Book Reviews: Stella Prize Shortlistee 2
Next up on my Stella Prize shortlist journey is Michelle de Kretser's novel (or is it fictionalised memoir?), Theory and Practice.
As a reminder, here is the shortlist. I'm highlighting books as I read them (the review of The Burrow is here). I bought myself a copy of Black Witness, so that is the next one I will tackle.
- Translations by Jumaana Abdu (Novel)
- Theory & Practice by Michelle de Kretser (Fictionalised Memoir): 8/10
- Cactus Pear for My Beloved: A Family Story from Gaza by Samah Sabawi (Memoir / Family History)
- Black Witness: The Power of Indigenous Media by Amy McQuire (Non-Fiction)
- The Burrow by Melanie Cheng (Novel): 9/10
- Black Convicts: How Slavery Shaped Australia by Santilla Chingaipe (History)
When one of those friends recommended this book to me, exclaiming that I would relate to the ouevre based on this shared past, I was immediately interested, so when it got added to the Stella list, I was pleased, as it gave me another shove to read it. And M, if you are reading this - you were SO right :-)
The novel's framing seems at least partially veiled memoir, although that could be an intentional tricksiness. It centres on the narrator-protagonist, a woman of Sri Lankan descent in her mid-20s who has moved from Sydney to Melbourne in 1986 to undertake a Masters by Research at the University of Melbourne in Literature - specifically, focusing on three of the later novels of Virginia Woolf. (Our protagonist's name isn't disclosed until very close to the end of the book - it's Cindy - so I will continue to refer to her as "the protagonist", as that is how she is known for most of the text).
The story has three main elements, two of which I loved and one of which I didn't entirely, although some aspects did work.
Firstly, it's a sly, often funny, and sharp take on the revolution in the Australian academy when European theory, especially that of the French theorists, overtook the way that literature in particular was studied. This was a revolution that happened later and more unevenly in History; my latter-90s cohort was probably among the first to grapple with theory ascendancy, and even then, our use of theory was much less encompassing and discipline-shaking than for the literary folk. We also took from a broader church of theorists than just the French poststructuralists - theorists like Edward Said and Stephen Greenblatt had a huge impact on the kind of history that I in particular was doing (although, of course, we all read Mickey F and Jacky D, aka Foucault and Derrida, as well).
de Kretser's deconstruction of the relationship between theory and practice, and the ways in which theory can both illuminate and darken our response to texts and to life itself, was completely on point for me. I have heard others describe her approach as "sneering", but I really don't think it is. She is not reserved about the ways in which theory - and more broadly, the academy - fails, and particularly fails women, people of colour, and people marginalised in other ways, but she is also never dismissive of its value and possibilities, and the way she weaves theory into her treatment of the other two themes is skilful and successful.
There are passages that are both biting and entirely hilarious, such as:
My index cards testified to current trends in Woolf scholarship. The French feminists adored her because her radically Maternal prose disrupted the Word of the Father and the Symbolic Order. The Anglo-American feminists adored her because she wrote women-centred fiction and theorised the material conditions of women's lives. Paula [the supervisor] adored her because Paula needed A Major, Undergraduate-Friendly Woman Writer for her first-year unit on Modernism. Gertrude Stein wasn't Undergraduate Friendly, and Sylvia Plath was Undergraduate Friendly to a problematic degree - in Sydney ... young women I knew produced passionate, alarming, footnote-free essays about 'Sylvia.'
Secondly, this is a story about the disconnect and bonded relationship between mothers and daughters, both actual mothers and cultural / literary foremothers (the protagonist dubs Virginia Woolf as the Woolfmother). This is played out in the frequent interspersions in the story from the protagonist's mother's notes and conversations, and the difficult and changing relationship that the protagonist has with Woolf and her work, as Woolf's very blatant racism forces itself onto her consciousness. I found this theme both affecting and complex, and I enjoyed watching its development across the course of the novel. It becomes the staging-point for de Kretser's wider discussion of postcolonialism and the hearing of other voices, which is another strength of the text.
Thirdly, and it's perhaps odd that I put this theme third as it's the bulk of the words on the page, this novel looks at relationships in the bubble world of one's mid-20s as a postgrad student. I thought the portrayal of the protagonists' milieu, the house parties and the discourse and the friends, was fantastic - I related VERY hard to all of it. However, the central relationship, her affair with the already-partnered Kit and her subsequent near-obsession with Kit's girlfriend Olivia, was the one part of the book that fell a little flat for me. I just felt she was straining too hard and being too heavy-handed in the Presenting Love Affair as Metaphor, in the end - it felt odd and unnatural in a way that the protagonists' friendships with Lenny, Anti, Shaz, Benedict, and the others did not.
All in all, I thought that was a very good book, just slightly let down from being great by the awkward notes presented by the protagonist/Kit/Olivia triangle. I give it 8/10, and recommend anyone who was studying Lit or History or any related discipline in the 80s and 90s to give it a whirl for auld lang syne :-)
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