To Be Read...

The Newspaper of Claremont Street, by Elizabeth Jolley

 

Even though my attention had been caught by a review, it is rather unlikely that I would have read The Newspaper of Claremont Street without the prompting of the Reading Matters' Australian Literature Month. Even then I was initially interested because it seemed to be a novel about journalism but in fact the Newspaper is an elderly cleaning lady, known to one and all as Weekly.

 

Weekly is a prickly character, who passes on information about the householders of Claremont Street, a gossip, yes, but somehow sparing with her words, even rather brusque. She is ferociously hard working, and cleans with ferocity.

Everyone tried to get as much work from her as possible and she was expected to go into every room in the houses where she worked. But after all these years there was nothing, not even The Seducers Cook Book, that could upset her.

If she surprised people in their nakedness that was their affair. Clearly, in her opinion, showers should be taken before eight in the morning...

She was used to people being in bath towels or in bed at all our hours of the day. The intimate things which she could not help perceiving did not interest her much. If at the time of cleaning, various sexual or alcoholic activities of the householders were in the way, she simply cleaned around them.

Her services and and her access to the private information give her a strange sort of power, but this is little help in fighting her many demons, including the long shadow of an unpleasant and selfish brother, and a mother who went to prison to hep help him.

The characterisation is vivid, and it is the power of Elizabeth Jolley's writing that carries the novel. Her style is deceptive, delivered lightly, with strong accents and rough vernacular (the words of Weekly's friend Nastasya - Narsty - are delivered almost phonetically) but there is a steely edge to the narrative.

The telling is sympathetic but rarely sentimental, though I did like it when the Newspaper recalls her father's longing for the countryside.

Railing against modern farming, he says: "There's nothing so beautiful as the sun shining through a happy pig's ears."

Quite right, too.

Eucalyptus, by Murray Bail

Could you, with certainty, identify a Scribbly Gum, Pumpkin Gum, Yellow Jacket, Barber’s Gum, Kakadu Woollybutt, Manna Gum, Gympie Messmate, or a Bastard Tallowwood?

Probably not. In which case you would not win the hand in marriage of the beautiful Ellen Holland.

For Ellen's father has set potential suitors the task of identifying all the Eucalyptus trees on his New South Wales estate. Not surprisingly, most fall by the wayside but the rather dull (he would be, wouldn't he?) Mr Cave , seems set to succeed...

That's the fairy tale premiss of Murray Bail's lyrical evocation of Australia's iconic gum tree, of which there are apparently 700 variations.

The eucalypts may be seen as daily reminders of the sadnesses between fathers and daughters, the deadpan stoicism of nature (which of course isn’t stoicism at all), drought and melting asphalt in the cities. Each leaf hanging downwards suggests another hard-luck story or a dry line or joke to wave away the flies... 

There are may hard-luck stories to be told, and many dry lines too, as we learn a little of the history of this tough environment, which is home to tough people :

The men walking about either had a loose smile, or faces like grains of wheat. And every other one had a fingertip missing, a rip in the ear, the broken nose, one eye in a flutter from the flick of the fencing wire.

Late one afternoon – in the 1940s – the last of the bachelor-brothers fell in the river. No one could remember a word he had said during his life. He was known for having the slowest walk in the district.

Not surprisingly, Holland the incomer from Sydney who takes over the estate, doesn't quite fit in:

People didn’t trust him. The double smile didn’t help. Only when he was seen to lose his temper over something trivial did people begin to trust him.

A few months later, his daughter arrives. Ellen has never known her mother, but knows her parents met through a "matrimonial advertisement" he had placed in a newspaper notice: “What’s wrong with that? It has a high curiosity value for both parties."

Before the birth Holland had taken out an insurance policy against his wife having twins. Ellen's brother died only a couple of days old, but the big cheque he received would pay for the estate.

To claim ownership of his new land Holland feels compelled to name every bird, rock and tree. And he plants an eucalyptus tree in front of the house.

The gum tree has a pale ragged beauty. A single specimen can dominate an entire Australian hill. It’s an egotistical tree. Standing apart it draws attention to itself and soaks up moisture and all signs of life, such as harmless weeds and grass, for a radius beyond its roots, at the same time giving precious little in the way of shade. It is trees which compose a landscape.

That first tree led to an obsession, and that obsession leads him to lay down the challenge that like his own advert for a wife, will define his daughter's life. The challenge of naming every one of the rare and obscure eucalypts will defeat many, but Cave is different.

Holland and Cave spend many days walking the estate but, as Cave is demonstrating the botanical prowess that seems destined to flower into an arranged marriage, Ellen becomes entranced by the storytelling of an enigmatic stranger. Some of his stories are tragic, some very funny, and many are both.

We learn that "in one of the countless culs-de-sac in Canberra lived a retired public servant and his wife. For the last seventeen years they had only spoken to each other through their dog." (We are not told whether the dog features in  Kaleski’s classic 1914 study, which was called - this is true! - Australian Barkers and Biters).

We are told that clarity, lack of darkness  might be called “eucalyptus qualities.”  There is darkness in Eucalyptus, but Bail's writing glitters with extraordinary qualities, carrying both science and poetry.

I am hugely grateful to Kim at Reading Matters for the recommending Eucalyptus,  a five star read and quite possibly the best novel I have read this year.