Devanny Project Diary Entry 1

Yesterday we started talking in earnest about the idea of using Museum Theatre to “open up” the Special Collections to the public. Bronwyn and I had half talked about it last year, saying “we should do it”, but not really getting much beyond that. She had dozens of projects to work on, and asked to hold off discussions until January.

I had been thinking about MT on Wednesday afternoon, and that night I was thinking about what collections we might have that would be “dramatic” enough to make a good first project. Jean Devanny’s name popped into my mind. I knew we’d had at least one visiting scholar in to see the collection in the last couple of years. Plus, Cheryl Taylor and Shirley (forgotten her last name atm) were doing some project on Devanny a couple of years back.

Mentioned it to Bronwyn, who said the Devanny collection was one of the suggestions for “first cab of the rank” for the digitisation project. We could tie the digitisation of the collection into the performance and make it some kind of “launch” for the digital collection.

Tossed a few loose ideas around concerning the extent of the project – taking it on tour to the local areas with funds from Playing Australia? Trying to tie it in with one of the local industries to get sponsorship?

Neither of us know much about Devanny beyond the name. Decided the next step was for me to "get to know her". Borrowed some books from Main and checked for biographies online. Nothing on Wikipedia. Used Ron Store’s brief biography and skimmed Ferrier’s book to put a quick and dirty entry on Wikipedia. Better than nothing, and hopefully more successful than my last attempt to add to Wikipedia (the Handball Incident).

Started reading Sugar Heaven, reading the Introduction to the 2002 edition first. So far, not bad. Interesting to encounter a mix of place names I’m very familiar with alongside ones I’ve never heard of. Are they still around, but I’ve never noticed them? Have they disappeared since 1936?

First thoughts:
• Tell the story of Devanny’s life by using her novels to highlight where she was “at” at the time.
• Communist propaganda. Her novels as propaganda, her tour through North Queensland and the Communist movement in NQ at the time.
• The 1935 strikes in particular – talk about her interest, writing this particular book, the history of the strikes and the outcomes. Maybe mixing in stories from cane cutters.
• “The Red North – Jean Devanny and Evangelical Communism in Queensland”
• “Fact in the Form of Fiction – Jean Devanny and the Art of Reportage”

Decided today that I really should be a member of IMTAL to add some weight to any proposals. Tried to join IMTAL-Europe (but had difficulty with the online forms), but discovered the Australasian version has advanced since I last looked at them. Not to the point where you can actually use their website to find out how to join, though.

The IMTAL conference is going to be in Melbourne this year, and the call for papers closes in April. We might be able to swing a little more prestige by bringing the possibility of an international conference…

Villette

While preparing the book display half of a "Blog Display" concerning the writing of the Brontë sisters, I went looking for pictures from the 1970 miniseries adaptation of Villette, staring Judy Parfitt as Lucy Snowe (English audiences may know her best as Mrs Clennam in Little Dorrit, American audiences may know her best for her role as the Queen in Ever After).

I couldn't find any I could really use. Heck, in the end I couldn't find any pictures that were directly connected to the book that were all that useful. In the end, I just went for a generic "French Village" image.

However, I did find this:



Which I found entertaining.

I read Villette at the same time I had been given Lonely Runs Both Ways (by Alison Krauss and Union Station) for Christmas, and I always found the song "If I Didn't Know Any Better" seemed to fit perfectly with the second half of the book. I had this crazy idea of having a completely bluegrass/country soundtrack for the film version of the book.

But, having watched the clip above, I have to admit that Macy Gray's "I Try" is a perfect fit for the first half of the book. So now I'm wondering if I could convince Alison Krauss to do a bluegrass cover of "I Try", or if I should just open up the music genres for my dream sound-track to my hypothetical film adaptation.

Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favourite books, but there's an extent to which I find Villette to be a better novel. The whole "Ghost of a Dead Nun Haunting the Attic" thing never works as well, for pure drama, as the "Madwoman in the Attic" and "Psychic connection via the moon" thing that Jane Eyre has going on, but I love the emotional depth of the novel.

The book is a celebration of second chances. It sets up one love story, stomps on it, then gives us another. In Jane Eyre (and Shirley), the young woman has one great love, and must go through many trials and heartbreaks before winning him in the end. She can never be happy without him - he is the only one for her! (Dramatically bring back of hand to forehead at this point). In Villette, it looks like it's setting up the exact same scenario... but then turns everything on its head.

M. Paul must have been at the school the whole time. He must have been floating around in the background while Lucy was busy swooning over Dr John. We just don't hear about him because she doesn't notice him. Too busy swooning, you see. Then, at some point, he just breaks in - seemingly out of nowhere. Then he does it again, and again, and again.

And then, suddenly, her breath catches in her throat at the thought of talking to him and she just can't fathom why. Suddenly, she's so turned around by this annoying little Frenchman that she can barely spare a thought for her glorious Dr John.

Suddenly, we don't give two hoots if Dr John goes off and marries Polly. We want to know what M. Paul wants to talk to Lucy about. We want to know why his cousin is trying so hard to keep him away. When he grabs Lucy's hand in the garden and draws her close, we pretty much forget about Dr John entirely.

And I love that element to the book - the new paradigm. In the romantic novel that is your life, you might not be Jane trying to overcome the obstacles needed to get to your Rochester. You might be Lucy who is still stuck on Dr John. Your M. Paul might be standing right behind you, waiting for you to turn around.

Luddite

"I'm a bit of a Luddite," she said. She's not the first person to say it, and she won't be the last, but she's still wrong.

They're almost all wrong.

Every time I hear someone say "I'm a bit of a Luddite" I have to stop myself from replying:

"No, you're not. You're just reluctant to learn how to use technology. I'm a bit of a Luddite, you're just holding yourself back."

If, like me, you believe that the automation of jobs sucks and we shouldn't be replacing human beings with machines - no matter how efficient they might be - due to the fact that the cost to our society is too great, then you could justifiably call yourself a Luddite.

If you, like me, believe the factory system pioneered by textile companies during the Industrial Revolution was the beginning of a process that has had a detrimental effect on our species and the planet, than you can call yourself a Luddite.

If you, like me, believe that the Industrial Revolution itself was, by and large, a bad idea...

Well, you get the drift.

If, however, you just find Word 2007 too different from Word 2003 and you'd rather not have to deal with it... Well, I'm afraid that doesn't make you a Luddite, it just makes you someone who needs to think carefully about aptitude and attitude and try to work out which one is getting in your way so that you can do something about it.

Smash the knitting frames! Down with spinning jennies! Curse your capitalist industrialism! Let the working man work!

Ahem.

As you were.

Newspapers

There has to be a better option for newspapers in Australia.

Either you read a News Ltd paper, which is basically a tawdry magazine masquerading as news, or you read a Fairfax Newspaper, which is usually a better standard of journalism but somewhat south-east centric.

Is it too much to ask for a) A paper that is well written and topical, b) a paper that assumes we aren't completely vapid, and c) a paper that doesn't devote more than half it's content to stories that bore the socks of anyone who isn't in Sydney or Melbourne?

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

(Reblogged from http://http://aliapdliteratureblog2010.blogspot.com)

Some time ago I borrowed The sketch-book of Geoffrey Crayon, gent, by Washington Irving, specifically to read "Rip van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". These stories have been floating around the cultural psyche for some time, and I've always been aware of them - but I've never actually read them in their "original" form.

Having borrowed the book, it took me an awfully long time to get around to reading the stories. In spite of the fact that I am a fan of both short stories and essays (both of which are in the book), I simply never got around to sitting down and reading this work. I had briefly glanced at the opening paragraph for "Rip Van Winkle", but at times when I didn't have an hour to spend on reading a short story properly.

Having renewed the book several times (and, because I'm a staff member, I have longer loan periods than "normal" patrons), I decided I should return the thing and release it into its natural environment. Having decided to return it on Monday, on Saturday I actually made the effort to read the two stories that had interested me in the first place.

Washington Irving (1783-1859) has what I like to think of as a travel-writer's style of writing. The stories he tells are rather short, when you boil them down to the plots, and could easily be conveyed in a couple of paragraphs, but he takes the time to introduce you to the place and people involved in the tale. He touches on the little, quirky details that add character to a place. He tends to write around the details - giving you a raft of impressions from which to construct the picture, rather than simply telling you what you need to know.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" has slipped a little in the public psyche from its original position. These days, many people just know it for the "headless horseman", and then get a bit fuzzy on the details. The story is actually a very intriguing character study of Ichabod Crane - a man who is rather fond of food, and rather easy to frighten with ghost stories.

As a self-confessed "Disney kid", I remember the 1949 film The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, which I saw many long years ago as a small child. I think I would have been under ten years old the last time I saw it - young enough to forget all but a handful of scenes and the echo of Bing Crosby's voice singing "Ichabod Crane..."

Reading the story was an interesting experience in half-recalled images from the Disney film. It felt like I could remember aspects of Ichabod Crane's character being quite effectively captured by the Disney version - flashes of Crane patting a child on the head to impress a mother who was giving him dinner, the way he would see happy autumnal scenes converted into veritable banquets...

I remember Brom Bones being more of an out-and-out bully in the film, while in the story he was a bit more likable - and certainly more understandable. In the story, Ichabod comes across as being a little more obnoxious and, quite frankly, I think I'd probably play a few pranks on him myself, given half the chance.

There's an extent to which "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (and another story in the same book, "The Spectre Bridegroom") is more of a Scooby Doo episode than anything else. You get the feeling, as you are reading the tale, that Irving could have written a ghost story using the same basic plot, but instead he wrote a story about people who listen to ghost stories. He weasels out of the scare factor - you always feel "above" the ghost story - separated from it. Irving writes with something of a "but of course, we both know there's no such thing as ghosts" tone, and as such you never get the full depth of suspense the story could have if he just threw himself into it.

It's the way the story ends that kills its chances of working as a ghost story. Without directly telling you what happened, it makes the "truth" rather obvious, completely throwing away whatever unanswered questions might allow the tension to remain.

But then, the few other Irving stories I've read indicate he has a habit of easing people out of his tales. Perhaps this is part of the travel-writer's style as well - letting you travel comfortably in your own armchair, and leaving you sitting comfortably in the end.

Viscocity

And that's what it's all about, baby!

Some desperate soul comes to the reference desk and says:

"I need to find the dynamic viscosity of seawater. I've looked everywhere in books and online, and I just can't find it."

I have no idea what the dynamic viscosity of seawater is. Heck, I can only hazard a guess at what those words might mean in that particular order. But five minutes later she's walking away with a smile on her face because I tracked down an article that gives her the information she wants.

That's the power of a librarian - we find stuff we didn't even know existed without even knowing what we're looking for.

Too Many Books

Every now and then I can't shake the feeling that there are too many books in my life.

Let us, for a moment, forget the books I actually own. Let us forget that I currently do not have enough shelf-space to store the books I have. Let us forget that I deliberately chose to take a small bag with me when I went on holidays, determined to have a vacation where (for once in my life), I did not add two kilos of books to my baggage weight for the return journey. Let as forget that, due to a series of no-doubt-entirely-avoidable events, I had to buy a new bag - and had to make sure it was big enough to fit the books I bought in spite of myself.

Let us, instead, focus on the fact that I live in a library. Sorry, that should have been: "work in a library". I may spend more time at work than I do in my own house, but that's another problem.

The trouble with working in a library is that you are in a position to borrow books whenever you feel like it. A passing thought runs through your mind... you feel strangely compelled to see if the library holds a book about the thing you thought of... next thing you know you've just checked out another four books.

Do I read all of the books I check out of libraries? Heck no. I've barely even scratched the surface of the books I own.

So what do I do with these books? They fill up space in my life as I think about reading them. I think "I should return that, but I haven't read it yet" and renew them when I should just be releasing them back to the wild. I find them buried under who-knows-what other reading material on my desk and next to my chair months down the track and think "Oh, yeah, I wanted to read that", and promptly put it back on the pile so that I can "get around to it".

I know I'm not going to get around to it. I know I should just clear the decks, forget I borrowed the book in the first place and wait to see if I actually do want it enough to find it again. But...

But I borrowed it because it looked interesting, and every time I look at it, it still looks interesting.

No good can come of this.