the chance to show what she can do, that's the stage when Harry is saying that creative advertising doesn't mean anything anymore. PC: I think Bettina's tragedy . . . so what does she want - more efficient advertising, this woman? Bettina is a human being who was mistaken about the political nature of the world and she bought the whole thing, box and dice. And she was cheated

69 because she bought the wrong thing. It's a complex matter —I'm not writing a pamphlet. People ask me, you know, do I identify with Harry Joy. Now how could I identify with such a fool? But I've been asked if I identified with some funny people. Like the narrator of War Crimes. You know, "Can you identify with him?" "Oh yeah. I really like burning people". PN: The end of Bliss - at Bog Onion Road - has been judged to be about the best piece of writing you have done. And incidentally, I think it can be argued that it is prepared for by the novel to that point. PC: I love praise. (laughter) PN: Was it difficult to write the last section, or did it come easily? It has the feeling of being written when things were flowing well. PC: Yes, it was written pretty quickly. And in much fewer drafts than the rest of the book. I was still finding out about honey then. I was still bashing down the road to talk to this bee- keeper. (Bliss was written near Yandina). Some people have found that they've liked Bliss until they got to that bit. I've always thought the reason they didn't like it was that it was a bit of an embarrassment to them and that it somehow reminded them of being young in 1968 and what we were like then and they think: "God, this bugger still believes in all this shit - I've grown out of that, I don't want to know about that". And other people felt that because this is lyrical and pastoral, it was in some way not intellectually rigorous, so it was a copout and they were embarrassed by that. But, the whole book stands or falls on that work. PN: It's hardly an over-idealised picture you create; people get blis- ters and it is hard work. PC: And there are evil fuckers around the place. There're guns and there is witchcraft going on . PN: It seems that it's not Eden at all. It's what you can make if you are prepared to put a lot of effort into it. PC: I always thought it should have been called . . . the title I really wanted was Waiting for the Barbarians, and that would have placed the ending in the right context and wouldn't have led to . . . well, Bliss sometimes has been misinterpreted. PN: You're being taken very seriously now as a writer but I think one of the problems you've had is you have been popular - and there seems to be suspicion among academics especially, that if

70 people buy a lot of your books and love reading your stuff, there has got to be something wrong with it. Your work must be similar to "Dallas" or something. PC: Yes, I know. Isn't that weird. It is a really horribly elitist position and I always aspire - I want to believe that it is possible to have a popular art that is good art. I'm a bloody long way from being there. I mean, selling 20,000 copies of Bliss or whatever it is, 25,000 copies in a population of 15 million, you're hardly yet a popular artist. But I believe in that possibil- ity. PN: Proportionately, though, per capita that's better sales than a "best seller" gets in Britain for example. PC: Well, they don't buy books there. I think that - to understand some of those things - do you know a historian called Miriam Dixson. The Real Matilda. A wonderful book - and by reading Miriam Dixson, by starting to look at this underclass as being part of our formative personality, then you understand people behaving like this. I mean, you're getting out of your place - you've got to be chopped off. PN: Illywhacker was received well. PC: Well, in England it sold well. So I thought it probably would do well here and I thought the knives would start to come out. Still there have been a lot of really generous people around too. PN: I think we're growing up a bit. Beginning to believe we really have world-class writers. Who are the sort of writers you like? Malouf? He would be widely recognised as the heir to Patrick White's crown. PC: I started to read David Malouf with Antipodes - Alison told me what a fine writer he was. It's a wonderful book. There's one story there called "The Empty Lunch-Tin" - I was very moved by it. PN: You said you wrote a lot of notes before Illywhacker. PC: Before everything. PN: So there is a definite structure you're following - but you leave yourself room to move within that. PC: It's more to do with ignorance. I write and write all these notes and such until I think "I know all about it now"; but I've got a really good analogy for the process of how I write which is it's like bushwalking across and up and down ridges. So it's all mapped out and you say "okay, I'm going to be here on that ridge and there on that ridge and then I'm going to be here" and

71 you know from your maps that there is a river there somewhere and a whole lot of other things. So you're all ready to start and you set off. Now, if you've ever gone bushwalking, you know what happens when you start getting into that - you start getting bloody lost. Things are down there that aren't as you thought. But no matter what, you always get up to that next point which is where you were intending to go. So it is ajourney like that. It's knowing exactly what you're doing, but also perhaps it's a discovery at the same time. No matter how much I think I know when I start, when I get into it I suddenly realise I don't know anything. PN: The same applies with Illywhacker. That must have been an enormous project for you to take on. PC: Well, because it's divided into three books, I made it easier for myself. I did one book at a time - one book and I got that right and then the next book and I got that right. So that makes it all manageable. But I really didn't know it was going to be such a huge book and I would have panicked a lot earlier if I had. PN: And you need all those notes. PC: Yes, and so all the time you are working you become like the most unprincipled sponge of anything, everywhere and you become very self-centred, I think. You can't watch a movie without thinking "Ah yes!". It doesn't mean you lift anything from the movie, but it's made you think about maybe even the way someone opens a door. You have to learn to see, to observe all the time. PN: You once said of your first book, The Fat Man in History that you expected your readers to recognise that your characters are "victims of a way of living, people who don't know they are trapped, or, if they do, don't know what to do abou,t it". Why is it that people aren't allowed to reach their potential? PC: We are alienated from each other, from ourselves, work, from our environment. We are denied access to information and given misinformation instead. We are raised within an author- itarian system and teach our children to look for leaders. PN: You seem more interested in the idea of social or collective responsibility than individualism. Is that a fair statement? PC: I don't think people are mindless or stupid and no matter how fucked around we are by the values of late capitalism, I still think there is some residual human decency in most of us. I find individualism a pain in the arse, a justification for our aliena- tion. I don't see that it is necessary to have a conflict between

72 the individual and society. I make very serious attempts to produce characters who are not alienated, but then I always feel a bit safer, a lot more confident, when I've made them a little obsessive, a mite neurotic, a smidgin more like me. As I become more fully realised as a human being, I think you can expect to see more life-affirming characters in my work. PN: So who do you show your work to? Is there anyone you can trust to read your work in early drafts? PC: I never used to. Ever. I'm married to Alison Summers and I think one of the great things about our relationship is that I can do that very easily, even when the writing is in its really vulner- able state. You want intelligence and sensitive support and the person who's reading it has got to be able to see all the things wrong with it, but they've ajso got to be smart enough, and have faith enough that these things are going to get fixed up later. Because the writing is at a stage where one could be totally destroyed. So that's real faith. She is the only person that I would ever consider doing that with.

KAY BROWN

THE PASS

My war service was spent on top of the ore-bearing Selwyn Ranges behind Cloncurry and Mount Isa, where my husband, BigJohnnie, was a gun miner who also carted ore to the railhead. His team included Reg Hallam, a hard-working, considerate man, who left me with one of my strangest memories. All around us in the area other men also mined lodes. Mostly partners of two or more mates gouged a "show". Two of these were Will Norman and Little Jimmy O'Shae. Jimmy was also judged a gun miner, Will - an ex-Melbourne gentlemanly fellow - bookish and very plea- sant to know in that less than literate terrain. I found their occasional company a balm and made no bones about my favouritism for Will.

* * * * * *

"Little Jimmy," said the Boss, my life partner, Big Johnnie, rever- ently holding a lump of ore and gazing enraptured at it, "is one fine miner."