O Pioneers!

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

So far, every one of the Penguin Pocket Classics is worthy of five stars. These are, after all, classics, and as such, one would expect their rating to be nothing less than the best. But what makes a classic? Sometimes, there are certain quotes that stick. For example (p. 73):

Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years.

I wonder if Annie Proulx's work, The Shipping News, will be regarded as a classic in 80 years' time? I cannot recall a single quote from that book, and, although I enjoyed reading it immensely, I don't recall much of the story. Willa Cather's work, however, will haunt me for some time, just as John Steinbeck's book The Red Pony did from the 1970s to the present, just as anything by Alexander Dumas does, and so on. I suppose I should now read the rest of Cather's trilogy. The idea of bringing one's family to the end of the earth for a better life, then finding only misery and death so that one's children might prosper, reminds me of tree planting. At a recent visit to Retford Park, I wondered at the forethought of Samuel Hordern and later James Fairfax in creating such a wonderful garden. Two days ago we planted some trees, and we have no idea whether we will enjoy the fruits of our labours in the distant future, or move away or even die imminently. One can only hope for the first outcome, but without ever really knowing. It would seem, then, that being a pioneer, whether it be carving a new life out of new land (which has its own inherent assumptions that usually involve displacing the traditional owners), is neither selfless nor selfish. The two would seem to balance each other out. Selfish, in that carving a life for one's own offspring at the expense of the "other"; and selfless, in that one may well die and not enjoy what cost one so much, but leave a legacy (which one won't know about if one is dead) for others to enjoy. I am talking about the earlier pioneers, and our protagonist, Alexandra, picks up her dead father's dream, amid many of her Swedish colleagues who decide to leave during the hard times and return to the cities, while those who remain keep doing the same old thing. I recall in the 1980s on the Atherton Tablelands, young farmers would obtain grants or subsidies and all plant onions. At harvest time, with onions everywhere and the market price dropping like houseflies facing-off Mortein, it was cheaper to plough the onions back into the ground rather than harvest them. And then the cycle would repeat with the next grant or subsidy. Any sane person would wonder at the strangely conservative nature of farmers, supported by an insanely conservative and stupid grant and subsidy system (which is now rather different since deregulation). But our protagonist, Alexandra, shows initiative that earns her the label "pioneer" in various ways, including carving a life out of the land, experimenting with new agricultural ideas, and doing all of this as an unmarried woman. There is much more to the story, and while I do not wish to give too much away, the reader will experience the "two or three human stories [lived] fiercely" and marvel at the inter-generational viewpoint that will no doubt haunt the mature reader. One might also learn a thing or two about peer pressure and jealousy and how stupid these things can be. And all from a measly 189 pages!

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The House of Ulloa

The House of Ulloa by Emilia Pardo Bazán

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was hard to put down. Unlike Charlotte Brontë and Mary Shelley (even though I admire their work); not to mention era, translation, and social-construction-of-gender issues, Bazán writes of a socially-constructed man better than any biologically-female woman from the nineteenth century I have read to date (to mention but a few qualifications, if indeed, I could possibly know what a socially-constructed man of the nineteenth century was like, but I doubt it could be anything like The Professor or the annoying, whingey, whiney Frankenstein). Given that George Eliot and Miles Franklin and many others had to pretend to be men to be published, even in the early 1900s, it makes me wonder if Spain was not considerably more advanced than Anglo countries in Bazán's time? Or maybe her feudal titles helped? I can only imagine what is lost in translation - and if the use of the good old "Mrs Grundy" was true to Bazán's words - but there is much to this novel that I lost due to my lack of historical knowledge of the Spain of these times. I would not have read this novel other than it was there to be read, so this was fortunate. What is unfortunate is that the book has given me a glimpse of Spanish literature that will probably remain beyond my reach for some time to come. But it is pleasing to discover classic works by female authors that is so very good, but at the same time, sad that such talent lies buried in the biases of history.

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An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin, February 1942

An Awkward Truth: The Bombing of Darwin, February 1942 by Peter Grose

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When I went to Canberra recently, and knew I would have a few hours of waiting, I absent-mindedly left my current book sitting on the table at home. It was after 5pm in Canberra, so of course my options for purchasing a book were limited. I found that Target at Belconnen was still open, and I thought that, worse case, this book might provide me with some historical knowledge. It did. But I must say that as I was reading, I found Grose's tone to be rather grating (probably like mine when I get on my high-horse about Australia and Australians). Grose doesn't pretend that he likes Administrator Abbott (the Northern Territory's head-honcho in the '30s and '40s). Indeed, he states that he finds it hard to like him. Grose, too, makes an inadvertent claim that "Canberra" did this and that in the early 1900s when appointing a man to run the Territory. Of course, "Canberra" was not the centre of the federal government until 1927 - it was run from Melbourne. I am sure that Grose knows this, but the anachronism grated. And having previously lived in Canberra for near-on twenty years, the use of the city's name to represent all that is bad in our political system still annoys me no end. As the book develops, Grose indicates that he was writing as a counter to Paul Hasluck's history. Hasluck saw the reaction of the people of Darwin to be a case of national shame. Grose brought me back to the fold when he mentions the popular Australian dislike of "reffos" (refugees) and the way "these people" behave. Grose tells us that when Australians, following the bombing of Darwin by the Japanese in '42 became "reffos", they behaved like every other group of refugees. The book was not everything I expected, and upon completion, I was pleased that it was not a "white" armbanding of the omnipotence of ordinary Australians who, unlike the rest of the people of the world, are somehow superior because they just are, and Grose was at pains to make this clear that he was not of that brigade. For this I was truly grateful. There are numerous historical facts and corrections to the record, and I have a much better historical understanding of what happened in the first attack on Australian soil since 1788. But I didn't like Grose's tone, especially where he puts his personality into his work. This is remarkable in that I do the same thing, yet here I am reacting as others do to my own work. Surely there is a lesson for me in the reading of this book. It is unfair to lump all of this on Grose, and given my lack of knowledge on the historical subject, I am hardly one to judge. Yet the lesson I have learnt from this book is very powerful, even though I lament readers' aversion to any form of personality in one's writing that does not display enthusiasm for a cause one way or another. As La Rochefoucauld wrote in 1665: "Enthusiasm is the only convincing orator; it is like the infallible rule of some function of Nature. An enthusiastic simpleton is more convincing than a silver-tongued orator". I suppose had I liked this book more, I would have respected Grose less.

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