ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

You might not have noticed but I’ve had a weekend offline.  We’ve been away and I decided to take a break.  No laptop, no internet, no email, and not even Facebook on my phone until I had a photo to post: Amber looking rather regal while enjoying her holiday at a neighbour’s place.  (It doesn’t take her long to commandeer a sofa!)

But now we’re back home after a wonderful time at the Woodend Winter Arts Festival, which is always held on the Queen’s Birthday long weekend.  Woodend is a delightful little town and although it’s early winter and the weather is crisp and cool, the venues are warm and welcoming and so are the people.  The festival is an excellent blend of musical, arty and bookish events.  We attend it every year if we can.

This is not a music blog, so it will suffice to tell you that the festival showcases classical music and jazz along with chamber music.  The musical program takes place in the beautiful St Ambrose’s Church and the (not-quite-so-beautiful) hall where we heard

• a sublime concert titled Vivaldi Vespers and performed by Ensmble Gombert and Accademia Arcadia conducted by John O’Donnell, with soloists Katherine Norman, Kristy Biber, Christopher Roache, Daniel Thomson and Jerzy Kozlowski;
• An impressive  recital by young piano virtuoso Tony Lee;
• A program of Telemann,  Graun and Bach, performed by the brilliant Accademia Arcadia; and
• the surprising classical recorder quartet, Quinta Essentia from Brazil.

The Spouse also went to hear some classical guitar performed by the Australian Guitar Trio, and we had a splendid Saturday night dinner at Café Colenso who can be relied upon to dish up a delicious meal and get us to an 8pm concert on time:).

The bookish events were excellent.

On Saturday we started with ‘Political Apathy: a disaffected community’, featuring Troy Bramston, James Button, Lisa Chesters and chaired by Michael Bachelard.   The agenda was to look at issues behind the rise of marginal political groups and disasters like Brexit and Trump.  James Button talked about a group called Open Labor.  I had never heard of this group, which seeks to redress political apathy by reforming the Labor Party, so this was very interesting indeed.  He said that young people today are more interested in identity politics, single issue politics and (the big one) climate change and they are not interested in party politics because they are turned off by internal politicking.   Lisa Chester said that the problem is worldwide, but she thinks it’s not apathy but more a case of engaging in politics differently and a disconnect between the modern electorate and Canberra being out of touch.  But she also said it’s often a case of people not being interested in politics except when it affects them (and I don’t have much patience with that attitude because I think that’s selfish.  Do we not care about the rest of the world any more?  Do we not care about people in need because it doesn’t affect us?)

Troy Bramston thinks people have good reason to be cynical and disaffected, and he listed a litany of broken promises from our recent crop of Prime Ministers.  He thinks that current leaders are loathed by most people and that they worry about the way both sides of politics have given up on fixing the budget.  He says that people are willing to accept budget cuts if they are fair (but I think that their definition of ‘fair’ mostly depends on whether cuts affects them).  He also went on about unions having too much power, (which was an odd thing to say on the very weekend that cuts in penalty rates started to take effect for hospitality workers, a clear example of unions being powerless to protect vulnerable workers).

There was also talk about people doing politics on social media and how people are sick of scripted speeches workshopped by focus groups – but I thought the most interesting snippet was from Lisa Chester who reminded us of the live cattle exports debacle where the ALP responded to social media outrage about the mistreatment of animals – and then had to backtrack because of the farmers’ outrage over the value of the trade.  She said that now parties look much more closely at the keyboard warriors to see where they’re coming from, and they recognise that at the end of the day, it’s good policy that guides decision-making. So, no, clicking ‘like’ or sharing #hashtag is not taken seriously as political input.

I noted that none of the speakers ‘fessed up to the role of the media with its conflict-ridden agenda and its gotcha moments in our current political climate.  See my review of Lindsay Tanner’s Sideshow if you want to know about that.

On Sunday we went to hear Troy Bramston in conversation with Mary Delahunty about his book Paul Keating, the Big Picture Leader.  She is such a good interviewer, with pertinent questions and a comprehensive grasp of issues, and even though we know quite a bit about Keating, and had heard all the quoted Keatingisms before, it was still an interesting session because of her questions.  (The Spouse has got this book at home, but I’m going to read Don Watson’s Recollections of a Bleeding Heart first because it’s been on the TBR for ages.)  What was most pertinent in the context of the previous session, was what Bramston said about how Keating differs from contemporary politicians: he had a clear vision, determination, conviction, authority, and courage and imagination.  And that is why we miss him.

I also went to a session called ‘Australia at the Crossroads’ with Sally Warhaft and journalists from Crikey: Bernard Keane, Josh Taylor and Sally Whyte.  This covered some of the same territory as ‘Political Apathy’ but they also talked about how hard it is for young journalists: they can’t specialise because staff cuts mean that now they have to cover so many different areas.  They were scornful about professional politicians and their obscurantist ways of talking, but they did acknowledge the role of the media in the problem.  Sally Whyte talked about how media coverage of comparative trivia obscures the real politics that matter – that goes on behind the scenes and we don’t hear about it.  She gave the example of the furore over the Safe Schools program while immigration policy rated barely a word.  Bernard Keane also made the point that it’s easy now to be oppositionist, with the classic example being the way the mining industry sabotaged the mining tax with a highly effective TV ad campaign.  I didn’t note who it was who offered the most contentious snippet – about terrorism.  We have given up freedoms, we have more surveillance than ever before, but we are still not safe.  And, it was said, it’s because defence companies – who lost a lot when the Cold War ended but are now making lots of money out of anti-terrorism security – don’t want the ‘war on terror’ to end.  ASIO does, and copped a lot of criticism when they debunked the link between refugees and terrorism.  An interesting if not entirely convincing PoV.

Photo credit: Mish Mackay

The highlight of the whole festival for me was Sheila Drummond in conversation with one of my favourite authors, Jacinta Halloran.  The topic was ‘Inspiration!’ and Jacinta talked about her journey from medical career to being an author, making the point that the arts and science are not mutually exclusive because both involved creativity and thinking laterally.  At school she had found it hard to choose between literature and science and it was when she was in her thirties and a friend was seriously ill, that she realised you only get one chance at life and she should try writing because she had always wanted to do it.

Jacinta credits the RMIT creative writing school with her success.  She started at diploma level and loved it.  It was a different way of learning, compared to medical school: it was nurturing, and the feedback she received was constructive.  She ended up doing a Masters degree, and says she would never have written her first novel Dissection (see my review) without the structure and the deadlines of the course.  The inspiration for the book – exploring a ‘crisis of the self’ – came from the widespread fear among doctors that they will inevitably make a mistake and may be sued.  Doctors are notorious for not seeking help when their lives are falling apart in the way that the character’s life in Dissection disintegrates, and it was fascinating to learn that some medical curricula actually include this novel as required reading.

Jacinta had a Catholic education, and she made the point that Catholic culture can impose some values that are negative for women – who are taught to be dutiful, modest, good and guilty. Pilgrimage (see my review) is another example of negotiating faith in a scientific world.  She was interested in what people do when Western medicine fails, and she chose Motor Neurone Disease for her character because it is the disease that doctors fear most.  (If this is a disease that terrifies you too, donate here because you will be giving practical help to sufferers now while there is still no cure. One of our friends has recently died of this awful disease, and his partner tells me that it was MND that supported them in practical ways throughout the final dreadful years).  Jacinta says that the process of writing can be a way of facing up to your fears, and these two novels do that: facing the fear of doing harm to a patient and getting sued, and confronting the fear of getting a diagnosis of a fearsome disease.

Jacinta’s most recent book The Science of Appearances is partly set in Kyneton, not far from Woodend, and she told us how she researched it by staying in a cottage there for a few weeks, riding around on her bike to get a feel for the place, and poring over old editions of the local newspaper.  I commented in my review that Halloran describes the punishing daily bike ride to Romsey as if she’s done it herself – well, now I know how this authenticity came about!

My only disappointment is that there isn’t yet a new novel under way!

Congratulations to Jacqueline Ogeil, the WWAF artistic director and all the wonderful volunteers and sponsors on another terrific festival.  We’ll be back next year – we’ve already booked our accommodation!