Carl Reinecke (1824–1910)

A useful volume that perhaps doesn't achieve its full potential. This was a tie-in to the recent ABC documentary miniseries and provides an overview of some Australian literature since the late 19th century, with a focus on writers and works that are deemed to have spoken for the 'Australian experience', either arguing for change or holding up tradition. Carl Reinecke was one of the TV producers but also has a strong university degree lineup, so was clearly an apt choice to write this volume. There's a lot of useful content in here, and I think it provides many starting points for people who may be interested in learning more about Australian literature. We should have many more synoptic overviews of this subject, and I'll never complain about getting another! (The book perhaps has limited use for those of us who are well-versed in the area, as explained by the below.)

There are a couple of things to note. First, the book has a strongly progressive tilt, which is not a flaw but obviously won't appeal to all readers. If its primary function is to encourage people to read the great authors of Australia's history, it may struggle to do so by often casually dismissing them for their contemporary views on race, gender, politics, etc, or by making grand statements about works, claiming that they come undone because of their inability to accurately challenge colonialism, empire, or what have you. Patrick White is given a decent section, but on a page where modern authors are queried about him, two of the three focus on his now-dated representations of Aboriginal women. A fair criticism but surely not a dominant theme of his canon, indeed only really prominent in one of his novels, and not at all important in light of the White texts actually discussed in this volume! It's important to acknowledge these things, of course - I'm not asking for a hagiography - but (declaring my bias as someone who runs a Patrick White website) the nature of this short volume means that Reinecke can't always be fair when he should be. Why not briefly mention White's growing belief in Indigenous sovereignty and the fact that he left significant bequests to Indigenous arts organisations, or that for his time he was almost radically progressive in his portrayals, as with the incomparable artistic vision in the mind of a heavily disadvantaged and abused Aboriginal character in his glorious Riders in the Chariot? It seems a little half-hearted to make this the focus, as with the almost bemused tone that John O'Grady's They're a Weird Mob sold so many copies when it was - by our 21st century standards - 'assimilationist', rather than acknowledging that this was a fairly centrist view at the time. (Reinecke points out that O'Grady uses stereotypes in his book, such as having most of the Australian men be 'white'; I'm not sure how many non-white Australian men living in urban communities he expects us to have found in 1957!) Female novelists tend to get off more lightly, because one of the book's narratives is that women are part of the subaltern and they often saw the country realistically while white men were off being naïve and self-absorbed. Masculinity and conservatism seem inherently linked at some points, as with Richard Flanagan, whereas I think the only writers not to receive any criticism are the three women of colour! Very 2021.

This sounds like a criticism but I don't mean it as such. The book has a truly stunning amount of endnotes for a 'general non-fiction' work, to the point where the numbers sometimes seem to clutter up the page. Sometimes these are not even referring to quotes or stats, but merely easily verifiable facts, such as that Australia's first parliament was all white or that there are allusions to homosexuality in Such is Life. I was confused by this until I peeked ahead at Reinecke's acknowledgements. He wrote this mostly "at his kitchen table" in the UK during lockdown, and implicitly acknowledges that the book was never intended to be "Carl Reinecke's view of Australian literary history" but rather a general synthesis of current thought on notable Australian works, as seen through the most readily available articles, essays, and introductions that one can find online or via a decent library.

With this explained, much of the book makes sense. The endnotes are there in such quantities to acknowledge that the author is really the compiler. He hasn't necessarily read all of the works within (I would say certainly not Xavier Herbert or Frank Hardy) and his brief hasn't required him to. Which is valid, but this speaks to the book's limitations. Without the space required to give a true overview of Australian lit, and without the freedom to draw conclusions from his research, Reinecke sometimes gives us half-truths or overt simplifications. It's easy to say that Patrick White and his partner Manoly Lascaris returned to Australia at a time when being gay was illegal and considered a mental illness; it would take more time to admit that White and Lascaris lived fairly openly as a couple, that queer people were fairly well-known within the artistic and inner urban communities, and that the story of LGBT emancipation in the 20th century was a gradual one in many areas rather than a sudden shock. Please don't mistake me: the homophobia was very real, culturally entrenched, and tragically sometimes fatal. But it creates a skewed perception to merely leave it at that. How did White's public performance as a curmudgeon, or his choice to live as the only artistic in ordinary suburban areas rather than on of many in artistic hubs, inform the way that he was seemingly accepted by communities that may otherwise have been hostile to homosexuals? Why did media and politiciansof all flavours choose to euphemise his relationship with Lascaris for decades rather than ever outing him? How did queer people thrive in urban centres and artistic communities, big and small, and are we to believe that the flowering of gay and lesbian artists and advocacy in the 1970s came from nowhere? There must be more to the story, as with many other little moments. In an overview there's no time for those yet there's time to leave a lingering whiff of unpleasantness about it all.

Yet the chapter titles ("How to Be An Australian", "Brighter Futures") make clear that the book and its (seemingly quite young) author subscribe to (or reflect) the modern, admittedly popular, theory that says: Australia progressed from idyllic (pre-1788) to horrifically naïve (1788-1888), from just plain terrible (1888-1999) to a brighter time (since then) that could still be improved if we could finally ditch pathetic old-fashioned ideas like "mateship". If you're going to read anything from those periods before our own, it seems to say, you should do so while wearing the appropriate body armour. It is right, of course, to examine the past with a steely eye; T.S. Eliot wrote about how every piece of art and every artist inevitably changes in meaning once they stop being the present and become a piece of the past. Yet the nature of the volume means that the author often gets to say "unfortunately critics in the years since have gradually uncovered layers of X-ism" (because that's in the pieces currently being written about the work) but rarely gets to interrogate those claims or tell us whether they're a big or a small part of the modern reading experience. It's useful to mention that "some" critics have written about whether Kate Grenville's impactful and wide-reaching exploration of the impact of white history on Aboriginal people rendered the latter one-dimensional, sure. But if you can't follow that up with even one paragraph of discussion it rather renders the point moot, I would think?

The depth of Reinecke's research should not be gainsaid, mind you, nor should his talent at writing and clear communication. I'm not criticising him for some of the views herein because - while I'm sure he shares many of them - he is merely reflecting the current trends of academics and arts writers, rightly or wrongly. This is an easy and engaging read, and I'm sure many people with a developing interest in Australian literature will find much to draw on here, both in the text and the exhaustive endnotes. I may never forgive him for excluding Randolph Stow (although his justification makes sense) but I hope this leads people on to uncover the wider world of our country's incredible 235-year literary history - and to remain excited for what awaits us in its future!… (més)