The Search for Love and Truth in Shirley Hazzard's Writings

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'THE GOLDEN THREADI

THE SEARCH FOR LOVE AND TRUTH

IN

SHIRLEY HAZZARDIS WRITTNGS

Kathleen M. Twidale, B.À. (Hons. )

A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English, University of Adelaíde

February, 1988 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page No.

SUMMARY 1tt.

SlATE14ENTS v1.

ACKNOW LEDG E MENTS vttl.

CHAPTER I In troduc t ion I

CHAPTER II 'Candle of Understandíng' Some Light on Shirley Hazzard's Use of Language 24

CHAPTER ÏII The Short Stories 59

CHAPTER IV The Evening of the Hol iday 91

CHAPTER V The Bay of Noon 117

CHAPTER VI The Transit of Venus r52

CONCLUSION 19s

a Page No.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 199

NOTES 200

BIBLIOGRAPHY 2r6

l_t_ ITHE GOLDEN THREAD'

THE SEARCH FOR LOVE AND TRUTH IN SHTRLEY HAZZARD'S WRIT]NGS

SUMMARY

This thesis, as its title suggests, wil_1 examine the themes of l-ove and truth in shirley Hazzard's h¡ritings. rt will be argued that aJ-though she views her characters with ironic detachment, presenting love and its effects with a clear-eyed l-ack of sentimentaJ-ity, nevertheless, shirley Hazzardts theme throughout her novels and short stories is that the ability to l-ove is of immense importance in the life of her characters. Though l-ove itsel-f may be transient, through the powers of memory its effects are permanent. Those that have loved 'must always be different'and in, that senser'1ove is eternal'for shirley Hazzard's heroines. The different attitudes of Shirley Hazzard's male and female characters to rove is also investigated and it will be argued that, with few exceptions, l-ove to the men is'but a thing apartr; to the vüomen 'who1e existencef . In this emphasis, Shirley Hazzard refLects the ethos of the period in which her short stories and novels are set and the expectations of her heroines. An important influence on such expectations i s the conditioning of the romantic tradition which is expJ-ored by Shirley Hazzard through her charactersr reactions to literature and art. It will be argued that through Sophie, in The Evening of the Holiduy, and Christian ThraIe, in The Transit of Venus,

l_1r_ ShirJ-ey Hazzard shows different responses to literature and its ef fect on 1i fe. Sophie conducts her l-ove af f air with Tancredi according to her o\^¡n prescription for an ideal- romantic 1ove, short-1ived, but 'a thing of beauty' forever in her memory. Christian's'love affair'is even more short-1ived, but lacking in authenticity, since Christian is an extrinsic romantic, perverting the truths of the poets. Às well as examining Shirley Hazzardts penetrating view of love and its effects, this thesis will explore the theme of the search for a spiritual home in Shirley Hazzard's writings' especially in rel-ation to her heroines. Love is equated with place and therefore the divided loyalties of her heroines are of importance. The concern for authenticity which Shirley Hazzard expresses in her non-fiction writings informs her fictional works as well-. It is for this reason that one of her major concerns is the misuse of Ianguage, its manipulation for ulterior motives. Her arguments in Defeat of an ldeal for truth to the ideal-s of the United Nations Organization iharter are apparent in the f ictional- version of her experiences with that Organization in People in Glass Houses. They emerge, too, in The Transit of Venus in her depiction of bureaucracy and 'l-inguistic inhumanity'. One of the principal themes of The Trans i t of Venus is that Itruth has a life of its o\,ID', that it may be driven underground for a time but wí11, eventually, emerge. f n Defeat of an Ideal- Shirley Hazzard argues this same point, using the Dreyfus case as

1V. her example. But it is in The Transit of Venus Èhat both the theme of love and the theme of truth receive Èheir fullest and most complex expression. Shirley Hazzardrs moral vision, as depicted in her' writings, and her emphasis on the truth in dealing with oneself and with the world in general will be investigated in this thesis.

v STATEMENT

This Èhesis conÈains no material whích has been accepted f or t.he awa rd of any other degree or diploma in any other unÍversityi nor, to the best of my knowledge and bel ief , does i t contain any mat,erial previously published or wrÍtten by another person, except where due reference is made in the text or notes.

K. M. TWIDÀLE

v]-. I am willing to make this thesis available for Ioan and photocopying if it is accepted for the award of the degree.

v1l_ ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge my gratitude to Emeritus professor John colmer and Dr. Robert sellick for the cIear, considered and constructive advice they have given during the preparatio^ of this thesis.

v111. CHAPTER I

TNTRODUCTION

fn this introductory chapter it is intended, first, to give a brief background to Shirley Hazzard's career; secondly to consider some of the aspects of her work dealt with by critics to date i Lhirdly, the aims of this particular thesis will be outlined. Born in Australia in 1931, Shirley Hazzatd rdas educated at eueenwood School, Sydney. In Ig47 she went to Hong Kong with her family when her father \¡¡as posted there as Australian Trade Commissioner. In Hong Kong she worked for a time in an office in the British Tntelliqence. She found there people to whom the inner world of literature and art were as relevant and important as to herself, an attitude which she had felt in the Australian society of the thirties and forties had placed her amongst the eccentric. After a sojourn in New Zeal-and, her father was posted to New York. Here, Shirley Hazzard has remained' She is married to biographer and critic, Francis Steegmuller, and they live in New York for part of each year, spending the rest of the year in ItalY. During her early years in New York, from 1952 to 196I, Shirley Hazzard worked in the Secretariat of the United Nations Orga nization - an experience which has provided her with a wealth of knowledge of the workings of bureaucracy and the world of men

1 in high places. The experience has found specifi c expression in two volumes: her critique of t he united Nations entitled Defeat of an Ideal- A Study of the SeIf-Destruction of the United Nation"l and in the fictional version of l-ife in that institution: Peo Ie in Glass Houses.2 At the time of the Suez crisis in 1956, ShirJ-ey Hazzard was posted to ftaly for a year.

This wa s to prove immenseJ-y important to her development a s a writer. In Italy she literally 'came to her sensesr. Two years after she went to l-ive in Ttaly, she began to htrite.3 Whilst stil1 working at the United Nations, Shirley Hazzard publi shed several short stories. f n the early sixties she \,vas encouraged by her publisher to devote herself entirely to writing professionall-y, and so left the Secretariat. Since then she has published many short stories in magazines such as The New Yorker. Some of these New Yorker stories, and one originally published in

MademoiselJ-e, were colf ected in a volume entitled Cliffs of Fall4 first published in 1963. People in Gl-ass Houses, a coflection of stories on the topic of bureaucratic life based, as already mentioned, on her experience at the United Nations, appeared in 1967. Two short novels, or novell-as, The Evening of the HoI iduy5 and The Bay of Noon6 first publ-ished in 1966 and Ig7O, respectively, \,vere followed in 1980 by a major novel, The Transit

of Venu=.7 The Bay of Noon \^/a s nom inated f or the US National Book Award and The Transit of Venus rdas winner of the 1980 US National Book Critics Circfe Award. ShirJ-ey Hazzardt s non-f iction writing includes book reviews and articles on literary criticismi an article entitled rLetter from Australia' published in The New Yorker in 1977¡ articles

2 which relate to her concern at the direction taken by the United Nations Organization; and Defeat of an Ideal, published in 1973. She has also broadcast a series of lectures for the ABC in the

Boye r Lecture SeriesB calling them Com ing of Age in Australia. These vùere published by the ABC in 19 85. Her theme f or this series was the changes in Australia in the years since she Ieft New South Wales wi th her f am ily, and the cul-tural growth of Austral-ia during those important years from what Hazzard sees as Australia's adofescence as a nation to its growth to adulthood and an acceptance of the responsibility of the tributary stream to the'mainstreamrof human culture. Tn this typically geographical metaphor Shirley Hazzard encapsulates many of the concerns wh ich occupy her both in the l-ectures, in her non- fiction writing, and in her fiction. One of the most consistent themes in her writing is a commitment to'the universal sense of existence... Ito the] stream of culture and know1edge....' 9 Critics have seen many themes and concerns in Hazzardrs work, from John Col-mer's emphasis on the vagaries of 1ove, the importance of language, and her ironic scrutiny of personal and social- behaviour, to Nina Baym's emphasis on the sel-f-reflexive artifice of her work, and also the importance of fate, discussed by Geoffrey Lehmann, Robert Towers and Delys Bird, among others. Robert Sellick has examined the theme of disl-ocation and displacement in modern societ.y - a theme Shirley Hazzard herself discusses in an article in the Australian LiterarY Studies journal-.10 Shirley Hazzard's work has received considerable critical

3 accl-aim, especially since I9B0 when she publ-ished The Transit of Venus. In Australia, the country of her birth and where she spent her formative years, and in the United States, where she has tived for over thirty years, as weIl as in Britain and elsewhere, reviews and critical articles have appeared in various journals and ne\^/spapers. Reception of her work has varied from readings which place her in the context of a European tradition which inctudes Hardy, George EIiot, Jane Austen, Henry James' Turgenev and Chekhovr âffiongst others, to those who, like Peter pierc"rll read the romantic love element in her narratives at a superficial level-, comparing her work to something equivalent to a 'Mi11s and Boon' potboiler. As Delys Bird points out, Peter Pierce, in his review of The Transit of Venus places'the text both in an institutionalised discourse of literary tradition and high culture'and'a social discourse of soap opera and popular culture', thus producing a split reading which is contradictory. Bird dismisses as 'sexistr Pierce's relegation of The Transit of Venus to a trivial genre asrthe best dressed women's magazíne fict ion of its yeur'.I2 For the most part ¡ ctiticism has been perceptive and has seen below the surface'dressing'of the romantic el-ement in Shirley Hazzatdt s stories. Although a few critics have, like Pierce, misunderstood the romantic element in Shirley Hazzardrs fiction, most have recognized the significance of love in Shirley Hazzardts fiction. Shirley Hazzard uses the conventions of romantic love not as an exposition of romance in its facile, popular aspect, but in its metaphoric rol-e as'standing to ordinary tife as poetry stands to

I 3 ordinary lang uag". '

4 Critics have praised Shirley Hazzard's craftsmanship, her 'literary sel-f-awareness'r14 her'highly stylised, mannered prose, with its excess of ordinary, observable detail'.15 John Colmer compares her'economy of means and perfection of phrase' to Maupassant or Flaubert.l6 others have paid tribute to her aphoristic style of writi.rglT and her allusiven"=".18 To Anne Tyler, Shirley Hazzardts language 'almost becomes a character in its o\4rn righ¡'.19 Her control, polished style and the emphasis on 'serious durable pleasure' have guaranteed that her work receives attention from discriminating critics, though she has nob yet perhaps been granted the fu11 stature she deserves amongst contemporary writers. In particular, her wit has been undervalued. Although Bron\¡ren Levy feels that critics have 'in general, failed to notice the centrality of the theme of history in Transit', suggesting that this might be due to the 'ambiguous way in which she lHazzardl presents political materiai-',20 in fact, several critics have mentioned the importance of history in Shirley Hazzard's fiction. For instance, John Colmer draws aLtention to this aspect when he comments that in The Transit of Venus'characters and events come to typify the main movements of post-war society throughout the worÌd, including the burning issues of the right use of scientific knowledge 1 Rob".t Sellick, too, stresses the historical background, the evocation of \^/ar, and the emphasis on the dichotomy of the different claims of love and war in his articl-e on di slocation and continu iLy.22 In his review of The Evening of the Holiday in that article, he

5 comments on the'carefuIJ.y placed and controlled images of war, that great cause of disruption and dispersal in thi s centul-y'.23 In comparing 'antipodean' and 'English' ways of thought and behaviour in The Transit of Venus, James Vüieland draws attention to Shirley Hazzard's comparison of the 'shrivell-ed chronicle'of Australian history and its deviation from an ideaJ-, traditional EngJ-ish model- -'the other authoritative world' - made a superior standard of reality and rightness by the education received by Caro and Grace Bell. 24 He percept ively trace s the theme of hlar in the novel 'through those "excrutiating songs", absurd and meaningless, Iwhich] echo through the novel providing a subtext to notions of success and 5 progress through \,,i ar'.2 1., f act, both The Bay of Noon and The Transit of Venus are concerned with the effects of displacement caused by the upheavals which are the resuft of war and which have had such an impact on contemporary history. A theme that has engaged the interest of many critics and which is of major importance to The Transit of Venus is that of fate and the ability or otherwise of Shirley Hazzatd's characters to exercise free wiIl. Nancy Dew Taylor looks at howrsetting, metaphor, symbol, alLusion and style all work together to emphasize preSentiment in the interests of the theme of fate'in The Transit of Venu=.26 Rainwater and Scheick, on the other hand, see a dialectic set up between fate, and freedom of human wilI t ot chance. TheY find that this opposition ends in uncertainty. 'The Pattern of The Transit of Venus reveaLs ICaro's and Ted's] fate, but it does so in terms of the dYnamic random principtes of chance and wil-1.'2'7 E.G. Moon, in

6 di scussing the forces which shape individual experience in Shirley Hazzard's fiction, sees her characters ínter-relating with circumstances and with the results of past actions' and suggests that she draws no firm conclusion that'life is round as a smooth ball', but that innovation can lead to change - to affirmation.2B However, it shouLd be remembered that in The Transit of Venus it is Ted's attempt at innovationr âD attempt to thwart fate, which led to Carors death. But, as Moon argues' rit is significant experience which maps out the territory for human be ings. Love a1one, experienced intensely, can truly fulf i1'29 and love's quality and intensity is more ímportant that its duratiqn its lasting effects. It is this aspect which wiIl be stresseC in this thesis. The quality and intensity of love its integrity, its totaf commitment - provides the 'affirmation' in the ending of The Transit of Venus. Commenting on Geoffrey Lehmann's articLe'The Novefs of Shirley Hazzard: An Af firmation of Venusr, Susan Moore takes issue with him when he argues that motives are more important than outcot".30 She maintains that, though ending on a note of affirmation, as Geoffrey Lehmann argues' the tragedy of The Transit of Venus is that 'Everybody in her l5azzard'sl universe is gravely fJ-awed, as is the love which dignifies and sustains each of the best of them.'31 Susan Moore looks at motives and the outcomes of actionS, for instance, Ted's tconscious independent actIs] of humanity'in the early part of the novel and his desertion of his family at the end, and finds the real- tragedy of the novel is this gap between intentions and

7 actuali ty, the inabil-ity of characters to recogníze their o\¡¡n flawed nature. She sees: actions in Miss Hazzard's fiction Ias] morally inseparable from intentions. Both are impure; both are the province of men and women; ABd both matter in themselves and in their complex rel-ation. " The tragedy of the novel is thatr âs in Greek drama, it is man's best intentions which often lead to his downfal1. One of the themes discussed in detail in this thesis is the importance in Shirley Hazzard's novel-s and short stories of love and its repercussions. It is a theme which has interested many critics. Nina Baym recognizes the importance Shirley Hazzard places on her charactersr capacity to love, and on the effects of the decay. of l-ove. She writes: In alI Hazzard's books ... the capacity of her characters for love not benevolence, or magnanimityt ot bourgeois cozlness, but the ravaging total attachment of the imagination to one person, with aIt the contradictions that such attachment implies is the crucial quality around which they are devèIoped and from which their stories derive.JJ In a review of shirley Hazzard's work written before the publication of The Transit of Venus, John CoImer discusses her ironic view of per.sonal relations, especially the relations of l-overs or ex-lovers. He compares her emphasis on the treatment of love, her 'poignant but clear-sighted exploration of the birth and decay of love, the loss of innocence, and the painful process of self-discovery through love' with the tradition of continental models, such as Chekhov and Turgenev.34 Geering¡ too, makes the comparison with Turgenev when he says of The Even i nq of the Holiday and The Bay of Noon that, although their plots in summary might be made to sound Iike 'the conventional \4toman noveli st's

B stories of romantic love set in historical, Picture-book Ttaly', in their tone and their ironic detachment they are cÌoser Lo, for instance, Turgenev 'in his eJ-egiac mood'.35 It wilI be argued in this thesis that the setting of these two novel-l-as, ftaly, is of intrinsic importance to the theme of romantic Iove, the importance of the humanist tradition in literature and art, and the effects of dislocation on modern society' In her analysis of Shirley Hazzatdrs treatment of romance' Nina Baym says of Sophie in The Evening of the Holiday that it is her serious commitment to'some august concept of romantic l-ove' which makes her hold out against Tancredi's advances'until he assumes the proper devotional- attitude'.36 This is, of course' a convention of chivalrous and romantic love a s depicted in literature since medieval- times. That Sophie also refuses to stay with Tancredi beyond the summer is interpreted by Nina Baym rto as consistent with this commitment to an ideal of romance: do otherwi se woul-d violate the conventíons of romance the conventions which have produced its intensity and significance.'37 In an otherwise sensitive and perceptive eval-uation of Shirley Hazzardrs writing, Nina Baym perhaps underestimates her ,a im' in writing People in Gl-ass Houses' seeing i ts mood as 'wry rather than somber, and the bureaucrats appearIing] more foolish than dangerous or evil'.38 Seen in the perspective of Shirley Hazzard's indictment of the United Nations in Defeat of an Ideal-' Peoole in Glass Houses becomes a witty, but at the same time serious, satire on what'Shirley Hazzard considers the perversion of truth and reason within that Organization. As John Cofmer

9 reminds uSr in her exposure of the 'de basement of language and the destructive contradictions of insti tutional life' within the united Nations, as depicted in People in Glass Houses, Shirley Hazzard shows how: great international- agencies for saving the undeveloped peoples of the world not only succeed in destroying them"þut involve the agents of good in a self-destroying process." Throughout aI1 Shirley Hazzard's \¡Jritings, fiction and non- fiction, there is an emphasis on language as an important access to truth. ln particular, in People in Glass Houses and The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard demonstrates therlinguistic inhumanity'which can result from the use of jargon. As will be argued Iater in this thesis, the problems presented in an ironic manner in Peopl-e in Glass Houses go rather further than the mere rLoss of a job',40 leading instead to loss of the very people who could perhaps have saved the organization. Recognizing Shirley Hazzard's interest in the misuse of language to maintain power, as explored in PeopIe in Glass Houses, John Colmer demonstrates this aspect of her work as seen again in IIg Transit of Venus, particularly in the characterízation of Christian Thrale and Mr. Leadbetter. He points out that: More thoroughly than most feminist writers Ishirley Hazzardf exposes the po\¡¡er structures and forms of language that maintaín male dominance, but she does this as a natural part of her ironic scrutiny qf personal relations and not to make propaganda for a cause.4l Where Thrale and Leadbetter uSe language as 'a means of maintaining male dominan Cê' ,42 tho"" such as Bekkus, in People in G1ass Houses, use it as a'disguise to cover their retreat from

10 realityla3 Shirley Hazzardt s own use of language the 'complex web of puor literary allusion the detightful virtuosity of the entire performance'44 which is the essence of her style is illustrated in particul-ar in People in G1ass Houses and The Transit of Venus. Nancy Dew Taylor draws attention to this aspect of Shirley Hazzard'S aphoristic style of writi.g, using as example the description of Caro and Gracers 'first encounter with calculated uselessness' when, ât the time of the switch from British to United States hegemony in Austialia, theyr âS schoolgirls, are confronted with the products of American invention 'the mother of neces=ity'.45 In drawing a comparison between Rex Ivory and Ram6n Tregelr and Robert Desnosr from whose poem, 'Le Dernier Poème', the epigraph to The Transit of Venus is taken, Nancy Dew Taylor also points to stylistic similarities between Desnosrand Shirley Hazzardts use of language: Similarities between his work and Hazzard's include the stripping of language to its bare bones, emphasizing its .,-,gge=tiSUpower ãnd the theme of defending memory against oblivion. The connection between the poem and Ted's 1ong, hopeless love for Caro is also made. Ted had for so long loved Caro's shadow that he had'Iost the image with picturing it' (TV' p.331). Robert Towers finds that the literary allusions in Hazzatdls writings are'linked with a cultural knowingness that becomes mannered.r He suggests that her habit of making her characters quote poetry to one another, or rswap aphorisms'tends towards a 'stiffening tofl the dialogue deftecting it into rather unproductive channel-s.'47 Tt is argued in this thesis that in

11 fact Shirley Hazzardts habit of allusion is meant not as a mere Itextual game'48 or a'cultural knowingness', but in order to add another dimension to her novels, to tap the deep vein of human experience which is part of the literary tradition. It al-so acts to underl- ine the important theme of the continuity and universal-ity of experience in Shirl-ey Hazzard's $¡riting, what Robert Sellick ca1Is rthe commitment to the commonalty that gives her work both its profound sensitivity and its enormous 49 streng¡¡,. ' Delys Bird sees these allusions as making The Transit of Venus 'a novel about other novelsi about writingr50 Nina Baym, too, recognizes Shirley Hazzard's interest ín the literaLure of the past, and suggests that the allusions draw attention to the author's literary setf-awareness. This signals to her reader that he/she must expect a sophi sticated use of 1 iterary straLegies and techniques. In reviewing The Transit of Venus Nina Baym explores the manner in which the author uses the conventions of l-ite Lary tradition and manipulates them so that the novel becomes 'a radical- experiment itself': Over time her work has increasingly become infused with textual- se 1 f-awarene s s and ha s increa sing 1y become a vindication of the traditional ì.iterary convictions which iL embodies. Literary art, her work impties, has always stood in a comptex and fragile relation to the worLd. It has always foilowed rules ót its o\¡rn, rules dif ferent f rom the ruLes of Ii fe ( i f, indeed, Ii fe has any rules) , and hence has netryer corresponded to life in a simple replicative se nse..- With The Transit of Venus, ShirJ.ey Hazzard shows'how traditional narrative, when weIl executed, is not in the least naive.'52 Besides the reviews and critical arLicles discussed in this chapter, there have been many other critics who have commented on

T2 Shirley Hazzard's total- works and on individual publications as they have appeared. Various readings of Shirley Hazzard have produced emphases on different aspects of her fiction, whether it be her style, her literary affiliations, her reception as a t\,/entieth century \Â/oman writer, the ef fects of dislocation on modern society seen in the resulting changes of ethos and emphases that time brings, or her themes of love and truth. This thesis, as its title suggests, will concentrate on the themes of Iove and truth. It will explore Shirley Hazzard's probing of personal relations and argue that through her

presentation of the particuLar and the individual- in fiction, a pattern emerges which hints at a more universal view of life, f.or instance, the different reactions of men and women to l-ove and to its dissolution. The close linké between love and a sense of pIace, and the dilemma presented by dislocation and divided Ioyalties wilI be examined as they relate to Shirley Hazzard's f iction. f t wil-1 be argued that'truth is a golden thread/seen here and there' that runs through all Shirley Hazzard's work, fictional and non-fictional53 and that the concerns which occupy her in her non-fictional- writing inform her fictional works. Shirley Hazzard says in Defeat of an ]deal-: rReason and justice are kept alive in mysterious \^/ays....' (Df , p.I27), and in that book she argues for an optimistic belief in the ability of truth to emerge with time, euoting the Dreyfus affair as her example (DI, p.I2B). fn stressing the importance of the courageous individuaf gesture in combating dishonesty and oppression, Shirley Hazzard proclaims her own faith in the future and in the

13 'vindications of posterityr (Dr, p.I29). The method adopted in presenting the thesis will be to devote a chapter to each fictional work or collection of stories. The onfy exception to this method will be Chapter Two which will deal specifically with language. Chapter Three deals with Shirley Hazzard's early work in the genre of the short story, with particular reference to CIiffs of Fall and Peo 1e in GIass

Houses. Chapter Four Iooks at The Evening o f the HoI iday, Chapter Five, The Bay of Noon, and Chapter Six, The Transit of Venus. A brief concluding section wil-1 draw these Iines of argument together to complete the thesis. Though not dealt with in a separate chapter, there wil-1 be frequent reference to ideas expressed in Defeat of an ldeal and the Boyer Lectures, because it is fett that, coming as they do in a less mediated form than Shirtey Hazzardts fiction, they provide a more direct access to the author's beliefs and preoccupations. Many of the concerns mooted in Defeat of an Ideal- find expression in her f iction, particularly, of course, in Peopl-e in Glass Houses. Since the use and abuse of language is of prime importance in Shirley Hazzardts writing, this aspect of her work is examined first. The discussion wilI be supported to a large extent by examples from People in Glass Houses, a book in which language is a centraf concern. Shirtey Hazzard's method of alerting the reader to authentic and inauthentic characters through their use of language, their blurring of the truth through the words they choose, is shown very cì-early in this collection of stories about bureaucratic 1ife. But the same strategies and techniques the

T4 author uses in this collection to show us the Lruth are afso present, perhaps less obviously, in her other stories. The manipulation of r¡¡omen in Iove by their men, or by people in positions of authority of those in their po\iùer are themes which occupy Shirley Hazzard in all her writings. Whether or not a character treats language with respect and sees it as a torch that lights the \^/ay to the truth, or as a tool to be manipulated for motives of self-interest, the use of language is a prime indicator of character in Shirley Hazzardrs short stories and novels. It is Shirley Hazzard's own respect for language and desire to find the right words Lo convey her vision of life that l-ed to the many draft versions of The Transit of Venus. It took seven years to complete, each page going through twenty to thirty drafts. As Shirley Hazzard says in interview: Language is the meaning. You want it to be as true as you can ma ke i t, and tha t ha s to do with the balance of sentences and the weight of sound' 54 Even silence plays its part in this rigorous approach to the truth. Just as in music the rests and pauses are equally as important to the final- score as the actuaL notes, so silence has a fundamental role in Shirley Hazzardts interpretation of life as expressed in her writings. In The Transit of Venus, Ted's silence, when he allows a prisoner-of-war to escape, and when he witnesses PauI Ivory's act of murder-by-omission, i s of basic importance to the structure of the noveI, as is Rex fvoryrs reticence, contrasted to Waddington's empty verbosity. It i s perhaps for this reason, because words on their own bear a heavy

15 burden, that Shirley Hazzard uses the resources of painting, the imagery of poetry, architecture, and the evocation of landscape, in order to reinforce the truth of her prose. She stresses that the visual content of her books is'quite conscious'.55 As Virginia WooIf said after seeing an exhibition of Walter Sickert's paintings, 'words are an impure medíum'.56 rh.y are, nevertheless, our principal means of conveying the truth of events. lrlilder âs usua1, points to the truism that the truth is never pure and rarely simple. But whilst allowing fot the subjectivity of each person's opinion, truth does reside in events, as Shirley Hazzard says in the Boyer Lectures (BL, p.49) and language provides our only common access to events which we have not personally experienced. Even an image of an event shown on a television screen, for instance, does not necessarily provide an unbiassed account, mediated as it is by political or artistic choices regarding what to include and what to omit, what angle to adoptr Such as those exercised by cameraman, editor, or producer. So that becauSe of the demands made of language, its deliberate corruption is seen by Shirley Hazzard as an assault on truth itself. The two major themes of love and truth - the truth of love and the importance of truth in our deaJ-ings with the world and with oursel-ves - are constant in a1I Shirley Hazzard's f iction. She deal-s wíth them at the individual level in the short stories and early novels, but the perspective widens with The Transit of Venus. Although insisting that she does not wish her books to rdecLare theories at the expense of character and the flow of eventsr, neVerthelessr âs Palmer SayS: ther elaboration on her

16 characters'behaviour inevitabty take one to the heart of fundamental moral issues'.57 Shirley Hazzard's charactersr ability to mature and to grov¡ in knowledge of. others and of themselves is directly related to their ability to love. Her stories show love in aIl its ambivalence, in all its different aspects its selfishness, and cruelty; its use to attain power over others; but also its more generous attributes: the self- discipline, the suffering, and the self-command which it imposes on those who love unselfishly. The abnegation of characters such aS Ted Tice, Rex Ivory and Angus Dance is set against the selfishness and carelessness of those such as Paul- Tvory' Christian Thrale and others. Characters in her novels are judged by their inner 1i fe, their truth to sel-ves and their ability to l-ove. Those who cannot love or are incapable of self-knowledge and growth, whose ruling passion is envy and a desire for safety at all costs or for facile success are satirized. Of especial interest to Shirley Hazzard is the transience of l-ove, that transience of which Leopardi writes, a poet whose work had immense significance to Shirley Hazzatd in her life; but afso, pâradoxical1y, she stresses its permanent effects through memory and through the changes it effects in those who have 1oved. In Shirley Hazzardrs stories, \4tomen usually continue to l-ove ¡ ot at least feel nostalgic regret, after an affair has ended when compared to the men, for whom other considerations take precedence. Shirley Hazzatdts heroines might welI sâY, with Anne EIliot, that men need not envy women's capacity for loving when all hope has gone.

T7 As weIl as romantic l-ove, Shirley Hazzard turns her ironic gaze on marital- Iove. Marriage, a character in one of her short stories suggests, is like democracy rit doesn't reaI1y work, but

it's a1l- we've been abl-e to come up with...'(CF, p.96). 'fn a devastating aside the author shows her insight into manners, comparable to Jane Austen at her most penetrating, when a young woman visiting her brother and sister-in-Law supposes they would discuss her when they were alone: 'Married couples always betrayed their friends that way probably for something to Sây, being so much togetherr(CF. p.141). The irony is turned on the observer when the reader discovers thatr âS an outsider, she has misunderstood the delicate balance of the private life of the married couple in question. Like the poets she 1oves, Shirley Hazzard uses metaphor as an access to truth. Her characters are like explorers searching for love and truth, only to find these abstract goals are not to be achieved in remote places. The geographical- metaphors used by Shirley Hazzard link place with the search for love. But, as Jenny in The Bay of Noon findsr love is sometimes closer to home. Frank lvloorhouse rem inds us: TraveI is not only about encounters with foreign ways or the trying-on of l^oreign styl-es it is an encounter with one's nationality.rõ A sense of belonging is defined by its opposite. Jenny herself eventualJ-y marries a compatriot, an Englishman. Sophie has 'someone at home who will miss herr when she returns to England from Ttaly after her Auntrs funeral-. As James Wie1and59 points out, Caror âr'ì antipodean, is, like Ted, an toutsider', and it is to him that she finally comes home after her experience of Iove

1B r,vith an'insider'r âñ establishment man, Paul Tvory, and her resurrection by the exotic Adam. Emotion itself is explained in geographical terms. Miranda, in 'In One's Own House' from CIiffs of Fal-], from the depths of her misery, describes her feelings in words which evoke the Iandscape: 'These onslaughts of his \,\¡ere like outcroppings of rock in the surface of her day' ...'these extremes of feeling only existed within the compass of her love' (CF, p.90). PIace, too, is of ten l-inked to character in Shirley Hazzardrs fiction as she shows in her contrast between Sophie and Tancredi's response to life and to the landscape. As will be discussed in Chapter Four, Sophie's seriousness and introverted questioning of love and its consequences is compared to Tancredirs easy acceptance of what Iife and love may bring. In order to show two ways of life, the coldly impersonal, materialistic, modern, and the values of a more traditional- civil-ization, o1d and new worfds are compared in the descriptions of Australia, Afterica, England and Ita1y. Tn her short story rOut of Itea' Shirley Hazzard suggests that ancient lands hold a 'legendary significance that seems to be not merely in the eye of the beholder but some knowledge possessed by the l-andscape itsetf'.60 rh" modern worl-d of people as things which fit into slots is evoked in Shirley Hazzard's descriptions of New York in The Transit of Venus, and of the United Nations buildinq in People in GIass Houses. The architecture in Shirley Hazzard's writings, like the settings, is part of her argument for humanism, where buildings, squares and cities are related to man

19 as an individual, not soulless, steril-e edif ices that dwarf the people who Live and work in them. In support of this argument, a scene in Peop1e in GIass Houses is invoked. Two of f icials, men from an ancient civíIízation, stare out of their office windows in the United Nations Organization, the 'Glasshouse' of the title, one on one f1oor, the other on the floor above. Each remembers his home and ponders the sense of alienation and futitity which his present surroundings induce (PGH, pp.116; 120). shirley'Hazzard's own af f iliation is to the European tradition. Like Katherine Mansfietd, she is heir to E,.rrope.6l Shirley Hazzard has said that she has no national feeling for Australia and is in fact anti-national-istic, distrusting the belligerence such patriotism sometimes induces. Nevertheless' her evocative description of the Sydney of her youth, and her democratic attitudes show the influence of her formative years. She might well say, with Christina Stead, that having spent her early years in Austral-ia she vraS'ful1y formed'by the time she left there.62 It is this early influence which al1ows Shirley Hazzard to present a detached view in The Transit of Venus of life in England and the United States through her main character, Caro, also an Australian. HoweVerr because of her Sense Of belonging to a wider community through her love of Iiterature' and because of her mobile existence as an adolescent, she clings to places she Ioves because she lacks the security of knowing there is al\¡Iays one place she came from-63 It is interesting, and perhaps not entirely irrelevant, to note that Sh irl-ey Ha zzard stilI Iives a divided 1i fe. Daughter

20 of a Scottish mother and an Australian father, an expatriate Australian, nou/ an American citizen, she spends half of her time in New York, symbol of modern anonymity and lack of continuity 'a phenomenon, rather than a civilization' (TV, p.205) - and half in Italy, the birthplace of humanism and the aesthetic centre of the Renaissance. The geographical background to Shirley Hazzard's 1i fe Australia, England, Afterica and ItaIy is evoked in her fiction and l-ends it authenticíty and a sense of solidity. The divided loyalties of Sophíe, half-Ital-ian and half- English; of Jenny, brought up in South Africa, but calling Engtand 'home' until she discovers Italy; of Caro, an Australian living in Engl-and, are all of importance in their search for a spiritual home through love. Sophie is spending a holiday in her mother's country of origin. She is in love with a man from a di f ferent culture and background to her o\^rn. Like Gianni in The Bay of Noon, Tancredi is separated from his wife and, in a Catholic society, divorce is not possible. Caro and Grace in the Transit of Venus are expatriates from Australia, becoming acguainted at first-hand with a culture which originally formed their ovin society and, in Carors case, literary tastes and intell-ectual- centre of gravity. Jenny, too, with her experience of a new country in the Southern Hemisphere, can Say on her return to England that it gave unlooked for pleasure to find rthe plants and seasons no\Á¡ corresponded to literature' (BN, P-24). When looked at in relation to each other, Shirley Hazzard's fictional- works reveal common themes and family likenesses.

2T There are certain similarities in the reactions of her heroines to fove, and also in their siLuation. One might say that they all recognize the importance of being earnest; aIl are serious, ardent and sincere. sophie, Jenny, Grace and caro, are all' displaced, aI1 involved at some time in a hopeless love into which they drift or are swept. Their uncertainty about where they belong affects their attitude to people and to Ii fe' The search for love and the search for place are inextricably linked in these stories, just as they are in The odyssey, which is invoked in the story of Jenny/PeneIope's transit. However, though di spJ-aced or attempting to reconcile divided loyalt ies, Shirley Hazzard,s heroines dor âs wieland points out,64 bring with them to the oId countries different expectations, different perspectives to those of the peopJ-e they find themselves amongst' It i s shirley Hazzard's appreciation of this response that justifies her descríption as an 'Australian author', for all her affinity with the European traditions. As she says of The rTt Transit of Venus in her interview with Jenny Palmer, matters for purposes of the novel that they ICaro and Grace] "do come she fresh f rom a neli/er world into an old one"'.65 caro too when marries an American, experiences a nevi/ country that developed differently from her own, and from different roots. l{any of the characters that recur in Peopl-e in GIass Houses are literally from their 'displaced persons" people who are permanent exiles home countries and who are endeavouring to f it into \4that is, in many waysr âo alien country, speaking an al-ien tongue. shirley Hazzard deals, both in her short Stories and her novels, with national 'the outsider', the person who does not'belong' to the

22 establishment - such as Caro and Ted. These, then, are some of the threads which link Shirley Hazzard's fictional writings and which wiIl be elaborated in the thesis. Shirley Hazzard's interest in the effects of love, her commitment to humanism whose end she fears may be near, and to the larger world of ideas and the continuity which the worlds of literature and art bring to the history of mankind, permeate all her fictional writings. When Algie voices the pleasure that reading brings him, the 'momentary sensation that the world had come right; that some instant of perfect harmony had been achieved by two minds meeting, possibly across centuries', he is, perhaps, sp€aking for his rmakert (PGH, pp.17-18). In discussing the themes of love and truth in the following chapters, a cLose textual analysis of Shírley Hazzard's writing is pursued with the object of demonstrating her treatment of the effects of l-ove on character and on perceptions of truth, the part language and rhetoric play in public and private negotiations, and the exposition of the theme whích is central to The Transit of Venus that'the truth has a life of its own'.

23 CHAPTER II

ICANDLE OF UNDERSTANDI NG'

SOI4E LIGHT ON SHIRLEY HÀZZARD' S USE OF LANGUAGE

There are several major themes which Shirley Hazzard pursues in her fictional writings. The search for Iove anC truth' desti.y, the importance of memory as a structuring device in shaping people's view of their life and themselves, divided loyalties, and the importance of place in establishing a sense of identity are some of these. Language, its use and abuse, is also explored in Shirley Hazzard's fictional and non-fictional writings. It is this aspect of her work which will be discussed in this chaPter. There is evidence from various non-fictional sources articles, interviewsr lectures, broadcasts - of the emphasis Hazzard places on language, its ability to communicate ideas and feelingsi conversely, its ability to withhold truth or deliberately to mislead. As Auden has pointed out: Writers have an odd rel-ation to the public because their medium, language, is not, like the paint of Lhe painter or the notes of the composerr reserved for their use but i s the cpmmon property of trte lingui stic group to which they belong.r In an artic Ie in The New York Times Book Review, Publ-i shed in November, Ig82, Shirley Hazzard herself writes: Articulation is central to human survivat and self- determination, not only in its commemorative and descriptive functions but in relieving the soul of incoherence. languager uDl-ike other arts, is a medium through which s/e aII dáa'l continual_Iy in daily life rn its preoccupations with the tobt of 1ife, language.has special respon=inilities. Its manipulation, and deviation from

24 true meaning, can be more influential than in the case of the other arts. And there are always nevt variations on o1d impos qure s, adaPted tot he special recePtivitY of the times.z ïn this same article, Hazzard comments that 'discursiveness can often be an index of falsehood' a theory which she demonstrates through the presentation of some of her fictional characters. She also suggests that by distorting language, by choosing the euphemistic alternative, the individual attempts to evade responsibility for his or her actions. These propensities are also illustrated through the characters in her fictional wriLings. shirley Hazzard expands on this question of the perversion of language which tends to distance cause from effect when' in the series of lectures entitted: coming of Age in Australia which she gave in the Boyer Lecture Series in 1984, she says: in historY, bY ourselves that 'the sociêtY', fate, ot some They are the desires. (BL, p.3B) shirley Hazzard sees this tendency to succumb to the povret or' abstract incantations aS conducive to defeatism and paSsivity' one of the lectures in a series shirley Hazzatd gave at princeton university in Ig82 entitled 'The Lonely Word' dealt specificatly with language its distortions, how it could be and was usedr ,to manipulate societies and to evade private truths"* As Orwell did before her, she sees the erosion of l-anguage and its detiberate perversion for potitical- ends as an insidious

*Personal communication.

25 trend to be opposed and vigorously resisted. shirley Hazzatd's weapon in her fight against such perversion is satire. The emphasis on the dangers of the use of Ianguage to 'manipulate societies' orwellrs 'Newspeakr - and its ability to demonstrate the faculty for 'evading private truthsr is present in much of Shirley Hazzard's writi.g, both fictional and non- fictionaÌ, but is particularly apparent in Peop1e in GIass Houses' This is a collection of stories about an organízation which has strong parallel-s with the United Nations Organization where Shirley Hazzard worked for ten years. fn People in Glass Houses, she presents in f ictional terms many of the problems h/hich she argues in her critique of the United Nations, Defeat of an Ïdeal, are at the root of the failure of that Organization, as she sees ir. Not the Ieast of the causes of this failure' in Shirley Hazzardts view, is the misuse of language its manipulation for purposes of povJer over others and to di sgui se or pervert the truth. In Defeat of an Ideal she speaks of this aspect of language whenr rêferring to the use of euphemism and jargon to gloss reality, she sayS: rThe worst danger is in the J-inguistic inhumanity' (Dr, p.193). She refe rs specificallY to a New York Times review of a documentarY film made on the United Nations. This report describes how: In one sequence the viewer Sees Nigerian soldiers clubbing Biafrans, ïf,if" in the ad hoc committee on periodic reports at Lhe on human rights-over Ithe viewer] hears a British delegate uN quibble the grammar of a document doomed to the ousinin. The UN nevJr found itself able to intervene or mediate in the Biafra holocaust. (DI, p'I92)

26 This is the sort of lunacy that Shirley Hazzatd ca1ls 'Acade m i sm over Life' (DI, p.193). Quoting Hugh Trevor-Roperrs warning on the ability of language to become, if perverted, a means of hypnosis or deceptíon, Shirtey Hazzard goes on to add: one may pick up almost any United Nations documenL and read an account of some UN enterprise from beginning to end \,/ithout ever discovering that these are actions or intentions emanating from diverse, fatlible human beings and having consequences for their likewise diverse and fallinfe fel-1ohts.... The polysyllabic jargon in which many UN papers are v¡ritten could reduce the most profound refÍectibnè to absurdity, if profound reflections were in the habit of appearing in their pages. The implications go far beyond the merely ridiculous. At best, they partake of the Oetusion that comment on human affairs is more 'professional' i f rendered in a series of sociological a-bstract ions having no conce ivabte refe rence to ind ividual 1ives. At worst, and more generally, they represent a dehumanizing, and in a deep sense, ifliterate form of modern 'official' expression of which world leaders have themsefves become indefatigable exponents. (DI, p.193) The dehuman izing aspect of J.anguage such as that used in these United Nations documents is a theme which Shirley Hazzatd pursues in her fictionaÌ works. Besides deliberate misuse of language, Shirley Hazzard exposes in her books woolly-mindedness and seÌf-deception which is the result of thinking and speaking in clichás and jargon. The dangers of language which divorces people from the realities of life are illustrated in a scene from the novel The Transit of Venus. In the scene in question, Câro Vail overhears a group of American television reporters discussing the politics of the duy, the late sixties, early seventies, a time of demonstrations against US involvement in the Vietnam Í,itar. The men discuss what could or could not, for political reasons, be shown on television ne\¡JS and documentary programmes. One of the men

27 refers to an incident at Cam Ne: tChrist, Wal-t. He's the one who told Íìêr you could f ind yourself shot in the back. That was Cam Nê, that wasnrt even My Lai, it was Cam Ne and I said where are these people, a whole to\¡¡n disappeared, where are the people. They been relocated, he said ( Iooking in his milk) they're in camps, been dispersed. It turned out the US army dídn't go in at all, it got handed over to the South Vietnamese, they had it on their list along with other hamlets that hadnrt paid their dues.... Waste them, that was the terminology' waste them.' (TV, p.259) This use of impersonal and euphemistic words, such as rrelocatel for people driven from their homes, or rwaste them', for people killedr h/âs broached earlier by George Orwell when he pointed to the dangers of what Shirley Hazzard calls'linguistic inhumanity' . Orwel-1 wrote: In our timer politicat speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible.... Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants dríven out into the countryside, the cattl-e machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bull-ets: this is cal-led acification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms an sent tru dg ing along the road with no more than they can carry: this is ca1led transfer of population or rectification of front iers. People are Trnpr-isoned f or years \¡¡ I t ut tr a i; or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arct ic l-umber camps: this is called elimination of unre L i able el-ements. Such phra seo fogy is needed if one wants to name things without call ing u p mental- pictures of them.' That the tendency in political language to deviousness and euphemism i s stil-1 with us and has in f act escalated since Orwell wrote those words in 1968r âs more and more sophisticated r¡vays are f ound of kil ling people, i s demonstrated by a book published in 1985: Language and th-e Nuclear Arms Debate: Nukespeak Today, êdited by Paul Chilton. The title is a direct reference to orwellts rNewspeak', which is described in the Fore word as 'language which makes other modes of thought

2B impossible'.4A Peter I,1osS, in a chapter entitled 'Rhetoric of Defence in the united states; language, myth and ideo109Y" applies rhetorical- analysis to some of the speeches delivered by Ronal-d Reagan, especially those selling the idea of manufacturing more and more nuclear hteapons in order to Stop the spread of more and more nuclear v¡eapons. The author Speci fically draws attention to the use of euphemismr âS well aS to the exploitation of powerful myths deeply embedded in the psyche of the American people, to make acceptable Reaganrs policies. the potency of the idea of the mythic Frontiersman of American pioneer days, with its emphasís on endurance' courage, and self-reliance, is, the author arguesr appropriated and used in a subliminal manner to persuade the nation of the need for hreapons of defence. Peter Moss identifies an overalt policy by the US Defense Department in the naming of nuclear and other military weapons which is meant to distract attention from their ultimate Purpose. He claims that: l4ost of the names Iof these any labour ing of the a establi shmentrs e fforts to less than it might or to swi and effect to more generali Examples of some of the'emotive'names chosen fot these weapons are: Jaguar' EagIe, Terrier, Tomcat, names which have connotations with nature; Blackhawk, Tomahawk, HawkêYê, with their overtones of frontier wars during the time of white settÌement of North America; and Trident, Titan and Poseidon' names with long-standing classical associations. Popular culture is exploited in referring to these instruments of death - for instance in the appropriation of the name of a series of

29 well-known science fiction films for the'Star Wars'project. Moss comments that: In the list of American hreapons a significant proportion have no connotations of lethal vi.olence and the classical all-usions (reserved for nuclear weapons) primarily connote positive strength rather than negative destruction.o

He suggests that Defense Department naming'policy'is a conscious effort on the part of the US Government in its defence strategy, and a rhetorical device intended to present persuasively the idea of nuclear and traditional weapons expans ion. Orwell and Moss are dealing with Governmental defence poLicy which presents inocuously what is in fact lethal or tragic. Shirley Hazzard in her fictional works deals in micro with what they do in macro terms. By presenting how bureaucracy effects the people who work within its climate of non-accountability and sometimes dishonesty, Shirley Hazzard humanizes the probì-em of linguistic manipulation. There are several ways in which Shirley Hazzard herself uses language in her ficLional works. Her use of literary allusion adds depth and meaning to the descriptive and narrative sections of her f iction, as wel-1 as allowing her to draw, as T.S. Eliot did for instance, on a pool of universal themes and their reverberations. She also uses language to delineate character through the dialogue she gives her creaLures. Their choice of words, verbal style and mannerisms, the habitual phrases used al-I act to build up a picture of Hazzard's fictional characters, and, in the satirical manner of Jane Austen, of their attitudes to Iife, and of the gap which often exists between how they see

30 themselves and how others see them. Many of Hazzardts stories especially her short stories are of the type Alice would approve: they consist of a good deal- of conversation. In this wây, the author can, if she wishes, keep her narrator in the background and al-Iow the characters to speak, and be judged, for themselves. Her particular exponents of the art of camouflage and smokescreen are bureaucrats such as Mr Bekkus in Peop1e in GIass Houses. He is a modern-day Mr Collins. George Orwel1 might have been describing Bekkus when he spoKe- of the enemy of clear language who 'turns instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, l-ike a cuttlefish squirting out ink'7. one of Bekkus' techniques to achieve his objectives and avoid accountability is to confuse his listener with convoluted statements which in essence are meaningless. Not only does what Shirley Hazzard's characters say sometimes inadvertently reveal their characters, but even more transparent is the choice of words in which they express themsel-ves. For instance, Ivlr. Bekkus, dictating a

l-e tter: tThe aim of the Organizationr' Mr Bekkus dictated, leaning back in hi s cha ir and cast ing up hi s eye s to the perforations of the sound-proof ceilitg; rThe aim of the Organ izationrr he repeated with emphasis, as though he were directing a f iring-squad and then, the '1ong-range aim', narrowing his eyes to this more distant target, 'is to ful ly utilize the resources of the staff and hopefully by the end of the fiscal year to have laid stress - ....' (PGH p.9) Mr Bekkus breaks off here, and the narrator continues: Mr Bekkus frequently misused the word 'hopefully'. He aLso made a point of saying 'locater instead of 'find', 'utiJ-ize', instead of 'use', and never lost an opportunity to indicate or communicate; and would slip in a 'basically' when he felt unsure of his ground.' (PGH p.9)

31 In this openíng passage to 'Nothing in Excess', the first story in the collection People in GIass Houses, Shirley Hazzard has established the character which she later el-aborates of the pompous, unimaginative Head of Personnel Department. fn a later scene Swoboda, a displaced person re-settled in the US, is hoping, after twenty years with the organization at the same rank, that 14r Bekkus will support his application for promotion. Bekkus asks him if he wants to'discuss certain factors of his situaLion?' The narrator comments that for Bekkusrpersonal matters come in situations, elements, factors' (PGHr p.63). The use of impersonal words in these sorts of conLexts not only protects Bekkus from acknowledging the inhumaníty of his approach to his underlings, but also subtly marginal-izes their problems. In the exchange which folloi^¡s, the narrator demonstrates the tactics Bekkus adopts, his use of readymade phrases ('those phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse'of Orwe1l's definition)B in order to disguise his intentions, which are not to support Swoboda's application for promotion since his work is too useful to Bekkus himself. In Bekkus' treatment of Swoboda, Shirley Hazzard demonstrates in fictional terms a situation she describes in Defeat of an Ideal, where able people are blocked from promotion because of their category a situation where labels have a definitely l-imiting effect in practical terms - whilst those bureaucrats of Bekkus' cal-ibre prosper. For instance, in the story'The Separation of Dinah Delbano'in People in Gl-ass Houses, Dinah is holding an appointment at the subsidiary leve1,

32 but doing a specialist job for which she wishes to be upgraded. Ludicrously, she is advised that the only way she can be promoted is to resign, since her twelve years in the subsidiary category not only do not count as experience with the OrganizaLion, but actually preclude her from advancement. This is a similar situation to that described in Defeat of an Ideal of Shirley Hazzard herself (DI, p.97). The subservient role of \4¡omen in the United Nations Organization, 'the outright discrimination against women in the Secretariat' (DI, p.104), the inferior accommodation, lack of possibilities for career advancement documented in Defeat of an Ideal are demonstrated fictionally in Peopte in Glass Houses through the various secretaries and assistants, such as Bekkus' Germaine, and Clelia Kingslake in rA Sense of Mission' (PGH). The fact that characters l-ike Bekkus thrive in an Organ izaLion such as the United Nations is particularly ironic and chil-1ing when one bears in mind the purpose for which the Organization was created. Mr Bekkus may believe that 'the aim of the Organízation is to fully utilize the resources of the staff...'(an aim which in actuality he seems determined to pervert), but that aim was principally to aid less fortunate human beings and to promote peace. In The Transit of Venus, Mr Leadbetterr ân Administrative Officer in a Government Department where Caro Bel1 works, has, like his brother bureauc:r.aL, Mr Bekkus, a v¡ay with words. He sets the boundaries and the rules of the linguistic exchanges between himself and his underlings, and invariably closes an interview with the comfortable conviction that he has'come out

33 on top'through his verbal skiI1. At the end of a discussion wíth Caro over the refusal of his secretãyy, Va1da, to prepare tea or procure sandwiches for him at lunchtimes - a stand made on a principJ-e whích Caro is trying to explain to him Mr Leadbetter accuses Caro of being 'highly defensive'. The narrator continues: Not raised to such figures of speech, Clive Leadbetter had hit on them in recent years. Sometimes he said 'highly defensive', sometimes 'highly aggressiver it amounted to the same thing. Similarly, would accuse: rAren't you a Iittle too positive?' or rRather too negative?' propositions interchangeable and unanswerable that had never failed to confound. He could not imagine what people meant when they sa id that language was in decl-ine. (TVr p.I92-3) Val-da herself he damns by writing in her file the comment that she'tended to be aggressive over trifles'. The narrator amplifies: "'Tended" was official code for goÍng the whole hog' (TV, 141). fn People in Glass Houses, the narrator acts as guide and int.erpreter, a role which is handl-ed differently more covertly and subtly in her other collection of short stories, Cliffs of Fal-l-. Shirley Hazzard shows how Mr Bekkus and Mr Leadbetter, both aware that the best line of defence is attack, use language that consists of well--worn phrases having litt1e of rat ional meaning and much of self-righteousness in their attempt to put an end to discussion. They use rhetoric in a manner which Shirley Hazzard fears is becoming more and more pervasive: as a means of 'confounding and silencingt, rather than convincing.* Language is a means of po$/er; truth is something not to be debated. It

*Personal- commun ication.

34 is irrelevant in the conduct of their negotiations with those with whom they live and work. In People in GIass Houses Shirley Hazzard illustrates how Ianguage can be used as a means of manipulation by the aggressive and ámbitious. In The Transit of Venus and The Bay of Noon, however, she shows how language can be controll-ed for different purposes. In The Transit of Venus, in order to keep'the upper hand' (TVr pp.134-5), PauI Ivory directs the dialogue in his negotiations with v¡omen: He was creating an exchange he might have had with tertia. Caro wondered i f he did this to r¡¡omen, made them talk in such a \4ray, in such a voice, with the double meanings that diminished meaning, stretching the tension-wire between man and woman to a taut, purposel-ess antagonism. Hi s banter gave an unearthly feeling that you were not hearing his true voice, and that it might not even exist. (TV, p.B9) As will- be discussed in the chapter on The Bay of Noon, however,

Justin, 'an exponent of the armrs length technique' (BN , p.7 4) , adopts a facetious tone in his dealings with Jenny in order to keep their relationship on an impersonal basis anC as a defence against invol-vement. By speaking in inverted commas when the conversation appears to be approaching the personal l-evel he expresses hímseIf in the words of others, rarely exposing his feelings directly. Jenny must accept the role of amused auditor allotted her in these charades, or she will appear pompous and lacking in humour. As many feminists have noted, a woman's offended reaction to what she feels is an insult from a man often elicits the response: 'Where's your sense of humour?'- a remark which allows the man to have it all v¡ays, by adding injury to insult as well as making him appear broadminded and tol-erant,

3s where he is neither. Shirley Hazzard's awareness of the political use of language extends to its more subtle manipulation at the personal level-.

Not only does Shirley Hazzard give her characters a particular type of language and diction to illustrate deviousness or hypocrisy, but a1so, with some characters, their resort to habitual- phrases and their manner of speech is illuminating. For instance, in a story from People in Glass House s cal- led I A Sense of Mission', a particularly belligerent army officer attached to the Organízation and based at Rhodes (who speaks with what a colleague calls a 'verbal- tic') matches the suppressed violence of his words with his actions: The Captain slapped his cap against his leg with annoyance. 'Emergency, bah. I've been in the Eastern Mediterranean five years. Seen nothing but a 1ot of so-ca11ed emergencies. Let them kil1 one another - best thing that couLd happen, what-have-you and so on. Or drop an atomic bomb on the Iot of them.r (PGH, p.139) On the subject of drivers, the Captain waxes lyrical-: rDonrt talk to me about drivers. Had a series of drivers in the Kashmir, biggest lot of clots, what-have-you and so on. Rented a vill-a therer â\¡rkward driveway, narrov¡ entrance between two concrete posts. Just room for the cart inch or two to spare. Made it a conditíon of keeping the drivers they had to go through without slowing down. One scratch and they were washed up, through, no reference.' The Captain laughed and crashed his mailed feet delightedì-y on the tiles below his desk. 'They snivelled at first, of course, but they needed their jobs and they made it their business to learn.' rDonrt talk to me about drivers. ' ( PGH, p.1 46 ) The Captain's clipped, truncated sentences give the impression of a machine gun being fired. His cruelty to those in his power in a country where unempJ-oyment might mean destitution is emphasized by the insensitive laughter, and the image of the crash of 'mailed feet', pr€sumably his hob-nailed army bootsr te1ls more

36 of his aggressiveness and prÍmitive outlook than could pages of description. Archetypes such as this belligerent Captain in'A Sense of MissÍon'and Jenny's violent Colonel in The Bay of Noon demonstrate the aggressive misogynistic element which Shirley Hazzard deplores in socíety. Several of Shirley Hazzardrs fictional- characters reveal their prejudices and other petty faults by their unconscious phrases. In The Bay of Noon, Jenny descriloes the members of Norahrs family as people who habitually preface censorious remarks with phrases Such as rI fail to underStand', rI cannot bring mysetf to overlook', or rTolerance is all very well up to a point...r, admissions which expose their ungenerous souIs, but also hint at a self-realiza|ion, a consciousness of what their attitudes ought to be. On the other hand, Norah herself' a sycophantic snob, has, in the narratorrs phrase:talways her unconscious uppermost - one has to dig deep to reach the conscious in Norah'. She is given to fashionable jargon: the words'identÍfy' and'communicatet figure largely in her vocabulary, and she can never speak of her husband and his sister r^rithout mentioning the word'sibling'. Some of her slogans have rubbed off onto her husband, who writes to Jennys rl'm something of a maSochist...r t ot rlrm in my manic phase...t. Jenny SeeS this mindless use of slogans and set phrases as a renunciation of, as she puts it: 'uniqueness for textbook anonymity'. Through Jenny, her narrator in II9 Bay. 9! Noon, Shirley Hazzard illustrates the pitfatls of the l-azy acceptance of ready-made phrases and cIich6s, the adoption of fashionable roles which

37 militate against personal integrity, and against the truth. When such roles are imposed on other people, their individuality is denied and they are reduced to manageable and manipulable

ca tegor ie s . By her choice of diction, Shirley Hazzard underlines not only the way in which the misuse of language can divorce people from reality, but also how it can serve as a means of establishing cliques those that speak a current jargon and those that are excluded because they are not'educated'in that jargon. In 'The Story of Miss Sadie Graine',in People in GIass Houses, the narrator makes a succinct comment on such specialized and excl-usive Ìanguage when describing the reaction of the Social and Anthropological Department to Ashmole-Brown's removal from staff. The SociaI and Anthropological Department, as a groupr had experienced a meaningful, rewarding, and fulIy integrated sense of release when Ashmole-Brown was shunted off to DALTO. (PGH, p.9 3 ) DALTO is another Department. The bathos of the word rshunted', with its down-to-earth Anglo-Saxon root, makes a joyous contrast to the pompous and stereotyped wording of the first part of the sentence, with its mock-jargon. As mentioned earlier, Shirley Hazzard sees such'professional'jargon aS illiterate and dehumanizing, placing its emphasis as it often does on sociological abstractions rather than people as individuals. In inventing suitable acronyms for the various Departments of her fictional Organization, Shirley Hazzard aims her shafts of wit again at self-importance. The Social and Anthropological Department becomes SAD. The Department of Services and

3B Administration and General Guidance: SAGG. Àppropriately, considering its insect-infested terrain, the survey of West African Trust Territories is referred to as SWATT. Presumably, the Department whose name the narrator suggests is itself a contradiction in terms, PolitícaI Settlements, would become, when abbreviated, a mere postscript to the work of the Organization. Shirley Hazzard makes a few succinct, but palpable, verbal hits at the illogicality of some of the OrganizaLion's aims when she creates a Department for the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Weapons, and a section on the Forceful fmplementation of Peace Treaties. George Orwell would no doubt have approved his successor in the war on fudging. In her use of satire in People in Glass Houses Shirley Hazzard is pointing to the discrepancies and bl-indness of those in po\4rer and, through her comic muse, showing the misuse of language and the self-deception which hides reality, aspects of truLh which are discussed in a different manner in Defeat of an Idea1. As she has said in interview, 'the sense of absurdity itself is an access to trutht.9 Many of Shirley Hazzard's characters are vehicl-es for her satirical wit. Her use of irony, reminiscent of Jane Austenrs, is apparent in a description of a dinner party which takes place in The Transit of Venus and at which severaf scientists and their wives, including Ted Tice and his new wife Margaret, are to meet an eminent physicist. For such occasionsr scientists' wives were trained in self- effacement - except for those who, scientists themselves, could put their own foot on the conversational hearth. Others like Margaret, might provide themselves with the sv¡eet excuse ('She paints'; rsher s musical'), but must expect to be ignored. (TV, p.2I4)

39 Like Muriel Sparkrl0 Shirley Hazzard bel-ieves that satire and ridicul-e are honourable weapons in the fight against oppression oppression at both the family and the social level, so that many of her people-in-power, the pompous, the self- righteous, the mean-minded and the inhumane, are targets for satire. But at the other end of the scale from the Mr Bekkuses are those characters who exemplify integrity, and especially integrity towards and respect for language. AIgie Wyatt who features in Peopl-e in Gl-ass Houses i s one such. An eccentric Englishman, AIqie is not fated to remain long on the staff because of his individuality and his irreverent a tt i tude to the work ing s of the Organ i-zaL ion. rHe and the OrganízaLion were incompatible and should never have been matedr, as the narrator puts it (PGH, p.15). Through A1gie, shirley Hazzatd is able to explore the resources of the oxymoronr and thereby make a number of satirical points at the expense of the Organization and its manner of operation. Algie collects lists of logical impossibilíties contradictions in terms. Tt is one of the perquisites of his job as a translator. Some of his favourite phrases are: 'military inteJ-ligence' , 'competent authorities', I soul of ef f iciency', reasy virtue', 'enlightened self-interest', 'Bankerst Trustr, and 'Christian Scientist'. Algie is de1íghted when, in the course of translating, he comes across a sentence which he feels sums up the work of the Organization: 'Listen to this', he says to Lidia, his colleague: 'Chap here got it in a nutshell: "fn the year under review assistance was rendered to sixty.differing countries"'. (PGH, p.22)

40 Algie al-so enjoys punsr appreciating their ambiguity and their ability to undermine the pomposity and authority of those in power in the Organization. He understands how they can unnerve those who wish to control language for their own ends. On his of fice hrall a cal-endar hangs, gift of a Japanese associate. It displays a picture of flowers, with the legend, rGorgeous bunch of blooming peonies'. In describing Algie Shirley Hazzard stresses his resistance to the process of subordination to which staff members were expected to submit: To A1gie, it seemed that he \^¡as constantly being asked to take Ieave of those senses of humour, proportion, and the ridiculous that he had carefully nurtured and refined throughout his life. He could not get used to giving' with a straight face, a continual account of himself; nor could he regard as valid a system of judging a personrs usefulness by the .extent of his passion for detail. He found himself in a world that required laborious explanation of matters whose very meani.g, in his view, depended on their being tacitly understood. His idiosyncrasy, his unpunctuality, his persistence in crediting his superiors with precisely that intuition they lacked and envied, were al-most as unwel-come at the OrganízaLion as they would have been in the commercial world. He was, in short, an exception: that very thing for which organizaLions make so l-itt1e allowance. (PGH, p.1 6 ) The fact that Algic was able to translate reports that in their original state were not noted for their'economy or felicity of phrase' into language that conveyed their message succinctly and unpretentiously would not save Algie f rom the sack - oY t as lvlr Bekkus euphemistically phrases it, in order Lo minimíze the effects of his implication in AIgie's dismissalr'compulsory retirementr. Before he goes, AIgie has an opportunity to explain his attitude to his friend, Jaspersen, himselfr regrettably, well on

4T the \4ray to becoming an Orwel-Iian machine. He says to Algie: 'You have, of course, exactl-y the sort of qualities the Organization canrt cope with. With the organization it has to be moderation in all things. Ì sometimes think we shouÌd put up in the main lobby that inscription the Greeks used in their temple 'Nothing in Excess'.' Jaspersen was pleased to have hit on this reconciliation of Algie's virtues with those of the Organ ization, for Algie hras generally a pushover for the Greeks. Al-gie replies: 'Nothing in excess' rBut one has to understand the meaning of excess. Why should it be taken, as it seems to be these days, to refer simply to self-indulgence or violence or enjoyment? Wasnrt it intended, donrt you think, to refer to all excesses - excess of peLtiness, or timorousness, or officiousness, of sententiousness, of censoriousness? Excess of stinginess of rancour? Excess of bores?' Algie has decided he has had an excess of all of these things, and leaves the rheart of adminístrative darkness' (DI, p.189), retiring to the South of Spain to pursue contradictions in terms in a neV¡ setting. By taking all-too-familiar phrases and sayings such as 'Nothing in Excessr to their 1ogícal or i11ogical conclusion, ShirJ-ey Hazzard makes us see them with fresh perceptions and they again provide access to the truth. Her technique of providing the shock of the same presented in a new setting is a very effective device. With time and overuse the original phrases have become stal-e and meaningless but, by extension, by transposition t ot modification, or by using them in unfamiliar contexts, they become powerful- images again. In Defeat of an Ideal, she refers to the United Nations Organization as arvast coop in which mul-titudinous chickens have come home to roostror a'deposit of ultimate pulverízation from the miIls of the gods'

42 (DI, p.135). Or again, a cÌiché may be altered slightly to provide the unexpected, such as 'rapt inattention' used in cliffs of Fall_ to describe one guest aL a cocktail party'listeningr to another (cF, p.7). A character in the same collection makes use of the phrase: ,Ics the least I could do'. Her son's unspoken response: 'And therefore you did it', places a new interpretation on this well-worn cliché. In The Transit Of venus, the narrator, after describing one of Dorars rages' quietly heralds the outbreak of World War II with the words: 'Into these hostilities came v/ar' (TV, P-42). In various \¡¡ays, Shirley Hazzatd in her writing draws attention to our habit of using common phrases without thinking of their repercussions. In The Transit of Venus, for instance' the narrator describes a young girl in a room fult of male bureaucrats as'China in a Bu11 Shop'. A vivid image is evoked by this familiar saying presented in an unfamiliar \4lay' Again' Christian Thrale in the same novel, a civil servant'ripe for rrising OrweIl-ianism' in ShirJ-ey Hazzardts own wordsll i= in his profession' (TV, p.227). The narrator, describing his progress'

comment s: Those peering into the cven of his career would repeat ,christian is "rising' as if he were a cake or 10af of bread' TheydidnotsaYr'Hewillgofat"whichwouldhave Suggestedtemperament'butfrom.timetotimeremarkedhis gráãu.I ascenî: 'Christian has risen'. (TV, p.22I) paradoxically, the narrat-orrs ironical- description of Christian rising has the effect of deflating him in the readers'eyes' christian is given to pompous statements which reveal his rI limited nature. He prefaces his remarks with phrases such as sha1l conf ine myself ...' or rI shal-1 refrain from "" ' phrases

43 which, as in the case quoted earlier from The Bay of Noon, usualJ-y precede some punitive remark, and expose a subconscious real- izaLion by the character himself of hiS o\,\¡n pettiness. Professor Thrale, Christianrs father, is self-important, self-centered, and smal-l-minded, like the son. Shirley Hazzard illustrates his snobbish rigidity through his thoughLs as well AS through his diction. An Englishman, Professor Thrale 1a embarrassed by the fact that his son proposes to marry a young woman from Australia: Australia required apologies, and !vas almost a subject for ribaldry. Australia could only have been mitigated by an unabashed fortune from its newl-y minted sources - sheep, sây, or sheep-dip. Ànd no fabled property of so many thousand acres or square miles, no lucky dip, attached itself Lo Grace. Sefton ThraIe would explain, 'Christian has got himself engaged' implying naive bungling 'to an Australian girl'. And with emphatic goodwill might add that Grace was a fine young woman and that he himsel-f was delighted,'Actually'. (TV, p.11). This passage works on two leveIs, showing Thrafers use of language and Hazzardt s irony. Of Ted Tice, a young idealistic scientist, come to work with him, Sefton Thra1e thinks: it \^/as downright fashionable these days to be a poor boy from a grimy tovun, a cl-ever boy who got himself - the phrase implying contrivance this time to a great university and made his impression there. Such persons went forward quickly, having nothing to relinquish. (TV, p.11) Shirley Hazzard shows through Thralers o\^¡n words the truth of his narrow, establishment prejudices. Thrale exercises the kind of sleight-of-mind philosophy of many of those officials who Shirley Hazzard describes in Defeat of an Ideal. The left side of his brain has no interest in what the right is thinking. Asked by Caro Be11 how he can exonera te hi s brother scientists of blame for their part in inventing

44 atomic breapons, he replies: 'We merely interpret the choices of mankind'. When Caro objects: rArenrt scientists also men, then? At the very least, responsible as their fellows?'- he closes the discussion \,¡ith his scarcely patient, paternalistic smiler'as íf to assure a child that it would understand, or not care, when it was older'(TV, p.57). Like those in high places in the United Nations Organization which ShírIey Hazzard describes fictionally in People in Glass Houses and factuall-y in Defeat of an Ideal, Sefton ThraIe has lost touch with his o\¡/n humanityr âS her metonymic description of him, an'eminence: a jutting crag on which a collar and tie, and spectacl-es had been accurately placed'(TV, p.10) and her metaphoric description, a'sagging, half-timbered house' (TV, p.I2) , make cIear. It is not only the male characters in Shirley Hazzardrs books who illustrate the use of manipulative or dishonest language. In The Transit of Venus, Dora personifies the self- appointed martyr who trades in moral- bLackmail-. OIder than her half-sisters, Caro and Grace 8e11, she is obliged to bring them up after their parentsrdeath. It is not clear from the text whether Dora r^ras stil-1 at Teachers'College when her father and stepmother died t ot whether she had withdra\^¡n earlier. The information comes in a passage which describes the chíldren's visit to the city on a tram:'Grace stood between her mother's knees', and Caro remembers they $¡ere'one and two halves, like the f are, and no Dora...r (TV, p.3 4). Always at odds with the worl-d, Dorars life-denying Iiturgy of complaint has its effect on the gir1s, making them withdraw from her hysterical emotionalism

45 one moment angrily tput-upon', the next, effusively affectionate. Dora's verbal weapons are the threat of suicide and the constant reminder of what she has given up for her duty to her sisters. Dora coul-d always die, so she said. t CAN ALWAYS DrE, as if this hrere a solution to which she might repeatedly resort. She told them that death was not the worst, as if she had had the opport un i ty of te sting. She sa id she could do a\tray with herself. Or could disappear. Who would care what woul-d it matter. They flung themselves on her in terror. Dora don't die, Dora don't disappear. No, she was adamant it was the only way. (TV, p. 0)

The girls' da ily 1i fe vra s accompanied by Dorars regular battles with the outside wor1d, which seemed to be the breath of life to her. The narrator lists: The time Dora stood up to the tax man, the time Dora took no nonsense from the minister. 'For once f spoke outr. Dora taking exceptionr uffibrage, or the huf f. Dora lashing out, Dora pitching into, Dora breaking down. Dora giving the dreaded news: rI had a good row'. A good cry, a good row, a good set-to. Dora was, furthermore, convinced that if she pressed on good intentions hard enough they would disclose their Iimitations; and in this, time after time, had proved herself right. (TV, p.40-1) Caro learns early that 'those who do not see themselves as victims accept the greater stressr (TV, p.3B). The privations and suffering which Caro herseLf endures in silence when she places herself in debt in order to help Dora after her marriage collapses are contrasted to Dorars response to calamity. Not all Shirley Hazzardts characters exemplify the misuse of language. Besides A1gie, another character in People in Glass Houses whose respect for Ianguage brings him into confl-ict with official life is the eccentric Ashmole-Brown. He has afso found a niche in one of the cubicles of pov¡er \4rithin the Organization which figures in this collection. In 'The Story of Miss Sadie

46 Graine', AshmoLe-Brown h as been labouring for years on a work whose aim he seems unabl e to convey to his colleagues or his superiors. H is opus t which he later calLs CandIe of Understandin : A Study in Technology and Humanísm adumbrates his doubts about the Organízation's htay of dealing with the less privileged countries of the worId, which it is meant to be heJ-pi.g, and suggests better \4tays. These doubts were later documented by Shirley Hazzard in Defeat of an Ideal. The title of Ashmole-Brown's book comes from the Apocrypha: rI shalI light a candle of understanding in thine heart, which shal- I not be put outr (E sdras 74t25) , and the narrator significantly stresses the humanism inherent in Ashmol-e-Brown's approach, and'the ingenious premise that there \^tas something to be learnt from the sum of human experience'(PGH, P.110). Although ironically presented, this emphasis on the past as a guide and an influence on the present, whether in general terms or in the development of an individual, is a basic premise of aIl Shirley Hazzard' s writing. Not only does 'truth have a life of its own'¡ âs is shown clearly in The Transit of Venus, but aS Ir4iss Sadie Graine, who initiates Ashmole-Brownrs removal, discovers, truth is the daughter of time. When Ashmole-Brown's contract comes up for renewal, his newly appointed Head of Department, Pylos, ât Miss Sadie Graine's instigation, decides the time has come for Ashmole-Brown and his report to be investigated. His file gives no obvious reason for getting rid of him; his hobby of linguistics seems innocuous enough. He has written a pamphlet entitled 'The Abuse of the Superlative in North America'. Even this hint of Ashmole-Brownrs

47 insistence on calling a spade a spade does not warn hís chief to tread carefully. Asked by Pylos what he thought of the probable usefulness of his present work, Ashmole-Brown replies: rIt is soundr'he said judicially. rYes, I would say - it ís sound. t 'Sound?' Pylos frowned. rNot more than sound?r 'No more yet no Iess. Sound sir. Sound is the word I should choose.' There \das silence while Ashmole-Brown politely declined to add another adjective. (PGH, Þ.97) There is a nice Johnsonian ring to Ashmole-Brownrs repIy. Perhaps its reverberations are a deliberate echo of the eighteenth century lexicographer's precision in language. Not impressed by this adjective, and even less by the muddle in which Ashmole-Brown works, Pylos does not renew his contract. Five years af ter Ashmole-Brov¡n's rterminationr, he comes back to haunt Pylos. His book Candl-e of Understanding, the finally completed opus on which he had been working whilst with the Organization, had been published in England to acclaim, and is about to be Iaunched in the United States. The book ans\^¡ers many of the questions which Pylos himself, in the course of his work of supervising assistance to undeveloped countries, has puzzled over. Pylos punishes himself by reading the book and finds that: Here were the contradictionswhich Pylos had failed to confront during hi s years w ith the less technically orienLed. Here were just such insights as Pylos would have wished to haver just such solutions as he would have wished to propose. It was undeniable: the book was masterly. But why Lhe devil- had the man not said his work was this important? 'soundr' he had saíd; Pylos could just see him saying it: rI should caIl it sound.' Did he not realíze that no one talked like that these days? One did not mini míze one's achievements, indeed, such dif f idence r¡¡as

4B open to damaging psychological interpretations. It wasnrt done. (PGH, p.111) In this particular story, Shirley Hazzard makes the point that because of a false system of values the Organization is unable to accommodate what it feels is an eccentric, someone who does not conform to what is done or not done, and what is said and oversaid, and thereby loses the talent which might make its work more fruitful. This is an argument pursued in Defeat of an tdea1.12 Elsewhere Shirley Hazzard again expresses her uneasiness at the use of the superlative which has the effect of devaluing language currency. fn describing l{r Bekkus' long-suffering clerk, Swoboda, the narrator stresses that he was not a brilliant man: 'He was a man of what used to be kno\trn as average and is now known as above-average intelligence' (PGH, p.59). Again, in an article which deals wi th contemporary literary criticism, entitled, ominously, 'À Jaded Muse', Shirley Hazzard comments on the vocabulary of some critics with its emphasis on such adjectives as'patrician' r'aristocraticr"exquisite' r'augustr, 'prestigious' r'gracioust, ttoweringt, and even tupper-cl-asst expressions which she suggests bring to mind feudal bondage. She goes on to say: The modest activities of coll-eagues are rashly pronounced 'majorr or 'brilliant'; and the very word 'sophisticated', at the best orfa times an uneasy adjective, has developed a parvenu rlng.-- There is an emphasis in Shirley Hazzardt s h/ritings on the right word in the right place not onJ-y for aesthetic reasons - but also for purposes of honest communication between people and in order that we can see the truth about ourselves and about what we

49 do. She makes us a\^Jare of how the easy, familiar word, used IiteraJ-1y unthinkingly, can blur the truth. When Christian in The Transit of Venus suggests that his mother, líving alone in a large house, would be better off in a home, Caro replies: 'She has a home. You mean an institutionr (TV, p.219). In the story'OfficiaI Life'in People in Glass Houses the Chief of one of the Departments, speaking to a colleague, congratulates himself on the Organization's ability to shape: the personal lives of our ov/n people right here in this building. Merging their cultures through their personal relationships; children adjusting to other environments, colleagues becoming personal friends. (PGH, p.I23) The fact that these words are based on a ludicrous verbal mísunderstanding adds to the comedy and irony of this scene. The Chief insists that, as he puts itr'the individual comes first...' (PGHr P. I4) , but Shirley Hazzard closely juxtaposes the apparentl-y humane sentiments of these comments with his official words which follow: 'I want a word withyou Some time about next year'S manning- tabIe. We're getting overloaded in certain grades. Not enough slots to go roundr. (PGH, p.I24) The contradiction between the complacency of the Chief who thinks he knows Something of'the personal lives of our own people', his emphasis on the 'individual', contrasts with the official approach to people as things which fit into slots; the use of impersonal terms which detach one from responsibility for other human beings. The scene demonstrates the truth behind Orwe11's analysis of 'euphemistic language' which substitutes ready-made phrases for thought and feeling. It is a further example of what Shirley Hazzard in Defeat of an Ideal calls 'Academism over

50 Life', as quoted earlier, (DI, p.193). In showing the gap between whaL her characters think they are and what their less guarded comments show them to be Shirley Hazzard uses J-anguage to define this discrepancy. In a larger sense, People in Gl-ass Houses demonstrates at a fictional leveL the discrepancies later documented in Defeat of an fdeal, where woolly-mindedness, lack of understanding of the problems of those people the United Nations Organization v¡as intended to help, one- upmanship and infighting at Headquarters, all militate against the proclaimed aim as outlined in the Charter. It is no accident that in'The Story of Miss Sadie Graine' one of the first acts of that officious, if efficient' secretary is to remove from her new Head of Department's desk the

Organ ízaLion' s Founding Constitutioir : Miss Graine dismissed Choudhury and Chai with a slight grimace which, while improper, contrasted flatteringly with her deferential attitude to Pylos. tThey mustnrt bother you with trivialitie s'. She took away the Organ ízaL ion's Founding Constitution. rI can mark passages for your attention if you wish.r (PGH' p.90) Again, Shirley Hazzard uses juxtaposition, this time of speech and action, to make her point. The reference to 'trivialities' and the act of removal which fol-lows infers that the Founding Constitutlon, with its emphasis on the purpose for whích the Organization was instituted, is irrelevant and triviaL. Day-to-

day of f icial Ii f e, of f ice poli tics and po\4Ier are what Miss Sadie Graine think s important, not the trivial pursuit of aid to

human i ty . A story in People in GIass Houses which, this time, demonstrates how the use of language can be important in the

51 supposed Success and SubSequent promotion of members of the Organization is 'The Meeting'. Those displaced people who Robert Sellick reminds us are of concern in much of Shirley Hazzard's writingrl4 such as Swoboda, literally 'displaced', and FIinders, a scientist more at home in the field, are disadvantaged because they do their work competently, but do not speak the language of those in power. Ir4any of the stories in People in Glass Houses are located at Headquarlers and are concerned with promotion and paper pushíng (that 'justification for many a redundant post on the manning- table', (DI, p.191) ), and with demonstrating the inequities between 'temporary and 'permanentr staff and 'geographical appointments' which Shirley Hazzard later elaborated in Defeat of an Ideal. 'The Meetingt shows the Organization in action in an undeveloped nation. In this story, two experts report to Headquarters on their work in the field. Flinders, a forester and conservationist, out of his element in the bureaucratic setting of Headquarters where he is to demonstrate his work in Africa, is disadvantaged because he does not speak the jargon of those that prosper officially. His alter egor Edrich' who does speak that language is able to impress his audience with his competence. He embodies the type of person who has become an Orwellian machine. The media he uses to demonstrate his project' his sophisticated film presentation, superficial language and jargon, all divorce, not only his audience, but also himself from the reality of life in the undeveloped country he is meant Lo be assisting

52 Though Edrich's presentation of his field work impresses the people at Headquarters, the narratorrs ironical description shows her sympathy for the Flinders' approach: his ídentification with the viJ-Iagers, attempt to learn their language, adopt their \^tay of 1ife, his ability to recognize each face in the slides (his old-fashioned method of presentation) which demonstrate the progress of the tree-planting project he supervised. All this compares favourably with Edrích's detachment, lack of humanity, and failure to learn the language of these people - which was, he says, 'a particularly corrupt dialect spoken in the region' (PGH, p.50) The work accomplished by Flinders is shown as constructive, i f un f lamboyan t. Tree s gro\4r slow Iy and those chosen f or the conservation plantations supervised by Flinders were the l-ess spectacular types which had proved good survivors in drought conditions. Nevertheless, the work, though modest, was important and, by reducing soil erosion, would aid the villagers' ability to feed themselves. The closely interwoven social structures built up over centuries, the happy children, women gossiping at the wet1, old men playing cards, aIl those things depicted in Edrich's film and destroyed by his project, htere not to be cl-umsily sr4rept aside in the interests of what outsiders deem progre ss. In contrast, Edrich's project involved destroying a way of 1ife, rearranging nature, diverting streams, even chopping down trees in an area under threat of erosion and, more sinistert building a road which would open up the viì-lage to índustry. As the f iIm rewound, in one of Shirley Hazzard's masterly imagest

53 Fl- inde rs : regretted that the course of events could not be similarly rewound. What of the \n¡omen at the welI, he wondered? What of the laughing child that somewhere on the machine spun back tÒ his former deplorable condition - and the flock of chickens now laying their eggs in electrified coops all through the night? What improvements were being inflicted on those static industries that had for centuries repeated themselves in the graceful jars about the well? (PGH, pp.50-1) The reader is reminded of doubts expressed by Pylos as to the nature of the'assistance'for good and i11 being rendered undeveloped countries - the pil1s with the atomic reactors (PGH, p.103) and Flinders'early impression of claustrophobia in the.room where the meeting took placer'the room was Iike an upholstered bomb-shel-ter' (PGH, p.51), has ominous overtones. In many v/ays Shirley Hazzard compares the Edrich approach unfavourably with Flinders' the showy presentaLion, brutally fast process of destruction of one way of life and the imposition of another, compared to the painstaking, long-term project which neither broke down family units in the interest of some nebulous preferred'community goals', nor sowed the seeds for the sorts of problems which the industrialized western countries suffer and cannot themselves solve. Shirley Hazzard uSes Edrich and Flinders as a metaphor for the good and bad that the Organization instigates. Rodríguez-OtHearnrS final comment'frm afraid we have suffered much erosion since classical times'of course has reverberations beyond the reference to a mere geomorphological problem. The doubts Shirley Hazzard has Pylos, Flinders and Ashmole-Brown express are given Support by a report, Africa in Crisis, which draws attention to the disaster which follows

s4 mistaken decisions by those that seek to aid undeveloped coun tr ie s : ...Africa in Crisis says mistaken aid programs, oppressive de t-repayment sc ô dules and short-sighted governments have led to an environmentally bankrupt continent. It calls for more direct local-ised help for small farmers. 'PeopIe in Africa have been used as a blue-print for mistaken plans' said Mr Jon Tinker, its editor and director of Earthscan, a United Nations-funded news service on development issues, which publ-ished the report. For the past twenty years, foreign aid has ignored the needs of peasant farmers, Mr Tinker told reporLers. rThe continent's attempts to modernise and develop have largely ignored the 75 p.c. of Àfricans who live on the landr' he said. Instead, deforestation, declining yields and so i1 e ros ion caused by overcultivatíon and \4rrong choices of crops, as well as an accelerating birth rate, have worsened the probIem.... The report, published also in Washington and Ottawa, gives examples of projects in Zimbabwe and Niger, where smaI1- scale localised aid concenþrating on subsistence farming has produced food surpluses.a) Flinders and Ashmole-Brown appear to be vindicaLed in this 1985 Report. A review of Peopl-e in G1ass Houses that appeared in the Times Literary Supplement speaks of: the deadening effect of a visit to the OrganízaLion building upon an afforestation man. But we cannot afford to forget that he has been working, Ln hqWever a botched-up way' for the benefit of humanity; ....'ro On the contrary: it is argued that, far from working in a rbotched-up way', FLinderst project, in contrast to Edrich's, is presented by Shirley Hazzard as exemplary. His presentation of that work at Headquarters may have beenrbotched-up'by Organization standards compared to Edrich's smooth performance' but the resul-ts of the conservation work supervised by Flinders,

55 its long-term benefits, and his identification with the people of the area to which he was sent are contrasted with Edrich's detachment and shallowness. Not the least of the subtleties of Shirley Hazzard's rendering of this serious problem of helping or destroying undevetoped countries is the role of language in helping or hindering understanding between people. Fl-inderd humanity, modesty and understatement link him with Ashmole-Brown's character and suggestions for helping technologically backward countries. The former was conscious of the gap between what was said in his lecture and what \¡¡as understood when'the one or two questions asked of him had, he felt' little to do with what he had said, and he thought this must be his fault'(PGH, P.55). The narrator is perhaps suggesting that to prosper in the Organization, Flinders needed to master the rparticularly corrupt dialect spoken in that region'. Edrich, the Organization man, presented his work in terms understood and approved by the staff at Headquarters. FIinders, on the other hand, felt excluded because he did not speak their language: He should have been able to address the meeting in its own language that language of ends and trends, of agenda and addãndã, of concrete measures in fluíd situations, which he had never set himself to master. At EI Attara they had needed help and he had done what he could, but he fouñO himself unable to speak with confídence about this work. He knew the problem of erosion to be immensei and the trees, being handed down in that way, had Iooked so few and so smal1. (PGH' p.55) fn all Shirley Hazzard's writings there is an appeal for humanity in our dealings with others and an emphasis on Lhe realization that language can be used to manipulate others,

56 deceive ourselves, and distort the truth. One of the themes which links the st.ories in People in Glass Houses is the abuse of language. As John Colmer has pointed out: In the Organization, words become a substitute for thought and action; their ab-r¡se a means of wielding po\4rer and evading t"=þo.,= ibility. 17 Shiva Naipaul stressed this same potentiality in language when, in a broadcast for ABC, he spoke of the dehumanization which results from the Westrs growing tendency to treat people as things - reducing them to indices - rather than as individuals.lB One of the ways he saw this tendency manife sted \^/as through language for instance, by the use of convenient labe1s to describe whole continents of people. Naipaul particularly referred to the blanket term 'Third World', which he suggested not only drew attention ahray from the fact that the so-call-ed 'Third World'\^Ias made up of people, but was misleading in other hrays. One example he quoted was of Tndia and Barbados, often included in the same category. As he pointed out, India is in many hrays an advanced State compared to Barbados. Pigeon-holing people in such limiting categories $¡as, Naipaul fe1t, dehumanizing, as well as inaccurate. Like Shirley Hazzatd he expresses his concern through his fictional writings. Lawrence Wel-1ein finds People in GIass Houses a disturbing book.19 It is meant to disLurb. Just as Wilde drew his audiences'attention to nehr \irays of looking at familiar ideas by means of paradox, Shirley Hazzard, by the uSe of inversions, incompatible juxtapositions and contradictory terms, by taking all-too-common sayings to their logical or i1logical conclusion

57 shocks and mocks the reader out of the 'cosy anaesthesia lofl pretentious jargon,20 and out of an acceptance of things as they are misrepresented in corrupted language. Her object is to draw aside the veil of bureaucratic and euphemistic language to show the truth: Astray in his conceptions, entangled in ygras, man loses the flair for truth, the taste for nature.

l

5B CHÀPTER III

THE SHORT STORTES

Introduction:

In this chapter, Shirley Hazzard's short stories will be discussed. Those examined wilI be stories that were published in magazínes such as The New Yorker later collected in the volumes Cliffs of Fall and People in Glass Houses; there will afso be reference to some of the uncollected short stories which are relevant to bhe themes discussed. The emphasis will be on the themes of love and truth. As well as the effects of love and different views of truth, Shirley Hazzard explores in her writings the importance of place in the formation of character and attitudes, the sense of belonging and of a unified self, and particularly the fragmentation caused by displacement and divided Ioyalties. These aspects of truth are pursued in some of the short stories and later expanded upon in the novels. As mentioned in the Introduction to this thesis, many of Hazzard's short stories \4tere f irst published in the The New Yorker magazine. Some aPPeared in McCaIls, I'lademoise1le and Meaniin. Cliffs of Fall- deals mainly with aspects of Iove. People in Glass Houses, afso discussed in the chapter on Language, stresses the effects of bureaucratic life on the people who spend their lives in public or civil service. ft is obviously much influenced by the writer's years spent working with the United Nations Org anization. Several short stories

59 which first appeared in The New Yorker later became chapters in the novel The Transit of Venus.* One of the constraints of short story writing is, of course, the limitation on length. Since short stories often deal with a brief but signifícant event whose ramifications must be implied rather than developed fuI1y, the author's approach must be economical. Events before the action of the short story must¡ âs in a play, be suggested as concisely and smoothly as possible. The reader must become acquainted with plot and character with the minimum of discursiveness and Laboured explanation. What is alIowable in introducing the characters in a noveL is not possible in a short story, where aÌlusiveness and brevity, rather than expansiveness, are the aim. fn her short stories, Shirley Hazzard demonstrates her ability to meet the demands of the genre. Val-erie Shaw compares the short story to the visual arts, suggesting that ít captures a'supreme moment of perception'.1 Whilst the novel is often discursive and examines cause and effect, Valerie Shaw stresses that the short story is more concerned with the visual moment and with a 'sense of the momentrs drama'.2 She makes the interesLing comment that: 'At every stage of its development the short story reveals affinities with the style of painting dominating the period in question. Shaw feels that Impressionism in pa inting has

*These \47ere: 'A Long Short Story', The New Yorker, 26 July 1976, pp.30-45; 'A Crush on Doctor Dancer, The New Yorker, 26 Sept. IÓ77, pp.36-54;'something You'I1 nemlem-bër-All'¡-æ, The New Yorker,- I7 Sept. Ig7g, pp.40-9; 'She Will make you Vert Ha ppy' , The New Yorker, 26 Nov. I979, p p.4 3- 5.

60 particular affinities with the short story form because the ef f ect is of 'something compJ-ete yet unf inished'.4 This 'sense of the momentrs drama' is one of the most telling qualities in Shirley Hazzard's short stories, but the technique is also appropriated to great effect in certain scenes in her novel-las and in The Transit of Venus. The'painterlyt style of writing, where a scene is sketched with the minimum of description, but where the sub-text provides a powerful image, either consolidating the main impression of the text or stressing ambiguities, is one of Hazzardts most distinctive and memorable attributeS as a writer. It i s a technique used in several stories, for instance, in The Evening of the HoIiday, where an allusion to Renoir's painting, rThe Upward Path', adds another dimension to the scene between Sophie and Tancredi as they visit his farm in Tuscany. By referring to the painting, the narrator makes use of associations and reverberations which add to the significance of the scene in the nove11a. Shirley Hazzard's f irst published works \À/ere short stories. Though she stresses the influence of poetry on her development as a writerr5 and this infl-uence is apparent in her prose' both in its nuances, rhythms and allusionsr wê have no evidence of poetry actually written by her. In factr Do juvenilia has come to 1ight, although she admits to writing'heroic storiesr as a child during the vrar.6 Sh" díd not think seriously about writing professionally until the l-ate 1950s, after she left Nap1"=.7 The polished , conci se, rwell--wrought' short storie s which appeared in The New Yorker in the early sixties are our first introduction to Shirley Hazzard as a writer.

61 Interestingly, the earliest of these stories was 'WoolLahra Road', vrhich appeared in The New Yorker on the Bth April, 1961. Apart from the noveL The Transit of Venus, this is the only one of her stories to daLe to make use of an Australian background. It telIs of an episode in the tife of a smalI child' herself comfortably sheltered from the direct effects of the Depression in New South hlales, whose privileged life is momentarily unsettled by the intrusion of one less fortunate. Already Hazzard is showing the effects of social history on the private Iife of the individual, a theme which is pursued throughout her work, to reach its culmination in The Transit of Venus. The effects of displacement and divided loyalties, and the infl-uence of Iiterature on the conception of Iife are aspects of truth which are explored in Shirley Hazzard)s fiction. They are apparent in the storyrWoollahra Road'in which the child Tda considers her drawing of a house which includes a chimney with a plume of smoke rising f rom i t,. Ida's Australian experience i s subtly undermined at the same time as it is enriched by reference to another culture: She added a plume of smoke to the chímney, because, although she could not remember ever having seen a smoking chimney, her picture books vùere fuIl of them. Here in Australia, it seemed to have been summer all her life - breathless, burning days of drought. The pictures of smoking chimneys \¡¡ere like the sno\,\I Scene that arríved on cards from England each year during the christmas heat wave brief represèntations of that other, authoritative world where Seasons were reversed ( i t \^/as implied correctly) r and where children wore gaiters and mufflerà and lived inãoors.B The theme of di splacement \^/hich recurs throughout Shirley Hazzard's writitg, is broached in an early article on travel- which appeared in Mademoiselle in 1967. In this article, Hazzatd

62 refers to the fringe-dwel-lers of Australia in a passage which stresses the consciousness of the empty centre of that continent, and the habit of settlement on the coastal fringes, faces pointing to the sea and other worlds, a theme elaborated in The Transit of Venus: The large coastal cities, modern perforce in architecture and outlook, are themsel-ves separated from one another by immense distances and 1ie on the periphery of an almost empty continent. The existence of these busy cities is, in its way, a triumph of brinkmanship for the short hístory of Austral-ia is interwoven with the mystery and menace, the fascination and deadliness of the undeveloped and once- impenetrabl-e interior. Even to glance at thís continent on the map is to have the sense of a palette scraped clean - or of the effaced tablet of some prehistorical agF, awaiting the interminabl-e human process of reinscription.v This is a view of a European-oriented Australia and it ignores the influence of Aboriginal occupation. It is consistent with Shirley Hazzardrs own affiliation to the culture of Western European civilization, and also reflects the educational emphasis in Australia until relatively recently. In 'Woollahra Road', Ida's responses to her surroundings and her adjustments to that'other authoritative world'which seems to represent truth and reality, are totally different to the tenacious eritishness of the community which the writer describes intCanton More Far', an articÌe based on Shirley Hazzardt s own experiences in Hong Kong as a young girI.10 one of her colLeagues at the government security office at which she worked, 'sticking flagged pins on a map', was a cIerk, described as 'Pickwickian', who had never mentally 'l-ef t his native land', despite a lifetime of moving from place to p1ace. ft was in this office that Shirley Hazzard worked with

63 Eng 1i shme n who hte re of the type embodied in the f ict ional- character, Justin, in The Bay of Noon. In 'Canton More Farr, Shirley Hazzard describes these colleagues: It was the most delightful office imaginable. It blas staffed largely by very young Englishmen of greatly varying personalities and backgrounds. Lanky and fair, short and swarthy, languid or dynamic, they hrere all alike in my eyes in belonging irrefutably to the real world. They had all seen active service in the \^Iar yet they hlere stil1 so young that there rrras discernible in their conversation that (not always negligible) wit of the Fifth Form, which remains with many Englishmen throughout their liyes. They vrere familiar wiLh Homer, Iand] quoted Auden....,. With their Fifth Form wit, and their aptitude for quotation, these young men appear to be a composite prototype of the older' more cautious, though charming, Justin, who uses his wit as a di stancing techn ique and to de fend h im se1 f from emot ional- engagemen t . 'Thus, both in her non-fiction writing and in her early short stories, Shirley Hazzard is exploring the effects of ptace upon character, and particularly the effects of displacement. The continuity and development of certain Lhemes that engage Shirley Hazzard's interest are seen to extend from the early short stories through to the novels. She afso examines the rol-e of literature as a reinforcement to ideas of what constitutes truth and reality, as a protective device, and, at times, as a substitute for Iife. More recently, Anita Brookner, herself of European extract íon but brought up in England, and there fore a\¡/are of the effects of displacement and divided loyalties, pursues this idea that literature can be a substitute for l-ife and that life can be spoilt by l-iterature, in her analysis of Dr Weiss whose

64 expectations hrere raised by books and disappointed by her own experience. Expecting to find the same moral- forces at work in fact as obtain in the books she read both as a girl and in her professionaL life, she finds, aS many other Brookner heroines find, that life is not quite fair, rewards being more accessible to users than to the used those for whom Cinderella's 'baII neve r material ízed'.I2 Shirley Hazzard examines other aspects of the effects of literature on expectations and aspirations in her novels and short stories. Dora, in The Transit of Venus, resents Caro's escape into books and, through them and through education, escape from Dorars hegemony:'Dora knew, none better, the enemy when she saw it'(TV, p. 9). on the other hand, the subtler and more ins idious ef fects of l-i terature upon personali ty and ímagination are shown in the description of Christian Thralers brief affair with Cordetia Ware. Christian's fove affair was expressed as a literary cliché and demonstrates his emotional- bankruptcy. These, then, are some of the sLrands which recur throughout Shirley Hazzard's writings: aspects of love; an exploration oi truth, both as it reLates to love and to Iife; p1ace, displacement even dislocation; and the importance of art, and particularly literaturer âs a force both for good and iI1. The stories which are collected together in the volume Cliffs of Fal1 are linked, for the most part, by their theme of love and its ambiguitie s, its transience, and its permanent effect through the power of memory. One technique which the writer can adopt to a1low more development of theme and character than the isolated short story usually affords is that which Frank

65 I,loorhouse employs:'the discontinuous narrative'.13 In Moorhousers case, his stories are events LoId at intervals l-inked by recurring characters and place; the tribe and the locality connect his tales. Moorhouse's techníque is described in hís preface to Futility and Other Animal-s: These are interlinked stories and although the narrative is discontinuous - there is no single plot - the environment and the characters are continuous. fn some ways, the people in the stories are a tribe - a modern, urb¡,¡r tribe - which does not fully recognise itself as a tribe.'= He stresses through his short stories, the fragmentation of modern life, its lack of harmony or unity, as he see s i t.I5 Don Anderson describes Moorhouse's'discontrnuous narrative'mode of writing as appropriate to modern urban Australian life since it echoes that life: Things are, for his principal characters an attempt to find value and support outside the self, for the Australian bourgeois self is inauthentic. Moorhouse recognizes the tragic, isolating discontinuities of Iife in Australia. Things are substitute gratifications for the inauthentic self but they are inadequate substitutes. Throughout Moorhouselg work, there is a sense of inadequacy, isol-ation, and loss.lo A sense of isolation is also present in El-izabeth Jo1ley's short stories, which are linked thematically by the particularity of her characters the eccentric, the misfit in societY, the exile. Hel-en Daníel- sees al-1 Ei-ízabeth Jo11ey's writing as 'variations on a theme'and writes: Jo1Iey's characters are displaced persons' constructing their own worlds in hosti circumstances, configuring their ohrn real i ties and dreams. lç Speaking of this aspect of her work, El-ízabeth Jo1ley herself draws attention to the theme of the exile which creates a connecting link in all her writing.lB

66 The discontinuous narrative convention in Australian literature goes back to Henry Lawson'srcluster stories', where the theme of isolated outback tife, the itinerant.life of drovers and bull-ock drivers, provides a link in many of his short stories. Chris Wallace-Crabbe describes the Joe Wilson 'suite of stories' as 'a skeleton nove1tl9 and, as Alan Brissenden points out in his preface to Henry Lawsonrs Australia: the same places, the same characters, even no\^/ and then the same incidents, occur in several of the stories, Iwhich] are connected by time and place as well as by the people in them.... This series, which forms a complete boç( on its own, is the closest Lawson came to writing a noveI.¿v Shirley Hazzard similarly links the short stories which make up People in GIass Houses by using certain characters in several of her stories and, of course, they are also connected by situation in that all deal with l-ife in the same organization and the same location. Place and recurring characters provide a unifying theme in People in Glass Houses. A Iink between her novellas is that both are set in Italy. Shirley Hazzatd also amplifies the'discontinuous narrative' techníque by using some of her short stories, notabty'A Long Short Storyrand'A Crush on DocLor Dancerr âS episodes in her longer work: The Transit of Venus. The stories in Cfiffs of Fall are mainly linked by the theme of love.

Cl-iffs of Fa]1:

In the stories 'A Place in the CountryrandtThe Picnic', published in g]]Eég gE euff, Shirley Hazzard varies the tdiscontinuous narrative'technique by showing the same

67 characters at an interval- of eight years.* 'The Picnic' examines the aftermath of love love that was carelessly entered into and then denied for :h" sake of security, comfort and convenience. 'A Place in the Country'tetls of the beginning of the affair. The stories complement each other, lout though related, they are presented in different ways. tA P1ace in the Country' emerges through dialogue, through the comments of the narrator, and through Nettie's thoughts. !The Picnic'is told through Cl-emrs and Nettiers thoughts on meeting again - not a word of dialogue takes pIace, except Ivor's call to his mother torwatch him, watch the game' (CF, p.176). In the main, 'A Place in the Country' expresses the vroman's point of view of events. Clem's viewpoint is shown only through what he says and what he does. It is the brilliance of Hazzard's handling of dialogue, her ability to show what people realJ.y mean in spite of what they say, that aIlows access to Clem's attitudes and strategies. Shirley Hazzardrs pov/ers of compression are artf uIly displayed in this story. Tt opens as May and her husband, assisted by May's cousin Nettie, unpack for what will be a six month sojourn in the country for May and the children. The information about relationships, events, and future plans is given in the first fevr pages and mainly by means oÊ dialogue or commentary on the charactersr thoughtst :rãther than direct

*'The Picnic'\¡¿as first published in The New Yorker in 1962i 'A place in the countryi in 1963. was originalJ.y published as two stories, the second-The-Tãtter of which was entitled'A Leave-Taking' .

68 narration. We l-earn qui te soon that Clem and Ne ttie w i11 be visiting the country house only at weekends, and that May is unwittingly making the conduct of their love affair easier by suggesting, in her efficient and managing way, that Clem brinQ Nettie down for the weekend whenever she wishes to come. Mayrs efficiency and managing abilities also have some bearing on the outcome of the story. Shirley Hazzard, in this wây, suggests rather than explains, the background to her storyr so that she conforms to Henry Jamesrdictum that one shouldrdo the complicated thing with a strong brevity and lucidi Ly'2Ir âS well as adhering to Kipling's reconomy of implicatíon'.22

The story ofrA PLace in the Country'plots the growth of a Iove affair and its ending when Clem's wife discovers the truth and he attempts to extricate himseLf from the situation with what he considers some degree of honour. Shirley Hazzard wryly shows his manoeuvres to explain to Nettie why none of her pain is his fault. Like Lucia in the short story 'Comfortr, Nettie could well sây, rHe keeps telling me he never promised me anythi ng'.23 It is clear from the start that Clem is l-argely responsible for beginning the affair. It was he who drew Nettie's attention to the fact that she loved him: 'Wou1d I have discovered that I loved him, if he hadnrt drawn my aLtention to it?r, wonders Nettie (cr, p.167). As in many of Shirley Hazzardrs female characters, there is an element of passivity in NeLtie which makes her easier to manipulate. Her vulnerabilíty is stresseC, just as Sophie's is in The Evening of the Holiday. May, the wife in 'A Place in the Country', herself ironically described as one of those women'who deal with men in a straightforward way and

69 must suffer the consequencesr, at one stage refers to Nettie as 'a waif' (p.20). Again, Nettie is described as 'fragile and inef fectual-r (p.18), and as like 'an orp.han' 1p.23). In 'The Picn ic' , Cl-em remembers that he woul-d never have thought of Nettie had not a third person called her 'beautiful' (p.I67). The casual and idle manner in which the affair had starLed and its repercussions are amongst the ironies of these two stories. Like Christian, in The Transit of Venus, Clem is anxious not to put in jeopardy his marriage to an efficient wife who darns his socks and can cope with 'the unremitting concessions of daily Iife' (p.L70) without making too many demands on her husband's time and emotions. Just as Christian sacrifices Cordelia and romance for his placid Iife with 'perfect Grace' and the status quo, so there is never any question that Clem will leave his rock-like May for rchaotic' , di sorganizedr untidy Nettie. It is no accident that the last image of Nlay in'The Picnic' is of her seated on a rock at the beach watching their son at pfay. The role of May as wife and mother, practical, wel-L-organized, and undemanding is stressed. fn one of their scenes together, Nêbtie says to Clem: 'You don't know how isolated one fee1s. You have so many - attachments'. rYou make me sound like a vacuum cleaner' he replies (p.44). The analogy provides an image of Cl-em consuming the women in his life. It is in these subtle ways that Shirley Hazzard reinforces the truth of this particular marriage. Though Mayrs f eel-ings are not explored, that she must of necessity make many concessions to daíly life is suggested when,

70 in'The Picnic', CIem admits his failure as a human being: There rtrere times, he knew, when May sti1l needed him intensely, but the ir relations hrere so caref ulIy balanced that he was finding it more and more difficult to detect the moment of appeal. ( CF, p.171 )

Mayr s off-stage involvement in CIem and Nettie's silent tâte à

tê te meeting is indicated when, sitting on the beach at a distance, she presses her palms against the stone: Upright on her rock, May gave a short, exhausted siqh. She closed her eyes for a moment, to clear them, and fvor called out to her that she must watch him, watch the game. She l-ooked back at him without smiling. On either side, her palms vüere pressed hard against the stone. (CF, p.l76) No conversation takes place in 'The Picnic'. The internalizíng of Clem, meeting Nettie again after what he thinks of as about ten years and what she, signif icantly, knows to be 'precisely eight years in Juner, takes up the first seven pages of the story. The fo11ow ing four pages show us Nettie's impressions. Two different views of love evolve from their thoughts. Nettie finds Clem grohrn pompous and tetchy; his behaviour to May and hers to hím'like a couple of civil servantsr(p.173). fn the early stages of their affair, Nettie had discovered the relative importance of love to Clem and to herself: ff he loves me, it is a kind of indulgence to both of us. I cannot trust him completely - buL, after all, one would not trust anyone completely; it would hardly be fair to them. It is the discrepancy that hurts - that I should be so aware of him, order my 1ife, think, speak, clothe myself for him. (CF, p.36) In her description of Nettie's feelings, Shirley Hazzard stresses the way in which the woman defers to the manrs expectations. She orders her life, thinks, speaks and clothes herself for the m an, existing only as a reflection of what he wishes her to be or not

7I to be. In 'The Picnic', Nêttie recognizes the permanent effects of love on herself. Like the wine stain on her dress, the recollection of that love is indelibly fixed in her memory. However little Clem meant to her now'she must always be different because she had known him surely that is the sense' she thought, in which one might say that love is eternall (p.175). For Nettie, being in love was'the only state in which one could consider oneself normal ...' (p.175). Like the wife in Chekhov's rThe Darlingt, she was 'always fond of someone and could not exist without lovi ng'.24 To Clemr oo the other hand, love was: a displacement, not just of his habits though thatr too buL of his intel ligence. Of the m ind i tsel f . Be ing in l-ove \^/as, like painr âo indignity, a reducing thing. So nearly did it seem in retrospect a form of insanity, the odd thing to him was that it should be considered normal- (CF, p.170) Clem at first refuses to admit to himself that he ever thought of Nettie after they partecl. He senses her criticism of him, that she considers him tfettered, diminished, a shore from which the wave of l-ife Ihad] receded' (p.171), but his antagonism is modified as he remembers the past, until he can eventually admit that in fact he had thought of her every day. Like Sophie in The Evening of the Holiday, Nêttie represents romantic l-ove which makes no concessions to ordinary life. Sophie escapes with her romantic ideal intact, unspoilt by the reality of habit and domesticity. Nettie, despite some experience of marriage and the rcompromise which that implies' (p.173), lrras stilI an 'incurable romantic'. CIem remembers her

72 ardour, her irresponsibility, her quickly changing emotions, her habit of living Iife as though it were too short. Hazzard emphasizes the gulf between the two in their approach to life and to love; Clem's o\^rn desire for seiurity and what he thinks of as Nettie's extravagant approach to life and love. The gulf is further emphasized by Hazzard's skilful portrayal of the thoughts of her two protagonists. Whilst Clem supposes that Nettie has become short-sighted and is too vain to wear glasses, as she lowers her head to attend to the wine stain on her dress, she is actually hiding her emotions:

How sad it h¡a s. Looking into his f ace just no\,r, f inding nothing of interest, she had been so pierced by sadness that tears filled her eyes and she had to bend over the stain on her dress to hide her face. It was absurd that they should face each other this way antagonistically in silence simply because they had once been so close. (CF' p.176) By presenting f irst Clem's thoughts and then Nettie's, Shirì-ey Hazzard shows not only how people misunderstand each other, but also their different interpretations of reality. Shirley Hazzard's technique of combining visual imagery with dialogue, discussed earlier and in the Chapter on The Transit of Venus, is a potenL el-ement in the effect achieved in expressing the tensions bethreen the protagonists in the first story in the Cliffs of FaIl collection: 'The Party'. In this story we see l-ove which has turned to bitterness, s1owIy undermined by egotism and cruelty. Theodore still has an influence over lvlinna, but the influence is, for the most part, malign as he strips her of any confidence in herself. Minna watches Theodore for every change of mood in order to prepare herself for the effects of his malicious tongue.

73 In the aftermath of the party, Lhe narrator stresses the rel-ative positions of Theodore and Minna by showing I"linna kneeling at his feet. Like Gioconda in The Bay of Noon, Minna is placatory, eager to be happy, but constantly put on the defensive or made to appear a fool or h/rong. The suggestion that Minna is a victim and Theodore the aggressor is reinforced not only by their relative positions in the scene where they discuss the party, but also by Theodorers sinister actions: He passed his hand round her throat, his extended fingers reaching from ear to ear. Her hair spread over his sleeve. 'Minna dearr' he said, 'Minna darling' . (CF, p.9) The apparently affectionate words contrast oddly with his actions, which suggest strangulation. Shirley Hazzard has foregrounded the tensions apparent in this scene when Minna is loathe to leave the Fergusonrs kitchen to join the party in the next room: It was, Minna decided, l-ike the periphery of a battlef ield strewn with díscarded equipment and expended ammunition. When I go into the other room, she thought, I wilL have to talk and listen, and be aware of Theodore across the room. (CF, pp.5-6) The battlefield itsel-f is where Theodore is at any moment. Minna knows that Theodore wil-1 enjoy the party and then reproach her for letting him come. As a character in 'In One's Own House' says: 'Love Iis] a subtle game of maintaining positionr (p.101). The battle will continue when they are alone together. As with an enemy, Minna must warily consider where Theodore wíI1 strike next, and how. The metaphor of love as a battle is a recurring image in Hazzardt s l-ove stories. A couple at the party who appear happy and contented together remind Minna of how l-ove could be and how it could

74 change. She watched them: with admiration, as one might watch an intricate dance executed wi t,h perf ect grace; and with something like homesickness, as if she were looking at colored slides of a country in which she had once been happy. (Cf', p.8) The sadness and nostalgia implicit in thís story comes from this dichotomy - the contrast between love as it might bet ot might have been, and as it is. The phraseology of the above passage which equates love with place and a sense of belonging has other paralleIs in Hazzardrs v\tritingsr especially in the juxtapositioning of love and place as it relates to the heroines in her novels. Belongíng to a groupr a person' and a place is, of courser âñ important aspect of the sense of sel-f. Minna sees starting again in Iove another person, another place as too much trouble: 'being charming and artful, finding \4tays to pretend l-ess affection than one feel-s...'(p.13). The subtle manoeuvres of those who need to be loved but dare not expose themselves to hurt are delicately articulated. The reality of

M innars e mot ional- dependence on Theodore i s faced; the vulnerability of those who love is stressed. Shirley Hazzard's sense of irony is apparent whenr âS Minna rises to her feet, Theodore says:'you must hurt all over'and Minna replies rMore or less'. AS she leaves, he delivers the coup de grâ,ce by criticizing her appearance. She suggests he shoutd be buiJ-ding up her confidence rather than demolishíng it. He replies: 'Confidence is one of those things we try to instill- into others and then hasten to dispel as Soon as it puts in an appearance. t 'Like lover' she observed, turning to the door.

75 'Like lover' he said. rExactlyr. (CF, p.15) In her clear-sighted view of the truth of love, what it can do and particularly what its aftermath can do to people, her knowledge of the need to 1ove, her lack of sentimentality' tempered, however, with humanity, Hazzard's perceptiveness is plainly demonstrated in this storyr âs in so many others in this collection. Her use of irony allows for a detached view of the human dilemma, and this makes her stories all the more effective because controlled. AIthough, as Geering suggests, Shirley Hazzard stresses the woman's point of view in her short stories and novel =,25 she is concerned to show the attitude to life and love of both sexes. The self-interest and shalIo\¡¡ness of men such as Theodore, of Clem in rA Place in the Country'and Paul and Christian in The Transit of Venus, for example, are contrasted with the dedication amounting to a self-confessed obsession on the part of the exemplary Ted Tice. But many of the stories compare t.he importance placed on personal refations, and love in particular, by the young \4romen with the dif ferent attitude of men. 'Vi1l-a Adriana'explores this perennial question of l-ove and its relative importance in l-ife. The young man in this story, like Clem in 'A Place in the Country', rates rationality and knowledge more highly than intuition and emotions and, by definition, 1ove. One passage in particular makes this clear: He reflected that she \^/as probably the onJ-y person he knew who didn't a ttach importance to his work. And i t vras important; something would be changed in the fie1d, howe-vE imperceptibly, when his book came out. She, who knew nothing, nothing at all, and \^Ias always exalt ing her miserable intuitions into the sphere of knowledge how dare

76 she speak of his interest in his work as though it \ilere something pedestrian, discreditable? She had no feeling for the elements, the composition of things. Once, for instance, in Rome, they had seen an ancient inscription on a wall, and he had begun to translate it aloud when she, brushing aside the syntaxt têndered the sense of it in half a dozen words and turned away, having temporarily deprived him of his reason for living. tPerhaps it's true that I care most about my workrr he said. But then I do care about other things. In any case, I cantt be what Irm notr. 'You gave a different impression when v¡e first knew each otherr. rWeIl - that was human. t This, unexpectedly, seemed to be an acceptable answer (Cr', P.111) Comparing this passage with one that deals with a similar dichotomy in rA Place in the Country', the dual claims of rationality and of the emotionsr orlê can recognize Shirley Hazzard's interest in this theme of different attitudes to Iife and love. CIem and Nettie are discussing Clem's son: 'ChiIdren know everythiflgr' Nettie said. 'We11, they have a kind of insight into fundamentals. I don't think one can cal-l that knowledge.' Clem continues the scene by telling Nettie, rather brutally and unnecessarily, that when l{ay had suggested they do more for Nettie he had replied that they had their own lives to lead. AI Nettie's hurt response he saYS: ,I raLher thought I'd redeemed myself by telling you about it. I see no object in hurting people unnecessarily.' 'It would be all right if it were necessary?' rYou say aIl the wrong thingsrrhe observed.rYou have no experidnce you're thrown back on your intuitions, like Xeñny. Thab's why you make these judgments on yourself and others.' (CF, p.23) clem defends himself by implying that an intuitive person who

77 al-Iows emotions rather than complete dedication to rationality to weigh in their judgment is necessarily inferior. 'Intuitionl becomes a pejorative word. Hazzard's own definition of intuition is that it. is a'synthesis of intell-igence, understanding, wit, instinct, and above all the ear for the sound of meaning.t26 The alternative view to this'rational'one of Clem's is presented in 'Vi1la Adriana' when the girl considers that, to the young man: Ii fe \^ras a series of details - a mosaic rather thanr say' a painting. He had to have reasons for everythi.g, even if it meant contorting human nature to make it fit into them; So concerned with cause, he ignored conSequence. And sometimes, no doubt, it was the right thing. It was the way menrs minds worked, she supposed; the process, in façt, bY which the world was provided with machines and roads and br idges and ruins. But they chose to forget that their whole system of logic could be overturned by the gesture of a woman or a child, or by a singl-e line of þoetry. This business of reasoning, she reflectedr !vâs aIl very well within reason, but if one had nothing to be pasÃionate about one might as well be dead. (CF' pp.111-2) The young man's reason for living \¡¡as his profess ion; the young womanrs something more complicatedr less specificr more 'mysterious'. His judgments are made on the surface meaning of wordS, hers on their underlying message or on what was not voiced. The ironic comment on men's work building bridges and creating ruins - neatly encapsulates its constructive and destructive el-ements. Discussing compÌementary opposites such as reason and feeling, self and society, order and freedom, andr âs he puts it, 'analysis and intuiLion, unequivocality and metaphor (or science and art)', Douglas Muecke comments that: 'Reason and emotion, for example, oppose one another as principles of action, but human

7B life requires both.'27 It is this paradox which is explored by Shirley Hazzard in many of her short stories, and is expressed in the metaphor of the mosaic compared to the painting showing life whole and al-I at once. fmplicit in her work is a questioning of the rdubious assumption that there is a hierarchy of knowledge, and that knowledge obtained via intuition is necessarily "inferior" to knowledge obtained via inteltec¿t.28 Nettie echoes the philosophy touched on in Muecke's article when she says: rWe suffer because our demands are unreasonable or disorderly. But if reason is inescapable, so is humanity. We are human beings, not rational ones.' (CF, p.125) As Jenny remarks in I¡e Bay of Noon,'I too wished to be reasonable to a reasonable extent' (gN, p.104). Like Algie in Peo l-e in GIass Houses, she honours the ancient rul-e of taking 'nothing to excess' not even reason. John Colmer has observed: The idea that there is a balance but no fairness, and the related idea that the claims of humanity are prior to h" demands of reason, inform al-1 Shirley Hazzard's f iction. 2b One might even add, and her non-fiction writings, notably Defeat of an ldea].

These pa ssage s from the short stories are guoted at length because they seem to embody important themes related to truth and to l-ove, which recur throughout Hazzard's writings: the relative value of knowledge and intuition; the values of science and humanity, a major theme in The Transit of Venus; and the different attitudes of her fictional men and women to the world and to people in general, differences which make for tension between them. One r/¡ay of expressing this polarization, albeit in simpÌistic terms, would be to see it, as a division between

79 science and art. The construction of categories and the naming and classification of all aspects of life (the mosaic) is at the heart of the scientific method. The holistic approach which celebrates the mystery of the unexplainable has more affinity with art. In his article 'The Evolution of literary Studies', Karl Kroeber stresses this mysteriousness of art 'its destabilizing potency'.30 sf,irley Hazzard would seem to agree that life, like art, escapes categorization and retains aspects of the mysterious. Asked to expla in the val-ue she puts on romantic love, for instance, and how it accords with her larger notions of human responsibility, she replied: No, I cannot explain 1ife does not raccord' in that way. It makes a whole; it {o.es not make 'sense' according to our little classifications.rl Turning now more specifically to the theme of love in the short stories which appear in the collection entitled Cliffs of Fa11, 'Vittorio' deals with the unspoken love between an elderly man, a scholar almost a recluse and a young woman who, together with her husband, becomes his paying guest for a short while at his home in Siena. Vittorio's quiet, ordered life is momentarily disturbed by the advent of his English visitors and his growíng affection for Isabel, an affection whích he is astonished to discover is returned. As in other Hazzard stories, the different attitudes to love and to women of both Anglo-Saxon and Latin men such as Jonathan and Vittorio is delicately explored in this brief, understated, but beautifully unfolded tal-e. Fam ily relationships, a penetrating analysis of the

BO dif f icul-ties f acing a wi fe when she sees her husband becoming aIíenated from her and from life in general, are dealt with in 'In One's Own Houser. Shirley Hazzard is particularly adept at articulating the nuances of relatíonships where self-interesL, a desire for self-protection and fear of rejection all combine to complicate people's 1ives. In a Scene between Miranda and Russell- (Cf, p.89-94), Shirley Hazzatd shows the hopeless coil people weave about themselves and others, aS she does in the postmortem scene which ends rThe Party'. Russell has been using I'iiranda, who, because of her love and concern, is a suitable 'whipping boy', to purge his misery. Wounded, Miranda's reaction is that: she felt nothing more for him, he had overdrawn on her endurance: then she woul-d stay silent for a whiler almost at peace, beyond his reach, not knowing whether she had been utferly vañquished or become completely invinc.ible. Howenei, it ieq,,rired merely some slight attention on his part to restore all her apprehensions for these extremes õf feeling only existed within the compass of her love. Russe1l, still- watching her, experienced the sensation of being abandoned that always accompanied such victories, aS it he had lost the one peison who connected him to reality, whose very pain was a guiding thread in the endless labyrinth of his anguish. (CF, p.90-1) Though RusselI occasionally feels Iliranda's suffering 'through the screen of his own" that he has not completely lost his grip on reality is made clear by his sel-f-interest when he decides to be less sel-f-indulgent and cruel later in the day. He recalled the events of the previous daY: He had behaved so cruetly to Miranda all day that he knew he could not decently approach her (here he made a mental note to be more caref uf lfris evening), and they slept without touching. But that morning he had wakened very early and watched her sleeping her grief showing even then, f.or her closed fist \¡Ias préssed against her mouLh as if she had fal1en asleep stifling her sobs. (CF' p-92)

B1 Even in the briefest of these short stories, Shirley Hazzatdts eye is so penetrati.g, her skiIl so honed, that the petty cruetties and bitternesses of. Iove (especially love of any duration) are shown with devastating clarity. In 'Vi1la Adriana' Shirley Hazzard describes a young couple visiting the vitla at Tivo1i which was Hadrian's retreat 'in moments of spleen and misanthropy' (p.111). Again, as in so many of her stories, the setting has considerable significance within the total context of the story. The couple are at odds because of the ir di fferent attitudes to 1i fe. Not only i s the story an episode in itself, the quarrel which is pursued intermittently and inconclusively is also episodic and has iLs beginnings before the story starts. The reader is plunged into the midst of tension and disagreement bet\^7een the couple. f t simply wouldn't work, the girl insists: 'We would make one anothe r unhappy lve do alre ady and it,s as weII that we found out in time. That's all. Itrs quite impossible. ' rI don't understand'r he said stubbornly. rAnd thatr' she returned, 'is precisely why.' (CF' p.109) In the scene which fol1o\¡¡s, each tries to make the other understand his or her point of view, with litt1e success. The gulf between them is bridged only when they embrace and kiss. The narrator describes the girl's thoughts: 'They might almost, she thought, have been defending one another from two different people, (p.114 ). Thoughts and speech, those aspects of personality which most define the individual, erect a barrier between the couple which can only be broken down by physical

B2 contact. Their intuitive desire to be in harmony is defeated by the difference in Lheir $rays of thinking of love, differences based on emphasis: whether love is a part of life or'a thing apartr. 'Cliffs of FaI1', which gives the co1Ìection its title and which is taken from Gerald llanly Hopkinst poem, 'No worst, There is None', is set in Switzerland in the =u**.r.32 The setting is intrinsically important since the Swiss Alps and the plateau where Elizabeth recuperates act as a background to her spirítuaI journey and parallel her emotional state. The clinical, sterile Swiss Alpine countryside is the objective correlative of her state of mind. Elizabeth is staying with friends whilst recovering from the death of her husband in a 'plane crash. She i s st i1l- shocked, apparently caLm, but actuaì-1y numb; her emotions frozeni she is'pitched past pitch of grief'.33 on a drive into the Alps, she admits to a fellow visitor, Etienne' that the mountains unsettl-e her. He comments that they look like atgraph of oners experiencerand are analogous to oners emotions

(p.I27 ) . It is the visit of Etienne, twice described as looking like an anarchist 1pp.I25; I28) and himself suffering the after- effects of a near-fatal- accident, which shocks Elizabeth out of her detachment from life - her anaesthesia. As with Jenny in The Bay of Noon, il-lness precipitates this crisis. After El-ízabethrs cl-imb at high altitude, she is Í11 with a fever, and during her subsequent convalescence, she returns to life and to the experience of grief. She finds she must leave the plateau which has offered escape from emotional engagement and face the 'cliffs

B3 of f al-I1 which constitute life for Iiving, breathing, suf fering human beings. fn both The Bay of Noon and'Cliffs of Fal1', the.locality provides a metaphor for the process of distancing and discovery which both Jenny and Elizabeth must survive in order to come to terms with their grief and 1oss. For each of them, illness temporarily separates them from the dístractions of everyday life and offers access to that silence which Shirley Hazzard insists is needed'to find out what we thinkrand, in their case, fee1.

In several of these storíes romantic love is compared with a different sort of 1ove, that which depends upon compromise and concessions l-ove that can be coped with. The permanent effects of love and the experience and emotions of those who survive love are also considered. The search for love, place and identity are often inextricably linked, especially for the women in Shirley Hazzardrs stories. Nettie's distress when she faces the fact that her importance to Clem is peripheral, that she has nothing to hope for, their love is'without meaning', is partly due to her desire for a place in his life, not only metaphorically, but literally. It must be remembered that Elizabeth Bennet marries not only Darcy buL'Pemberley'. This identification of a \,voman with her husband's rplace' was stiIl relevant in the I960s, when many of these short stories vüere written. Nettie can see no future with a married man, who himself has his o\^tn place - his attachments, his role in Life, and his setting. The'p1ace'of the title of this particuLar story al-l-ows Clem the freedom to pursue an extramarital affair whil-st his wife

B4 and chitdren are in the counlry, as a similar place does for ChrisLian in The Transit of Venus. À remark of Jenny's in The Bay of Noon is also pertinent in this connection. In anshter to Giocondars laughing reference to 'the boat of the cuckoldsrr' which plies from Naples to Capri, Jenny says: With us it would be the other u/ay round. In the summer it's assumed the husbands have been having adventures all week in town. (BN, p.82) These assumptions link several of Shirley Hazzard's storíes. Language, its use to communicate and to manipulate, is, as in aIl Hazzardrs $/ritings, important in glfEEe 9E qu11- Theodore's hegemony over Minna is maintained through what he says and the way in which he says it. So, too, with Clem who, in'A place in the Country'uses the language of persuasion to achieve his ends. His rhetorical skill is apparent when he manages to make his neighbours, the Bairds, feel guilty and apologize for suggesting a seduction which he in fact proposes and later effects. In a subsequent incident in the story, N€ttier ofl her way back to town, is upset and asks to be taken home. Clem again manipulates the scene by verbal means so that it ends the \^/ay he wishes it to end. The supreme example of Shirley Hazzard's presentation of his technique is when, ât the parting scene which ends the story, Clem has Nettie comfort him. Shirley Hazzard's ironic wit which characterizes all her work acts to leaven the sadness which permeates her stories of love's transience and its ambiguities. This wit is particularly evident in her profiles of bureaucrats and the muddles, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies of bureaucratic'management' which are the matter of her collection of short stories which she

B5 has caIled People in GIass Houses.

People in Glass Houses:

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, the stories in People in Glass Houses are linked together into a rdiscontinuous narrative' firstly by the Organization which forms the background to the lives of the characters. Secondly, the effects of bureaucracy on the lives of the Organization staff is a connecting 1ink. A further device to maintain thematic continuity is that characters such as Bekkus, Swoboda and Clelia Kingslake, for instance, recur in Several of the Stories. The emphasis in Peo 1e in G1ass Houses 1S on language and its use to manipulate people and the truth. For this reason' this col-lection of stories is treated in some detail in the chapter which deals specificalJ-y with the subject of language. Love plays a sma11 role ín these stories, but the effects of bureaucratic tife on the personal- lives and loves of the peopl-e who work within its confines is touched on in one or two incidents. In 'Nothing in Excess' the narrator describes a friendship between Lidia and Algie, two translators who share an office at the Organlzationr âS rpure romance, romance on1y, with no distracting facts of any kind' (PGH, P.14). This 'romance' is based on a mutual l-ove of Iiterature and words in general. Their's is a marriage of minds. Through Iiterature a tperfect harmony t isl achieved by two minds meeting' 1p.18). Lidia appreciate s AIgie's apt itude for the right quotat ion, hi s

86 dedication to the literature of the past, and his hobby of collecting contradictions in terms. Lidia is a widow. The narrator ironically records that she has all the attributes considered desirable by her other male colleagues: 'being fair- haired, slender, and not given to discussing her work out of office hours'(p.17). With Atgie she can discuss her life beyond the office: what she had been reading or listening to, some detail that would fill the gap since they had left the office the night before. When she did not provide these clues, it usually meant that she had been seeing a lover. She would never have mentioned such a thing to A1gie, because of the romance between them. (PGH, p.17) The subtle difference between a love affair and 'romance' is hinted at in this comment by the narrator. The element of mYth, fantâSy, of idealizaLion, the lack of 'earthiness' whích is apparent in Sophie's concept of'romance'in The Evening of the Hotiday is evident, too, in this story of Lidia and the unlikely AIgie. Their romance, Iike Sophie's, is doomed to be brief, if perfect, in theír case through the machinations of Bekkus, who considers AIgie unsuitable material for the Organization and arranges for his rcompulsory retirementr. Algie subsequently dies in Spain, thereby putting an end Lo Lídia's source of logical impossibili ties. Love and romance are difficult to sustain in the bleak surroundings of the Organ izat ion. Staff are arbitrarily moved around like chess pieces to different parts of the globe. fn 'The Flowers of Sorro\nI'r Claude Willoughbyr who harbours an attachment for CIelia Kingslake, is being sent to Kuala Lumpur. As C.laude Says: 'In a place like this there are so many partings

B7 and reun i ons...' P.4 0). CleIia and Claude meet by chance in the sterile setting of the staff cafeteria and discuss the Director-General's speech to the Staff which they have just heard. The author's wicked irony is at work when she notes that it $/as on Staf f Day that 'the Organization was at its most impersonal' (p.34). fnstead of the expected speech dealing with official and staff maLters, the Director-General introduces a poetic reference. The reactions to this variation from routine amongst his audience are as varied as the interpretations. The pr6cis writers scribble mindlessly' like Alice's jurors; one member of staff wonders if the Director-General has gone off his head; a Frenchman, typically, and cynically, sees the poetic reference as calculated rather than extempore; the translators are concerned that he has deviated from the prepared text and quibble scholastically over the correct translation: 'Les fleurs du chagrin' or 'Les fleurs du mal...' (p.39) rather than consider what v/as said. only C1elia and Cl-aude give any thought to the implications of the Director-General's interpolation, which have to do with integrity: It is a misunderstanding always to look 'for joy. One's aim, rather, shoul-d be to conduct onesel-f so that one need never compromise oner S Secret integrity; so that even our sufferings may enrich us - enrich usr perhaps, most of aI1. (PGH, p.35) The Director-General's reference to the flowers of joy and the flowers of sorrohr that occur in all lives finds a muted counterpoint in the suggestion of suppressed romantic feelings between cl-elia and claude what Geering refers to as the'droIl pathos of the unfulfilled l-ove affair in "The Flowers of

BB Sorrowu'.34 The capacity to feel emot ion, even i f denied expression, gives them the ability to step outside of their of ficial ro1es, to be human beings, and think about what was saidr so that Cle1ia can say: I think I felt heartened to hear something sa id me rely because it hras feIt. Something that wasnrt even on the agenda. (PGH, p.38) Those people in the book who exhibit human qualities are in the minority. Most succumb to the pressures of bureaucracy to conform. As Geoffrey Lehmann saYS: In Glass Houses public Iife occupies the foreground, and pr vate ÏÏves are of interest onlY to show how the Organization processes them to produce dehYdrated reconstituted people, w\o. have lost their originalitY and ability to ask questions." The Organization's effects on its staff are encapsulated in the description of 14iss Shamsee, just over thirty, who'glided between filing cabinets Iand] al-ong cafeteria queues'in her beauti fuI sari: I"liss Shamsee possessed a good mind and pleasant manner. She should, by any fair standard, have been an attractive womani yet it cannot be said that she was. AI1 the elements were Lhere, but Miss Shamsee \4IaS tike a resort town in bad weather: Some spark, some animation, some synthesizing glow was missing. She had been too long with the Organízation. (PGH, Þ.72) And yet Miss shamsee, one of the grey army of female stenographers and clerks, badly paid, given poor office accommodation, and litt1e chance of promotion, does have her brief experience of romance. Sent to a conference in Geneva she fal-ls in love with a scientist. As he is a married man, it can only be a brief affair but: These Cays r^rere the.most inspiring of Miss Shamseers life. She and [fr. geophys ic ist walkèd about the ci ty in a kind of

B9 trance, b¡ith arms l-inked. Although it was May, the weather vùas cold and Miss Shamsee v¡ore a cardigan over her sari, and a grey woollen coat she had bought on sale in the Grand Passage in Genev a; ankle socks kept her feet \t¡arm in her sandals. Even t hus modified, her rippling walk attracted much favourable attention. The air was fiIled by the spring seeding of the great poplar forests of the Lombardy Plain, with Che result that tufts of soft white down feIl throughout the city like a gentle, continuous sno\^t. This' and the unexpectedñess of sudden 1ove, made the situation seem fantastic and spiritual. (PGH, pp-73-4) For Miss Shamsee, her tove affair was a triumph whichtgave her prestige among her sad companions'(p.74). The narrator describes the love affair with a mixture of sympathy and irony' TotaI irony is reserved for the geophysicist, who carefully calcul-ates their respective shares of the bilI for the hotel in which the affair was conducted, and asks Ivliss Shamsee not Lo write. Like Nettie, and Cordelia, Miss Shamsee knows that her lover is abject but agrees to his demands, ín order 'not to spoil

thi ng s' (p.7 ) . The poignancy of lost love is a strand which runs through all Shirtey Hazzard's fiction. And particularly so in the short stories. But the need to love is explored and, in the case of the r^romen, the importance of the idea of loving and be ing loved to their sense of identity is made clear. Cordelia Ware becomes a 'bit of a battle-axer as a result of her experience with Christian, but to !liss Shamsee and Nettie the memory of a past Iove affair remains to remind them of the experience, like the wine stain on Nettie's dress \^7hich symbolizes the way in which 'she must always be different because She had known him".' and, in that sense, to the women in Shirley Hazza:rdts short stories: 'love is eternalr (CF' P.175).

90 CHAPTER ÏV

THE EVENTNG OF THE HOLIDAY

The Evening of the Holiday and The Bay of Noon, ShirleY Hazzard's two novellas in which she expands on the themes treated in a more concentrated and concise manner in the short stories, are considered in this chapter and the one that foIlows. Love and truth, truth's accessibility and inaccessibility, are again major preoccupations for Shirley Hazzard, but are treated differently in each of the two novellas; The Evening of the Holiday, published in 1,966, with its fewer main characters, concentration on a single episode in SophÍe's 1ife, and less ambitious psychological probing of character, is much more an extended short story than is The Bay of Noon, published in I970. Although they have certain similarities in their themes, setti.g, emphasis and the time in which the main incidents take place - there are differences between these two books, differences of treatment, narrative technique and toner âs well as plot and character. The similarities are discussed first in this chapteri the di fferences and the ir consequences are then explored. Both bookS are Set in post-war ILaly. Sophie was one year old when Tancredi was a young man at University in 1932 or 1933. She is in her twenties and Tancredi in his forties during the action of the story, which suggests that this takes place in the Fifties. Jenny, in II9 Bay of Noon, is sent to a NATO establishment at Naples at a time when jet planes werercoming

91 into military user(BN, p.120) again in the Fifties. The events of The Evening of the Holiday are set in a medieval northern rtal-ian city bearing some resemblance to siena, and in Florence. The catalyst for The Bay of Noon is Naples, though the author ranges from South Africa to England and to the Falkland Isl-ands through the reminiscences of her characters. Love is a preoccupation in both novels. Both analyse the growth of l-ove and its lasting effects through the power of memory. fn an involuntary recollection of a past unfulfilled love affair sophie is'g1ad to be reminded of the intricate, lasting nature of any form of love' ( EH, p.52). However transientr love is important in the heroine's discovery of self and her development as an individual-. The universality of love in its effects and as reflected in art, and especially literature, is a thread that runs through all Shirley Hazzard's fiction. Nina Baym has drawn attention to the author's allusions to painting, l-iterature and festivals which stress'the timeless dimension of human l-i f e or of nature'.f The f act that f taly is the chosen site for these two novellas has significance in this connection and also when one considers that Italy rùas the birthplace of humanism. As well- as the effects of transient love, both books explore the effects of displ-acement upon character and destiny. In The Evening of the Holiday Sophie's divided loyalties 1ie between

England and Italy, the country of her motherrs birth. In a passage which not only underlines the differences between Tancredi and hersel-f in their responses to the countrysíde of

92 Tuscâñy, but aIso, ín a moment of truth, discovers these differences to Sophie, she wonders: What am I doing herer orr this road, q¡ith this man, these sights, thi s language? She wished she \¡i¡ere an authent ic tourist an Englishman come to flaunt hís reticence, an American secretly hankering for gift wrapping and matching towels. She did not rea1ly know where she most belonged. Even those places to which she felt most drawn were mere approximations of home. (EH, p.43) It was the countryside, laid bare in its domestic aspect, which made Sophie feel anroutsider at a family feast'(nH, p.a3). Tancredirs warm and instinctive response to the landscape is in sharp contradistinction with Sophie's: Tancredi's feelings, stirred to an easy Latin intensity, rushed forth to greet the landscape. Although he had been born and brought up far to the south, this countryside was to him phenomenalr possesseC of an al-most communicable significance. (EH, p.42) In The Bay of Noon the divided l-oyalties theme is explored through Jenny's experiences. She has been uprooted as a child and has spent several years in South Africa separated from her family. In coming to terms with who she is she must decide where her place is: in the Southern Hemisphere, where she spent her formative years t ot in England, where rthe plants and seasons now corresponded to literaturer (BN, p.2A). Literature has taught

Jennyr âs it did Bernard Smith, thatrreal- landscape'is a European garden: For he had spent his childhood in a European garden and knew from his books that poplars were real trees. Gum trees were simply there, messy and straggly things, disorganized¡ there to be recognized but not enjoyed^ They made good f irewood, but \,vere very hard to grub out.z The influence of humanism, the art and thought of Western civiLization, of literature and romantic expectations, are a further Iink between the two novellas, as well- as being an

93 important aspect of The Transit of Venus. Though neither Sophie nor Jenny is an Emma Bovary, Shirley Hazzard explores the effects of certain aspects of literature, especial-ly romantic literature, upon those who are susceptible and upon the process of the development of a sense of seIf, just as Flaubert did in his analysis of a'bourgeois victim of romanticism.'3 Tancredi, towards the end of The Evening of the Holiduy, laments the renforced separation' imposed on them by Sophie's vision of a perfect, romantic love. fn The Transit of Venus Doctor Dance, in some ways a paral-leL figure to Ted Tice, imposes what could be thought of in Tancredi's terms as an anachronistic final parting on Grace Thrale, since the alternative would have been incompatible with his character. Tancredi's protest links the idea of parting with fiction and music of the past: It seemed to him that they \^Jere doing an obscure, outmoded thing in parting from each other. At one time partings were a recognized and tragic part of 1ife. History and literature and song were ful1 of enforced separations, dramatic farewells. But nowadays \^7as it because one travel-1ed more easily, or because one acted with less f inality? - people did not part. On the contrary, contemporary tragedy seemed to be bound up with their staying together. If they ceased to be lovers, they saw one another still; even divorced couples met on friendly terms ( thoug h he had aJ. ways t houg ht t h j. s a pa rt icuJ.a r1y unna turaL way of doing things). It h¡as unheard-of now to say good-bye for ever. In all the world, so it seemed to Tancredí, only he and she were compelled to part. It made them seem more cut off than ever from ordinary 1ife. Tt gave their love a mismanaged and dated aspect, a terrible privacy. (EH, p.108)

One recalls that an earlier Love affair of Tancredi's died a slower and Iess final death because the go-between collected stamps. In The Transit of Venus Shirley Hazzard elaborates on this idea of Iove and its symbiotic relationship with poetry and drama

94 through Christian Thralers brief, superficial romance with CordeIia. The constant allusions to the literature of Love stress this relationshipt it also suggests in Christian's case that literature is a good servant but a bad master. A further common denominator in the two novellas under discussion is the character of the heroines. Like Caro, Jenny and Sophie seem to await their destiny. There is a passivity about al-1 three heroines - what Rainwater and Scheick call'a mode of mental vacancy' especially in their relationship with men.4 But the passivi ty i s in the ir external behaviour. Intellectually they are very much aIive. For instance, because of her agêr l-ack of experience and confidence, and the pattern of behaviour existing between men and women of the time, Jenny in The Bay of Noon defers to the rul-es and boundaries laid down by Justin in theír relationship. Nevertheless, her active, mental resistance is clear from her thoughts. fn her internal dialogue with Justin she resists his manipulative techniques. Likewise Sophie in The Evening of the Holiday might argue that Tancredi's 'right to approach her was implicit in all their meetings'(EH, p.44) but she 'battles' (to use the system of metaphors which Robert SeIIick5 recognízes as operating within the novella itself) to retain the right at least to choose the time of her inevitable rdefeatr. There are many references in the book to Sophie's vulnerability. For instance, in the aftermath of the Storm which interrupted the lunch at Luisa's vi11a, Tancredi, watching Sophie collect fallen lemons, sees her as: unbearably mortal, a prey to her present circumstances, to himself, to mysteriouS events to come.... Tancredi felt a

95 pang for her He could not get over this impression of her vul-nerabili ty. (EH, p.7 9) At other times she is seen as a victim. Àt one point in the novella, Sophie reminds Tancredi: rYourre a threat to me.l He said seriously: rYou must forgive me for that.l rYou dontt deny itr' she observed. rAre you always like this?' 'Like what?' 'Following the score instead of listening to the music?' She shook her head, but not in answer to his question. He lifted her hand on to his knee and laid his own hand over i t. I You won I t leave , ' he sa id. She stayed in her sLack, acquiescent attitude like a defeated general, not accounting for the errors that led to this predicament. (EH, p.53) In this scene when Sophie 'acquiescest, not in positive t,erms but, rather, by default, it is as if she ís being manoeuvred by the more active and forthright Tancredi. One remembers that Tancredi Iikes to collect battLe scenes and that his first words when Sophie isrdefeatedrare: rTomorrow !ùe can make some plans' (p.53). In a later scene, too, which stresses Sophie's passivity, h¡hen Tancredi calIs her on the telephone to decl-are his love and ask her to join him, Sophie again does not say yes or no but lets Tancredi assume she will be there. In allowing hersel-f to be 'prevailed upon', Sophie is f ul-f il1ing the narratorrs prediction that t.his is what r¡/omen secretl-y desire 1p.13). When Sophie 'agrees' to meet Tancredi, her ambivalent feelings are expressed in the words: 'She felt not as if she had

96 taken a decision but as though she had now relinquished any possibility of doing sor 1p.63) - words that find their echo in a Iater comment of Luisa's: 'That's our índulgence, yours and mine, to think of things until werve thought the true meaning out of them and the need for any actionr(p.115). The reader is reminded of the reference to Sophie as one of those people who follow the Score rather than 'listening to the musíc' as Tancredi does 1p.53). Sophie intellectual izes, where Tancredi acts instinctively. Though Sophie's outward aspect ís acquiescent and dependent, there has been an internal battle, as Geering perceptively commentsr ffiêtaphorically represented when Sophie desperately fights her vray through the crowds at the Festival to reach the gates and Tancredi.6 More importantly, it is Sophie who, after her eventual commitment to Tancredi, stage-manages the love affair and the moment of parting. Their time together is to be conducted according to Sophie's prescription for a perfect romantic episode approaching a work of art. Both novellas have an elegiac quality, reminiscent of Turgenev, with their interest in transient love; but there is also an analogy between the Scene where Sophie returns tc a

w intry I taly for her auntrs funeral and stands bleakly considering Tancredi's personaÌ possessions in his car his hat, his gloves and the scene in Persuasion where Anne Eliot, alone and with a future apparently empty of affection stretching before her, compares herself to the Autumn that is the setting for her personal tragedy. She was the last... the very last, the only remaining one

97 of al-l that had filled and animated both houses, of alI that had given Uppercross its cheerful character A few months hence and the room now so desertedr occupied bgt by her silent, pensive self, might be firled again wittr all that \4ras happy and gay ¡ all that \¡/as growing añ¿ nright in prosperous love, all that was most unrike annã Eriot.

An hour's complete leisure for such reflections as theser orr a dark November d.y, a small thick rain almost blotting out the very few objects ever to be discerned from the wínãows, $¡as enough to make the sound of Lady Russerl's carriage exceedingry welcome; and yet, though desirous to be gotté, she could not quit the Mansion House t otr look an adieu to the cottagê, with its black, dripping and comfortless veranda, or even notice through the místy glasses the last humble tenements of the vi 11ag€, without a saddened heart. 7 Just as Jane Austen correlates Anne's situation with the season of Autumn' with all its elegiac and melancholy connotations, so

Shirl-ey Hazzard sets the af termath of Sophie's love af fair in a lifeless winter setting. The climax and f uIf ilment of .sophie's love af fair takes place in the summertimer âgâinst a background of romantic vilIas and beautiful, formal gardens, reminiscent of the garden in The Romance of the Rose, or vírgil's and Horacers locus amoenus, the pleasant place associated with romantic 1ove.B rancredi's renaissance garden, the descriptions of the Tuscany countryside in summer' are contrasted with the bitter season which is the aftermath to Sophie's holiday romance: The water froze that winter in the pipes and drains, in the canars, l-akes and rivers of Europe. snow felt on palms and temples in Sicily; icicles hung in clumps from the petrified fountains of Rome; and venice, apparentry l-oose from her moorings, drifted in an arctic sea. Tt was a fearfur winter, cruel to the poor and expensive for the rich. rn its final weeks, when it had displaced every instinct except that of survival, the certainty that it must come to an end v/as recogn ízed as something glorious, a marvel of Nature - the edge, in fact, that Nature has over human il-l-s. (EH, p.I24)

9B The description of a hard European winter becomes a metaphor for Sophie's suffering.

Another aspect which stresses the importance of seasons as a background to events is Sophie's reluctance to be associated with a brief, commonplace, holiday romance. Her reaction to Tordini's flippant remark about the benefits of always being with foreign girls demonstrates her unwil-l-ingness to engage in or a11ow her ideals to be cheapened by such a trivial relationship, lacking in seriousness: Tordini was saying 'And then this Italian says to his friend: "Why are you always with foreign girls? What is it they do thatrs so special, these foreígn girls?" And then the friend replies: "They leave"'. Sophie laughed. For a moment she thought: f am going to cry. No, I canrt cry here. Only children cry in public. It's the sort of thing one should do in childhood, quickly, be fore i t's too l-ate. (EH, p.5 0) Both Sophie and Jenny have their reasons for ending an affair, the one with Tancredi, the other with Gianni. They have both discovered that though Italy wil-1 remain 'a place that could be missed'(BN, p.145), a place where each heroine has come, in Shirley Hazzardrs literal interpretation of the phrase, to her senses, they in fact belong elsewhere. Jenny refuses to commit the same mistake twice. She will not continue in a situation where she must suffer Gioconda's magnanimityr âs she did Norah's. Sophie, too, sees that the gulf between herself and Tancredi admits of no permanent relationship between them, and that northern Europe must be her chosen place. She is, as Luisa sees, more like her mother than she knows: 'But, heavens, when she stood there saying she must go, how like her mother she looked.r (EH, p.116)

99 One of the differences in treatment bethreen the two books under consideration is that although the actions described in The Evening of the Holiday and The Bay of Noon cov.er a similar time span (Sophie's summer holiday in ltaly and her return in the winter for her Aunt's funeraL¡ Jenny's year in Naples), the Bay of Noon ranges far wider in time - both backwards and forwards than does The Evening of the Ho1iday. fn The Evening of the HoIiduy, the narrator plunges the reader straight into events with the opening tea-party: a rather different tea-party from Henry James' in The Portra i t of a Lady. Sophie's past Li fe is little explored, though the narrator reminds the reader that she does have a life other than her holiday life in Italy. She r/ùas'someone with parents, bi11s, ailments, someone who did the shopping and went to the dentist and \4ras accountable to friends'(p. ). In a scene with her aunt some references to Sophie's mother fill in the background with very J.ight strokes, giving a perêpective on the sorts of influences on the young Sophj.e. Luisa also provides an avenue for Tancredi to recast his ideas of his father, when she provides a different view of his father's character through her memories of him and her hint of a past love affair with him. When Sophie returns to ltaly in the winter, Shirley Hazzard has her consider sending a cable torsomeone who would be glad to hear'r SUggesting that there is life after Ttaly. But all these ways of extending the time span and adding to the knowledge of the character in the novel, taking the reader back before the action of the story and hinting at a sequel, are

100 performed in a subtle and allusive manner in The Evening,oT t Holiday compared to the more solidty grounded evocation of the past in The Bay of Noon. The technique of the short story demands that the writer conientrate on a particular incident, whatever its ramifications. Background information must be compressed, and the writer must merely suggest the history of hís/her characters. Shirley Hazzard has been hre11 grounded in these techniques during her years as a short story writer, and there is a development from short story to the novel through The Evening of the Holiday, circumscribed in time, to The Bay of Noon, more expansive both in time and setting, as well as in development of character. In the later nove1la, the time span of the action is extended considerably. Firstly, Jenny is telling a tale which is meant to have happened over a decade earlier. Secondly, by the use of the device of the story within a story the time is further pushed back into the past. Gioconda relates to Jenny the history of her Iove affair with Gaetano during the v¡ar and, in the process, te1ls much of the experience of Ttalians, and Neapolitans in particular, throughout that r{ar. Her story goes back to the early days of the Second World War, as does Justinrs, who briefly recollects a wartime sojourn in the Falk1and Islands. He speaks of the bleakness of its desolationrnot dignified by drama': the one survivíng tree on the island symbolizing the need to survive the island and the war. Jenny's childhood as an evacuee to South Africa is an important element in the story and explains her sense of displacement, her uncertainty in her sense of her own identity. Her return to Italy over a decade after the

101 incidents she describes in the novella take the time scale further yet - into the future, a future which holds for Jenny marriage to an English solicitor, and which discovers the re- marriage of Justin and his death in arplane crash. Besides the difference in the treatment of the time span of Shirley Hazzard's two novellas, there is also an ímportant difference in the narrative technique of the books. The Bay of Noon, told in the first person mode, a11ows only Jennyrs viewpoint to be projected, though, by allowing Gioconda and Justin to speak for themselves to Jenny, the author to some extent circumnavigates this restriction. And in having Jenny tel-l her story after the event, a distancing effect is achieved, as well as the possibility of exploring the structuring facility of memory. In The Evening of the Hol-iduy, using the t hird person narrator mode, Shirley Hazzard achieves not only a detached view of the heroine, but also access to the other characters in the novel which Sophie could not have. This technique is enriched by adopting shifting poi nts-of-view through the use of a modified form of rstream-of-con sciousness' writing, where Shirley Hazzatd presents first one cha racter's thoughts, then another's. It is a technique used in The Transit of Venus and it is interesting to recall that in an interview with Paul Kavanagh, Shirley Hazzard says: I can't imagine I would ever write again in the first person. I don't rea11y care for it. However, with that book teU1, it was the only means I found to use the city of Naples - which is the real heroine of the story - in the narrative \^r i!hout compil ing what would have sounded l-ike a travel- book. 9

r02 By combining third person narration with stream-of-consciousness in The Evening of the HoIiday, Shirley Hazzard achieves the deLached, objective view possible with an omniscient author, as well- as al-lowing for a degree of identification and empathy with the characters in the novell-a through an internalized view. The first chapter of The Evening of the Holiday, though not exclusively presenting Tancredi's thoughts, does emphasize his point of view. He is described from the outside by the narrator: 'He was an architect and his work was not much affected by the summer exodusr (p.7). By page eight, the point of view switches to some sort of chorus - the local residents - who wonder at his separation from his wife. Shirley Hazzard has moved outside the scene in Gabriella's house to the friends and neighbours who, commenting on Tancredirs domestic situation, 'generally assumed that he found his deserted house intolerable since his wife had left him' (p.9). The authorrs interest in language extends to an analysis of body language as she amusingly describes the typical ftalian gestures which reinforce, or in some cases' supersede words:

In the town it was fel-t to be a great pity that such a beauti f u1 house shoul-d stand empty but for years the architetto and his wife had been... (here a gesture of two hands going in completely opposite direct ions). Now she had actually left him and gone to her family's house at the sea (another gesture, signifying money on aIl sides), and taken the children. Ah, the p oor architetto (and now a sign to the effect that money wasn't everything), he m issed his children and that was why he had moved in with his sister. (EH, p.B)

Vüe are first introduced to Sophie through Tancredi's view of her - a view which is soon discovered tobe wrong on most counts. He has just decided she is'the archetypal Englishwoman'when he

103 discovers she is half-rtalian. He feels that she is Inothing special' but his first, lukewarm interest ín Sophie changes gradually when he discovers they have a common interest in Anita Garibal-di, an interest which allows him to pro ject a more glamorous and romantic image of himself than had been possible so far during that, for Tancredi, rather unsettling tea-party. The party is made up of elderly or middle-aged people like Tancredi, with Sophie the only young person present. Tancredi has felt at something of a disadvantage compared to the painter Giovanetti, who exuded vitality, despite his age, and like many of the artists in Shirley Hazzard's novels, stands for integriLy, humanity, and an engagement with 1ífe. The narrator in describing Tancredi's physical appearance, contrasts the Lwo men present: Tancredi ..., in his forties, aLready had rather more flesh and slightly less hair than the old man and, although conventionally handsome, he lacked any particular physical distinction. This afternoon, for the first time, he had become aware of that discrepancy¡ ít was one reason he had changed places. (EH, p.10) It is also one reason why he constantly changes his suits, as Luisa reminds him: 'You wear a new suit almost every day.... Eventua1J-y, perhaps, you will find one that is just right for you' 1p.27). With a failed marriage in his immediate past and conscious of impending middle ager Tancredi is grateful to Sophie for the opportunity of restoring his sense of amour propre. For Tancredi ¡ âs welI as for Giovanetti, Sophie's youth and romanticism refresh the memory of past youth, the early response to life undimmed by habit or cynicism. By allowing the reader to follow Tancredi's thoughts,

104 Shirley Hazzard quickly and deftly builds up a picture of the man, his insecurities and his prejudices. Considering Sophie, he thinks: He hoped she hrasn't going to be ful1 of theories. Even the term'a clever r¡roman'hras disagreeable to him; one said ra cLever mant in commendation, but fa clever \n¡omant had a pejorative sound to it. (EH, p.14) His words, 'Oh, surely notf, in reply to Sophiets ironic agreement with his comment that it hras probably a good thing to keep women inside the house, are at odds with his thoughts, which are less 1iberal. This is a technique which Shirley Hazzard uses extensively in the Evening of the Holiday to demonstrate the gap between private truth and public utterance. For instance, in an exchange between Luisa and Tancredi, Luisa, knowing that his visit to her is principally to see Sophier well aware of his motives, comments to herself: rI know him so \rtell-'. Aloud she says, with a subtl-e change of emphasis:

I I've known him s ince he !ùas a schooIboy.... Heavens what a love Iy young man he $¡a s' . 'People only say thatr' Tancredi remarked, 'when they feel that early promise hasn't been fulfilled.' 'Not at al-1'returned Luisa, thinking there was truth in what he said. 'I'm sure you have a long history of f u1f il1ed promises.' tThat, for some reason, sounds worse.' (EH, p.23) Besides demonstrating Shirley Hazzardts particular style of wry humour and ironic wit, this passage is an example of many such in the book which show the discrepancy between what is thought and what is said. Shirley Hazzard, like Jane Austen, is a sharp observer of social manners, and phrases her comments with wit and elegance. Often the last words of the thought that is

10s in the mind of a particular character focussed upon by Shirley Hazzard become the first words of what ís actually said, emphasizing the discrepancy and acting as 'catchwords' which link the transition from private thought to public utterance. This device is used far more frequently in The Evening of the Ho1 iday than elsewhere in Shirley Hazzard's writing. By foll-owing Tancredi's and Luisa's thought patterns, the author builds up a confidence in Luisa's view of a situation, shown to be founded on clear-sightedness, wisdom and a commitment to truth, and a concomitant lack of confidence in Tancredi's. In a scene where Sophíe is waiting for her nightingale to sing, Tancredi imagines her thoughts to be quite prosaic. In fact, they range from amusement at her aunt's description of her as fartistic' closer to the truth than Sophie realizes to an evaluation of her auntrs character, and a consideration of Tancredi's interest in herself: Sophie smiled to hear on her auntrs lips this dated adjective, which evoked a picture of hand-loomed skirts or iIl-proportioned pottery or symmetrical flowers painted on the ]ids of boxes. She would not look at Tancredi, but she thought more than once that he had come just to see her, and she coul-d not heì-p being pleased. There was something avowed, almost oId-fashioned, about his manner of sitting there in her aunt's presence. However, Luisa did not really have the character of a duenna. Her tendernessr while deeply personalr âs true tenderness has to be, had a monumental quality as if she saw in oners own need a reflection of al-1 the vulnerability and injustice of the world. Her understanding \^¡as too valuable one could not make trifling claims on it. Sophie thought: They cannot stay for us, precious people; they musL go on, for others await them. And I am perfectly able to deal with this man' who does not even attract me (she vtas Sure of this' having given it some thought since she had met him at his sister's), except in so far as he has the qualities that are attractive about Italy itself a grace and the Iack of earnestness. He \¡¡as probably older than he looked. And then there \4ra s the language. I f I sa$7 hi m alone, she

106 thought, I woul-d have to wonder all the t ime about the subjunctive. f don't think I can be bothered. (EH, p.24) In this scene, Shirley Hazzard not only shows that Tancredi misjudges Sophie but hints at the gap which separates them. Whilst Sophie communes with Keats and the nightingale, escaping through the'magic casementrof the imagination to the heart of experience, Tancredi approaches, making 'no attempt to soften the sound of his steps as he crossIes] the gardenr (p.28). The scene bal-ances that later visit to the countryside when Sophie does not feel the rapport Tancredi so obviously experiences with his native landscape. Each is like someone tone deaf at the other's musical performance.

A device Shirley Hazzard adopts in pursuit of the truth is a variation on the use of thercatchwordrat the micro l-eveI. This is the recurring phrase at the beginning and end of a chapter. Lehmann has drawn attention to thetsymphonic prose style'of The Transit of venus.lo Similarly, in The Evening of the Holiday a formal pattern can be traced. The first seven chapters deal with Tancredi 'prevailing' upon Sophie; Chapter 8 sees the beginning of their love affair; in Chapter 16 Sophie takes a last look at Tancredi's everyday life, which continues without her. In some chapters of The Evening of the Holiduy, a sonata form prevails. An opening phrase is developed and occurs again in the f inal cadence, modified by the exchange of dialogue in the development section. What has intervened has changed the meaning or emphasis of a phrase. For instance, Gabriella, in the first phrase of Chapter 1, asks Tancredi to show their visitors the founLain in the garden.

107 Passages of description and information intervene before the visit to the fountain is again broached information about Tancredi's siLuation, Sophie's background and reason for being in Ita1y, as well as subtle allusions to the relationship of brother and sister. When Tancredi and Sophie finally arrive at the fountain, a good deal of information has been given the reader about Tancredi's susceptibility to women, a certain scornfulness in his attitude to Sophie, and the change in that attitude. The chapter culminates in the image of Sophie forming a part of pisano's design for a fountain. In this brief, but devastating image, Tancredi is moved'by a pang of authentic sentiment'and recalls that Giovanetti had said to Sophie: rrefresh my memory': He thought, as he watched her, that in all his life he had never Seen a more seductive thing than the unconsidered gesture \4'ith which she folded back her sleeve. He saw the brown outer skin.of her arm as she turned her wrist, the surprising vulnerable white of the inward flesh and the veined curve inside the el-bow. Her reaching hand and forearm, momentarí1y transfigured by water, had seemed in that instant to form part of the design the design attributed to Pisano but probably even o1der. These simple actions moved him by their involuntary po\4ter, their immense accomplishment. He was amazeC too by the magnitude of his own response, which gave her gesture real consequence. Although he had spoken to her earlier of his romantic temperament, he was as shaken by this pang of authentic sentiment as if he had encountered a friend totally unchanged after an absence of twenty years. (EH' p.t9) Even though Sophiets gesture only acquires 'reaI consequence' through Tancredi's reSponSe, a phrase which tells a great deal about Tancredi's unconscious chauvinism, that response does remind him of his better self. The image evoked by Shirley Hazzard in Gabriel-lars garden, where Sophie's arm plunges into the water like a Naiad of mythology, sets up a moment such as Malouf describes in his

108 article on Proust: a 'timeless suspension of time'.11 Keats' response to the experience of sharing one such moment of suspended time, recorded for posterity visually on a Grecian urn, expressed itself in the linear art form of a poem, albeit dense with metaphor. On many occasions in her novels Hazzard achieves a simil-ar effect to this timeless suspension of time by adopting a cinematographic technique a frozen moment whose image is unforgettable, and never to more effect than in this scene in The Evening of the Holiday. In a discussíon with John Haffenden, Anita Brookner speaks of the power of images: What attracted me to art history i s the pov/er of images' which act differently from words. Images recur in a \,¡ay that words don't. Dreams are usually wordless but they're fu11 of images, and an image can carry over in some mysterious way and generate tþings. Images are more põwerfuL and primitive than words.rz It is the powerful and primitive aspect of the scene Shirley Hazzard describes which affects Tancredi. The first chapter, short though it is, brilliantly demonstrates Shirley Hazzard's techniques. The visit to the fountain, first suggested on page one, sets the scene for the dynamics of the relations between Tancredi and Sophie t têlations fraught with tension. Tancredi's image of Sophie as an archetypal woman, wishing to be rprevailed upon'r âssociated with the fluid medium of \n¡ater, her vacant detachment assumed as a defence against an easy rconquestr, are essential to the tone of this love affair. In Chapter 11, whose opening words are: 'My father - whom you knew...' (p.94), Shirley Hazzard again uses this device of the recurring phrase. Luisa's recollections of Tancredi's father

109 are quite different to the son'sr so that by the end of the chapter the phrase has changed its meaning. Tancredi finds that, in fact, Luisa did indeed know his father. As Geering remarks, in Shirley Hazzard's novels and short stcries'the point of view is usually the womanrs, the source of tension the difference between man and woman in their attitude toward love'.13 He draws attention to the insensitivity, cruelty and essential selfishness of several of Shirley Hazzardt s mal-e characters. But de spite some critical views on Tancredi, the author stresses his warmth and charm, especially when he is equated with Ital-y itself. Algerina Neri remarks on the fact that Shirley Hazzard's 'Italian characters are recognizably Ital-ian',14 Unl-ike Henry James' Ital-ian novels, Shirley Hazzardts stories set in ltaly deal to a considerable extent with Ital-ians in their ohrn setti.g, speaking their own language, rather than almost exclusively with expatriates, sitting on the landscape instead of being at home in the land. Tancredi, like Gianni, manifests characteristics and mannerisms which place him firmJ-y on Italian soiI. If p1ace, as Eudora Welty argues, is undeniably important as the solid foundation on which a fictional work is constructed, it al-so has much to do with shaping character in l-ife and fictional characters in novel-s.15 The characters in a novef may be the product of artifice but they must be welded onto a knowledge of therreal-'and, in Shirley Hazzardts case, they are firmly gyounded in an understanding of the Latin temperament, as shown by her description of Tancredi's response to the Italian landscape, already quoted, and his ability to 'l-isten to the music' instead of 'following the

110 score | . On their visit to Tancredi's tenants, Sophie sees him in his role as landowner, and views his privileged position his vi11a, his garden, his pleasant Iife critically when confronted with the opposite. Symbolically, the peak of their happiness together is reached as they approach the farm by the upward path: How happy we are, she thought, without the slightest reflection or attempt to establish cause as someone might marvel at a wonder of nature. rHow happy you look.' He kissed her forehead tightly and they went on. There was room no\¡¡ for them to walk side by side, and the path led through cultivated land. There was no one in sight - not even an animal or a chicken to be seen. All the shutters of the house r^rere closed. (EH, p.B6) The passage comes just before the world intrudes into Sophie's idyl1, whose Renoir-like setting makes of Sophie and Tancredi'a detail in the canva='.16 Tancredi's singí.g, and Shirley Hazzardr s ominous reference to Orpheus also have their significance in predicting the end of the affair. The scene where Tancredi interviews the family shows him in an authoritative mood. Sophie had never seen him in quite this role before. His authority, their humility, made her uneasy. No one seemed to mind but her. (EH, p.B7) The simple life of the family at the farmhouse t age-old in its patterns and rhythms, with only a fluorescent striplight in the Iiving room intruding its'sordid'reminder of the twentieth century, holds a sense of mystery for Sophie comparable to that which is evoked by the medieval fresco. In her first impression of the painting, Sophie is reminded of the family they have just l-eft, with its unquestioning acceptance of the everyday realities

111 ot l-1te: Higher up, higher than eye level, there hras a seated central figure rather larger than life-síze, surrounded by saints and angels and balancing a child on one knee in the sarne matte r-of -f act \,ùay that Neldars grandmother had held the baby. (EH, Þ.91 ) A closer inspection of the Virgin reveals no cLue to the mystery on that rblank countenance'. Shirley Hazzard has several times stressed that Lhere are some aspects of Iife which are not susceptible to analysis and classification. The portrait stands as a metaphor for the author's concept of Ìife's unexplainable wholeness. If there is an answer to these mysteries, she seems to suggest that art, as a continuing expression of the human spirit, may hold the cIue. Sophie and Tancredi descend the upward path, as Renoir has his figures descend in his painting, and the succeeding chapters of the novel-1a deal with Tancredi's growing uneasiness and irritation with Sophie's apparently uncritical love. Tancredi complains to Luisa, ostensibly of his father, but actually of Sophie: He invented his own life and the life of those who impinged on him. After my motherrs death he created for her a character she had never possesseC, and in this way managed to ef face her memory for all of us. ft \,{as impossible for usr as children, to refer to our mother as having been in any degree fallibIe t oy even human. We woul-dnrt have required my father to mention her faults which were rel-atively few. Had he merely implied that she occasionally cut her fingernails or brushed her teeth like the rest of us, I believe we woul-d have embraced him. Af ter a \À/hí1e the memory of my mother became boring - it was the boredom that attaches to any matter of which the truth may never be tol-d. The very idea of her, circumscribed as it was at my fatherrs insistence, was a renunciation of oners intelligence. (EH, p.95) Luisa reminds him that sometimes ttruth i s cl-oser to imagination or to intelligence, to love than to fact' (p.95 ). Tn

I12 equating Sophie with his father Tancredi uses the past to understand his present feelings of unreality and claustrophobia; but he is not aware that in inventing her o\4tn life Sophie is rigidly accepting the consequences of a submission to the ideals of romanticism. She is creating her own past, aware that it will soon be her past. In Christian and Sophie, Shirley Hazzard shows two dífferent responses one shal1ow, the other totally dedicated to the ideals of Iiterature and particularly Iiterature which emphasizes romanticism. Nostalgic for earlier criticism that he \4ras runreliable', 'vain' Tancredi feel-s the weight of responsibility for Sophie's romantic ideals, not seeing the design that she is creating and not understanding the ruthlessness of her commitment to that design. In considering what he fe1t was Sophie's too perfect, too uncritical love, which weighed heavily on him knowing his al-1-too-human imperfections, Tancredi real-izes the root of his uneasiness lies in Sophie's ideal ization of himself, which he recognized in his fatherrs memory of his mother: Everything he had said to Luisa that morning about his father had been directed at Sophie; it was only a step from his f aLher's unreal-ities to hers. The total lack of reference, in her behaviour with him, to her present position caused him, he real izedt Þr ecisely the claustrophobic sensations he had been describing an hour earlier. It I^/as as if she had taken leave of her senses - or come into their futl- possession at the expense of her reason; as if she had no capacity to consider her actions in the light of their. consequencesr âs if she thought it could go on for ever, this disregard for the eventual course of her Iife, and his. She surely could not imagine that he had always lived Lhis wây, in such seclusion, with no expression of his personality other than as a lover. If only she had once asked him: 'What are we to do?ror'What is to become of us?' that, he felt distractedly, \^¡as all he asked. It seemed little enough - the least indication that she made in her mind some connexion with external

113 things. (EH, p.I01) Sensing his uneasiness, Sophie reassures him that he need not find a reason'to come to the end of this since we donrt have much time left together' (p.105). In pursuit of her work of art, Sophie has already faced the necessity to treat their love as transient, incapable of withstanding the rigours of everyday 1ife. She is disturbed when Luisa suggests she need not leave Tancredi, a married man who is unable to obtain a divorce: Having made up one's mind Lo suffer a great hurt, it was somehow disheartening, a disappointment, to be told it need not be borne and that some other way could be found, less lonely but harder, more imperfect but bearable. (nH, p.116) The repercussions of their love affair have been considered in advance by SophÍe and she actst ot is acted upon, in knowledge that it is a thing apart. She has already faced the consequences. Tancredi must now do so. He finds she \tras after all touched by the same'earthly questions as himself', that he had misjudged and misunderstood her: But what was strangest of aIl to him, and most interesting, was the revelation that she had in reserve these thoughts' perhaps Iimitless thoughts, of which he could have no knowledge; that her ideas might be entirely at variance with his assessment of them just when he was convinced he understood them best. (EH, pp.I05/6) Sophie's strength and self-possession and also a faculty of detachment are stressed in Tancredi's new evaluation of her. He di scovers that he has been dealing 'merely with realities' instead of those truths at which Luisa had hinted when she reminded him of the importance of imaginationr love and intelligence. Sophie's 'fo1ì-y', her obsession with creating a perfect thing, has as its impetus the same desire for beauty and

114 perfection that impelled the restoration, with such loving devotion, of the eighteenth century vil1a where Tancredi faces the inevitability of their parting. The mood of Leopardi's poem, The Evening of the Holiday, elegiac and wistful, pervades the final chapter of the book. In the Lradition of the best lyric poetryr âs described by Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Lêopardits poem runravels the moment, but retains it'r17 as does Shirtey Hazzard,t s nove11a, which f ixes and retains fleeting emotions. The holiday is over, and after holidays Come working days, and down, fhe stream of time Is borne all human history.rÕ Sophie and Tancredi have been privileged to experience one of those 'timeless moments of time' which, paradoxically, must end' The song which Leopardi hears at the end of the day reminds the poet how 'al-1 things in the world must pass,/And scarce leave trace behind them.r Sophie, regretting Luisa's death unselfishly and selfishlybecause she has lost a witness to her experience of perfect romantic love t têturns to England and home pursued by the sLrains of the unfinished regional song played by the bugler on the train which takes her a\^ray from the scenes associated with that love. The tune Sophie hears, as too Leopardi's song' symbolize the'almost unbearable pressure of continuityt (p.I3s). The tone of the final- pages of The Evening of the Holiday is sadder, and the sadness more rah¡, than The Bay of Noon since Jenny's story is told at a distance of time and from the security of her marriage. Sophie, Like Jenny, has learnt a great deal

11s from her stay in Ita1y, but in the telling of the tale no perspective has yet been reached to mediate the suffering.

116 V

THE BAY OF NOON

The themes of love and truth dominate The Bay of No'on. They develop naturally and unobtrusivelyr âS will be seen in the following discussion, through the juxtapositioning of the four central characters, their changing attitudes to each other, Jenny's discovery of the truth about the ambivalence of love, and her achievement of a sense of rhome'. She learns that the criterion for love is a sense of loss when absent. As Jenny says towards the end of the book: there noht exi sted at last a place that could be missed.... Some part of me woutd aJ-ways be coming, nohr, f rom thi s. Like the dye they had injected into my veins, the country coloured my essence, illuminated the reaction to everything eIse. Here, li teral-Iy, I had come to my senses. (BN, p.145) As with places, so with people. The recotlection of Gioconda, Gianni and JusLin had, too, entered Jenny's consciousness. Theír impingement on her Iife would colour the future for Jenny, illuminating her rreaction to everything else.' Jenny ís searching for self and home when she arrives in Naples an observer of Iove until Giannits combined acts of submission and rescue. She does not realize the depths of her feelings for Justin until he leaves Naples with Gioconda never to return again to Jennyts life, other than in memory. Gianni and Jenny console each other for the defection of Justin and Gioconda the latter driven by a need to escape the role of martyr to Gianni's tyrannies and infidelities. But it is Gianni's courtly gesture in delaying his reunion with Gioconda that gives Jenny the sense of being something more than a mere

II7 rcomforter'. Though she i s a substitute for Gioconda (witness Gianni's automaLic action in reaching for the comb Gioconda habitually wore (BN, p.L24), an act foregrounded early in the work 1p.35))r nevertheless, his tact in arranging her departure from Genoa rather than Naples, and his timing of their last night together, show Gianni in a quite different light to the Gianni of Jenny's first impressions of him. It also makeS Jenny feel more valued, more a person in her ohtn right. Like the chi1d, Em iIy, in El izdoeth Harrohterrs The Long Prospect, who eyes rherself in the mirror with an altogether neht respect' when Max takes notice of herrl J"nnY, toor finds a new self-image from another's respect. When Jenny comments that Gianni could have joined Gioconda in France the evening of her own departure from Italy, he replies: 'Just as Soon paSS the night here. No sense killing oneself for the sake of a few hours.' The narrator, Jenny, considers his rePIY: There v¡as' in his manner of saying thist sgmething en so unpractised was Gianni in the arç of di good äctions that touched me as much as not going instantly, as he must have wi e to Gioconda, but allowing, instead' a night to intervene. It was an act of almost formal observance....=i..rgIe (BN' p.146) Perhaps Giannir âS well as Jerrfl!r has learned Something from their association, though his remarks in reply to Jennyrs suggestion that when Gioconda returns he might be different with her - not changed, butrmore himself'- are not auspicious. He responds: r...I have no desire to turn into one of those men you see about - reformed characters, you know; who have come to

118 heel' (p.I25). Gíanni sees Jenny's suggestion as a threat to his manhood. But Jenny has learned that Gianni is not all arrogance he needs Gioconda, as the scene she witnesses between them on the balcony of Giocondats flat demonstrates, and as does his reaction when Gioconda leaves him. That love can be painful is one of the truths of Shirley Hazzard's stories. Her novellas deal wíth love which has no future: betv¡een Sophie and Tancredi; between Jenny and Edmund; Jenny and Justin; Jenny and Gianni. But they show that even a transient love is by no means atI IoSS. And, as Justin Says at one point in the novella, as will be discussed later, love is more often 1ike1y to be found'closer to hometthan in the romantic, idealistic dreams of the young Jenny. The final paragraphs of The Bay of Noon, with their poetic vision of manrs restless searchiñgsr make cl-ear the author's emphasis that 'how we came' is more important than the object of search. As Shirley Hazzard says $¡hen asked in interview why romantic l-ove doesnrt rcome off very welf in several of her books: WeIl, there are moments when it comes off well. there is joy in it, but there is al-so a 1ot of suffering and there are unexpected things which arenrt always a questíon of blame, life carries us on and we do different things. There is this Sense of events passing av¡ay and leaving somefhing behind whích was v¡hat I wanted to achieve in a V'/ay. - Experience may be transient but can stiIl reverberate throughout the individual's 1ife. Memory is 'immensely important' Lo Shirley Hazzard, 'in life as in work'.3 It forms the basis of the narrative technique in The Bay of Noon in which the heroine discovers the meaning of her past experience through carefully composed retrospect. The

119 author stresses the need for reviewing the past in order to understand oursel-ves and others. As with proust, recourse to memory is the avenue to truth, however subjective, ambiguous and fraught with the possibility of error such memory may be. Time Iends perspective and acts as a fíIter to recollections of past events, though, Gioconda, the sceptic, reminds us: 'retrospect is not the same as the eventr (p.59). rn Jennyrs case, evaluation is distanced by an interval of twelve years or more. As CatherÍne Rainwater and Wil-liam J. Scheick comment: rJennyrs narrative is at once an act of memory and an act of art; its artistry derives from the art of memory, which is selective and fictionarizíng'.4 shirley Hazzard in The Bay of Noon explores the effects of the past on the present by pushing her narrative back in time through the recollections of Jenny and Gioconda. The inset narrations add universality to the theme of love and truth just as they do in The Transit of venus. The use of phrases and images which recur at critical moments in the book' someLimes with a different emphasÍs or change of tone, is part of Shirley Hazzardts method of composition in pursuing the effects of memory on a character's conception of truth. These phrases and images, and her use of metaphor, work to link episodes and echo throughout the narrative. They operate as do mental and physical associations which remind us of past experience through memory and through the senses: for instance, the scent of Gioconda's perfume which hangs on the air in Jennyrs sick room. Shirley Hazzardrs use of this device at the individual level

I20 to suggest the idea of continuity in personal experience (tne past ís always liable to revive in the present) is reinforced by the many literary allusions which draw on the European experience, by her references to paintings, her interest in archítecture, and, in The Bay of Noon, in the history of the people of Naples, which suggest the idea of a continuum at the universal Ieve1. Past and present are seen as inextricably linked and contemporary culture regarded as a'current manifestation of a longer and greater hrorking out of the human story Like Croce, who stresses a Jungian collective consciousness in his concept of the history of mankind expressed through art, Shirley Hazzard, too, projects an idea of a universal or social consciousness through her accounts of the city of Naples. As an example of collective consciousness, the Neapolitanfs habit of reverting to instinctive responses' their lemming-like rush for Capri during the Vesuvius eruption in wartime ItaIy, i s touched on in Gioconda's story (p.59). This reaction could weLl be traced back in the history of the city to 78 A.D. A basic theme in The Bay of Noon is the long story of catastrophe survived which enables the Neapolitans to endure poverty, hardship and disaster. Returning from a visit to Herculaneum, Gioconda, Gianni and Jenny, the narrator of The Bay of Noon stop for lunch at a restaurant at Sorrento. As they look across the Bay of Naples, speaking of the Neapolitans, and of what Gíanni refers to as their 'collective knowledge' (p.38), the result of a history of civi] and external \^rarsr hâturaI disasters, unremitting povertyt and the necessify to live life in the shadow of an active

T2I volcano, Gianni teIls Jenny that Naples will change everything for her. tNaples', he says, 'is a leap. ft's through the Iooking glass': Jenny looks out'at the oval mirror of the bay' 1p.38). Like A1ice, her visit to the Looking Glass !VorId, a defamiliarízed world, wil-1 enlarge her understanding of people' their motives, and her o\^¡n. Her discovery of NapIes is the metaphor for her exploration of her own identity, the various contradictory aspects of 1ove, and the importance of cuLtural history as an expression of the spirit of a people. with Montaigne, Jenny finds that'life is a search for the truth'. The Bay of the title provides a motif for the theme of search and understanding in Jennyrs life. It not only reflects Vesuvius, the 'haughty mountaín' of Leopardi's poem 'La Gínestra', the volcano assocíated with disaster,'but it also provides a metaphor for the reflective mood when, sick and alone, Jenny is isolated in her apartment overlooking the Bay of Nap1es and attempting to understand her place in the world. During the journey from Herculaneum, the narrator describes the volcano itself, Vesuvius, as rslowly turning on its flanks, then releasing us for the long arc of the bay'(p.37) providing in this dramatic description an image which recurs bhroughout the book. The image is one of imminent disaster, just barely held in check, which haunts the story both at the social and topographic as well as the personal IeveI. This image persists throughout The Bay of Noon. At the height of Jenny's fever' the fireworks of the Festiva1 reflect on the waIls of her apartment, creating 'an active volcano' (p.118).

1,22 The narratorrs description of the volcano, with its impression of malignity and aggressiveness, implies a passive subject rus' turned helplessly cn the flanks of the mountain. It is a common effect when driving that the landscape appears to move rather than the vehicle in which one is travelling. Shirley Hazzard has used this phenomenon to suggest the presence of a po\4rerfu1r wâtchful and arbitrary source of devastation. The image of the destructive volcano is used both to emphasize an important aspect of Neapolitan life and the destructive elements of love. Any account of the novel-la must pay attention to its setting. The volcano is the visible manifestation and reminder of psychological forces at work within the protagonists. Desire for and retreat from love; the preservation of the sense of self under the impact of pcssessive and aIl-consuming love; these are some of the tensions which The Bay of Noon explores. As in The Transit of Venus, a sense of imminent disaster pervades The Bay of Noon. The story opens with the recollection of an accident that occurred during the winter, twelve to fifteen years previously, when a military plane had crashed on Mount Vesuvius. The end of Shirley Hazzard's story is in its beginning: a plane crash provides the motif for the opening paSsage; near the end of the novella Jenny recounts how she Iearnt, by chance, of Justin's death in a plane crash. The coda to the work is her return to Naples to meet Gioconda agairtr âfter many years of separation - a meeting never consummated. The vol-cano's po\'ire rs of de s truct ion are s tre s sed f rom the beginning of Jenny's recollections of thaL time, over a decade beforer âs she traces her past and attempts to construct, through

r23 memoryr some pattern of meaning for the events that occurred during that time in Naples. The search for the plane during that particular wínter a search which ended close to home when the fog lifted symbolizes Jennyrs search for the truth and for her own identity in what she was to come to think of asrhome'. with T.S. E1iot, Shirley Hazzard seems to say that: The end of our exploring Will be to arrive where b¡e started And know the place for the first time.6 Clough expresses this ídea, though more cynically, of the far- ranging search which is hopeless because what is sought is close to home, in his poemrAmours de Voyage', a favourite poem of Shirley Hazzard's: rThe world that we live ín Whithersoever we turn, still ís the same narrohr crib; rTis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord that we travel; Le t who woul-d 'scape and be f ree go to his chamber and think; 'Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfuLly falser; 'Tis but- to qo and have been.' Come, little bark! let us go.7 More recently, a friend telIs Graham Mclnnes in Humping My Bluey,

that he is simply using travel to mask his o\47n uncertainty about the future substituting movement for action. 'She quoted Horace at me "They change their climater hot their nature, who run beyond the sea"'.8 As Adam says in The Transit of Venus: 'thatrs not travel it's dislocation'(TV, p.I1B). For Jenny, the exploration is Ínternalr. travel, like timer fiêrely provides distance and perspective. Shirley Hazzardts pov/ers of synthesis, developed during her years as a writer of short stories, her abifity to condense but

r24 also allow the possibility of imaginative expans 1on through the device s of metaphor, literary allusion and imagery, are evident in the densely textured opening paragraphs of The Bay of Noon:

A military plane crashed that winter on Mount Vesuvius. The plane had taken off from Naples in fog; some hours afterwards it was reported míssing. The search went on for hundreds of miles around over the Ionian Sea, and at Catania, at Catanzaro. Two days later, when the fog lifted we could see the wreck quite clearIy, crumbled against the snow-streaked cone of the volcano, overlooking the airfield from which it haA set out. No one had thought of looking cLose to horne.

Since thenr so they Sây, r,rre have developed better methods of keeping in touch. For it is twelve to fifteen years, now, since the accident took place. (BN, p.9) Several of the themes explored by Hazzard in her wrÍtings are suggested in the opening section of The Bay of Noon. The search theme, which will be discussed later, is onei Jenny's quest for'placer or'homer and for identity as a mature, discriminating person, are others. The irony which is so characteristic of Hazzardts writing is evident in the reference in this passage to the far-ranging search for the missing plane which had actually crashed 'c1ose to homer. In the comment on those rbetter'methods of keeping in touch', the irony is reinforced by the laconic and dubious 'so they say'. Much of Shirley Hazzardrs work is concerned w ith the \,ray people communicate, or fail to: with the use and abuse of language, a subject which ís of basic importance in People ín Glass Houses. Though on the surface the allusíon in the paragraph quoted is to technological developments in communications systems between aircraft and ground control, the oblique allusion is, of course, to the methods people have of'keeping in touch'with each other,

r25 one of which is through language. The effect of irony is to question or undermine what is actually said. The ambivalence inherent in irony Ieads to the challenging of common assumptions, and Shirley Hazzard increases \ this element of doubt by introducing into her Lext negative words and phrases such as'so they say'and, in the excerpt which f o1lor^rs, I seemed' a hrord which, in the context of the passage quoted, immediately undercuts certainty: But memory, aL an interval of only fifteen yearsr is less economical and less poetic, stiIl clouded with effects and what seemed to be their causes. The search is still under \^/ay in unlikely places - too assiduous, Loo attenuated; too far from home. (BN, p.9) In the characteristically balanced prose of this passage, two negative'lesses' and a rseemed' counterpoint three positive Itoosr. The logic and the manner in which it is enunciated suggest that because of too littte perspective and too much deLail, memory at close quarters fails to achieve a true picture of events. In an article which appears in an issue of Australian Literary Studies, Shirley Hazzard has commented that she has come more and more to value the view of Ortega that: without a certain margin of tranquillityr truth succumbs. However passionate the writer's materíaI, some distance anÊ detachment is required before the concept can be realised.v The method Shirley Hazzard uses in her own writing i s appropriated to Jenny's exploration. In The Bay of Noon Jenny recollects in tranquillity the events of the past; time provides the distance necessary for an approach to the truth, aS does Jenny's greater maturity. But the fact that memory provides only an approximation and not the whole truth is stressed by the

r26 adoption of the technique of first-person narration which implies more subjectivity in a fictional version of Iife than does the third-person omniscient mode. The reader sees only what Jenny saw as a young girl and what she now sees looking back as an older \doman. Though the double perspective and the technique of analepsis together with the interpolatíon of Gioconda's and Justin's narratives add complexity to the final picture, it is stiIl a picture which must give a more subjective impression than third-person omniscient narration would give. Although, as Lodge argue=r10 no completely objective view of 1ife, whether fictional or actual, can be achieved - all is relative - the distance and detachment provided by an implied author is usually felt to produce a more objective picture than that of first person. Shirley Hazzard herself stresses that'each person's reality is a different one' (el, p.55) and this fact is emphasized by her narrative technique in The Bay of Noon. In her explorabion of truth and 'reality', Shirley Hazzard introduces ambiguities in the narration of The Bay of Noon which undermine any suggestion that Jenny's distanced version of the past is in fact the whole truth. At one point in the book, the older Jenny intrudes to note that a piece of the jigsa$¡ puzzle of reconstruction had escaped her until the story vras actually recounted: Gianni and Justin had once met, but the fact had been forgotten by Jenny. It is only the fact that they met that surprises¡ cropping out in retrospect. It is one of those 1ittle dependencies of memory that suddenly demand self-government. One is unreasonably angered with such a fact for existing, for making one wonder, as it does, what else has been forgotten. It spoils everything, and ought to be abolished. Vüas there

I27 not a follower of Pythagoras who was put to death because he pointed out an unaccountable flaw in the mathematical theory of universal harmony? (BN, p.110). The resources of memory are expJ.oited by Shirley Hazzard in order to terr the tale, but the unreriability and subjectivity of memory is truthfully explored through the narrator when, in the 'present' of the recollections, she becomes aware of discrepancies.

The uneasiness produced by thÍs realizaLion that what one remembers may not be the whole story, or the only version of the trubh, Lhat an element of entropy may exist to spoil the pattern, is reiterated when Gioconda, speaking to Jenny of her past 1ife, says: When I talk of it this way nov¡, to you, it al1 comes out as if there were some sequence, some 1ogic, instead of moods, contradictions, alternatives. The design imposes itserf afterwards. And is fa1se, must be false. (eN, pp.60-1) For Gioconda as welr as for Jennyr mêmory is important, and through their attempts to understand the past, shirrey Hazzard explores this aspect of truth and the dichotomy between actual experience and the remembered event. Giocondars remark about the imposed design parallers ortega's conception of 'reality, as rnot a datum, not something given or bestowed, but a construction which man makes out of a given materl¿1r.I1 This, of course, is what the writer does with his or her material. rn ortega's phitosophy, the design is imposed, though not necessarily fa1se. As a child Jenny had envied adults whose memory appeared to be all-embracing, imagining this faculty provided authenticity, a .oicture of a stable worl-d and an assurance of a stabl-e ego something Jenny notably lacks. Looking back on her own less

I28 than secure and stable childhood she comments: 'f had never acquired or been provided with familiar things; mine from childhood, had been an exi stence improvised among the unfamil-íar'1p.33). The effects of displacement are concisely and elegantly expressed in this chillingly bleak phrase. In contrast to the child's desire f or 'al-1-embracing memoryr, the adult Jenny in The Bay of Noon has learned that the abil-ity of memory to be selective and discriminating can protect one from 'the burden of experience' (p.9). The sel-ectiveness of memory and its ability to structure the past, perhaps arti fícia1ty, is explored by Shirley Hazzard in The Bay of Noon. The dichotomy between what is fated and what is the resul-t of chance is also exploredr particularly through Gioconda's, the writer's, reminiscences and work. Though the fictional version of life presenLed in Hazzard's novel The Transit of Venus stresses a Hardyesque vision of a fate which lies in wait for the characters in the nove1, in the earfier The Bay of Noon, Gioconda to some extent draws attention to the element of chance in 1ife. For instance, she is constantly puzzled by the chance - .the Letter of introduction that brought Jenny and Gioconda toge ther. Like Jocasta, Gioconda suggests that 'Chance rul-es our live s' , and l ike the ambivalent Cl-aude in rAmours de Voyager she seems to say: Great is Fate, and is best. I believe in Providence partly, What is ordained is ri and aI1 that happens is ordered. Ah, Do, that isnrt it. ?0.t, The role of fate or destiny and that of chance is discussed by Shirley Hazzard in interview: I know that there is destiny and I've seen how events in an

r29 extraordinary way come round and hor¡/ people, by what they put into lifer vêry often generate the things that. are to èome. They certainly create their own personality and therefore their role in events. Of course there are many accidents, there are many terrible things that can happen just fortuitousJ-y but there is also this very strong sense of things fulfilling themselves. I don't just mean retribution, but ê^ cyctical effect of fulfilment, a sort of who leness real- Iy. t'

Fa te and chance both play a part in the events of The Bay of Noon. Gioconda expresses the dichotomy which exists between what is fated and what is contingent when, in speaking about her lover Gaetanors death, which seemed to be fated, she says: It seemed, once more, intended, ordained, after the refusal to engage in it Ithe war]. How it 1ay in wait fot him, that viotence, the useless death he had shunned for others and for himsetf. Another terrible fulfilment. (BN' p.60) Again the wordrseemed'undercuts the positive aspects of this passage, leaving the \^¡ay open to other interpretations. The other rterrible fulfilmentr , Gioconda's father's wish that she and Gaetano should love each other, lay in wait for the time when the two men v\¡ere no longer in hartnony. This could be seen aS an ironical twist of fate. But, soon after these comments, Gioconda is to make the remark that what happened l^ras not necessarily the result of Iogic and design, but of moods, contradictions' alternatives, thereby setting up other possible interpretations than of bl-ind f ate working itself out. No simpli stic view of truth and inevitability emerges from Shirley Hazzatdts writings, as Shirley Despoja comments in a review of The Bay of Noon written before The Transit of venus \^¡as published: nothing so false to Iife as the'whole truth'of Lhis or any othér relationship F/nerges. Shirley Hazzard refuses to plãy omniscient author.r+

130 As if to underline Gioconda's scepticism, Jenny learns after she leaves Italy that Gioconda has written a screenplay filmed by

Gianni. The story r,Jas: of a'man who has managed to divert the course of his existence so often and so successfully that in middle age he is no more than a set of tributaries of indefinite origin and negligible momentum. (BN, p.152) His object in life appears to have been to evade confronting any chalLenges, to avoid commitment to anything but non-commitment. A life, in fact, of'alternatives'. If the reader bears in mind

Hazzardrs comments in the Boyer Le c ture s on the importance of ex'perience, the ability of suffering and endurance to'give immedíacy to human perception' to live "'the thing itself"r, (BL' p.12)r ân ability which Hazzard expresses through her description of the inhabitants of Naples in The Bay of Noon, the central character in Gioconda's story lives a tife of'bad faith'in Sartre's definition. The scenario for the f il-m, u¡ith it,s emphasis on choices in life, the diverging paths or 'labyrinthsr of Borgesr definitionrl5 also stresses Gioconda's scepticism toward the idea of life as designed or people as fated. It could be argued that the fictíonal'herofof Cause for Congratulation was programmed to act only in the way he did to take the easier path but Hazzard does seem to be emphasizing through Gioconda the recurring possibilities of choice in life. Shakespeare's 'tide in the affairs of menr/Which, taken at bhe flood, leads on to fortuner is here put in question. Using the metaphor of a river, rather than the sea, the outline to Gioconda's story suggests that there are multiple opportunities to change

131 direction in life which her protagonist fails to take. Gioconda's anti-hero in Cause for Congratulation defaults on life. He is concerned only with avoiding commÍtment and any possibility of endeavour with its attendant joy and pain. If character is destíny, his destiny is to be inauthentic. He is the direct opposite of those friends of Gioconda who, during the fascist regime ín Italy, made a choÍce for opposition aL the risk of death, whether ít was a commitment to speak out, or the passive resistance of Gaetano who saw art as a more important and permanent force in the history of human endeavour than successive wars and tyranny. Gaetano lives according to Crocers thesis that the spiri.t of history, what is positive and perpetual throughout human history, is expressed through art. The Italy of The Bay of Noon reflects that post-war Italy which Shirley Hazzard herself experienced when she v¡as sent to a United Nations base during the Suez crisis in 1956. This was the Italy in which the philosopher Croce, whom Shirley Hazzacd admired, died, at Naples, in 1952. Because of his opposition to

f a sci sm he had, l-ike the f ict ional Gaetano in The Bay of Noon' had his house ransacked by I'lussolinits men. Shirley Hazzardrs fictional world, the vivid descriptions of the people of Naples and the city itself, and some aspects of Jennyrs l-ife overlap with the experiences of the author and with her'real' Ita1y. Though the novel is in no sense autobiographical, the facts of Shirley Hazzardts experience lend concreteness to the fictional world of the The Bay of Noon. On this subject of fiction and its relation to fact, she says: Itrs the task of the serious writer to link the factual

I32 matter of our lives to the human functions and sensations of memory, of sufferingr lover âñimosity, terror, pleasure and affection. Witþ9ut this indispensable humanity, literature cannot survive.fo The novella reflects Shirley Hazzard's ohrn response to Ita1y. Like Jenny, Shirley Hazzard spent her formative years in a new counLry. Like Jenny, Naples for Shirley Hazzard was a re- awakening after a sterile and bleak period of Iife. For JeñûY, this was a lonely and unsatisfying position in her brother's Iife. For Hazzard, it was years spent working in a bureaucratic system and the experience of McCarthyism as it impinged on the United Nations Organization. To go to Italy was, for the author, to be rrestored to life'. She has spoken of 'the repressiveness towards pleaSure that lurks, however much subdued, in the Anglo- American-Australian ethos, like a form of self-imposed bondage.r 1 7 Auden, from whose poem 'Goodbye to the llezzogiorno' she has taken her epigraph for the Bay of Noon, has described this syndrome as the 'gui1t culture'.18 Shirley Hazzard celebraLes the very different response of the Italian to pleasure in her characterization of Gianni and Tancredi, with their'easy latin intensity'(EH p.42) and ability to'listen to the music'. In an interview in Look and Listen Hazzard says that leaving New York for Naplesrvras like being sent back to earth.... l¡ùhen I left the United Nations I can say I lived happily ever afte¡.,19 It was a return to humanity and the ideals of humanism. To Hazzard, Italy meant a change of 'cuIturaI cl-ima te'.2 0 eoth Shirley Hazzard and her f ictional character Jenny Unsworth find the people of southern Italy life-affirming,

133 despite or because of the conditions in which they 1ive. rn post-war Naples poverty v¡as a way of life, as the comparison with Rome during Giocondafa and Jenny's visit there makes clear. As well, the ever-present threat of the volcano made it necessary for the Neapolitans to live 1ífe in a positive manner: with that 'consciousness of death that enlarges Iife and makes it vividt referred to in Shirley Hazzard's interview with Constance Case y.2I Tn his poem 'Goodbye to the lrezzogiorn o' ,22 Auden expresses this bravado of the NeapolÍtans. Added to the daily hazzards of tife in Naplesr suggested by Shirley Hazzard in The Buy of Noon, and by Auden in his poem, the novella explores what war does to a community. Those men of integrity sketched Ín The Bay of Noon, stoics, survivors of the war, and those who did not survive, s'peak f or the importance Shirley Hazzard places on individual courage as an inspiration throughout historyr Þarticularly in times of war or totalitarianism and repression. As Gioconda says: In the war we all had Lo choose, there are no hypothetical positions left to be taken. In this country, everything has been demonstrated. That's why the talk is often about trivialities who has the malocchio, who is stingy, who is homosexual; whereas in other countr ies people can go on talking out their moral positions on the assumption they will never be cal-Ied on to live up to them by sacrif icing their means¡ ot their standing, or their childrent Qt their 1ives. These friends of mine are rather disliked for having done the right thing. And for choosing obscurity afterwards. (BN, p.95) In the picture of Norah's i1liberal brothers, Shirley Hazzatd satirizes those people who take up moral positions they wilI never be called upon to honour. Jenny conLrasts those Anglo- Saxons who can be roused to vocal indignation, çuch aS her

134 'seething colleagues', and those ItaIians, such as Giocondar who sense the falseness of mere words (p.80). AU such times of crisis as confronted Gioconda's father, her Iover, and her friends the truth must be faced and lived out, one way or another. Through Jenny's, Gioconda's and Justin's recollections of the past, Hazzard extends the novellars time scale to include the effects of the war just as she does in The Transit of Venus through the remíniscences of some of the characters in that nove1. One of Shirley Hazzard's themes in both books is the effect of discontinuity and displacement on the lives of contemporary peopler pârticularly since the \4tar. As she says in an article entited 'ProbIems Facing Contemporary Novel-ists': One of the greatest challenges faced by contemporary novelists is an unprecedented loss of geographical and, to some extent, national and even social sense of belonging. I don't mean that this is exclusive to nove'Iists, I mean this is whatrs happened to the worId. The sense of territory is like a rug that's been pulled out very rçrcently and very quickly - from under the feet of all of us." The 'rugt was pulled from under Jenny's feet when she \^¡as exiled to South Africa during the war. Her exile was to cause her a 'permanent sense of lack' ( p .24) . As one of the minor casualties of a war whích had, in Justints words, tlike a great syphon sprayed human beings all over the globe' (p.72), Jenny's history is undramatic in adult terms, but shattering to the chíld. As E1-izabeth Harrower describes so sensitively in The Long Prospect, the agonies of a loneIy and neglected child, with no normal outlet for love and no sense of beJ-onging - overlooked, Pêripheral tofi f" - can be all the more painful for being unarticulated. In The Bay of Noon,

135 Gioconda can purge her painful memoríes of the horrors of war, her lover's wasteful death and her father's last illness through writing her novel Del Tempo lgligg, but no such means of exorcizing memories or achieving some perspectíve are availabLe to the young child. Shirley Hazzard is avrare of thís when she describes, through her narrator, the child Jenny's feelings of deprivation and, !^rorse, 1onely deprivation, vrithout the dignity of rprestigious dramar: Yet although the sufferings of children are the worst, being inextinguishable children themselves seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown-up world. (BN, p.19) Sent away from her home in England to South Africa for the duration of the r¡/ar, inheriting in the confusion of war-time evacuation, and by a bureaucratic accident, another name than her own, Penelope/Jenny is not only physically displaced, but her sense of identity is undermined by the arbitrary change of name. Graham Mclnnes, whose surname was changed by his mother, with no '1ega1 sanction', ï¡hí1st he was sti1l a boy, speaks in his autobÍography, The Road to Gundagaí, of the'dubieties and uncertainties' that haunted him through his school 1ife because of this action. He adds: 'They were not resolved until in early manhood T sought out my own father in Canadu.'24 The effects of Jenny's removal from her immediate family are to isolate her from affect.ion, so that the adult Jenny confuses qualities and kinds of 1ove. When, her mother dead, her father remarried and living far from Jenny, she is reunited with her brother, sibling love whích would have developed by closer

136 proximity during childhood becomes distorted by circumstances and separation, like Oedipus' filial love for his mother. Instead, it develops into unrecogn ized incestuous Iove. Th.us, on Edmundrs marriager Jenny becomes part of a triangular situation. She acts as foil to Norah, providing her brother with mental companionship and compensating for the intellectual deficiencies of his wife. She is to provide the'fun in that private lingo' of Auden,s Gothic northern"r=.25 rf,is role is later duplicated in her relationship with Justin. For Jenny, the *ánug" a trois with her brother and his wife is unrewarding, sterile and claustrophobic. Love, fot Jenny, has become perverted and contaminat.ed. Her subsequent Ioneliness and suffering is described in unselfpitying but harrowing terms. The delicate restraint of Shirley Hazzard's prose in the passage describing the effects of separation makes it all the more effective for the Iack of rprestigious drama': For my brother, however' and our lost companionshipt our lost iitimacy of thought and look and word, I suffered what one does for love, usJuil-ed - in a shop or at my desk, while continuing to talk of other things - by anguish, as by the pang of sõme mortal but concealed infirmity. A postcard from Edmund, sent to me from Stockholm where he had briefly gone on business, moved me to desolate tears - so separate ãiO we seem from one another then, each in a plaqe unimaginable to the other, each irrevocably set on his tangenlial course, the dividing ocean once more between us (BN, p.33) À metaphorical as well as an actual'dividing oceanr 1íes between Jenny and Edmund. Knowing that he wishes her away once he realizes her feelings for him, Jenny's letters to her brother and sister-in-1aw become infected with the sort of games she plays with Justin, where frankness, truth and affection are inhibited

137 by psychological barriers. The mental dístance between Jenny and her brother is far greater than is the physical distance. Shirley Hazzard gives poetic expression to Ortega's description of solitariness as rthe degree to which you do not exist for me. . . .t26 Jenny is one of those rpastel girls'whom she describes at the NATO base at which she works: Audenrs rpallid children' of the 'Gothic Northr. But because of her int.elligence and her engagement with life, her wish to discover Naples and find her place there, Jenny is capable of becoming atheroinetin the sense in which Rachel Brownstein uses the Letm.27 Like Henry Jamesrlsabel Archer, one waítS to See what she will become. UntÍke the 'Angefas', the 'Hilaries' and rRosemaryS' from the Home Counties, Jenny has known other lands and has wider horizons. Like Caro and Grace she is able to distance herself from England and envisage different \¡rays of Iife. For this reason she is ready to embrace Naples and all that it stands for, aS her expatriate colleagues at the base are not. Never having had a permanent home, Jenny feels no homesickness or affinity with EngIand, other than for her brother. When she takes possession of her first real 'placer, the apartment overlooking the city of Naples, Jenny describes her'first moments of pure happiness' as she looks acrosS the 'oval mirror of the bayt a recurring image in the novella (p.41). Though Shirley Hazzatdts style, precise language and ironic mode of writing have been compared to that other novelist of manners, Jane Austen, Hazzardt s tdelicate vesselst are cast in a differenL mould to those of the earlier satirist. The typical

138 Jane Austen heroine may be faulty, and her story often the history of her transformation from flawed heroine to exemplary bride, learning to distinguish truth from Í1lusion, to overcome both prejudice and pride or learning that she cannot play God in her community, nevertheless, for the most part she depends on her o\4rn resources and self-knowledge to attain this aim. On the whole, older people in Jane Austenrs novels merely demonstrate how nob to behave. Like others of Shirley Hazzard's heroines, Jenny is less mature, less grounded in certainty than Jane Austen's heroines, dissimilarities which perhaps stem from differences in historical setting and modes of metaphysical belief. The eighteenth century is commonly considered to be an age of confidence, perhaps misplaced, in the powers of human rationality. Jane Austenrs heroines are analytical and discriminating, but they discriminate on the basis of Christian beliefs as to how people should Iive, and especiatly how they should live as social beings, responsible for ot.hers as well- as for their own salvation. Their actions are proscribed by the social limitations imposed on girls of their time and class. Shirley Hazzard's heroines, like George Eliot's, are more self-referential, must determine their own moral imperatives. They are intellectually a\4lare and active, for all their apparent docility and passivity. Jennyr like Caro, must develop her ownrset of convictions', in ortega's phraser2B ít order to attain integrÍty and authenticity; to be able to judge. Hazzard's heroines are also in the worldr âS girls who must earn their own living' in both senses of that phrase.

139 In this search for understanding and the grounds for judging correctly Jenny is aided by Gioconda, both directly and indirectly through the way she lives, her history, her fr iends and her association with Gianni. Jennyrs relations with Gioconda are those of pupil and teacher, as htel1 as friend. It is through Giocondars familiarity with and love of poetry that 't.he Italian poets entered IJenny's] conscíousnessr (p.71). Gioconda is a mature person who has a place in the world, a personal history; her background ís the long cultural history of Ita1y. She had 'substance and territory of her otvn...' (p.81). Naples is not just Gioconda's geographical setti.g, but she and the remnants of her palazzo are part of the city. Gioconda's association wit.h Gianni is not fully understood by Jenny until the end of her time at Naples, after the crisis which brings Gianni and Jenny together in an act of mutual rescue. Until then, Jenny sees Gianni as arrogant and chauvinistic in both senses of the word: in his denigration of \^romen and his often humorous mauling of the Englísh language. Hazzard uses this latter device to imply more than is actually said on occasions. For instance, when Gianni speaks of begetting his children as though it were'as easy as falling onto a 1og', he gives an intriguing insight into vthy his marriage failed. Shirley Hazzard says she enjoyed composing Paul Ivoryrs letters in The Transit of venu..29 she seems, too, to have enjoyed contr iving Gianni's malapropi sms and his constant and dramatic battles with an unappreciative world. Like Dora in The Transit of Venus, he is eternally at odds viith the cretini and analfabeti who populate his world, but Gianni's battles are recounted with

140 style and panache, vrhilst Dora's perpetual bitter feuds are life- diminishing and depressing. Like her brotherrs love for Norah, Jenny finds Gioconda's for Gianni puzzling. observing rather than experiencing reciprocal love she misses the equation of need as an element of this human emotion. It is this need, Giocondars despair when her father and Iover died, that Gianni fi1led when he'rescued' her. Jenny does not l-earn this story and Giannits role in Gioconda's recovery for some time. Later, Jennyrs estimation of Gianni, like E1-izabeth Bennet's of Mr. Darcy, alters when she sees him on home ground. rn his own setting he lvas more relaxed, more the host, less overbearing and arrogant. rn the meantime, Jenny resents Gianni's assumption of possession of Gioconda, her apartment, and her belongings. shirley Hazzard, as author of The Bay of Noon introduces Gianni as an unattractíve character in the beginning of the novella through the reactions of her hostile narrator. Jenny continually judges Gianni and finds him wanting.

When Giann i is in f u11 rhetorical spate, she inserts her or¡¡n deflating commentary: 'Àre you asking'(f \^ras not)'that f should continue to take these events seriously?'(p.70). Finding him overbearing, Jenny also notices his verbal cruelty when he plays the game of diminishing Gioconda in order to exalt his own ego: Later, when I saw more of Gianni, hís attraction for Gioconda was to become more of a puzzl-e. Where Gíanni was concerned it was as if she forfeited her critical faculties - at least I could not tel-l what she made of his boasting and his magisterial ways. He 1iked, for ínstance, to humiliate Gioconda in sma1l things rYour nails need doingr, or rIt turns out you were quite \^¡rong about ...'; but when, once or twice, I protested these remarks and took

141 Gioconda's part, she herself upheld himr saying 'We11, hers right after all', or rI must have got it wrong, thenr, and Gianni would give me a smug glance, like a chíId that has scored over another child with the grown-ups. He would even, al his worst, lead her on, encouraging her to speak of some incident or impression in order to demolish all the more conclusively her point of viewi or her affectionate mood would be developed so that it might be all the more grossly ruptured: he was kind, in fact, in order to be cruel. (BN, p.30) Shirley Hazzard's eye and ear for the refined psychological manipulation employed by those who need to reassure themselves that they are superior is devastatingly demonstrated here. She excels in exposing the motives and techniques of a certain type of sadi stic manipula tor such a s Mr. Bekkus in PeopJ-e in Glass Houses and Theodore in 'The Party '(Cliffs of FaI1). The latter has much in common with Gianni at his worst, Both men are 'compulsorily cruel to their womenfolk' (p.71). But Jenny must discover that people are loved in spite of (and sometimes because of) their faults, such is the need to love, and, in Giocondars case, the sense of obligation. Justin, f or all- his cautious approach to 1ove, his defensive banter, andrarms-lengbh' technique (p.74), acts' like Gioconda, as guide and teacher on the subject to Jenny. An apparently unlikety expert, an observer of Iove, he gives his cynical views on the subject, perhaps coloured by his experience of marriage, saying it is not an affair of the head: the blind obsession, the unequal sacrificer the punishment invited and inflicted that is Iove. Believe me. Itrs pointless to call upon perfect harmonies and deathless romance. For Iove, you must look closer to home.' (BNr p-76) Aware as he is of Jenny's feelings for her brother, Justin's last sentence may appear cruelly and painfully apt, but his remarks

r42 and the phrase'closer to homerare, in facLr cêntral to the message of I¡g Bay. of Noon, which is that the'doomed attractions, impossibte unions' are what human love is all about, and that the'conception of love as something idea1, romantic and somewhere el-se is quite false. fn Ànita Brookner's Hotel du Lac, she has her author/heroine, Edith Hope, doomed to an impossible union with a married man, discuss aspects of love, saying: rI cannot live without it [love]. Oh, I do not mean that I go into a decline, develop odd symptoms, become a caricature. I mean something far more serious than that. I mean that I cannot live well hrithout it. T cannot think' or act or speak or write oE-ãven dream with any kind of energy in the absence of love. I feel excluded from the living I become cold, tish-1ike, immobile. I implode.i961d. Edith insists she is not a romantic, but a rdomestic animalr and must compromise wiUh the love that is available to her orrturn

to s toner. Like Gianni with Gioconda, Justin uses language to keep the upper hand in his relations wiLh Jenny. Motivated by fear of love, Justin adopts a facetious tone in his dealings with Jenny in order to steer the relationship the way that suits him best. As Shirley Hazzard shows in Peop1e ín Glass Houses' language is a means of manípulation. In Lhat collection of short stories about bureaucratic life, language is misused by those in a position of po\iùer to keep control over those in theír power. Justin's Ianguage is not that of the bureaucrat, but of the overgrown English public school boy, who protects his 'undeveloped heart' by using sIang, jokes and clicfr6s as a defence against emotions he fears and cannot handle. Like Christian Thrale, he maintains masculine dominance over wonen through control Of language by

143 setting the tone and the parameters of what is discussed, and by taking Lhe offensive but for Justin, the motives are more complex than for Christian. Justin hides behind language at one remove from everyday conversation, flippantly quoting his favourite Scott or Shakespeare, playing different ro1es, depending upon the mood of the momenL. In this wây, he protects himself from the complications that love brings, as well as keeping the relationship with Jenny from becoming serious. Justin sets the tone of their personal relations from the beginning of their friendship. After their first professional meeting Jenny was never again to see therreservedr uÍraffected person'of their meeting at the Hotel Royal: the more I was to know Justin, the further we r¡¡ere to get from his spontaneous, direct self, and the more enmeshed in badinage and circumlocution. Even his appearance v¡as altered somewhat by dissímulation. (BN, p.45) Justin's flippant conversation and erratic behaviour never allow Jenny to feel secure or at ease with him. The switch from 'Young Lochinvar' to lectures on Jenny's immaturity and rather \¡/aspish reminders of her unmarried state, aIl work to create a situation where Justin is in command. He has all the advantage in their association. Justin exemplifies an exponent of'that (not always negligible) wit of the Fifth Form, which remaíns with many Englishmen throughout their 1iveg.'31 With him it is a defence against involvement at a personal 1evel; his use of facetiousness and humour is a technique adopted by one who cannot express emotions and in fact fears them. Vühereas Gianni draws Gioconda out in conversation in order

r44 to demolish her opinions, Justin's strategy is to disparage Jennyrs views by denying her the opportunity of expressing them. She is the inferior partner in their verbal exchanges. Jenny is aware of this technique: If he wished to terminate a conversation, he would wait till I began to deliver my ohrn views and then cut me off in mid- sentence: it was one of his man-made defences, part of his plan of attack. (eN, p.46) Jenny, not so ingenuous as she apparently looks, and whose relationship with Justin is not, as is Gioconda's for Gíanni, complicated by a sense of obtigation, responds, not through language, but by body signs. She would'lead him on in order to observe his technique.' Her subsequent silence and her smile provide the checkmate to Justin's play. When, later in the story, Jenny meets some of Giannits friends in Rome, she is conscious of the easy conversation, the 'codewords' which make up the rintimacies of languager which exist between people of the same upbringing. tIt \^/as...r, she says, t the very game of language that with Justin I resisted - because in his case I felt that it v¿as being played against me.' (BN, Þ.94) Wit.h his selfish, self-protective manner designed to keep Jenny at bay, Justin is another C1aude, the English traveller in Clough's'Amours de Voyager. Tn this work of a poet admired by Shirley Hazzard, Clough draws a portrait of a tepid, 'shilIy- shallytlover, a cautious man who hesitates on the brink of engagement with life and love. Clever and introspective but superior, 'sick of self-love', Claude is Ieft at the end of the narrative poem apparently resigned to the fate that separates him from the woman he has met in Rome and whom he has been

145 consideri.g, for too longr âs a possible wife. rncorrigibry autistic, Claude is as nebulous a character as Justin, who disappears after providing, typically off-stage, the 'sub-plot' to the story of Gioconda, Jenny and Gianni's relations. ft is perhaps no accident that Shirley Hazzard makes Justin, himself a 'cold fish', a marine biologist by profession. If Justin seems incapable of passion, and his love affair with Gioconda appears a remote incidentr oêcessary to the structure of the story, but not even mentioned in Gioconda's letter to Jenny, Gianni is all too human. His faults are noted by the narrator: his impatience with Gioconda's rl{ezzogiorno' temperament, casting her in the role of 'female nitwit'; his criLical attitude to her; and his casual affairs which seem almost a reflex action. But his generosity and kindness, despite those easy tearsr the real talent and cultivated taste emerge to surprise Jenny and balance the more obvious bombast and bragging.

All these contradictions make up a picture of Gianni as a \^rarm human being, capable of passion. Shirley Hazzardts powers of description, both of people and places, her ironical evaluation of character, the clarity of her vision, are evident in alI her writings. This perceptíon at the intellectual level is reinforced by her use of imagery and metaphor. The resources of language to go beyond the surface meaning of the word and evoke por¡rerf u1 images and associat ions are exploited poetically by Shirley Hazzard. Her descriptions of the city of NapIes 'a leading character in the book'- are permeated with a sense of the past.32 The historic síghts of the city are described as being'engulfed in their own

r46 continuity'; one did not ask whaL a building was lout what it had 'successively been' (p.6 3 ). The city is described in metaphoric terms which echo those which apply to the volcano itself: Its characteristics had not insinuated themselves but had arrived in inundations - in eruptions of taste and period, of churches and palaces, in a positive explosion of the baroque; in a torrent of hanging gardens poured down over terraces and rooftops, spilt along ledges and doorsteps. The very streets were composed of blocks of lava' dark rivers that flowed through Naples and gave place, indoors' to a sea of ceramic tiles and marble intarsia: the word lava itself, in its volcanic sense, had originated in Naples. (BN, p.65) As already suggested, a technique which adds depth to Hazzard's fictional world is that of the frozen moment: a cinematographic technique. As Rainwater and Scheick have noted, Jenny'on several occasions expresses her memories in terms of imagery derived from several arts'r33 from painting, books, drama, Ehe cinema. One such frozen moment is the image of Gianni, after Jenny had rebuffed his advances at Herculaneum' standing in the narrow doorway'one hand raised and resting on the outer waÌl to look at Jenny with the same bright eyes and hard humorous compression of the lips' 1p.36). Jenny is framed, like a Roman statue, in a niche where he had placed her. Gianni's arrogant stance is reminiscent of the scene in The Transit of Venus where Paul Ivory standS over Caro in the powerful staircase episode. In another scene in The Bay of Noon, a sense of impending disaster is conveyed in the description of Gioconda's party. A glass is knocked from the tabte and breaks. The abandoned dancing of the barefoot \domen whose'feet were flying in and out among the spikes of glass'

r47 (p.106 ) creates a brilliant image of the brittleness of Neapolitan Iife, even at its most joyful. Both R. ceering3 4 and Àlgerina ¡leri3 5 in percept ive art icles on Hazzardts work draw attention to the manner in which she uses the symbol of the native broom that gro\^/s at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, genestra rLa Ginestrar, the subject of Leopardits poem of that title and of Gaetano's painting - to emphasize the endurance and courage of the Neapolitans in the face of naturers bland indifference. Neri also suggests that in naming her principal characters in The Bay of Noon, Hazzard has chosen names which are alliterative with genestra.36 rh. mountains mined for Carrara marble and the volcano itself express 'Naturefs cruei-Ly'37, and the genestra which springs up again after eruption symbolizes survival. fn fne Bay gÉ Noon, J€ñny, commenting on this sense of imminent disaster and insecurity, says: The history and geography of calamity had so worked on these people that the excitement attending any public disaster was fundamentally devoid of surprise if anything, there !{as an element of relief in the rupturing of an apparently continual suspense. It was this sense of catasLrophe, impending and actual, that heightened the Neapolitan attachment to Iife and made an alleviation out of every small diversion or absurdity. (BN, p.64-5).

As in The Evening of the Holiday, Shirle y Hazzard uses a festival, this time the Ferragosto - the August holiday - to form the background to the crisis in her heroine's 1ife. Heightening the effect of the coming crisis, Hazzard has Jenny overlook the Bay on her drive down the mountain from the hospital: S1ums, fields, churchesr mountains and sea unfurled

148 themselves around the volcano as on the plan of some extravagant place that could exist onJ-y in f ancy. German i drove more and more slowly, he leaning forward in his seat and I in mine, just as if we expected some climax to this great scene, might see ít seized by some convulsion. (BN, p.115) The Eve of Ferragosto becomes the eve of the crisis to Jenny's life. Her sickness isolates her from her usual preoccupations; her fever accentuates the abnormality of events. Gioconda's and

Justin's departure are imminent. Gianni is in Rome. As a preì-ude to the crisis, just prÍor to the departure of her friends, Jenny expresses her feelings on the prospect of being left aLone in Naples:

ft made me feel stable, settled, at peace, at home; in a pIace, for the first time, that was not a preparation for another setting or a wider experience, and which I had no wish or reason to leave. I was immune to the mid-August holiday and its shifting guises of calamity and release; and to the endless repetition, 'Before Ferragostor, rAfter Ferragosto' .... (BN, p.113) During her convalescence, Jenny has time to think:'aI1 this time b/as mine', as she remembers (p.I19). Life contracts to the apartment overlooking the Bay and in the'privacy and silence of those high roomsf Jenny looks 'inward rather than ahead' and faces the end of childhood and youth (p.119). In this period of solitude and emotional tranquillity, Jenny comes to terms with her o\¡irn responsibility for her life. Gioconda's farewell to Jenny, the last time they will meet, is a scene in which Hazzard exploits her gift of irony. When Jenny reminds Gioconda Lhat the departure for Nice is'different from when you v¡ere leaving Naples last time, for Tripoli', Gioconda, knowing that this time she will be with Justin, not Gianni, does noÈ smile at the recollection. Jenny wishes she had

r49 seen Gioconda and Justin togetherras it would not be the same another time, afterwards, when the summer \^Ias over'(p.117). In retrospect, more is implied by the author than isapparent to her narrator at the time of speaking these words. Algerini Neri, discussing the effects of Shirley Hazzardt s tironic tone of voice' which are to distance the reader from the rpassion'of love itself in favour of an analysis of its effects, sees this as a'deficiency', albeit offset by a subtle use of symbolism as the'objective correlativeIs] for the lovers' changing emotions'.38 one might, perhaps, apply to Shirley Hazzard Frank O'Connorrs comments regarding Lhe reticence Jane Austen shows on some sub jects: '... vüe may be permitted to bel-ieve that it was part of the discipline she imposed on herself in order to arrive at her own trut¡'.39 lrony and restraint are the controlling devices in Shirley Hazzard's work. The mood of the ending of I¡9 Bay of Noon is one of nostalgia tempered by the knowledge of what was gained: Jennyrs vision of'how she had come'. A poem which the author has said: 'crystallized what \¡ras already decided in my intention by giving it a sort of poetic confirmation' is Cloughrs tQua Cursum Ventus'.40 The poem aS a whole expresses a Sense of mystery and sadness; the last two verses parallel the mood of the ending of the book. When Jenny decides to go to New York rather than perpetuate a situation where she would, again, be a tfringe-dwe1lert41 of Gianni and Gioconda's l-ife, just as she had been with Edmund and Norah, she is responding to'innovaLive circumstances which can change the old pattern and create a ne*'.42 E.B.Moon Speaks of

150 a point in life at which we rrealise, at least in part, what the terri tory is like which r4te have been travelling through and how we ourselves have contributed to making it what it is.'43 J"n.,y at the end of The Bay of Noon has reached this point and must take responsibilit.y for her actions. Refusing to become a foil to Giocondars magnanimity, as she had been to Norah's, she must leave: but this t ime i t i s who1ly her olrrn choice and ín the knowledge that she is loved in return (p.135). The sadness and inevitability of the end of The Bay of Noon, echoed in'eua cursum ventusr, is mediated by the sense of what has been gained, what has been learnt, what will be mÍssed. As in The Transit of venus, the apparent sense of an ending in the final pages of The Bay of Noon is, in fact, through memory, transformed into a sense of wholeness: an affirmation of life and a solace. As John Colmer points outr it is the'inward bearings'that are of vital importance to a 1ife.44

151 CHAPTER VI

THE TRANSTT OF VENUS

The Transit of Venus, first published in 1980 in America by Viking Press and in England and Australia by Macmillan, is the most ambitious and the longest of Shirley Hazzard's f ictional works to date. The preoccupations and techniques of the earlier writings are here developed more fully than in the short stories and the novellas. In this novel the action covers some t\.venty years, and the tíme span of the book is extended back a further thirty or so years through the recollections of some of the principal characters in the book. Geoffrey Lehmann has drawn attention to what he calls the symphonic structure of the book in which'with each repetition the resonance and associations deepen.'1 The analogy is an apt one. The four parts of the novel, 'The OId World', rThe Contactsr, rThe New WorId', and 'The Culmination' could be seen as comparable to the four movements of a symphony. The themes of fove and truth, first broached in the early part of the book, are developed through the different attitudes of the various characters to both these aspects of life. fn her Boyer Lecture Seríes entitled Comíng of Age in Australia, Shirley Hazzard says: '...truth abides in events, unaffected by ignorance or falsehood or the craving for cachetr (BL, p.49). In The Transit of Venus she shows how one aspect of truth, the truth about Victor's death, long hidden by Paul and by Ted, finalty emerges through another event, one outside of Paul's control: the mortal sickness of his son. Truth and its opposite

r52 as abstractions, discussed in the Boyer Lecture Series and elsewhere in her non-fiction works, are here, in The Transit of Venus, given concrete form. Shirley Hazzard's discussion of truth i.s humanized in her fictional works, making it accessible through metaphor. In structuring her novel, Shirley Hazzard has integrated the title of the book, with its several layers of meani.g, into the texture of the narrative. The astrologíca1 connotations of The Transit of Venus are established by the author at the dinner party in Chapter 2. Shirley Hazzardrs strategy is to use the conversation around the Thrale's dinner table to introduce all the important themes and characters in this exposition to the novel. Those characters lrrho are central to the novel but who are not present at the table are mentioned in the course of the conversation, and themes such as integrity, Ioyalty, destiny, humanity and love are raised, and the astrological connections established. George ElioL uses a similar technique when she brings together the two parts of her novel Middlemarch with its emphasis on Dorothea and Lydgate and the juxtapositioning of Middlemarch gentry and its mercantile class through the device of a party to celebrate Dorothears engagement to Casaubon. In The Transit of Venus the theme of patient loyalty is introduced by reference to the eighteenth-century astronomer Guillaume Legentil, who'waited years for Venusr(TV, p.16). Venus is invoked by Shirley Hazzard as the traditional and mythological personification of love and as the planet whose periodic transit was of interest to astronomers and which also led Lo Cook's journey of discovery to Australia. Legentilrs

1s3 devotion to Venus is later elaborated through his alter ego Ted Tice in his devotion for Caro years for Caro and in his dedication to truth; the noble failure in the earlier astronomer in his pursuit of Venus parallels Ted's dedication to Caro and foreshadows his ult imate fate. Unlike Christian, who had weighed the suitabitity of each sister as a wÍfe for himself and had chosen the unthreaLening, malleable Grace because Caro 'was beyond his meansr (p.23\, Ted'had been loyal to Caror from the first (p.9). Caro is'establíshed as a chíId of Venusr, partly because she is the object of men's love, but also because of her Australian origins and the connection between that countryrs discovery by Cook and the eighteenth-century voyage to observe the transit of Venus. The contacts and culminations of the novel are foregrounded in the references to the contacts and cul-minations of the a stronom ical phenomenon of the transit of Venus (p.15 ). Caro's exclamation on hearing the story of Legentil's failure, 'The years of preparation. And then, from one hour to the next, all over' (p.15) foreshadows the end of the novel when, after a brief coming together, Ted and Caro are separated by death. Ivlemory is again a prime preoccupation in this novel and is used to structure the individual's conception of rrealityt. The selections and omissions that are, of necessity, part of the act of recolÌection of distant events work on two leve1s. To the novelist they give shape to the narrative. They also show how a character's destiny is the result of past events and decisions made by the individual, as well as how these events are later

1s4 interpreted by that individual, providing access to truth as that person sees it. fn The Bay of Noon, Jenny uses memory as a guide in her search for who she is - the memory of her childhood in South Africa and of her year in Nap1es recollected at a distance in time. Caro, too, in The Transit of Venus looks back to her young, formative years in Australia. Time in the narrative structure of The Transit of Venus ís treated in a fluid manner. Although the main thrust of the novel progresses from Caro's and Gracers arrival in England in their early twenties to Carors death some twenty years Iater, it is punctuated from time to time by such recollections as Carors of her childhood and Ted Tice's of his youth. The narrator also casts back in time to Rex lvoryr s experiences in both World VrJars in her prof ile of the poe t' s li fe. Shirley Hazzard has said in interview that the background to the book is v¡ar and its ef fects: War is an undercurrent of the book right through to the end, where in a nursing home there is an oId man who's singing a song from the First WorId War. The theme of war is a background to other destruction men htreak on themselves, men as distinct from women.z IndividuaL acts of humanity which the narrator weaves into the story act as beacons of civíLization amongst the chaos of v¡ari for instance, Rex lvory's brave act in documenting the deaths of his feIIow prisoners-of-war in Japan: 'the only coherent record of the death of a eritish army' 1p.93). In the horrors of Hiroshima-after-the bomb, Ted Tice sees survivors pick up the pieces of their life and, using the reflectors from searchlights as containers, float a frond or a single azai-ea flower, and place them outside their homes amongst the atomic ruins - symbol of

1s5 hope, continuity and the indestructibl-e desire for art, beauty and form as a bulwark against chaos (p.54). Fact and fiction merge in this incident. Shirley Hazzard has given.to Ted Tice in this novel an experience she relates of her own life whenr âS a sixteen-year-o1d, she visited Hiroshima in L947 when her father

\^/as Australian Trade Comm issioner at Hong Kong.3 n" ferences to Rex lvory's and Charmian Thrale's experiences in World War I take the story of \^¡ar into recent history, and those to Korea, Vietnam and, l-ater, South America bring it up to the present time. The violence and dislocation of modern life is the ground bass of the novel. It is Adam who voices the theme in reply to a casual remark that there must be hope for a world where'the young peopì-e are all so travelled': 'that's not travel i t's dislocation' (p.118). References to those who survived the First Worl-d lrlar are insistently present throughout in the images of returned soldiers begging in the streets of Sydney during the Depression years to a background of oId war songs, in the'Iost generation'whose images are preserved in the photograph on Seftonrs dining-room wa11, and in the reference to the 'survivors', right through to the incident in the nursing home to whÍch Shirley Hazzard refers in her interview with Jenny Palmer, The constant refrain of the VùorId War I songs which recur throughout the narrative to the very end reinforce this haunting reminder of the trauma of war. A more contemporary example of the violence of modern life is explored in the scene where Adam comes to London as part of a deputation to request eritain's intervention to save South

1s6 American dissidents from execution. The representatives of the eritish Government are unable, for various diplomatic reasons, to oblige. To salve their collective consciences they comment: rWe did hear that the Un i ted Nat ions secre tary-general wa s considering intercession'. Adam replies: 'Surely you are being humorousr (p.183). Shirley Hazzard in Defeat of an Ideal has already given her views on the impotence of the United Nations in such matters. fn this episode she takes a chíltingly satirícaI look at bureaucracy in another counLry, where the offícia1s are more concerned that Adam will not lunch with them than for the condemned men's fate. Shirley Hazzard shows how an undercurrent to Inormalr Iife is tragedy: hidden, suppressed or ignored but, as Auden says, aI\4rays present: About suffering they were never wrong, The Old I'lasters: how it takes place blhile someone else is eating or opening a window t ot just walking dul1y along...å The novel ends with a glimpse of the sinister developments in civilian violence in the New York of the Seventies, with Paulrs journey on the subway. Such are Shirley Hazzardrs techn iques of compression that these brief Ímages reverberate powerfully throughout the text. Two early chapters in the book demonstrate Shirley Hazzard's technique in moving from the'nowrof the book to the past of a particular character to illustrate sound and illusory standards of truth and reality. A visit to a country house, symbol of England's historical past, and Carors recollection of rThe green we only knew about from books' (p.30), together with her earl-ier comment on the difference between an Australian summer - the

I57 Iackr scarcity and di stance, the 'unhistoried nakednessr, in Judith Wright's phrase'5 compared to the rfull prestige of green' (p.26) r which is Carors learnt view of England, lead smoothly and naturally ínto her recollection of an Australian childhood. Carors impressíons of England had been formed during a time when the assumptions current in Australía were that Europe v/as the centre of the worId. She had learned from European literature what were the 'rightful seasonst, and that Australia was'in perpetual, flagrant violation of reality'(p.31). In her ironical description of the educatíon of the Thirties, h¡hen Australian children \¡¡ere taught more of English history than their or¡¡n'dun-coloured' Australian past, Shirley Hazzard streSses the role of literature - the poetry taught in schools and its emphasis on Western models - in forming the child Caro's view of li fe. Truth, reali ty, prestige and consequence resided elsewhere than in Australia, where the inhabitants were not only 'fringe-dwe11ers' of their own continent, but of the world: In the true, the northern, hemisphere, beyond the Equator that equalized nothi.g, even bath-water wound out in the opposite direction. Perhaps even the record gyrating on the gramophone. Australians coul-d only pre tend to be part of ãff that and hope no one would spot the truth. (TV, p.32) The chapter on Caro's childhood continues with her remembrances of the catastrophe which changed life for her and for her sister, Grace the sinking of the Benbow. ft is narrated principally from Caro's point of view; being the stronger of the two sisters she has'assumed Dora as a moral obligation' (p.38). But of course the effects on Grace are al-so important. In her description of the orphans' subsequent life

1s8 with their half-sister, the narrator draws on a potent Australian myth in the metaphor which depicts that life: 'Like a vast inland of their own littoral, Dora was becoming an afflicted region, a source of abrupt conflagration' (p.38). Dora and her volatile emotional state is equated in the children's minds with the unmanageable¡ üñtamed, mysterious and inflammable centre of Australia, the outback, while they yearn for the familiarity, domesticity and safety of the seashore which fringes the desert and where the vast majority of Australians live. The significance of the coast as a symbol of escape is stressed in a passage which describes the great liners of the past leaving Sydney Harbour for Europe, a place which is equated with heaven: And the Strathaird or Orion, was hugely away. You could be home Tn tTme to seeTer go through the Heads, and Caro could read out the name on the stern or the bow. Even Dora was subdued at witnessing so incontrovertible an escape. Going to Europe, someone had written, was about as final as going to heaven. A mystical passage to another life, from which no one returned the same. (TV, p.37) In Shirley Hazzardts novels, ends are always in beginnings, and, as Caro leaves Sweden for Rome and her appointment wíth Ted, she remembers'The great shape passing through the Heads on its leisurely vùay to heaven'(p.337). The irony implicit in the recollection is the reader's realization that Caro is on her last j ourney . The narrator describes the young Caro and Grace, confused by the vagaries and petty tyrannies of Dora's behaviourr $râtking home from school in their Sydney suburb: Refinement was maintained on the razor's edge of an abyss. To appear without gloves, or in other ways suggest the f lesh, to'so much as show unguarded lover \¡râs to be

1s9 pitchforked into brutish, bottomless Australia, all the way back to primitive man. Refinement $/as a frail construction continually dashed by waves of a raw, reminding humanity: the six-o'clock shambles outside the pubs, men struggling in vomit and broken glass; the group of wharfies on their Smokê-O, squatting round a flipped coin near the Quay and calling out in angry lust to !{omen passing. There v¡ere raucous families who bought on the lay-by, if at aII, and whose children \¡¡ere bruised from blows or misshapen by rickeLs - this subtler threat contained in terrace houses whose sombre grime was a contagion from the British rsles, a 14idlands darkness. Britain had shared its squalor readily enough with far Australia, though withholding the Abbey and the Swan of Avon. (TV, pp. 39-40) This emphasis by the writer on the veneer of civilization which covers the 'gui1t and defiance' which Judith Wright describes6 is apparent, too, in Barbara Hanrahan's novels, though not specificíaIly linked to the idea of Australia's convict beginnings. But she a1so, for instance, in the noveI, The Peach Groves, depicts Hyde-like characters who masquerade in their public guise as modestly dresseC and discreet Dr. Jecky1ls. The sinister potentialities of her ambivalent characters are powerful images in Barbara Hanrahan's novels. In her novel- The Watch Tower, another ÀusLralian writer, E1-izabeth Harrowerf looks at the domestic violence which is hidden behind decorous lace curtains, and Shirley Hazzard too pursues a similar dichotomy of respectable appearances and actuality. In The Transit of Venus, PauI Ivory, whom Ted Tice suspects of having a portrait of himself festering in a cupboard, tike Dorian Gray, personifies the false character. Earlier in the novel, the chil-d Caro, trapped in her Iife with Dora, was: 'beginning to wonder about the inside and the back, and whether every house concealed a Dora. Whether in every li fe there \ttas a Benbow that heeled over

and sank' (p.3 9 ).

160 This chapter comes full- circle with a restatement of the theme of literature in life when Caro, now in her teens, discovers books as a means of escape from Dora's hegemony - as her 'arsenal' against fate: Alone in the city, Caro hras lifting a frayed book in a shop. rHow much is this?' 'Fifteen and three'. Back on the teetering pile. The table v¡as massed like an arsenal. rAh well. Letrs sây, ten bob. I See ing i t that evening, Dora saidr 'You have enough books nowr. Dora knew, none better, the enemy when she saw it. (TV, p.49) It is a memory associated with Iiterature which triggers Carofs recollection of her young Australian life as she compares truth as she understood ít as a child with her experience of the present. Caro contrasts the temperate, green summer of Eng1and, previously known only from books, with the drought-stricken summers of her youth. The 'lack' in Australia is also underlined in the comparison between the two countries by the presence of the historic house and its connotatíons, \,rhich, in Shirley Hazzard's writings, symbolizes the continuity of life and artistic endeavour. Literature, too, in the f oIl-owing chapter, acts as a mnemonic to Ted who returns in memory to a journey by sea through the hot tropics to Japan, and thence to Hiroshima-after-the-bomb, where he \das to investigate the effects of radiation on the survivors. rWe toor' says the Englishman, Ted, rWe knew about things from books.' 'Like heat, for instance. Or 1ove.'

161 In these moments of suspended timer the effects of events on the formation of character, as well as their repercusslons, are explored through the act of recollection, when the memory is always subtly adjusted. It v¡as the resul-t of Dorars wounding effects upon Caro which made her reject Ted's watchful love: As a child, Caroline Belt had abhorred Dorars ceaseless scrutiny and the sensation of being observed while she read, playedr S€wed - with possessive attention. She now said to Ted what had been left unsaid to Dora: 'You must not be so interested in me.l He took her meaning at once - that was part of it too, his quickness with her thoughts. 'r see it might írritate.' Not promising to change. In the night, or in any pause she might now, if she chose, feel his consciousness of her. Through all the events and systems of her days it would persist, Iike the clock that is the only audible mechanism of a high-powered car. She said that to him, about the clockr êXorcising it with her laugh. And he repl íed, rf t's not a clock you're describing, it's a time-bomb.' (TV, p.56) The reference to the time-bomb is one of the many hints the author plants throughout the nove] which prepare the reader for a tragic climax. ft is these hints and allusions, and the writer's Iiterary styIe, which create the tone of the novel, imparting a sense of drama and impending catastrophe. The conversation between Ted and Caro aÌso seÈs the pattern for their relationship in which Caro feels that Ted, in some waY, has an influence on her'transit'. The author underlines this influence when she makes Carors death the result of her change of pIans, LEavelling to Rome at Ted's insistence. Ted trÍes to alter his and Caro's destiny, but, as for OediPuS, there is no escape.

r62 AJ-though Shirley Hazzard's heroínes are mid twentieth- century women who work in the world, for them there is still the assumption they must passively wait to be chosen in marriage: AIl women evidently longed to marry, and on Ieaving school held their breath, while accumulating linen and silver. There was a lot of waiting in it, and an endangering suggestion of emotion. Of those who were not taken' some quietly carried it off - like o1d Miss Fife, who came to tea with parasol and high coIlar, fondant silk to her calves, pointed shoes each clasped with single buttons gentler than Queen Mary. There i¡rere others, unhinged, timidr or with whiskers crushed by father, crushed by motherr or unthinkingly set aside. (TV, p.4B) It is perhaps this assumption, and Shirley Hazzardt s preci se reflection of the mores of the day, \dhich have led some revie\¡Jers to make comparisons between her books and the genre of the romantic love story. A closer study of the ironyt the satire, the wit, the historical perspective, and the breadth of subjects which are covered in her novels must discredit this facile view.

As John CoImer has pointed out, Shirley Hazzard's sweeping view of twentieth-century life covers the principal movements of post- war society throughout the world. He says: Clearly one of the special strengths of this novel is the extent to which characters and events come to typify the main movements of post-war society throughout the worId, including the burning issues of the right use of scientifíc knowledger sêen here in Professor Thralers opportunism in advocating the building of a telescope in the wrong place for patriotic reasons. In addition the novel explores the morality of dropping the bomb on Hiroshima, the fight for freedom in South America, and more personal issues relating to the complications of clas-s, education and marriage in an increasingly mobile society.' The increasing mobility of modern society and the concomitant

SE NSE of dislocation is discussed by Robert Sell-ick in his article 'Shirley Hazzard: Dislocation and continui ty'.8 In her brief portrait of Va1da, Caro's colleague, fighting a

163 l-one battle on behalf of the 'l-owing herd', those passive, waiting women who work with them, Shirley Hazzard satírizes relationships between men and women in an office setting. Valda turns the tables on Mr. Leadbetterr who assumès she will sew on his buttons, by asking him to replace her typewriter ribbon: 'these are smal1 things to do for one another' (p.141). Valda is expected to fulfill domestic duties by nature of her sex, just as Caro is expected to tídy a boardroom after a meeting because of presumed housewi fely instincts (p.183). VaIda stresses the waiting involved in the woman's role: 'Women have got to fight theír way out of that dumb waiting at the end of the never-ringing telephone. The receiverr âS our portion of it is called.... There is the dressing up, the hair, the fingernails. The toes.. And, after aII that, you are a meal they eat while reading the newspaper. I te11 you that every one of those fingers hre paínt is another nail in their eventual cof fins.' (TV, pp.I42-3) The final sentence, with its substitution of'theirrfor the expected 'our', is an example of how Shirley Hazzard uses a variation on a clich6 to open up other possible interpretations. The narrator expresses her own objections to Valda's proto- femin i sm : All this was indisputable, even brave. But was a map from which rooms, hours, and human faces did not rise; on which there was no bloom of generosity or discovery. The omissions might constitute life itself; unless the map was intended as a substitute for the journey. (TV, p.143) These viewS are similar to those expressed by the author herself in an interview with Caroline Rainwater and William J. Scheick. Questioned by them on the role of VaIda, and whether The Transit of Venus could be considered feminist, Shirley Hazzard repl ied: No, nor not feminist or any-ist. Valda tries to enlist Mr.

164 Leadbetter, or to challenge him on plain human grounds.... Had he responded on that leve1, it's fair to think that she woul-d have thought better of him. He'f lunked the test. Hov¡ever T try to pose a larger question: that life is not just a series of tests that should be passed with flying colorsr or which one flunks. Mr. Leadbetter is incapable of rising to human status on all counts. But in one's lasting relations with the world, there are questions of generosity, of timing, of toletrance and endurance, not merely of dogma and self-assertion.Y Asked íf. she shared Gracers view that twomen have to go through with thÍngs' while 'men can evade foreverr, Shirley Hazzard replied that in real life she saw as many trapped men as hromer,.10 No simplistic right or wrong view of the truth of human relationships satisfies Shirley Hazzardrs subtle mind. Her satirical artillery is reserved for the self-righteous and the inhumane. fn describing Caro, the narrator stresses her commitment to truth, her high seriousnessr her aspirationsi her rmost commonplace movements Iwere] rehearsal-s for life and deathr (p.82). When Caro got to her feet, when she brought hot water or closed a window, she moved with consequence as if existence itself were not trivial. (TV, p.22) Like others of Shirley Hazzard's heroines, Carors apparent passivity conceals a strong will aimed at distinction which expressed itself in being, rather than doing. Her passivity is only skin-deep. One of her attractions for Paul, beside her beauty, was the challenge to mastery: There was the everlasting, irritating, and alluring impression that she addressed herself to an objective beyond the smaI1, egoistic drama of their own desires. (TV, p.128)

Christian, considering the two sisters on his first meeting

165 r,sith them together, finds that: The ir di st inct ion wa s not only the ir beauty and the ír $ray with one another, their crying need of a rescue for which they made no appeal whatever; but a high humorous candour for which - he couÌd frame it no other v¡ay they would be witling to sacrifice. (TV, p.23) The effect of the girls upon Christian in these early days is to call- up his best self, as Rex fvory and the Georgian poets had for his father in youth: euickness came back to him like a neglected talent summoned in an emergency: as if he rose in trepidation to a platform and cleared his throat to sing. (TV, P.2L) At this stage in his 1ífe, Christian can still feel the impulse to a graceful action whenr orl observing a glass jar of ye11ow flowers on the landing of the rooms the girls are renting, he real-izes he himself might have brought flowers. Later, Christian, now a pompous official, high in his governmentrs service, remembers 'when he had brought ye1low flowers to Gracel (p.190). The narrator registers the self-deception which extends even to memory, aS the inauthentic Christian unconsciously distorts the f acts to his ov¡n advantage, substituting what he might have done for the gesture he omitted. Grace, having been chosen by Christian, is trescued' early and becomes 'completed, if not complete' (p.9). The sisters are described in terms which evoke other sistersr âS weII aS rivals, in the literature of the past: 'dark she, fair she.' But the narrator, having introduced them as literary stereotyp€sr proceeds to satirize this easy assumption: Because they were alike in feature' the contrast in colouring *aJ remarkable. It was not only that one \¡Ias dark and one Éair, but that the one cal-Ied Caro should have hair so very black, so straight, heavy and oriental in coarse

166 texture. Grace was for this reason seen to be fairer than she was as she hras judged the lighter, the easier, for the strength of Caro. People exaggerated the fairness, to make things neat: dark she, fair she. (TV, p.9) In a scene which comes late in the nove1, when Grace is grieving for Angus, and Caro, noht a widow, faces the truth about PauI Ivory and her changing feelings for Ted Tice, the narrator again stresses thís dichotomy anq Gracers autonomous existence: It was not quÍte certain Grace had remained a spectator. Those who sahl her as Caro's alter ego might have missed the point.... Grace had presumably passed through an experience that could only be love; or had some inward revelation. Paul Tvory had saidr'a state of mind can overtake you like an event.l (Tv, p.324) The'soft and yieldingrGrace of the early section of the nove1, the Grace who had offered no threat to Christian's ê9or has learned, like Charmian Thra1e before her, to'cherish a few pure Secretsr, and not rto have too many thoughts her husband could not divine, for fear she might come to despi se him' 1p.17). Grace, like CeIia Brooke, the younger of George Eliotrs Middl-emarch sisters, has chosen early the conventional 1i fe of wife and mother:'boredom had claimed her'(p.196). Only later does she discover the pain of love for which she would sacrifice all, but for the fact that Angus refuses to ask it of her. Grace is trapped in menrs image of her astperfect, sheltered Grace' (pp.279¡ 287). For Caro, less compromising, more demanding of life and more discerning, completion lies ahead. In the tradition of the di scriminating and aspiring heroine of RacheI Brohrnstein's definition, for whom literature is the model for life, Caro is

r61 sri11 'becomingr.ll Her destiny is not yet fulfilled: Caro would decide at which table she belonged. She was young to have grasped the need for this. Her other discovery of conseguence was also not oríginal: that the truth has a life of its own. ft was perhaps in such directions that her energies had flowed, leaving her looks to follow as they might. What she had read had evidently made her impatient of the prime discrepancy - between man as he might be, and as he was. She would impose her crude betief that there could be heroism, excellence on herself and others, until they, or she, gave in. Exceptions could arise, rare and implausible, to suggest she might be right.. To those exceptions she would give her whole devotion. ft \¡/as apparently for them she vras reserving her humility. (TV, p.9-10)

It is activity of the mind and emphasis on character be ing rather than doing that is Carors motivating force. Sh i rley Hazzard explains in an interview: Caro i s a fraid of settling for observing 1i fe rather than living it. That is something which in a way some \4¡omen have become confused about. They imagine that manifest actions are the only means of asserting themselves. But there is also comprehensíon, inquiry, and the use of oners mind.... Itrs not only going out to work and becoming head of a bank that demonstrates you've made something of your life. There's a larger kind of consciousness about daily existence,.^ AgaÍn, this has to do with a sense of wholeness.tz fn her search for heroísm, she first finds it in Adam, and then, when she understands his sacrifice of the'dearest wish in life because of his belief in a higher principle than his own desire', in Ted.13 Like Dorothea Brooke, Caro looks for something more than position r sêcurity and family. Both Caro and Dorothea ideali stically seek in men the heroic exceptíon to the general rule. To such a man they will give their whole devotion, For both women, love is to be a vocation. George Eliot says of

168 Dorothea, her nineteenth-century St. Theresar'her passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life.'14 Both George EIiot and Shirley Hazzard view their heroines with affectionate irony, especially the earnest Dorothea and Caro. Dorothea tragically misjudges Casaubon, but Caro finds an 'exception'in Adam and Ted, though only briefly. fn her treatment of love in relation to Caro, Shirley Hazzard stresses lovers transience, as she does in all her writing despite Lhe insight implicit in Tedrs comment that'the tragedy is not that love doesn't fast. The tragedy is the Iove that lasts' (p.292). But love's continuity as a recurring motif in the long history of mankind and as documented in literature and celebrated in music and the visual arts, is also of profound importance to Shirley Hazzard, and balances its transience at the individual 1evel. Asked by Jan Garrett what was being symbolized in The Transit of Venus by the idea of Venus briefly obscuring the sun' as Caro does when she stands at the window next to Paul, looking down at Tertia, Shirley Hazzard replied: I think it's the sense of all of life and the uníverse, and that r,\re are, our passions are, very transient things. But the whole of passion of course goes orrr it's transmítted to the l-evel of the human race. It was this sense of our little existence in this universe and al-so the sense of the preordained astronomiçat event. f wanted to give a sense of events coming around.rr It is this continuity of life in the vast history of the human race, of which the'little existence'is only a part¡ that gives the sense of affirmation to the otherwise tragic ending to the nove1. As Geoffrey Lehmann writes: A reader who is too hasty may escape the savage lunge of the denouement, whích will leave the careful reader stunned and sprawling on the tarmac of the final paragraph. But in

r69 spiritual terms the novel concludes on a note of brilliant affirmation. A one-sided, destructive love between two people of good-wil-1 is retraced through twenty years of misundgçstanding and is miraculously (and believably) made right.l6

Carots love for Adam and Ted, which stands in her mind as a wholesome experience of'candid health'in comparíson with that for Paul, creates a sense of positive good, however fleeting, when viewed from this philosophy. In describing the three men in Caro's life, Adam and Ted represent men to whom honesty and truth are of paramount importance in their dealings with the world. Paulr oh the contraty, described in terms which stress the actor in the man, manipulates truth as well as people for hÍs ambitious purposes. He sacrifices Caro for Tertia and her castle, appropriating them as pa!"ns in his raid on the successful- life. When she first meets Paul, his off-hand, almost autistÍc, manner and his self- confidence has its appeal for a Caro who has Suffered'years of Dora' (p.73) Paul'had brought the sun, and his luck with himr. (p.70) His thandsome, fair and fortunate face', the easy and continuing success as a playwright, his insouciance and trend- se tting aptitude s, his 'radíant pre-eminence' and prospects (p.71), aIl seem to make him shine when these attributes are contrasted to Ted's less than favourable aura. It is Charmian, in her rol-e of observer and commentator, who, watching Paul's arrival: made a contrast between his auspicious arrival and the v¡ay in which Ted had been washed up out of a storm; remembering how Caro had looked down that morning from the staircase' and gone ahray. ( TV, p. 6 9 ) Ted battles through the storm to arrive at PevereÌ on foot, his

170 clothing saturated and his cheap suitcase disintegrating. It is in thi s ignomin ious situation, arriving like an 'upper servantl (p.6), that he and Caro first meet. PauIr oo the contrary, comes heralded by Sefton Thrale's approving comments on his background and achievements: rPauI Ivory has already established some place for himself in literature. And is rising so swiftly that there is no telling where he may yet go.' (TV, p.14) Ted deflates Thrale's image of the rising Paul with his joke about the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, a joke which has no savage edge to it as yet. He is unaware of Paul's connection with the murder he has recently witnessed and which he remembers whenr oÌì his arrival at Pevereì-r'he put his fist to his mouth and thought, and stared as if he would only s1owly believe' (p.6). In Professor thrale's thoughts Ted is: 'a poor boy from a grimy town, a clever boy who got hímself to a great university and made his impression there. Such persons went forward quickly, having nothing to relinqui sh...' (TV, p.11) No'old school tie' system of easy loyalties will aid Ted Ín his moral choices, so that his future Ís doubtful. Like Pip, whose story is evoked by the narrator (p.58), he has rGreat Expectations' but recognízes his own lack of charm, of social graces, his inability in the early days to'speak confidently and leave a room' (p.6). The narrator stresses thaL: Ted's future ascendancy could not, like Caro's beauty, be taken on faith: some sign was needed as to whether he would win or fail- both possibilities being manifestly strong in him. Even if he were at last to carry all before him, it was hard to imagine him properly íllustrious in ager Iike the Professor himself. It \,¿as hard to foresee that a name like Tice might carry weight, or that a streaked eye could become a distinction. (fV, Þ.I2)

17r rn presenting the supposed common víew of Ted, the narrator is not only setting up possibilities in the mind of the reader, but arso satirizing that view, which judges via names, accents and appearances. Ted's streaked eye, his ,diff icult humanity" his unfashionable fair isle and cabLe stitch jumpers which he l-earns to put aside his Mancunian accent,, are against him in the superficiar opinion of some of those at peverel. Through Ted, Shirley Hazzard explores the dislocatíons which social upheaval produce. He is a first generation university man. His horizons are wider than his parents', but his certainties fewer. He must di scover his own truths and his ohrn place. rn making Ted a scientist, shirley Hazzard is stressing his desire for objective truth untrammeled by prejudice and preconceived not ion s . Tedr s rauthentic gestures' are, ín particular, his opposition to the siting of the terescope in eritain, which he feel-s makes scientific nonsense, and, earLier, in allowing a prisoner-of-war to escape. His action in the latter case, he feeIs, di squali fies him from exposing pau1. This 'complex morality' (p.312) of Ted's is recognized and exploited by paul, both in'Iife'and in his play. Ted's fate, too, is equivocal (p.53), though his manner of dying is known from the first. Paulrs success is always assuredi Ted's is not. His cleverness will free him from poverty and allow him to follow his scientific profession, but, not conditioned through early associations and education to show unquestioning loyalty to country or c1ass, each decision he makes must be based on his o\^¡n integrity, his

172 commitment to truth, and his individual conception of morality and loya1ty, rather than societyrs. Thus each such decision must be the result of character rather than conditioning. Caro's earliest view of Paul and Ted is based on ignorance of their first, fateful meeting, and their roles as murderer and silent witness. Missing this important link in their relationship, she mi sjudge s both until she learns the truth. But the omniscient author, of course, in possession of all the facts, can subtly modify the readerrs impressions of each man, both through her comments and predictions, and through the dialogue she gives them. The narrator, describing Paul's physical beautyr comments thatr'like his character, it suggested techníque' (p.71). 'He had the face of the future, skÍI1ed in perceiving what the world wants' (p.77). 'For Paul, sincerity was something to fall back on when other methods flagged' (p.90). Later, when Caro knows lhe truth of Pau1, he is rthe torn kite unstuck from the sky' (p.310). The phrase recalls an earlier scene between the two as they wal-k near Peverel. The nqrrator teÌ1s us PauI Ivory r\./as not convinced that passion was essential, or that the world had properly defined it'. During their walk, the girl asks: 'ShalI we take the shortcut through the churchyard?l 'No graveyard can be a shortcut.' Paul opened a wicket ga te. A torn kite was lying in the grass. (fV, p.16) Remembering Paul is a believer, Caro fears he may be offended by a comment she makes about those who die by suicide. 'PauI's expression smoothly allowed her to think so' (p.76). Not only

113 does Paul exercise control of others through language, his professional- medium, but also through body language and facial expressions making the rother' forever in the wrong. ThoughrPaul cast his spell as Ted his paIl' (p.71) on the characters in the novel, the narratorrs use of irony undercuts these simplistic views of the two men. The irony extends to her heroines, for instance, when Caro contemplates the vision of Paul, a chivalrous, Arthurian knight, kneeling at prayer: And on the Sunday Paul went to church in the village, involving the household at Peverel in a religious gesture. The two sisters, ironing blouses, watched the red car drive away. Charmian Thrale might be noting the event from an upstairs room. PauI cast his spelI, as Ted his pall. It was undeniably affecting, the thought of this ta11' victorious male kneeling down, offering and receiving. Althoughboth Mrs. Thrale at the high window and Caro in the ki tchen we re a\4rare that women are not to be trusted w i th emotion of this kind. (TV, p.71) Caro is able to analyse her own reactions to the impressíon PauI makes, but not resist them. rn Shirley Hazzard's \¡¡riting, the truth of peoplers relationships is never simple, and by combiníng the words spoken by her characters with the visual imagery created by their attitudes - their poses - or by an allusion to a poem, a paínting or a play, this ambivalence is often very effectíveIy conveyed. I,rlhen Ted first sees Caro, he looks up at her as she stands symbolicatly 'hígh and dry' on the staircase above him. This is one of the many significant images in the noveI, when the truth of important relationships is encapsulated in a fl-eeting image, such as when Paul leans out of his bedroom window to speak to Tertia below, and Caro appears beside him Venus rising beside

r74 the sun: He knew that Caro had come upbehind him and was by his side at the window. Her bare shoulder, perfectly aloof, touched his own. He did not turn, but, as i f he himself $¡ere Tertia Drage, saw Caro standing naked beside him at that high window and looking dov/n; looking dohrn on the two of them. ft \¡ras he and TertÍa, and Caroline Bell Iooking down on them.- Carots hand rested on the si11. She Ì^Jas wearing nothing but a small round watch. (fV, pp.108-9) Another such visual moment which tel-]s us much of the dynamics of the relationship between Caro and PauI is that where they face each other at the top of a flight of stairs in Paul's

hou se : PauI Ivory rested his palm against the walI beside her head, propping himself there to await her surrender. On the pure wa1l, the shadow of shapely fingers was huge: he had the upper hand. The light was turning his figure supple yet metallic, the colour of pewter. It is not often that Venus passes before, and occults, so bright a sLar. (TV' p.134-5) The visual imagery of the scene is compellingr âs well as the symbolism in terms of the astrological theme of the book. Later, when PauI and Caro partr both remember this scene: 'Paul imagining his huge hand, the whip hand, a shadow on the wall' (p.155). The scene graphically portrays the'sense of the moment's drama'and relates it to the novel as a whole in its human and astrological themes. Paul's attitude as he stands over Caro implies, rather than telIs, the element of power and manipulation that exists in his dealings with her. Again, describing Paul and Caro walking along a wet street together, the narrator emphasizes Paults mastery of Caro. He leads her by the belt of her raincoat so that'she accompanied him like an acquiescent animal on a leash or rein' (p.129). Shirley Hazzard develops this Ímpressionist.ic technique when she uses the motif of Caroline framed in a window to further

175 effec[. It is at a high window that Adam first sees Caro. Tronically, his gaze is attracted by a branch of quince blossom on the si11 of Caro's room which Ted had given her (pp.1B0; 185). As Ted says at one stage, speaking of the possibility of coincidence, and in response to Caro's comment Lhat 'Things come round so strangelyr: I've thought there may be more collisions of bhe kind in Iife than in books. Maybe the element of coincidence is played down in literature because it seems like cheating or can't be made believable. Whereas Iife itself doesn't have to be f a ir, or convincing. (TV , p.62) By giving Ted this argument the author is able to justify her own use of coincidence which i s brilliantly ínterhroven into the p1ot, using the cosmic background to the book - the collisions, 'the contacts, and the culminations'(p.215) of the astronomical transit of Venus - as an obligato to those in the characters' 1ives. Before Caro meets Adam, Ted writes from Paris, (at the beginning of Part fr'Îhe Contacts') of a party where he has met some Americans, including a 'man Vail', who 'concerns himself with humanitarian and political causes'(p.118). Tt is characteristic of the compression and economy of Shirley Hazzard's writing that a seemingly trivial meeting mentioned by one character to another should, in fact, be of relevance to the total concept of the noveI. It throws light on Adam's interests, his character, and his relations with his former wife. The interconnections seem natural when viewed in retrospect, just âs, in The Evening of the Hotid"y, the pattern of Luisa's life appears to have been inevitable when she reviews it on her deathbed. When at the end of The Transit of Venus Caro, reunited

176 hrith Ted but appalled at the havoc they will cause his family if he leaves them, intends to escape Sweden and Ted's rcosmic influence' (p.56), she, too, reviews her life: She thought how she had been a child beside the sea, and then a woman in high rooms like rooms in dreams, and tangled gardens. She thought of continents and cities, men and women, words, the beloved. Josiers child. As if she listed every graceful moment of her life, to offer in extenuation. (TV, p.335) The continuing metaphor for Caro is of Venus, 'high and dryt, the object of men's desire. Caro tries to escape Ted's influence but, ironícally, it is his obsession for her, together with the coincidence of an air strike, which sends her to her death on the flight to Romer âs Shirley Hazzard has herself pointed out.17 gut for these two facts, Caro would have taken an earlier flight to another city. In this final event in Carors Iife'her fate is determined by the two forces of Tedrs wilI and chance. Caro's husband, Adam Vai1, in his courageous stand against inhumanity, in his work toward amnesty for political prisoners, represents the individual- against uncaring society: the man of integrity. Asked whether reviewers who found Adam Vail \^¡as too good to be true were correct, Shirley Hazzard replied: Nor... I don't think he's so awfully good, is he? He speaks out and people think that's too good' I suppose' I d idn' t asree-^with that criticism actually. It dídn't strike rrãme . r B Again, in an interview with Jenny Palmer, she says: 'To speak out for the individual has always been something of a rarity, and nor^r it often involves heroism.tl9 As Jenny Palmer has noted: 'Vail-'s effort to aid political prisoners exemplifies Shirley Hazzardts belief in the importance of personal gestures.'20

L71 In exploring characters who are uncompromisingly honest, at whatever cost, shirrey Hazzard presents two writers in The Transit of Venus: Rex Ivory and Ramón Tregeár. Rex lvoqy, like Ram6n lregeâr, the South American poet whose work Caro is translating into English, personifies the authentic man, the true artist in Shirley Hazzard's writingsr âs opposed to paul, the opportunist, the man of bad faith for whom every experíence is turned to corrupt use. Ram6n Tregelr and Rex rvory are in the tradition of Giovanetti, in The Eveníng of the Holiday, and of Gioconda's Roman friends and her father in The Bay of Noon, who had stood firm in their opposition to Mussolini and suffered for their convictions. Tregeár had been'Ímprisoned and tortured for writing truth' (p.251); Ivory had acted according to his conscience in the First World tlüar and, in a death camp in World War II, had celebrated Derbyshire in his poetry, The fictional characters are, perhaps, Shirley Hazzard's tribute to men such as Sol-zhenisyn and the philosopher Benedetto Croce. The Latter spoke out against fascism, at a time when it hras most dangerous to do so. In her Boyer Lecture Series, Shirley Hazzard has described Croce as'a figure heroic in the quality of his thought as in the conduct of his 1i fe...' (BL, p.55). In her extended view of love in The Transit of Venus, Shirley Hazzard is able not only to show the three loves of her central character, Caroline Bell, but al-so to deal with other, different kinds of love. Counterpointed to Caro's Love for Pau1, Adam and, finaIly, Ted, is that bethreen Chrístian and Grace, between Christian and Cordelia (if that can be called l-ove which is so

T7B one-sided and so short-lived), and between Grace and Àngus Dance. The episode between Christian and Cordelia, together with that of Grace and Angus's brief, unfulfilled love affair, provides a variation on the theme of love which modulates the main theme of Carors life and loves. The story of Christianrs brief affair with Cordelia whilst his wife is in the country wilh their children first appeared as 'A Long Short Story' in The New Yorker2l It becomes part of the structure of the novel, both ín its theme of the gradual dehuman lzaLion of Christian Thrale, a civil servant, a frightened man 'a thoroughly modern man' ripe for Orwellianism' - in Shirley Hazzard'S o$¡n phra sè,22 and in its emphasis on the rote of Iiterature and its influence on Iife and love. In Chapter 28 there are probably more references to 1íterature albeit ironical on this occasion - more allusions to romantic poetry' than in any other chapter in this novel. The author has herself said of The Transit of Venus as a whole that it could well be made the subject of examination for references to literature of other centuries.23 In the context of this particular epi sode in Christian's Iife, the literary allusions which thread their way through this chapber provide a double image of romantic love: that of the poets and that of Christian - an extrinsic romantic whose 'love

a f fa ir' i s a l-udicrous c1ich6. A third viewpoint on the role of romantic Iove is the narratorrsr âS she juxtaposes these two interpretations of the effects of love the poetsrand Christian's - to show his shallowness and lack of understanding. t iteraturers inherent truths are emphasized by Christian's

r79 inauthenticity. Christianrs behaviour in extricating hÍmself from the affair is consistent urith the character Shirley Hazzard has built up throughout the novel. He is in the tradition of Clem in 'À Place in the Country'and'The Picnic'whose emotions are not involved in this extra-marital affair. Cordelía learns, like Nettie, too Iate, that her lover is'paltry and pathetic'when she is 'already in the trap' (tVr p.24I). When Christian arranges to see Cordel-ia for the last time to'make himself clearr, she embarrasses him with her public display of emotion: Attempting rational discourse, he told her of the previous evening's concert, where he had been much affronted by interrupüions of untimely applause, and by the shushings Lhat countered these. The motion of censure revived him: the worl-d had once more proved unworthy of Christian Thrale. He did not mention the music. (tV, p.24I) It is in these carefully placed, epigrammatic, Wildean afterthoughts that Shirley Hazzard so often makes her most revealing comment on character, Throughout the noveI, Christian is presented in an unflattering way: his pettiness, meanness, pomposity are stressed. His failure to hetp Caro when she needed it, his self- deception, are alI unattractive, contemptible inhumanities. His greatest failure, of course, is ín his inabilíty to see the truth about himself: hís self-righteousness and complacency. A hollow man, he seeks to reassure himself of his existence through material possessions and his professional standing. On learning that his father has left quite a large estate, Christian, like John Dashwood in Sense and Sensíbility, is'eager to keep it in

180 the immediate family. rI feel we shoutd keep it to ourselvesr, he says to Grace. rHe meant the ì-egal content lof the will ], but could have been understood more explicitly' (p.175). One of the princ'ipal reasons for his hasty end to the Cordelia affair v/as the fear that it had come to bhe ears of his superiors. 'CuIpability unfelt for Grace or Cordelia hlas, in regard to the office, deeply stirred' (p.239). ShÍrley Hazzatd satirically Iinks Christian and his bureaucratic brothers to the knights of Camelot who rcross'd themselves for fear'. The satire continues when Christian te1Is Grace: 'I have been given

Africa' : He might have been Alexander, or Antony. The younger scipio. Grace stared whitely, and he added, rsouth of the Sahara. I She vras looking through such tears as would never rise for Angus Dancer who could not need¡ ot evoke, pity for imþercipience or self-exposure. She wept for Christian, insulated in the nonconducting vainglory of his days.... (TV, p.282) Although Grace, in the wife-maternal role which is increasingly hers toward Christian, is allowed pity for her husband, there is little of this indulgence shown him by the narrator, whose tone is satirical and detached when it relates to him. He represents the petty bureaucrat whose Iack of humanity, imagination and breadth of mind damns him, and whose fear and ambition make him a dangerous tool in the hands of those who make decisions for aII. For this reason, the satire is savage, since it is a warning of one of the principal dangers of modern life. Thirteen years after Christian's affair with Cordelia' Grace fal-ls in l-ove with Or. Angus Dance. The abortive love af fa ir v/as first published as a short story in The New Yorker.24 It was

181 then entitled rÀ Crush on Doctor Dancer. Treated within the context of the novel, the affair provides a muted obligato to the main theme of love, with itsemphasis on renunciation. Grace, in marrying Christian Thrale, has chosen domestic love, with the daily concessions implicit in such a relationship. She finds a different kind of love with the chivalrous Angus - too honourable to ask her to give up home and family for him rher 1ife, which she stood ready to relinquish' (p.285). Like Aeneas, his namesake, Angus ultimately chooses 'honour' and duty before 1ove, a decision foreshadowed in the exchange which takes place between Grace and Angus at the beginning of their acquaintance: rJ supposer' said Grace Thrale, 'that Angus u¡as always a Scots name.r 'Itts a version of Aeneas, I She couLd not recal1 what Aeneas had done, and thought it better not to ask. (TV, p.27I) As in many similar allusions to the literature of the past, Shirley Hazzard stresses the continuity of the idea of Iove in life and literature. Its ephemeral nature is set against its lasting effects in the individual memory and, through literature, art and music, in the collective memory. Dido and Aeneas are invoked as representatives of archetypes in Iiterature. The truth of the myth is val-idated in the loves of ordinary people such as Hazzard del-ineates in her characterization of Grace and Angus. Their very ordinariness adds an ironical element to what is already a coof, detached view of Grace under the influence of love.

IB2 One of the principal themes of the novel is that'the truth has a life of its ownr(p.10), and that'things come around strangelyr (pp.62¡ I32). The architectonic form of the nove1, with its omniscient narrator who is a\.Jare of the destiny of each of the characters, allows truth and the fate of the main protagonists to be made gradually apparent. The author who creates the characters and situations for her imaginative purposes controls the lives of her fictional creatures - like the Gods in Greek drama. The circumstances, time and place of the characters are given. What emerges to the reader is the way those characters deal- with their fate: how they react to the 'necessitíes' of their existence. Tn discussing this aspect of her novel with Catherine Rainwater and William Scheick, Shirley Hazzard has said: rI wanted the whole to seem "preordained", fated, the beginning and end \^¡ere perhaps more "significant" for that reason'.25 Rainwater and Scheick comment: Your characters, as v/e perceive them, do not assert wilI in defiance of fate, but discover their fate through their actions. Are these actions in some sense both free and dete rmined? Shirley Hazzard replies:

Yes, like 1i fe. We are given certaín limits, allotted a certain time and times. Wíthin these there is the exercise relative according to character and conditions, of course of free wi11. But nothing is consistent in life: even strong energies are occasionally p+s;sive; even a passive 1ífe wil-1 sometimes brief ly igni Le.zo As welI as through the structure of the noveI, Shirley Hazzard also stresses the role of fate in the Iives of her characters through its literary associations, and through hints of events to come. The deliberate evocation of Hardy's fictÍonal world of Wessex; the connections between Tedts astronomy and his

183 arrival at Peverel fresh from a visit to the ancient astrological centre of Àvebury; the very title of the novel, with its remínder that Venus is not only the name of a planet but, in mythology, was the Goddess of Love, all create an atmosphere that ca11s on past belief rather than those that are merely the product of contemporary, banal ideas of rationality. The narrator underlines this sense of fate by telling the reader as early as Chapter I that 'Edmund Tice would take his own life before attaining the peak of his achievement. But that would occur in a northern city, and not for many years' 1p.12). The ambiguity of the phrase'peak of his achievementr is not explained until the end of the book when Ted, now an eminent scientist, dies by his o\^rn hand when he l-earns of Caro's death on her hray to the ir reunion in Rome. The tension created by the writer's technique of partly telling and partly withholding truth is increased by references to Caro's future. During an expedition in which Ted and Caro visit a country house he knew as a boy, they discuss Carors future: Ted said, 'It used to be, in England, that you were never far from the countryside. Now you are always near a town.' He had begun to look with antipodean eyes, because of Caro. 'I'11 be living in a city ever after,r Caroline Be11 was soon to start work in the government office. rI have to wait until there is a post.' He thought, She already has the jargon then - but she went onr rPost, post. Like being tied to a stake in a field. Like a gibbet at the crossroads.' They smiled at this moonlight image of danglíng Caro: Caro would swing for it. (TV, p.27\ The auLhor allows Caro to play with the word rpostt bringing

LB4 out its various meanings and associations. The purpose of this is not just an exercise in semantics. The allusion to posts and gibbets brings to the reader's mind the association already established with Hardy. Caro is identif ied with Tess, who did 'swing for it'. rn a later scene, Caro is ironically linked with Eurydice when, after a meeting \,rith Ted, she disappears into an Underground Station in London (p.295). 'At the last moment she l-ooked back, knowíng he would be therer. She is'a rush-hour Eurydice'. Finally, the narrator describes Caro as having 'the luminosity of those about to die' (p.332). A second reading of the nove I reveals its íntricate patterning, the weaving of fate and coincidence, love and truth. Not only does truth have a life of íts own, but, as Miss Sadie Graine discovers, truth is the daught,er of time. Paul's

opportunism and shoddiness are suggested when he appears on a television programme with the aptly named Professor Viadding who is publicising his 'critical elucidation' to Rex Ivoryrs poetry: Paul's appearance \^tas no\^7 beginning to separate, 1íke an unwholesome substance. Eyes, mouth, and expression were no longer quite compl-ementary: a composite portrait of a suspect or fugitive. Thinner, olde:.-t no less charming, he did these public things with greatest ease. (TV' p.321) The reference to the'suspect or fugitive' is another hint of PauI's role as murderer. The f inal exposiLion i s f ull of moments when t.he reader makes connectíons. Pauf's words when he tells Caro: 'I see you alone in the garden at night. I look down and see you alone' relate also to Victor (pp.77¡ 301). The hotel to which PauI takes Caro is the one where he took Victor. Tn a letter to Ted

185 describing Pâu1!s first p1ay, Caro expresses surprise at his apparent knowledge of working-cIass family life. This knowledge is nor^r explained through his familiarity with the Locker family. Paul's shallowness, his heartless usé of people Victor, Têrtia, Caro, Ted - are emphasized in these revelations anC realizations. His honesty in telling Caro that revenge toward Ted, who knows too much about him, is part of the reason for his interest in Caro is an honesty which takes no account of the feelings of the recipient. rn his desire for confession, he feels no suffering but his own for his son. Caro must not only face the truth of his corruption, but the waste of spirit in loving him and literalIy almost dying of that love. At one point in the noveÌ, Caro says of Ted:'you rÁ/ere born truthfuL and have also been trained in the truth' (p.293) She is as yet unaware that because of Ted's silence, because of his suppression of the truth about Pau1, through motives of rectitude which are explained when Caro has the whole truth, he has disqualified himself from the right. to compete for Caro, and is

not able to \¡/arn her aga inst Paul, other than obliquely. f n Pride and Prejudice Darcy blames himself for withholding the trubh about lrlickham, but his motives are to protect his sisterrs reputation. Ted's motives are more complicated and, at one point, he feels'as if some great duty had fa1len to hím and he had bungled it' 1p.75). Shirley Hazzard's craftsmanship in piecing together causes and their effects not only substantiates the book's internal bruth and cohesion, its o\^rn self-referential laws, it also has its effect in validating Iarger truths discussed in her writings. Her novel echoes back on itself at

tB6 various points, fot instance, when Paul speaks of Tedrs 'dated nobility' in keeping s ilen t: 'As it is, his silence makes him supreme. Silence tends to do that anyway, and this is an extreme case.l

'Barely credibler' Paul said. 'The self-command' . 'Which leads to sovereign power'. (TV' p.314) The phrase evokes a childhood memory for Caro when, fot a puníshment afber school, she might be called upon to wri te: Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control: These three alone lead 1í fe to sovereign po\^ter. (TV, p.31) Caro, in her lack of self-control, and in thrall Eo Paul, had put Ted in his power by telling her lover Ted's secret. Once both Caro and the reader have the truth from Paul' everything said and done in the past of the novel becomes mutated. Like Isabel in The Portrait of a Lady when she real-izes how she has been duped and used, Caro must re-evaluate all past events and conversations in liqht of what she now knows. The reader must similarly revise opinions. Ted's antipathy to Paul and his hesitation in taking Paul's hand on their supposed first meeting at Peverel can now be Seen in its true light: nct aS inverted snobbery, but aS Shock at recognizing Pau1. Many of Ted's comments take on a different interpretatíon. What Caro had supposed was prejudice when Ted comments on Paul's church-going activities by quipping: rChristopher-Robin is saying his prayers' is seen now as ironY, since Ted knows that Paul has been guilty of the sin of omission which has resulted in Victor's death. For a Christian, like PauI, of course, the sin of omission is

187 very little di fferent from that of commission. paul's hubris,

his assumption that he will-'get avray with it', is punished when he real-izes his God's sense of humour extends to himself in what he interprets as the punishment of the father through the son when Ferix is shown to be a homosexual and to be dying of leukemia. Shirley Hazzardrs sense of irony is apparent when, after tel-ling caro the story of hi s involvemen t with victor, paul speaks of his first play and momentarily confuses the names of his young homosexual lover FeIix and his son. Having suffered no sense of guilt for the death of his young lover, paul interprets as retribution his suffering through his son. He did not 'get af/\¡ay with it'. rt is in these subtle ways that shirley Hazzard shows how 'things come around strangely' and that tevery lie must be redeemed in the end' (p.38). In the readerrs evaluation of events and dialogue, Ted's

seemingly joking comment on the portrait of paur festering in a cupboard, líke Dorian Gray's, also takes on new meaning (p.29I),

as does Gracers reference to the 'country house party where a murder has been committed...', at which remark, Ted Tice 'stood silent' 1p.86). The Lableau encapsulates a crucial moment in the novel when the murder !{as actually committed and Ted's respcnse to what he wi.tnessed. Ted's confession to Caro early in the novel of how he helped

a German prisoner-of-war to escape must also be re-evaluated when the truth emerges. Like the authorities, Ted did not know until later that the prisoner was in fact a missile scientist rather

than a serviceman. The subsequent rocket raids on England add a

188 further complication to Ted's humane action. e similar action in literature is invoked by Ted when he refers to Pip in Great Expectations. The author has foregrounded this connection when, on Ted and Carors expedition early in the novel, she has Caro read aloud a billboard advertising the film Great Expectations. The couple also pass an abandoned merry-go- round whose sign has Iost its inítial Ietter so that it reads 'UNFAIR' an allusion to Ted's fate. Explaining his motives in allowing the prisoner-of-war to escape, Ted says of Pip: 'Do you remember how, on the first page of that book, the boy helps the escaped convict?' More like intetrrogation than recaIl. 'He doesn't befriend him, though. He does it out of fear.' (TV, p.5B) Dickens has i"lagwich al-ter his 1i fe, remembering the sma11 boy's act of humanity. Shirley Hazzard, in an ironical twist to the story, leaves the scientist in ignorance of his rescuer'S identity and untouched by the gesture. Ted finds him rworking for the other side'after the \4rar. Since Germany was disarmed in 1945, many of her \¡¡eapon scientists were oblige.d to find empl-oyment in the Un ited States or elsewherer âs this man did. Ted,s secret, rstreaked with difficul-t humanity" Iike the streak which disfigures his eye (perhaps symbolizíng his individuality and lack of conformity to society's standards) precludes him from turning Paul in to the authorities because of the precedent. DeScribing to Caro the repercussions of his act of mercy, Ted says: rA conscious act of independent humanity is what society can least afford. If they once let that in, there'd be no end to it. If he and I had been in battle, I would have killed

189 him, having accepted society's standards. As it was, I was left to apply my own. Well, I'm not putting myself up. I just had too many advantages to use them. Again, the complications come 1ater. Oners best ínstincts are no mcre reliable than the law and no more consistent. If you live essentially within society there are times when you'd prefer to depend on the sociaL formula - and you discover youtve somewhat spoiled that possibility. You've disquali fied yourself from judging others by those rules.' 'You mean you might have a good reason, one d-y, to turn someone else in, but have forfeíted the right.'

' Prec i sely. ' (TV, pp. 6 I-2') Ted turns the conversation to speak of the clash with Thrale Senior and Caro supposes his previous remarks to apply to Ted's reluctance to take the 'righteousr position regarding the placement of the telescope which Thrale wanted, for personal gain and political- reasons, to be sited in Britain. Through misunderstanding, misreading of events and character, and bhrough ignorance, Caror like Emma Woodhouse and Isabel Archer, must suffer the mortification of knowing her judgment wrong. Worse, she has been innocently implicated in PauI's life. She learns_ that Paul \¡¡asreverything shoddy, derelict' (p.310). Paulrs revelations, her realization of Ted's knowledge, both of the act of manslaughter or murder, and of her i nvo lve rnen t with Paul, caused her to writhe inwardly: AI1 pride and presumption, the exaltation of her own beliefs, the wish to be humane, the struggle to do well, \^rere reduced to this: a middle-aged woman wringing her hands anC cal-ling on God. (TV, p.310) It is characteristic of Caro that her suffering is silent and inward. The narrator has shown on several occasions Carors very different responses to misfortune when compared with Dorars. Carors stoicism is partly the result of exposure to Dorars uncontrolled emotionalism and hysteria. The experience of Dora

190 v/as a permanent scar on both Grace and caro, driving them Ínto themselves. significantly, it is the memory of Adam which saves Caro during Paul's revelation: 'If it had not been for the incontrovertible fact of Àdam vail, her life might decompose, obscenely, in her mind's eye' (p.313). Her knowledge of his life and her life with him act to barance the horror of her association with paul. By structuring the novel the way she has the author conceals the truth from both reader and Caro until near the end of the book. As Caro boards the plane thal will take her to her death, she remembers past farewells, and in a gesture that reminds the reader of an earlier allusion to the myth of orpheus and Eurydice, l-ooks back in case Ted should be there. The image of the Benbow taking Caro's and Grace's parents to their deaths in Sydney Harbour persists throughout the novel. fn the coda to the book, these references to the sinking of the Benbow, which recur at significant moments in both Gracefs and Carors life, accelerate into the sound of the plane as Ít roars into the sky: Within the cabin, nothing could be heard. Only as the plane rose from the ground, a long hiss of air - like the intake of humanity's breath when a work of ages shrivels in an instant; or the great gasp of huIl and ocean as a ship goes down. (TV, p.337) As Geoffrey Lehmann has remarked, the roar of the plane which takes Caro to her death is suggested at various points in the story.27 In retrospect, too, the storm which accompanies Ted Tice on his arrival at Peverel is the same storm which was responsible for the drowning of Victor. In many v¡ays Shirley

191 Hazzard stresses these connections. Às we1I as the memory of Hiroshima, evoked in the reference to the'work of ages'which shrivelled in an instant, the lasL section of the novel bring together various themes and images: the ability of truth to come to the surface, however long submerged; the power and strength which knowledge and truth gave Ted; the importance of 1ove, and the deprívation when it is absenti and, of course, the effect of past on character. The loss of their parents was an early impression which haunted Caro and Grace. Their subsequent Iives with Dora only reinforced this loss. It also had its effect on theír choices ín life. In a sense, all Shirley Hazzardts fictional works are about exploring: exploring the pLace, time and circumstances of her charactersr existence, but also exploring the self, and exploring the continuing spirit of humanity. The many geographical metaphors in Shirley Hazzard's $¡riting draw attenLion to this emphasis. T.S. Eliot's words, quoted earlier in this thesis in Chapter V, are particularly appropriate when seen within the context of Hazzard's novella The Bay of Noon and her novel The Transit of venus.28 As well as geographical metaphors, Shirley Hazzard also uses martial metaphors in describing relations between lovers. Tn this v/ay she makes use of a tradition long established in classical literature. fn The Evening of the Holiday, Tancredi collects battle scenes and this is of some significance in his pursuit of Sophie, who is a campaign he must win. And, in The Transit of Venus, Caro and Paul meet after their affair is over,

192 in a bleak, wintry park: They were converging from extremes, two opposing commanders who meet whíIe their forces slaughter, not to make peace but to exchange a high, knowingr egoistic sadness before resuming battle: two minutesr silence, their brief armistice. (fV, p.170) ïn a scene early in the novel when Ted and Caro visit a country house, their guide describes how a room lined with Rubens had been used as a headquarters for the military during the Second Front of World War II: Yes, it vlas true: commanders had sat here in battle dress and t.he map of France had hung, in its turn, over the boarded canvas of flung drapery and glistening flesh; and Mars in truth had covered Venus. (TV, p.2B) Through images such as these and by exploiting the non-verbal- art of painting, with íts powerful reverberations, Shirley Hazzard adds to the richness of her effects. Shirley Hazzard writes in the tradition of the great novelists who attempt to make sense out of human existence. As Frank Kermode says in fhe Sense of an Ending, rthere is a human need for order and for a pattern the sense of a beginning, middle and end both in life and in novei-s.'29 ïr, Shirtey Hazzardrs novels, the individual life is shown to have some paLtern, even though the fate of that indívidual may be tragic. But the importance of the life is in its adherence to truth, its avoidance of'bad faith', and in the capacity to love, both at the individual leveI andr âs exemptÍfied by Adam Vail, all humanity. In Shirley Hazzardts philosophy, influenced as it is by Croce, the beginning, middle and end is the beginning, middle and end of all human history. The individual makes his or her contribution, for good or i1I, to the total and continuing story.

193 In the 1984 Boyer Lectures, Shirley Hazzard said: Without the testimony of art and artículate thought we would understand armost nothÍng of our human past ol its griefs and longings and joySr its wit and prea!ures, opinions and . sensations. hle would know nothing except Lhat material and often brutal segment called reality. (BL, p.10) She sees the responsibility of the artíst in crocers terms: as the amannuensis of the human race: showing, rather than telIing. Shirley Hazzard particularly stresses the 'cumulative value of the conscious human experiencer âs a civilising continuity.' she goes on to say:

our human past and present, overwhelmíngry in error, have nevertheless preserved and developed a filament of self- recognition and recorded wisdom, and a body of humane gesture. (AL, p.48)

In The Transit of Venus, Adam Vail, Têd Tice, Caro, Grace, Rex rvory and Ramón tregeár make the ir contribut íons to this universal and continuing 'humane gesture'.

194 CONCLUSION

The aim of thís thesis has been to draw attention to the twin themes of l-ove and truth in Shirley Hazzard's writings, and to emphasize the consistency of her view of the world as it appears in her work both fiction and non-fiction. Using the theme of the search for 1ove, fot place and for identity as the starting point in her analysis of character, Shirley Hazzard ranges over many aspects of truth in her writing' including a discussion of the subjectivity of truth when evaluating the past. Throughout much of her work she expresses particular concern for certain features of modern life which she finds disturbing. These are the growth of bureaucracy and a concomitant tendency to uniformity and mediocrity; intolerance towards those who do not fit into "'approved patterns of women and of men"';1 a sense of alienation and apathy resulting from a feeling of impotence in the ability of individuals to control their destiny; and the erosion of truth through the perversion of language. Shirley Hazzardts imaginative moraf vision illuminates her critique of the United Nations in Defeat of an Ideal. In Peopl-e in Glass Houses irony and satire combine Lo provide the'serious durable pleasure' which she brings to this fictiona1-ízed and humanized version of the problems dealt hlith in the non-fiction account of bureaucratic Iife. Irony and satire are also brought

195 to bear on the wider world portrayed in The Transit of Venusr âs they are to the analysis of l-ove in her short stories. rn her noveLs and Fhort stories the general becomes particularized. fn her delineation of character, she honours the virtues of abnegation, stoicism and faith in the future. These varues are epitomized in carots aspirations to heroism and excellence, and Rex rvory's and Ramón Tregelr,s adherence to their loelief s in the face of torture and imprisonment. rn her exposition of the character of Paul rvory, clever, witty, 'fair and fortunate', she shows the tragic waste of talent and opportunity by one in whom an overriding egotism ís his particular hamartia. In contrast she shows characters who do not Ithrow over a personal code just because it was not in fashion with the modern world'.2 The opposites of the virtues Shirley Hazzard extols, the mockery of a belief in heroism, of the appreciation of beauty for its own sake and the desire for knowredge yeatsrs r"traffic in mockery"' (BL, p.57) - are what Shirley Hazzard remembers of a section of the Australian society in which she grew up and which she refers to in her Boyer LecLures. She encapsulates these characteristics in her portrayal of Mervr the cynical, iconoclastic, distrustful, dísenchanted Australian in rswoboda's Tragedy' (PGH), who had tried culture and found it wanting. Similarly, among her main criticisms of the United Nations Organization are an attitude of defeatism, of'playing for safety'in decisions and appointments, and a lack of faith in the future.

196 Shirley Hazzatd demonstrates her commitment to the long history and the continuing story of humanity expressed through art in her reference Lo the past as a guide to the present and to the future for instancer âs this theme is ironically presented through Algie in'The Story of Miss Sadie Graine' (eCH¡ - and in her use of the literature of the past to reinforce her effects. She uses "'fine allusions, bright images and elegant phrases"' for the same purpose that Dr. Johnson did "'because they obtain an easier reception for the trutl'r"'.3 the settíngs of her two novellas Italy and the comparisons between oId and new countries all act to underl-ine the values of the humanist tradition, with its emphasis on 'the greater world of the stream of culture and knowledget.4

In her exploration of love and its effects, she takes a theme which has been of perennial interest in humanist Iiterature. In several of her stories she compares different attitudes to love, demonstratÍng her penetrating insight into motives, her a\¡Jareness of the some times delicate diplomacy of people's negotiations with each other, her understanding of the importance of the inner life. In Shirley Hazzard's treatment of the effects of literature on 1ife, and especially the literature of the romantic tradi tion dedicated to the exploration of emotions, she exhibits both its positive and negative influence. For example, Sophiers ruthless commitment to an ideal of romantic love can be set against Christian's self-indulgent dal-liance with the idea of romance. Shírley Hazzard has made clear her own thoughts on the question when, in speaking of the poetry of the romantic period she says in interview: 'Romantic qualities

L97 greatly rendered or given a larger truth, are real. When they are sentimentalized, they become trivialt.5 In the tradition of the novelísts of the past, she shows us ourselves in order to demonstrate the pitfalls of the acceptance of things unacceptable. she offers reason (withín reason) tempered by humanity as one possible cure for the many i11s she sees in society rthe inundation of ínhuman and anti-human material factors' of modern rife.6 Reason and humanity, rove and truth, these are the preoccupaLions of Shirley Hazzard as a writer, often expressed in forms whose structure has an almost l(ozartian perfection, together with an appreciation of the'human tears/Which peoples o1d in Lragedy/Have left upon the centuried years.'7 In her insistence on the ability of truth to emerge with time, and that 'the truth has a life of its own' she seems to agree with Clough when he says: Truth is a golden thread, seen here and there In small bright specks upon the visible side Of our strange beingts particoloured web. How rich the converse. 'Tis a vein of ore Emerging now and then on Earthts rude breast, But flowing fulL below. Like islands set At distant intervals on Oceanrs face, We see it on our course; but in the depths The mystic colonnade ¡¿nbroken keeps rts faithful way ....ö

198 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ÀLS: Australian Litera ry Studies

DLB: Dictionary of Litera ry Biography

Jour.Com.Lit. : Journal of Commonwealth Literature

NYRB: The New York Review of Books l NYT: The New York Times

NYTBR: The New York Times Book Review

PMLÀ: Publications of the Modern Lanqua qe AS soc iat ïõn-õE

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement

TSLL: Texas Studies in Literature and Language

IIILWE: V'Iorld Literat.ure lrlritten in English

199 N OTES TO CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

1 Shirley Hazzard, Defeat of an Ideal- A Stud of the Self- Destruction of th-e un:iteì-mãE ons, Lo on: M a-cm illTan,-tg z¡ . AIl re ferenc e s to tEis ed-i t ion. IN.8. Page numbers of quotations from source books are shcwn in parenthesis and identified by initials, where necessary for clarity, i.e. The Bay of ryee!: BN; Boyer Lectures: BL; Cliffs of Fal1: CFi Defeat of an Ideal: Df; The Evening of the Ho l_ ida Y: EH; eeoþ-Iê-in- GTass rlouses: PGHI-rle transTE of Venus: TV. l

2 People in Glass Houses, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. All references to TñIlG¿ition.

3 rAuthorsr Statementsr, ALS, 10, No.2, Oct. 1981, 208.

Á. Cliffs of Fall, New York: Jove Publications, 1986. all-reFrences to this edition.

5 The Evening of the HoIiday, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1983. AlI references to this edition.

6 The Bay of Noon, Ringwood: Penguin, 1982. Al l- re fe rence s to this edition.

7 The Transit of Venus, Ringwood: Penguin, 198I. AI1 references to this -ediEÏon.

B 1984 Boyer Lectures: Coming of Age in Austral i a, sydney:-ilec Enterprises, 1985. (Hereinafter referred to as Boyer Lectures).

9 Jan Garrett, 'The Transits of Hazzard', Look and Listen, Nov. 1984, 37. 10. Shirley Hazzard,'Problems Facing Contemporary Novelists', ALS, 9, No.2, Oct. I979, 179-81. 11. Peter Piercer'Conventions of Presence' , Ivlean j in, 40, No.1, 1981, 106-13. 12. De1ys Bird, rText Production and Reception - Shirley Hazzardts The Transit of Venus', Westerl-y, No.1, Niar. 1985 45. ' INB. In connection with Pierce's description o f The Transit of Venus as'the best dressed women's magazine fi of lTs-yeãE', there are aÌso those who, as Louis Kronenberger reminds usr 'think Jane Austen tea-tablish' as there are those who think Mozart tinkles'. Louis Kronenberger,

200 fntroduction to Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, New York: Harper & Row, l_950, x1. 13. Nina Baym, 'Artifice and Romance in Shirley Hazzard's Fiction', TSLL, 25, 1983, 227. r4. Baym | 225. 15. Delys Bird, 'ShirIey Hazzard-. The Transit of Venusr, Westerly, No.1, Mar.19B1, 55.

16. John Colmer, rPatterns and Preoccupations of Love: The Novels of Shirley Hazzardt, Meanjin, 29, No.4, Dec. I970, 46r. 17. Nancy Dew Taylor, 'An Introduction to Shirley Hazzardts The Transit of Venus' , WLhIE , 24, 1984, 287-95. 18. Catherine Rainwater and William J. Scheick, "'Some Godl-ike Grammar": An Introduction to the Writings of Hazzard, Ozick, and Redmon', TSLL, 25, 1983, 181-211. 19. Anne TyJ-er, Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzardt, The 'The -3 New Repub1 íc,2A -Jan. T-9 BT; O. 20. Bronwen Levy, rConstructing the Woman Writer: The Reviewing Reception of Hazzardts The Transit of Venusr, in Gender, Politics and Fiction: Twe ntieth Ce ñEury aus tralian Women's Novels, ed. Ca ro]e Fe r rfer, st. Lucia: IJ õE-þueensT and P, 1985,I91. 2I. John CoImer, 'Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venus', Jour.Comm.Lit. 19, No.1, 1984, -_fJ¡ 22. Robert SeIlick, 'Shirley Hazzardz Dislocation and Continuity', ALS, 9, No.2, oct. 7979, IB2-8. 23. Se1lick, 183. 24. James WieIand, "'Antipodean Eyes": Vüays of Seeing in Shirley Hazzardts The Transit of Venus', Kunapipi, 5, No.2, 19 83, 37.

25. Wieland, 3 B. 26. Taylor, 289. 27. Rainwater and Scheick, 199. )Q E.B. Moon,rFate, Individual Action, and the Shape of Li fe in Shirley Hazzardts The Transit of Venus', Southerly, 43, No.3, Sept. 19 B3 , 34I. 29. Moon , 342.,

20r 30. Geoffrey Lehmann, rThe Novels of Shirley Hazzardz An Affirmation of Venusr, Ouadrant Mar. 19 B1, 3 3. 31. Susan Moore, 'A Response to "The Novels of Shirley Hazzard"t, Quadrant, July 1981, 63. 32. Moore , 62. 33. Baym , 226. 34. CoImer, rPatterns and Preoccupations', 46r. 35. R. Geering, Recent Fiction Austral ian Wri ters and Their Work), London: Oxford UP, 7 r rpt. Melbourne, oxtõFup, ß7Ç 44-45. 36. Baym | 229. 37. Baym, 229. 38. Baym, 23I.

20 John Colmer, Coleridge to Catch 22 Images of Soc ie ty, London: Macmillan, I978, 190.

40. Baym, 23 1. 47. Colme r, tHazzard' s The Transit of 'Venusr, 2I. 42. CoImer, tHazzardt s The Transit of Venusr, 11. 43. Geeríng, 46. 44. Sellick, 188. 45. TayI or, 29I. 46. Taylor, 2BB. 47. Robert Towers, 'Period Fiction', (review of Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus), NYRB, 15 May 1980, 33. 48. Bird, tText Production and Receptionr, 42. 49. SeIlick, 187. s0. Bird, rText Production and Receptíon', 44. 51. Baym | 222. 52. Baym | 226. 53. Arthur Hugh Clough, 'shorter Poems', fri, in The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough, ed. A.L.P. .Norrington, l-ondon:-õÏTo?d' uP, 1968, 45.

202 54. Michiko Kakutani, rBehind the Best Sellers: Shirley Hazzardt , NYTBR, 11 May 1980' 46. 55. Jean Ross, 'ArI Interview with Shirley Hazzard', DLÞ Yearböokt 1982, 286. 56. Virginia Woo1f, rWalter Sickert' in The Captainrs Death Bed, and Other Essays, London: Hogarth, 1981, I76. 57. Jenny Palmer, tshirley Hazzard: An interview in New York with Austral-ia's Top Novelist of 1981', Bulletin, 13 Oct. 1981, 85. 58. Frank Moorhouse, The State of the Art of Living ín Australia, RingwoõãJ Pe n g u i n, Tile 3l- r-ntrffiEToÇ 2 59. Vtieland, 36'49. 60. Shirley Hazzard, 'Out of Itea', The New Yorker, 1 May 19651 r2s. 61. The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield, ed. Vincent o'sur-fan-- ãño ¡nargare t Scott, Vo .r, r9o3-77 , Ox ford: Cl-arendon Press, 19 84: Introduction, xi i i. tNB. The Beauchamps considered themselves as 'heirs to London' and that the other world of England was 'home'. Kathleen, considered by her family to be ran antipodean nugget" $ras sent to England to be polished. she had been '¿ritte¿ to think of England as the natural repository of traditions and values' (p.viii). However, the editors comment that she experienced a sense of displacement which henceforth marked her writing: 'For the rest of her life, she would feel herself to be an "outsider" in almost every context, so that the local rules did not necessarily app]y. Already as a schoolgirl in England, she made something of not being simply English' (p.ix). Her habit of adopting masks anã tvaËlèty of names is also remarked by the editors and perhaps relates to the dilemma of being heir to two worlds. l 62. Diana Brydon, 'Christina Stead aS an Australian Writer', WLWE, I8, No.1, Apr. 1979 | I24. rThe 6 3. Chr is Chase, Transit of Shirley Hazzatd', NYT' 20 Aug. 1982, CB. 64. Wieland | 36-49. 6s. Pa1mer, 86.

203 NOTES TO CHAPTER rI: LANGUAGE

1 W.S. Auden, The Dyerr s Hand and Other Essays, London: Faber, 1963, 15 rWe 2 S hirley Hazzardr' Need Silence To Find Out What We Think', NYTBR, 87, No. 46, I4 Nov. 1982, 11. 3. George Orwe11, 'politics and the English Language', in The fg".g"i+ Essays of George Orwe11, Harmondsworth: Penguinl- 1968, 362. 4. Paul chilton, ed. Language and the Nucrear Arms Debate: Nuke spe a k Today, Dover (NH) : r'rancE pïñEe r, -T98 5, ix. 5. Chilton, 57.

6. ChiIton, 57 . 7. Orwel1,363. B. Orwelì-, 356. o Paul Kavanagh'Shir1ey Hazzard, Astronomer of SouIs: An fnterview with PauI Kavanagh', SoutherJ-y, 45, No.2, June 1985, 2I4. 10. See: Muriel Spark, 'The Blashf iel_d Foundation Addressr, Þlõc. ^Am. Ac. & Nat. fnst. of Arts and Letters, Ann. ceremo-nÇ llay-197õ.

11. Jenny Palmer, rShirley Hazzardt An interview in New York with Australia's Top Novelist of 1981,, Bu1letin, 13 Oct. 1981, 85. 12. NB. A recent report in The Observer, Sunday, 25 October 1987, quotes Sir Brian Urqufrart, senior aidè to four United Nations Secretary-GeneraIs: tsir Brian criticises the system whereby the Security Council's five permanent members, when looking for a new Secretary-General, reach agreement on a candidate who is expected to "p1ay it safe" between East and West and not show too much independence. He urges that, in future, the big powers should conduct a worl-dw ide talent hun t f or t he "able st and most sui table man or lvoman for the job." Shirley Hazzard argues both directly in Defeat of an Ideal and indirectly in people in Glass Housès -Ehat one õT- th-e principal reasons Tõ?-th=eTaTEFã of Eñe t¡nited Nations Orgañization is that appointments, both as Secretary-General and in other senior posts, have been made, not on the basis of merit, but rather, to'play it safe t .

13. Shirley Hazzard, 'Polyhymnia: Criticism and Language.- A Jaded Muser, in From Parnassus: Essays in Honour oi Jacques

204 Barzun, ed. Dora B. grleiner and William R. Keylor, New York: Harper & Row, 1976t I29. 14. Robert Sellick 'Shirley Hazzard: Dislocations and Continuity', ALS 9, No.2, oct. I979, 182-8. 15. Reuter News Release, The Advertiser (Ade1aide), 7 June 1985, 5. 16. 'Needles and Pins', (review of Shirley Hazzard, People 1n GIass Houses), TLS, 19 Oct. 1967, 989. 17. John Colmer, 'No Stonesr, ABR, Feb. 1968, 63. 10 Shiva Naipaul, ABC Broadcast, 3 Sept. 1985. IThis was a re- broadcast of a talk given earlier by Shiva Naipaul. The ABC is unable to provide the date of the original broadcast.l 19. Lawrence We1lein, (review of Shirley Hazzard, Peop]e in Gl-ass Houses), Studies in Short Fiction, 5, 196 8 , 394. 20. Hugh Trevor- Roper, 'Our Culture in Dangerr, review of George Steiner, In Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the RedefinitÏõn of CuIture, London I97I Iquoted ñ sfrirley Hazzard,'E@v@To-oct. Defeat of an Ideal, 1931. 2r. Alexander Herzen, My Past and Thoughts: The I'lemoirs of Alexander Herzen, VoIs. 7-4, trans. Constance Garnett, revised uumþTrrey Higgens, London: Chatto & Windus, 1968, quoted in Shirley Hazzard, Defeat of an Ideal-' 190.

20s NOTES TO CHAPTER IIr: SHORT STORTES

1. Val-erie Shaw, The Short Stor è Critical Tntroduction, New York: Longman S, 9 83, 13.

2 Shawr l3.

3 Shawr l3.

4 Shaw , f 3. 5 Shirley Hazzard, 'Authors' Statements', ALS, 10, No.2, Oct. 1981, 207¡ H.M.Doyle, 'A Letter from ShÏf,ey Hazzardt, ALS, 12, No.3, May 1986 | 40I-2.

6 Dennis Danvers, rA Conversation with Shirley Hazzard', Antipodes, I, No.1, l"lar. L987, 42. 7. Jan Garrett, rThe Transits of Hazzard', Look and Listen, Nov. 1984, 39

B. Shirley Hazzardr'Woollahra Roadr, The New Yorker, Apr. 1961, 58.

9 Shirì-ey Hazzard,'Surprise, Surprise', Mademoiselle, June 1967 , r57. r0. Shirley Hazzard,'Canton More Far', The New Yorker, 16 Dec. 1967, 42-9. 11. Hazzatd, 'Cantonr , 44.

12. Anita Brookner, A Start in Life, London: Triad Grafton Books, 7982, 7. 13. Don Anderson, 'Frank Moorhouse's Di scontinui ties', Southerly, 36, No.1, ù1a r. I97 6 , 26-38. 14. Frank Moorhouse, preface to Futility and Other Animals, Gladesville: Gare th PoweIl, L969. 15. Frank Moorhouse, in 'Books of the Times', (an interview by David Osborne), The National Times, 1-6 Ju1y, 797 4, 22. 16. Don Anderson, 37. 17. Helen Daniel, 'Elízabeth Jolley: Variations on a Themer, WesterJ-y, No.2, June 1986,50. 18. DanieI, 50. 19. Chris Wallace-Crabbe, 'Unloving and Being in Love', in The Theme of Love in Australian Writing, ed. AxeI Clark, John FTe tcrre r ãnd--nõE-i n I"larsden, Colloquium Papers, Sept. T982,

206 Sydney: The Christopher Brennan Society, 1983, 68. 20. Alan Brissenden, êd. Henry Lawsonrs AustraÌia, Hawthorn (Vic) : Lloyd O'Ne i1, 1973, 1V. 2I. Henry James, The Art of the Novel: Critícal Prefaces, London: Scribñãl' s, f9'-fa}.ZT

22. Shaw, 1 I. 23. Shirley Hazzard, rComfort', The New Yorker, 24 OcL. 1964, 53. 24. Anton Chekhov, rThe Darling', in The Darling, and Other Stories, trans. C. Garnett, London: cãffi & wïñãus7-T9re 25. R. Geering, Recent Fiction (Australian Writers and Their Vrlork ) , Lond rd UP, 1973 r rpt. MelbournefõxGã-un, 1974, 32. 26. Catherine Rainwater and lrliIliam J. Sche ick 'An f nterview with Shirley Hazzardt, TSLL, 25, 1983t 2I7. 27. Douglas Muecke, 'The Man Without Qualities ¡ ot Socrates in Viennar, Scripsí, S pring 1983, 2, Nos. 2 and 3, 43. 28. Benedetto Croce, Guide to Aesthetics IBreviarro de Estetica J , trans. patri4- Romanell, rñã'ÏanãpõTiÇ eobbs- I'{erriIl, 1965, fntroduction: Patrick Romanell, 1 X-X. 29. John CoImer, rPatterns and Preoccupations of Love: The Novels of Shirley Hazzardt, Meanjin, 29, No.4, Dec. I97 0, 464. 30. Karl Kroeber, 'The Evolution of Literary Studies' 1883- 19B3r, PMLA,99, No.3, 335-6. 31. Paul Kavanagh, 'Shirley Hazzard, Astronomer of SouIs: An Interview with Paul Kavanagh', Southerly, 45, No,2t June 1985, 216. 32. Gerald llanly Hopkins, rNo Worst, There is None', Modern Poetr , êd. Maynard Mack, Leonard Dean, William Frost, Eng ew ood CIiffs, NJ: Prenticer 1950' 40. 33. Hopkins, 40. 34. Geering, 46. 35. Geoffrey Lehmann, rThe Novels of Shirley Hazzard¿ An Affirmation of Venus', Quadrant, Mar. 1981, 35.

207 NOTES TO CHAPTER TV: THE EVENING OF THE HOLIDAY

1 Nina Baym, rArtifice and Romance in Shirley Hazzardts Fict ion' , TSLL , 25, 19 83 , 230.

2 Bernard Smith, The Boy Adiodatus, Ringwood: Penguin, 1984, 184.

3 Francis Steegmuller, Flaubert and Madame Bovary: A Double Portrait, London: Collins , I94a; Ñ. 4. Catherine Rainwater and Wil-Iiam J. Scheick, "'Some GodIike Grammar": An Introduction to the Writings of Hazzard, Ozíck, and Redmonr, TSLL, 25, 1983, 184. 5. Robert Sel1ick, 'ShirIey Hazzardz Dislocation and continuity" ALS, 9, No.2, Oct. I979, 182-8.

6 R. Geering, Recent Fictíon (Australian Vùriters and Their Vüork), London: Oxf ord UP, 1973r rpt. Melbourne:oÏforA- uP, I97 4, 40.

7 Jane Austen, Persuasion, London: Collinsr 1953' 287.

B Ernst Robert Curtius, European LiteraLure and the Latín Middle Ages, trans. WilIard R. Trask, Lo on: nout@ c Kegan Pau1, 1953, rpt. I979t 192.

9 PauI Kavanagh, 'Shirley Hazzard, Astronomer of Souls: An Interview with Paul Kavanaghr, Southerl 45, No.2, June 1985, 2r7.

10. Geoffrey Lehmann, 'The Novels of Shirley Hazzard¿ An Affirmation of Venusr, Quadrant, Mar. I981, 36. 11. David Malouf, rMarcel Proust The Book', Scripsí, 2, Nos.2 and 3, 103. r2. Haffenden, John, ed. Novelists in Interview, London: Methuen, 1985, 64. 13. R. Geering, 32. 14. Algerina Neri, 'Ripening in the Sun: Shirley Hazzardt s Heroines in ItaIy t, lVesterl-y, 28, No.4r Dec. 1983, 38. 15. Eudora We1ty, 'Place in Fictionr, The South Atlant i c Quarterly, 55, No.1, Jan. 1956, 57-72. 16. Shirley Hazzard, 'Harold', in CIiffs of Fa1l, New York: Jove Publications, 1986 | 159.

208 r7. Chris Wallace-Crabbe, 'Unloving and Being in Lover, in The Theme of Love in -ãõ6Tñ-MAustralian 9'Iriting, ed. Axel Clark, ñf nl f;ãtõãr a n,c a rsã'e nl-leõ-r 1 oq u i u m p a pe r s, Sept, 1982, Sydney: The Christopher Brennan Society, 1983, 7r. 18. Giocomo Leopardi, 'La Sera de1 Oì ¿i FesÈa he Evening of the HoIidayr, in rtre Põeiñ'G õE Leopa , Gêoffrey L. Bickersteth, Cam tir ïãgF cam-br idge UP, 1923, 21.

209 N OTES TO CHAPTER V: THE BAY OF NOON

1 Elizabeth Harrol¡/er, The Long Prospect, Hong Kong: Sirius, 1979, 85.

2 Jan Garrett, 'The Transíts of Hazzardt, Look and Listen, Nov. 1984, 39. 3. Catherine Rainwater and William J. Scheick, 'An Interview with ShirJ-ey Hazzard', TSLL, 25, 1983 | 216.

4 Catherine Raínwater and William J Scheick, "'Some Godlike Grammar" : An Introduction to the writings of Hazzard, Ozick and Redmon', TSLL, 25,1983, 189.

5 Shirl-ey Hazzard, 'Authors' Statementsr r ALS, f 0, No.2, Oct. 1981, 207.

6 T.S. Eliot, 'Littl-e Gidding', v, 27-29, in Collected Poems 1909- Ig62, London: Faber, rpt.1963 , 222. iõuoteã-in sñi-rTey Haz zard, 19B4 Boyer Lectures: Coming of Age in Australia, svd ney: ABC,1985r 33.1 rAmours 7 Arthur Hugh Clough, de Voyager, I,5-10 in The Poemq of Arthur Hugh Clough; eãaH.F. LowrY, .A.L.P. Norrington and FJ. TuTFauser,'%n-n: oxford UP, 1951, I77. INB: For influences on Shirley Hazzatd, see: H. ¡{. Doy1e, rÀ Letter from Shirley Hazzard', Ãls, !2, NoE-uay 19 B6 , 40r- 2¡ Catherine Rainwater and Wifff am J. Scheick, tAn Interview with Shirley Hazzardt , TSL_L_, 25, 1983, 215.1

B Graham McInnes, Humping My Bluey, London: Hamish Hamilton, 19 66, 22r.

9 . Í1azzard, 'Authors' Statements' , 207 . 10. David Lodge, Modes of Modern Writing: Metaphor, Meton m and the Typology o f-tqoGEã-Ï i te ra ture f London: E wa ernoE )-97 7 . 11. José Ortega Y Gasset, Man and Crisis, trans. Mildred Adams, New York: Norton, 1958, 13. I2. Arthur Hugh Cloughr'Amours de V911age', V, I't 6-8, 219. 13. Garrett, 96. 14. Shirley Despoja, rA Reticence in Revelations', (review of Shirley Hazzard, The Bay of Noon), The Advertiser ( Ade 1a ide ) , 22 Aug. r97 0, 1 8.

2r0 15. J.L.Borges, Labyrinths: Sel-ected Stories and Other Writings, ed. Donal-d A. Yates and James E . 116Ç ll-ew York: New Direct ions, 1964. 16. Hazzard,'Problems Facing Contempol.atr.y Novel-istsr, 179. 17. Hazzard, I Authorsr Statementst, 208. 18. Vü.H. Auden, rGoodbye to the l\ezzogiorno', Selected Poems, ed. Edward MendeÌson, London: Faber, I979, 239. 19. Garrett, 39. 20. Hazzard, rÀuthors' Statementsr, 208. 2r. Constance Casey, 'An fnterview with Shirley Hazzard', p.9. lUnpublished article that appeared later in the San Francisco Review of Books in an edited version wãEh has not been sigh teã.-rhe-uñþu6-lished version \^/as made available by Professor John Colmer. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to quote from this material without success.l 22. Auden , 24I. 23. Hazzatd, rProblems Facing Contemporary Novelists', 179. 24. Graham McInnes, The Road to Gundagai, London: Hamish Hamil-ton, 1965 | 49. 25 Auden | 240. 26. Ortega Y Gasset,75-6.

27. RacheI Brownstein, Becoming a Heroine: Reading Abou t Women in Novel s, Ha ñõããsw-orth: Penguin, 19 B4 . 28. Ortega Y Gasset, 84. 29. Rainwater and Scheick, rAn Interview with Shirley Hazzardt, 2r3. 30. Anita Brookner, Hotel du Lac, London: lriad Panther, 1985, 98. 31. Shirley Hazzard, rCanton More Farr, The New Yorker, 16 Dec. 1967, þ.44.

32. Garrett, 39 . 22 Rainwater and Scheick, "'Some Godlike Grammar"'¡ 189. 34. R. Geering, Recent Fiction (Australian Writers and Their Work), Londonl--õxE ord UP, Ig73; rpt. Melbourne:-õÏfõ-rd ue, L97 4, 43.

2II 35. Al ge r ina Neri, 'Ripening in the Sun: Shirley Hazzardt s Heroine s in ItaIy ' , !{esterly , 28, No.4, Dec. 19 83 , 42. 36. Neri, 42. tr: Neri, 42. 38. Neri , 39.

39. Frank OrConnor , The Mirror in the Roadway: A of the Modern Novel, Lciñãõn: namisT-Hami lton I I95 7-, 40. Rainwater and Scheick, 'An Interview with Shirley Hazzardt, 276. 4r. Despoja, tB. 42. E.B. Moonr'Fate, Individual- Action, and the Shape of Life in Shirley Hazzardts The Transit of Venus', Southerly, 43 , No.3 , Sept. 19 8: , 3 ¿T- 43. Moon, 333. 44. John CoImer, tshirley Hazzardt, in Contemporary Novelists, ed. Jas. Vinson, New York: Macmiflansr@5.

212 NOTES TO CHAPTER VI: THE TRANSTT OF VENUS:

rThe 1 Geoffrey Lehmann, Novels of Shirley Hazzard: Àn Àffirmation of Venus', Quadrant, Mar. t9Bl , 36. 2. Jenny Palmer, 'Shirley Hazzardz An Interview in New York with Australia's Top Novelist of 1981r, Bulletin, 13 Oct. 1981, 84. rThe 3 Jan Garrett, Transits of Hazzardt, Look and LisLen, Nov. 1984, 36-9¡ 9 6. I The re f erence i s to tñã-U-roadca s t version on Radio HeIicon, ABC Radio 2, 1984. This was later published in Look and Listen in an edited version.l

4 W.H. Auden, 'Musée des Beaux Artsr, Coll-ected Shorter Poems. London: Faber, f9SO,-Tg.

5 Judith Wright, 'The Upside-down Hut' ín The Writer in Australia, ed. John Barnes, Melbourne: o-xforã u+ 1969 , 331.

6 Wright,332.

7 John Colmer, 'Shir1ey Hazzard's The Transit of Venusr, Jour. Com. Lit., 19, No.1, 1984, 13.

B Robert Se1lick,'Shirley Hazzardz Disl-ocation and continuity" ALS, 9, No.2, Oct. I979, IB2-BB. o Catherine Rainwater and WilIiam Scheick, 'An fnterview with Shirley Hazzardt, TSLL, 25, 1983, 220. 10. Rainwater and Scheick, 220.

11. Rachel Brownstein, Becoming a Heroine: Read ing about Women in Novel- s, Harmondsworth: Penguinr l9B 4.

I2. PaIme r, B 5. 13. PaImer,86. r4. George E1iot, Middlemarch, ed. W.J. Harvey, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, 25. 15. Garrettr 96. 16. Lehmannr 33. r7. Dennis Danvers, tA Conversation with Shirley Hazzard', Antipodes, l- | No.1, Mar. 1987, 42. 18. Danversr 42. 19. PaImer, 85.

273 20. PaImerr S5. 2r. Shirley Hazzard, 'A Long Short St,oryr, The New Yorker, 26 July I976, 30-45. 22. Pa1merr 85. 23. Rainwater and Scheick, 2I4. 24. Shirley Hazzard, rA Crush on Doctor Dancef, The New Yorlgr' 26 Sept. 1977 | 36-54. 25. Raínwater and Scheick, 2I8. 26. Rainwater and Scheick, 2L8. 27. Lehmann, 36. 28. T.S. Eliot, fLittle Giddings', V, 27-29, in Collected Poems 1909-1962, London: Faber, rpt. 1963 | 222. IAuote-tiñ Eoyer Lectures, p.33. See Chapter Vt p.I24, this thesis.l 29. Frank Kermode The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fi crion, Nelt-yo];mx-ñff uÞF67,--ZT.

214 NOTES TO CONCLUSION

1 PauI Kavanagh, 'Shirley Hazzard, Astronomer of Sou1s: An Interview with PauI Kavanaghr, Southerly, 45, No.2, June 1985, 2r4. 2. Constance Casey, 'An Interview With ShÍrley Hazzard', 9-10.

3 Shirley Hazzard, rWe Need Silence To Find Out What We Think', NYTBR, 87, 46, L4 Nov. 1982, 28.

4 Jan Garrett, 'The Transits of Hazzardt, Look and Listen, Nov. 1984, 37.

5 Casey, 12.

6 Jenny Palmerr'Shirl-ey Hazzardz An Interview in New York with Australia's Top Novelist of 1981', Bul1etin, 13 Oct. 1981, 86.

7 Thomas Hardy, tOn An Invitation to the United States', in The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, ed. James Gibson, London: Macmillan I I976, ÞJ10- [Quoted in Casey, p.9. ] 8. Arthur Hugh Clough, rshorter Poemsr, fri, in The Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough, ed. A.L.P. Norrington, LoñEnl-õxEoñ uP, 1968, 45.

275 BIBLIOGRAPHY

A. Sel-ected Writings of Shirlev Hazzardz

Novels and Collections of Short Stories:

The Bay of Noon, Ringwood: Penguin, I9B2- Cliffs of FaII, New York: Jove Publications' I986. The Evening of the Holiday, Hârmondsworth: Penguinr 19B3. People in Gl-ass Houses, Harmondswo th: Penguin, 1983. The Transit of Venus, Ringwood: Penguin, 1981.

Non-Fiction:

Defeat of an Ideal A S tudy of the SeIf-Destruction of the United ¡latTons,-Tõi-don: f'ãcm-i 1-Ian-J 97 3.

Individual- Short Stories: lComfort', The New Yorker, 24 Oct. 1964t 52-4' 'A Crush on Doctor Dancer, The New Yorker, 26 Sept. 1977,36-54' 'The Everlasting Delight', The New Yorker, 19 Aug. 1967, 32-7' f Leave it to ['1e', I'leanjin, 30, I97I, 407-I3- fA Long Short Story', The New Yorker, 26 July L976, 30-45. rOut of Itea', The New Yorker, I May 1965, I25-38' 'The place To Be" The New Yorker, 29 June I9B7' 26-43. 'The statue and the Bustr, MccaÌls, Aug. L97I, 32¡ 122-4. 'She Vlill l,lake You Very Happy', The New Yorker, 26 Nov. 1979, 43-5.

'Some thing You'I1 Remember AlwaYsr, The New Yorker, 17 SePt- r979, 40-9. rWoollahra Road', The New Yorker, April 1961' 58-61'

216 Articles: rAuthor's Statementsr, ALS, f0, No.2, Oct. 1981, 20 4- B. lCanton More Farr, The New Yorker, l6 Dec. 1967, 42-9. rDark Aspects of Waldheim Career StiIl- to Come', The National Times, 27 June 3 July 1986, 27. 'The League of Frightened lvlenr, New RepubIic, 19 Jan. 1980, 17- 20. 'Letter from Australia', The New Yorker, 3 Jan. I977, 32-59. rPolyhymnia: Criticism and Language A Jaded Muser, in From Parnassus: Essays in Honour of Jacgues Barzun, ed. Dora B. Weiner and William R. Keylor, Ne r^/ York: Harper & Row, I97 6, r2L-3 4. 'Problems Facing Contemporary Novelistsr, ALS, 9, No.2, Oct. r979, 17 9-181. 'Surprise, Surprise', Mademoiselì.e, June 1967, 9B; 155-7. 'We Need Sil-ence to Find Out What We Think', NYTBR, 87, No.46, I4 Nov. 1982, 11; 28-9.

Lectures:

1984 Le cture s: Com ing of Age in Australia, Sydney: ABC,

B. Sel-ected Writings on Shirley Hazzard

ANDERSON, Don, 'Indian Wrestling with a Jellyfish', Na t.Ti me s, 7-13 Dec. 1984, 29. BAYM, Nina, 'Artif ice and Romance in Shirl-ey Hazzatdt s Fiction', TSLL , 25, 1983 , 222-48. BESTON, John 8., rA Bibliography of Shirley Hazzardt, WLWE, 20, No.2, I981, 236-54. BESTON, John 8., 'shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venusr, WLWE' 19, No.2, 1980' 198-200. BIRD, De1ys, 'Shirley Hazzard: The Transit of Venus', Vlesterly, No.1, lvlar. I9BI, 54-56.

2r'7 BIRD, Delys, 'Text Production and Reception Shirley Hazzardt s The Transit of Venus', Westerly, No. I , Mar.1985, pp.39-51. BROYARD, Anatole, rGenerous Love', NYTBR, 13 June 7982, 39. CAPONE, Giovanna, 'Shirley Hazzard: Transit and The Bay of Noonr, ALS, 13, No.2, Oct. L987, 172-83. CASEY, Constance, 'An Interview with Shirley Hazzard.l lUnpublished article that appeared later in the San Francisco Review of Books in an edited version w¡-Tõfr has not been sigh t-ed. rhe-uñ@Tished version was made available by Professor John Colmer and every effort has been made to obtain permission to quote frcm this material without success.l CHASE, Chris, rThe Transit of Shirley Hazzardt, NYT, 20 Aug. L982, CB. COLMER, John, Coleridge to CaLch-222 fmage s of Society, London: Macmillan, I978. rNo Stonesr, ABR, Feb. 1968, 63. rPatterns and Preoccupations of Love: The Novels of Shirley Hazzardt , Mean j in, 29 , No.4, Dec. 7970, 46I-7. 'Shirley Hazzardt, in Contemporary Novelists, ed. Jas. Vinson, New York: MacmiIlan, 1982, 295-7. 'ShirIey Hazzardts The Transit of Venusr, Jour.Com.Lit., 19, No. I , 19 84, IO-2 1. - Contemporary Authors, 9-I2 | 1st Revision I I974, 372-3. Contemporary Literary Criticism, 18, 1981, 213-20. CRESShIELL, Rosemaryr'Celebration of Passion and the Sexual Battle', (review of Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus), ABR, No.23, Aug. 1980, 7. DANVERS, Dennis, 'A Conversation with Shirley Hazzard', Antipodes, 1, No,1, Mar. 19B'7, 40-3. DESPOJA, Shirley, 'À Reticence in Revelations', (review of Shirley Hazzard, The Bay of Noon), fbq Advertiser (Ade1aide), 22 Aug. 1-9=¡0,-Tel- DOYLE, H.Pl., 'A Letter from Shirley Hazzard', 4-LS, 12, No. 3, May 19 86 | 40I-2. GARRETT, Jan, rThe TransiLs of Hazzatdt, Look and Listen, Nov. 1984,36-9¡ 96.

GEERING R., Recent Fiction ( Austral ian Writers and Their Work), London:-õxTõEc uP, 19 ; rpt. e bourne: oifo-rã' uÐ I97 4.

2LB HALL, Sandra, rAustralian Writers No\n¡'r PubI i shers' Weekly (NY), 227, No.17, 1985, 38-44. flnscrutability in High Places', (review of Shirley Hazzard, Defeat of ag ldeal), TLS, 20 Oct. I973, 433-4. JONES, Margaretr'A homecoming and a coming of âgê'r The Advertiser (Adelaide ), 20 Aug. 1984, 2. KAKUTANf, Michiko, 'Behind the Best Sellers: Shirley Hazzardt, NYTBR, 11 May 1980, 46.

KAVÄNAGH, Paul, rshirley Hazzard, Astronomer of Souls: An Interview with PauI Kavanaght, Southerly, 45, No.2, June 1985, 209-19.

LEHMANN, Geoffrey, 'The Novels of Shirley Hazzard¿ An Affirmation of Venusr, Quadrant, Mar. 1981, 33-6. LEVY, Bronwen, 'Constructing the Woman Writer: The Reviewing Reception of Hazzardrs The Transit of Venus', in Gender, Politics and Fiction: -îñe Nõvef s , eA. -ca fõl[ã-FEr r i Press, 1985, 179-25I. MacCURDY, Carol 4., fshirley Hazzardt, DLB Yearbook, I9B2l 278-85. MacDERMOTT, Doireann, 'stones for GIass Houses: Some Reflexions on the United Nations Organ i,zaLionr, Universita de La Laguna, Revísta Canaria de Estudios IngIeses, No.1 3/14, April 1987,249 -5 B.

MOJESKA, DrusilIa. rTransit of Venus', Refractory Girl- , Ma r. 1982, 42-3. MOON, E.B.rrFate, Individual Action, and the Shape of Life in Shirley Hazzardrs The Transit of Venusr, Southe r1y, 43 , No.3 , Sep t. 19 BT, 332-43. - r"Indispensable Humanity": Saviours and Destroyers, and Major and !linor Characters, in Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venusr, Southerly, 45, No.1, 1985 , 94-108. MOORE, Susan, tA Response to "The Novels of Shirley Hazzard"', Quadrant, July 1981, 62-3.

I lvle an i ng and Value in Shirley Hazzardts Transit of Venusr, Quadrant, 28, No.5, May 1984, 75-79. 'Needles and Pins', (review of Shirley Hazzard, People in Glass Houses), TLS, 19 Oct. 1967, 989. NERI, AIgerina, 'Ripening in the Sun: Shirley Hazzard's Heroines

219 in Italyr, Wêsterly, 28, No. 4, Dec. 1983t 37-42.

PALMER, Jenn Yt 'Shirley Hazzard¿ An Interview in New York with Au str a1 iat s Top Novelist of 19Bl', Bu11etin, t3 oct. 1981, 84.8. PIERCE, Peter, 'Convenfions of Presencet, Meanjin, 40, No.1, 1981, r06-13. RAfNWATER, Catherine and William J. Scheick, rAn fnterview $Jith Shirley Hazzardt , TSLL, 25, 1983, 2I3-2I. t"Some Godlike Grammar": An Introduction to the Writings of Hazzard, Ozick, and Redmonr, TSLL , 25 , 1983 | 1 81-2 1 1. ROSS, Jean, 'An fnterview with Shirley Hazzardt, DLB Yearbook, 1982, 285-7 . SCHEICK, Wí11-iamr'A Bibliography of Writings by Shirley Hazzardr, TSLL, 25, 1983, 249-53. SCHOTT, Webster, rJourney with Love and Chancer, The Washing ton Post , I0, No. 10, Sunday, I'lârch 9 198 0r 1; o SELLICK, Robertr'Shirley Hazzardz Dislocation and Continui ty', ALS, 9, No.2, Oct. 1979, 182-8. STEV{ART, Annette M., 'Recent Australian Fictíon', WLWE, 22r No.2 1983 , 2L2-23. TAYLOR, Nancy Drew, tAn Introduction to Shirley Hazzard's The Transit of Venusr, WLWE, 24, No.2, 1984, 287-95. TOWERS, Robert, 'Period Fiction', (review of Shirley Hazzard, The Transit of Venus), NYRB, 15 May 1980, p.32-3.

TYLER, Anner 'The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzardt, The New Republ ic,-% Jan. 19 80, 29-30. WELLEIN, Lawrence, (review of Shirley Hazzard, People 1n Glass Houses), Studies in Short Fiction, 5, 196 8, 392- 4- WIELAND, Jamesr "'Antipodean Eyes": Ways of Seeing in Shirley Hazzardt s The Transit of Venusr, Kunapipi, 5, No.2, 19 83, 36-49. rGo ing Through With Things: Men and Women in The Transit of Venusr, Commonwealth Novel in English, 3, No.1-984, I-20. The Yearrs Work in English Studies, 65, 1984, ed. Laurel Brake' et q1., Àtla-nt ic Highlands (NJ): Humanities Press' 1987, - 725¡ 7 4I.

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BRO!{NSTEIN, Rachel, Becoming a Heroine: Reading about Women in Novels, Harmondsworth: Penglüñ-, 1984. BRYDON, Diana, 'Christina Stead as an Australían 'v{riter', WLWE, 18, No.1, Apr. I919t I24-29.

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