Guwak: inspiring Indigenous music

Indigenous readers are advised this post contains the name and image of a deceased person.

I had an epiphany today, when driving home from a coffee outing; I was listening to Bush Telegraph on Radio National (ABC), and caught part of an interview  with Rrawun Maymuru, singer/songwriter of the Indigenous band East Journey, and grandson of the late, great, much lamented Mandawuy Yunupingu.

I won’t attempt to sum up the wonderful life of this man, a leader of his people and leader of the band Yothu Yindi, who achieved world fame.  It would be presumptuous of me to attempt it. But I mourn his passing.

East Journey are also from Arnhem Land. In his interview, Rrawun Maymuru spoke movingly and poetically of many themes that struck a deep chord in me: home, place, language and culture, and the sacredness of these fundamentals of human life.

East Journey comes from the Creation story of the first journey of the two sisters who created the land and the people, the 13 different clans of the homeland in North East Arnhem Land. Guwak (the name of the CD, and the title song) is a messenger bird ( who is also Maymuru himself ) who went from west to east, so the music is sending a message to his people and to the world. “For me, language is my voice from my land, my people …. my power … our language has been here for thousands and thousands of years… The ancestor gave us this language so we can understand each other…  and the song talks about Two Sisters creating the land, the people, the nature, giving songs and  boundaries for two moieties ….”

I don’t have the deep thousands-of-years heritage that Maymuru and his people have, and yet I deeply resonate with their journey, and the sacredness that they celebrate, of their home, their place, their language, their culture. And although my own home, the place of my childhood, is lost and I can’t return, and my family’s traces are all but erased from there, I still feel deep ties to it, and honour the nurturing and lessons I learned there. And Maymuru’s words and the music of East Journey take me back to my spirit home, as well as connecting me with their homeland, in spirit.

Maymuru, as a Yolngu person, wants to share his 40,000 year-old culture with white Australia and the world through their music. Long may they live, create music, and spread the message of unity in difference.

The Book Thief

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, published in 2007, is a New York Times best seller, and among the reviews I’ve read, has received great praise. There are plenty of reviews out there, and if you haven’t already read or reviewed the book yourself, I suggest you read them. My purpose here is not to give a ‘proper’ review of the book; it’s to worry over why I don’t like it much. And I’d love to hear from any of you who have read it; what do you think of it? Do you think it lives up to all the raves?

It is a profound subject, the intersection of life and death, where death becomes an overwhelming presence, not just because it is set in Germany under the Nazi regime, but because Death is the narrator. The central character is a 9-year-old girl, Liesel, who witnesses her younger brother die on a train  journey with their mother, who is taking them to hand them over to foster parents. The mother is unable to look after them, for reasons which are  unclear, but she disappears from the story, and the implication is that she has been arrested as a suspected Communist.

I won’t try and summarise the plot, which is complex, not to say convoluted. Perhaps the latter is my impression of it because of the narrative style, which is jerky, interrupted by textual devices and flourishes, and by the voice of Death, who, although he/she fades from the narrative often, keeps returning to claim the telling of the story. (I ask myself, how can Death, who, especially at this time of history, had millions of souls to transport, give so much time and attention to one small girl and her story? But I am being too literal. Clearly he/she is omniscient.)

Perhaps the tone, which I often find self-conscious, even coy, and the quirky narration, can be attributed to the fact that this is classified as a young adult novel. That said, I don’t see why a subject which is so rich in meaning, with characters who are driven by desire, cruelty, fear, suspicion, mindless conformity, cowardice, bravery, suffering, tragedy, love, compassion and forgiveness, has to be quirked up. Why can’t we have a straightforward narrative voice that doesn’t try to be clever and surprising? Though there are many moving and striking descriptions and scenes, I kept bumping up against what I can only call lapses of taste, like this one, when the narrative makes a detour to Russia in 1943, when Death goes to collect some whose number has come up, including the son of a family Liesel is friends with:

Unfortunately for the young German, I did not take him that afternoon. I stepped over him with the other poor souls in my arms, and made my way back to the Russians.

Back and forth, I travelled

Disassembled men.

It was no ski trip, I can tell you.

Were I Zusak’s editor, I would have begged him to cut that last line. There are many others.

One of the most irritating parts of the book for me is a section 6 pages long, a tale written by Max, the Jew that Liesel and her foster family are hiding in their basement. He wrote it for Liesel, and her foster mother gives it to her after Max has gone; he left to protect the family from discovery and punishment. The tale is reproduced in tiny print, in a font meant to reproduce hand-written script, with illustrations. To read it comfortably I would need a magnifying glass, and my reading sight is still very good. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that this book is classified as young adult fiction.

I won’t go on. This is a very biased ‘non-review’. I haven’t talked about the many good things in the book. I was just so annoyed that it wouldn’t play straight.

An interview of “profound beauty”

The phrase I’ve used for a title is from my friend and writing colleague, Marian Edmunds. She hasn’t read Gillian Mears’s prize winning novel, Foal’s Bread, yet, but I’ve just lent it to her, and she’s also going to buy a copy for her best friend, on the strength of an interview between Philip Adams and Gillian Mears on Late Night LIve. You can  listen to the interview on YouTube. I wasn’t able to stay up late enough to listen to it live last night, and I can’t hear the volume properly on my YouTube (search me why) but I think it would be even better to see them both, and hear them. It is a moving and beautiful experience. Next best thing, or even as good, I think, is to read the transcript of her letter to Philip, written at 3 am after their interview. She wanted her interview to be perfect, acutely aware it was likely to become a “legacy” interview, as she has advanced Multiple Sclerosis, and is a supporter of euthanasia.

The incredible thing is that she wrote her wonderful latest (I won’t say last!) novel from her bed. It took her ten years, but was well worth it. See my review of 23 Jan 2012. But back to her letter to Philip Adams. Here, she puts some things differently than she did in the interview, writing her “grasshopper thoughts” early in the morning. Here I take the liberty of copying the letter, minus images.

Dear Phillip,

It’s 3 o’clock in the morning and I can’t sleep, mulling over all that I recently failed to say during my hour in your studio. My cat is as light as a feather on my chest as I type, and your dog ‘Squire’ no doubt even in sleep is keeping a watchful eye out for his beloved master.

My Horus amulet, I forgot to describe as we talked about our mutual childhood fascination with the ancient world, was very small, not much taller than a thumbnail.  As a child I’d hold the Sun God in my hand, peering through his falcon’s eye, wondering about the ancient Egyptian who once must’ve owned him. Was yours also of similar dimensions and made from very hard dark stone?

Having mentioned to you the possibility that an ex-lover had stolen my amulet, it occurs to me that perhaps I chucked it myself into the Clarence at Lilydale, along with all my baby teeth and many other hoarded treasures when MS first made it clear that Bertholt Brecht style I had to ‘Leave too my ship lightly behind.’

I think it’s best if I can just be like a grasshopper in this letter, leaping from one thought to the next.

I find I’m very curious about your exact method for taking out Bathurst Burr, which you’ve written so often about. Is it more difficult than the Rattle weed and Crofton that has unfortunately finally reached the Clarence? I once dreamed that in the style of Sydney’s bush-regenerating Bradley sisters, I’d rid the small rainforest remnant on my father’s block of all its weeds. Crofton’s noxious to horses and so is a real worry.

Life is a strange cup of tea don’t you think? Once it seemed the pot from which I poured was endlessly copious but now this is not the feeling.

I really cherish that I lived at Dad’s for a time, under a tarpaulin on a ridge pole, building a little house on the site where it’s rumoured long ago, before Dad bought his block, an uncle’s hut used to be.  I dug many of the postholes for the fence put up to keep the cattle out of the garden. That’s a task that suited my temperament. As the hole got deeper, a crowbar was needed to get through giant slabs of sandstone. A very fine type of soil lay beneath, so crumbly and sweet, that Ralda, from Foal’s Bread, could’ve made biscuits from it.

Although I haven’t lived on the Clarence since 1999, I remember many things. How the sound of horses’ hooves sounded hollow on Dad’s hill.  I really miss riding horses. The smell of my saddle. My hand beneath my horse’s mane as she began to dance around in the wind preceding a storm.

I loved finding out from my most fervent LNL Gladdie friend earlier this year, that your very name means horse. We fought for a while over what kind of a horse you would be. I imagined a Percheron/Thoroughbred cross with just a bit of hair on your fetlocks and an incredible leap, whereas she was convinced you were a rare, pure black Welsh Mountain Pony stallion.

At the reference you made to an old feature article which described my sisters as being somewhat wild, I should’ve said that I view them as part of a Mears Family Forest. The 1970s was when we were but sapling sisters, no wilder I don’t think or anymore sexual, than any other girls of Grafton. Definitely middle aged trees now.

It’s possible, that as the She Oak up on the lonely ridge, I’ll have to be the first to fall.  A tree’s death can let in a lot of much needed light. Weeds too, I can hear you say and you’re not wrong.

I was surprised when you didn’t take the bait offered to speak more deeply of death. I fear therefore that my mention of Dr Rodney Syme may come across too baldly, when it goes to air, without enough comforting preliminaries. I meant to make mention of a Justice Brennan as quoted in Rodney’s book, saying that ‘Death is profound and personal’ and that true to that judge’s thoughts, I wish for my own death to be ‘quiet and proud.’

How tender your memory of Judy from Seven Little Australians feeling with her foot the lapping of the waters as her life ebbed away. I can’t but help also think that it might be like this line from John Gillespie Magee’s poem High Flight: - “Up, up, the long delirious burning blue.”

I don’t mean to upset anyone when I say that I can’t remain alive if things in my body get much worse than they already are. A funny paradox though is that without the last two years of virtual bed confinement, I might never have watched films again. Once upon a time I was an avid film watcher. Lonely Heartsby the way was a great favourite.

One of the few joys of living on a bed occurs when film buff friends arrive with a new bag full of DVD riches.

What did you think of Tony Ayres’s WALKING ON WATER? Wouldn’t you agree that the scene with the plastic bag over the dying lover’s head is impossible to forget? How about THE SEA INSIDE, the Alejandro Amenábar film based on the life of Spanish quadriplegic Ramon SanPedro and his thirty-year fight for voluntary euthanasia?  My Pain specialist, (who by the wonderful way has shelves full of literature in his office as well as the usual dull looking textbooks), tells me in subdued tones that the end Ramon ended up manufacturing, a potassium cyanide cocktail through a straw, is a very painful and not necessarily instant death.

I’m glad to have twice watched Yakita Yojiro’s limpid classic DEPARTURES. Do you remember that one? Or the sound of the white calf in THE WEEPING CAMEL, abandoned by its mother at birth? How that keening is the sort that might come out of me if I let it. A bawling, bewildered, battered grief.

My morning meditations, with the assistance of heart shaped stones sent to me from rivers and beaches from friends all around Australia, have stopped a lot of that calf noise in me, as surely as the Mongolian violin hung from my mother camel’s front hump.

My cat likes to meditate with me, usually sitting exactly over each new heart stone which I always place right on top of my own artificially ticking heart. I’ve written to you this morning instead. Don’t worry; I won’t make a habit of it. I know quite simply that there is no time anymore for letters (though I hope I will find the eventual wellness to respond to the hundred or so outstanding, from grateful readers of Foal’s Bread, including people named Ralda).

I felt awkward Phillip when you had to hold up my novel’s cover to the new studio camera. I’m sure I wasn’t imagining your embarrassed resignation to this invasion of your once sacrosanct space?

Life is a strange cup of tea don’t you think? Once it seemed the pot from which I poured was endlessly copious but now this is not the feeling. How did I forget to mention my longing to have been God with you in 1940s Eltham, as per your 1977 essay in Unspeakable Adams -  “safe inside Grandpa’s arms, behind Blossom’s colossal rump, creating the earth via sweet smelling furrows?”

Soon my morning carer will arrive. I better make haste to finish.

If Walker Books brings out my fable The Cat with the Coloured Tail in time, can I come in to talk to you again? In my yearning for God I’m a cat purring, stretching out her paw in the hope that The God of Lost Things, of whom I’ve often written, will at last pick me up. My real cat has slid down into the knothole of my right elbow. Now this is one fingered typing, time to wind this letter up.

I will be praying in earnest to my God of Lost Things to take very good care of you when you have to go to hospital soon.

I subscribe myself to you always with affectionate regard,

Your Gillian Grasshopper xo

New novel by prize-winning Nigerian author

I’ve just reviewed Americanah, by Chimamanda Adichie, for a state newspaper.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was born in Nigeria in 1977. She is the author of three novels, Purple Hibiscus (2003), Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), and Americanah (2013), and of a short story collection,The Thing around Your Neck (2009). She has received numerous awards and distinctions, including the Orange Prize for Fiction (2007) and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (2008). Her first novel was longlisted for the Booker prize.

Americanah is the Nigerian term for someone who has lived in America and returned. The very plain, text-dominated cover of this book belies its richly textured content, full of sights, smells, sensual experiences, realistic colloquial dialogue, and sharply etched character portraits.

Ifemulu, the heroine (I use that word because in many ways, this is a traditional romance) falls in love with Ibenze when they are high school students in Lagos, Nigeria. Not only are they intensely attracted to each other, they are soul mates. When she is with him, she feels confirmed in herself, that her skin fits her.  No doubt he feels the same. Yet both are strong, charismatic personalities; this is more obvious with him, as he is described through her eyes, whereas we have to get to know her through her actions and words, in bits and pieces. She is feisty and not afraid of speaking her mind, whereas he is quieter and more centred.

When things in Nigeria are not going well (apparently under the military dictatorship, though the political drama is only vaguely sketched in), Ifemulu decides to go for a scholarship and study in America. Ibenze stays on in Nigeria to finish his degree, and later tries to follow her, but post 9/11, is unable to get a visa. Ifemulu finds her feet gradually in the US, finishes college, has her hair straightened, gets a good job, starts a blog about racism, which eventually is so successful and profitable she doesn’t need a “real” job, and moves through a couple of love affairs. After 15 years, she is stricken with homesickness, and decides to return home. She’s lost touch with Ibenze. But when she does go home, they connect again after a while. There are complications; I’ll say no more.

The good things about the book are the things I mentioned in my opening sentence; Adichie is an accomplished storyteller; her characters, even the minor ones, are sharply etched; her dialogue is dense and convincing; and the secondary theme, of being a black immigrant/foreigner in a white culture, and then of returning home, is fully realised. She misses what she had learned to relish in the more materially advanced culture, but falls in love again with the rich, messy, familiar place called home. In fact, this theme works better than the love story, if only because it runs right through the book without interruptions, and is full of nuances and contradictions. Though when I say without interruptions, there are her blogs, which I confess I skipped. Not compelling reading for me. Perhaps if I were black and lived in America, I would love them.

The love affair, on the other hand, never quite comes to life for me. Ibenze is a  little too good to be true—handsome, successful, rich, beloved, good, not corrupted by his success, sober, responsible—despite his confusion. The second and third acts of their romance, and the resolution of their love affair, which is complicated by the choices they’ve both made, is rushed and a little predictable.

There is a third theme: hair. Hair becomes a symbol of racial identity and how it is stripped and deformed. Black women, if they want to fit in, have their hair straightened with toxic chemicals, or have someone else’s hair woven in to create length and sweep. Much of the early part of the novel is written in flashback as Ifemulu sits in a tatty hair salon having her hair braided, in preparation for her return to Nigeria, after Barack Obama has been elected president. She is overjoyed by his victory, but wonders why Michelle Obama has her hair straightened.

I do recommend this book, as an engaging story of life on the edge of two cultures, moving between them, taking some of each, returning to the familiar and deeply loved, and of being black in a world where being white has a charm that is insidious and unreachable.

King of the treetops

I’ve just finished a pastel painting of a King Parrot, a bird that is native to the eastern coast of NSW, Australia. His (and her) scientific name is Alisterus Scapularis. Australian King Parrots are natives of humid and heavily forested upland areas of eastern Australia, where they feed on fruits, seeds and small insects.  They also frequent wooded gardens that have feeding stations and fruit-bearing trees. The pairs mate for life, and females lay their eggs on a bed of decayed wood-dust at the bottom of a deep hollow in the trunk of a tree.

They move around in pairs or family groups. The male, pictured below in my painting, is more colourful than the female, who is paler, with a completely green head. They grow to about 43 cm from head to tail tip. Their call is a loud, high-pitched whistle, with a rolling “carr-ack” when in flight. I had a hard time with this bird; almost every facet of the painting cost me much reworking, under the gentle but ruthless guidance of my teacher, Andy Reimanis. Andy doesn’t let you get away with short cuts or slipshod work; my worst experience is when the painting is, I think, complete, and he wants me to revise some detail of it. Complete or not, this happened several times; with the background,the leaves, the beak and eye of the bird, the green plumage, the placing of the upper foot …. it was only on this last point that I dug my heels in. He thought the foot looked wrong as it was, and wanted me to move it down to the branch. “No, I won’t”; I said. The first time I’d said this to him. I explained whey I wanted to stay as it was — I had worked hard to show the leg muscles under the feathers, reaching up to the branch, and it was part of the bird’s attitude. He accepted this, and just got me to rearrange it a little to make it look more natural. The background was an interesting journey. As I don’t (yet) have a visual imagination, I couldn’t see how it would evolve. Gradually, after I’d revised the leaves about four times (first they were too precise, then too messy,then too stiff,then finally, took on their own life) that I saw what Andy had probably seen from the beginning; that the King is in a forest, high up in a tree, part of this magical place. I’m glad I have finally brought him to  a painted life. And I’m looking forward to seeing one in the flesh. My painting is, by the way, copyright. When it is framed, it will hang for a while in the Caldera Art Gallery, at the Visitors Centre in Muwillumbah. If you wish to copy it you will need my permission.

 

May Writing Workshop

Marian Edmunds and I are giving a writing workshop in May, at the lovely Gecko house in Currumbin, Gold Coast Qld. 

Here’s from Marian’s facebook page:

• • I am teaming up Christina Houen for these workshops, The Power of Storytelling, Gecko Hall Currumbin. Christina and I met at a writing group and her feedback is always incisive yet generous. She has this knack of spotting which of the great authors your work reminds of her. Christina has many qualifications and much experience of writing and editing. She can spot those places where you can add a layer of detail. I spot different things and particularly love looking at the structure of stories. We are looking forward to The Power of Storytelling. Book now for May 18. Christina Houen and Marian Edmunds Currumbin, Queensland Saturday, May 18th, 2013 Are you searching for your writer’s voice? Do you have a story you want to tell? Not sure where to start? Whether you are writing memoir or fiction, long or short, you need to shape your story and bring it to life; we will help you to do this. Our workshops give time for you, the writer, to reflect on your story, its theme, and direction, your word choices and character development, in a safe and friendly atmosphere where you can receive constructive feedback on your work. We give individual encouragement and teach skills to assist you with your writing goals. For more info please see the www.thewritingbusiness.com/workshops and the blog of co-presenter Christina Houen.  http://memoryandyou.wordpress.com/about/

  Gecko House, 139 Duringan Street, Currumbin, Queensland, Australia 4223

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This is such a lovely time of year, for creative activities, and for enjoying our beautiful part of the earth. So if you live  in the district, do come along and experience the joy of sharing your writing and discovering ways of bringing it to perfection. And if you don’t live nearby, but know someone who does, pass the word on.

We hope to see you there!

Life change

This year, I’ve had some sessions in Theta Healing, which is a remarkable therapy; I’ve been going to see Diana Saunders, who is a qualified practitioner and consultant. She is a lovely woman, with whom I feel completely safe, respected and understood. I won’t try and describe the method here, but there’s plenty on the web about it, and if you follow the link to Diana’s blog, it is a nice introduction.

I’ve had some profound shifts in perception and inner experience as a result of this healing, and have let go of some old beliefs, regrets and judgements. I’m aware there is more to do, so many layers! But the effects have been deeper and more spontaneous than any of the other healing practices I’ve experienced, including life writing.

After my recent session, I nade a decision to start training in this art/science, so that I can continue my own healing and use the practices to help others.

Though I’ve stopped my personal writing for a while, I’ll continue editing, mentoring and blogging about life writing. And I’ll continue my pastel painting. All for now; I’m on the threshold of discovery!