Love. It may very well be the only reason that people do anything at all! In an attempt to be loved, and for the sake of loving others, people twist themselves and their lives into all sorts of shapes. That the question ‘What Is Love?’ has never failed to receive answers — though those answers have been varied — isn’t all that surprising. From the grandiose poetry of Shakespeare to good morning texts, love has never gone without a language to speak in, nor people to be spoken by.
So, in what language is love spoken here at the ANU? In the language of ANUCrushes of course! And if we want to understand what it means to love, and how to become better lovers in the future, I believe we need to look both to the past and the present.
The ancient Greeks (in all their wisdom) didn’t just have one word for love, they had eight. For example, there was Agape for selfless, universal love; Storge for familial love; and above all, Eros, for romantic, passionate love.
And yet, despite all their fancy words, even the Greeks failed to capture love’s essence.
Plato, for example, ever the contrarian, decided that love couldn’t possibly be beautiful. According to Plato, love is forever out of reach, forever elusive and an eternal search for something we will never really have no matter how much we want it. #ANUCrushes32721 captures Plato’s love here: “Sometimes I wish I’d never met her ’cause of how much I hurt when she pushes me away, but then she pulls me back in, and I just want it not to end.”
And so, whether he wished it or not, Plato may have been the first in a long line of those who proclaimed love too risky, too unpredictable, and far too messy to be worth the trouble that accompanied it. Frowning upon romantic poetry, sidelining human emotion, taking the romance out of life and replacing it with ‘reason’, Plato unknowingly invented the very ‘reason’ that philosophers have had such a hard time getting lucky.
But, to be fair to our friends with comically large brains, love isn’t all sunshine and roses. As #ANUCrushes32525 laments, “Why must grief be the price of love? … Is the hurt and pain that follows love ever worth it? … Why must you tear apart my heart, my being?” Maybe love really is far too painful, to the point where the means simply cannot justify the ends. Maybe it really would be wiser to focus on other things, like, you know, the divine, or numbers, or your GPA or something?
Those of us struck by Cupid’s arrow know otherwise. Enter the untimely rebels — those daring souls who argued that love, no matter how messy, how chaotic, how dangerous, was ultimately still something worth fighting for. They were the champions of love, who defended Eros to their dying breath.
Take, for instance, Spinoza. While his definition of love in his masterpiece, The Ethics, is as dry as Lake Eyre — “pleasure accompanied by the idea of an external cause,” — above all he was concerned with self-determined love. Passionate love, grounded in mutual respect and personal freedom and in all honesty, the type of love that we all look for in our own lives. Which is what #ANUCrushes32538 captures so well when they write: “I know they are the one, and I think they do too. … She is so cute, I enjoy who I am when I am around her. I feel… complete!”
And then there is Sappho, who wrote of love’s intensity, its emotional depth and its power to overwhelm and embolden the human spirit. To Sappho, love is not merely affectionate and tender, but profound and elemental, capable of shaking the very foundation of the world. Love has often incarnated wills of resistance and revolution for no sake but its own, leading people like #ANUCrushes32683’s writer to pledge to “change the world to be with you and make you happy again.”
And let’s not forget Nietzsche, who, in The Gay Science, argued that true love demands our full attention and puts us in such a position where “the whole rest of the world appears indifferent, pale, and worthless.” For Nietzsche, doing anything less than loving would render life itself meaningless. Perhaps such an outlook is reflected most concretely in #ANUCrushes32549: “I’ve been thinking for weeks and I figured that I’d rather live the best present moment with you by my side than doing nothing and staying in the void.”
So, where does our little excursion through history bring us? Right back to the start.
Whether drinking with Socrates or glancing at someone across Uni Ave, love remains as perplexing as ever. It can feel beautiful, fulfilling and forever, and yet fall to pieces all the same. The heart can burn so hot it turns to ash, it can beat so hard it shatters, it can stop altogether, but even still, people never stop falling in love.
Here at ANU, love takes more than one form: be it a casual hookup, an unrequited crush, or a sweet gesture from a significant other. At this university, and perhaps on this Earth, there is no one way to love someone correctly, nor a proper way to be loved. Love doesn’t have to be forever, nor does it have to be never — though I do believe that it has to be kind.
Ultimately, I think Socrates put it best when he said:
“Human nature can find no better helper than love.”
Comments Off on 2024 Book Releases to Watch Out For
The beginning of a new academic year calls for fresh distractions, and I come fully equipped to help you drain your wallets and your study time. Even better, you can tell yourself you’re wasting neither; reading is good for you, it makes you smart. You might as well be studying for your actual degree. Girl maths is calculating how many pretty hardcover novels you could buy with the money you saved by pirating your textbooks online (for legal purposes, this is a joke).
Full disclosure, this list does not offer very much in the way of nonfiction, aside from a few little numbers I especially liked the look of, which I’ve put in their own category. Sorry to the non-fiction buffs, but also not really.
General Fiction:
The Mother of All Things by Alexis Landau
(Releases May 7)
This one is for all my dark academia girlies. Think The Secret History but more human, and with a healthy dose of female rage.
Ava Zaretsky is a wife, mother, and art history professor. Following her husband to a film shoot in Bulgaria one summer, she is ‘swept up into a circle of women who reenact ancient Greco-Roman mystery rites of initiation, bringing her research to life and illuminating the story of a 5th-century-BC mother-daughter pair whose sense of female loyalty to each other and connection to the divine feminine guides Ava in her exploration of the eternal stages of womanhood.’
Read the full synopsis (and preorder, if you like) here.
See also:
Table for Two by Amor Towles (releases April 2)
From the bestselling author of A Gentleman in Moscow, The Lincoln Highway, and Rules of Civility comes a collection of six short stories set in turn-of-the-(twenty-first)-century New York City and a novella set in Hollywood’s Golden Age. Fans may recognise some characters from Rules of Civility.
What I Would Do to You by Georgia Harper (releases March 26)
A speculative fiction which places the reader in a near-future Australia, where the death penalty is legalised—but the family of the victim must carry it out themselves.
Fantasy/Science Fiction:
The Atlas Complex by Olivie Blake (The Atlas Six #3)
(Released January 9)
Is it the year for dark academia, or are publishers milking this trend a little bit? Here’s another one which will be a favourite with the dark academics among us.
That was cynical of me—when they don’t feel formulaic, tropey, and artificial (read: exclusively written to test their luck on BookTok), the dark academia branding can work well. This series seems to resonate with a very wide audience, so I’m sure we can expect good things.
The final instalment in the Atlas Six trilogy which more or less pioneered the BookTok cult of dark academia, The Atlas Complex is ‘a race to survive as the Society recruits are faced with the question of what they’re willing to betray for limitless power—and who will be destroyed along the way.’
More info here.
See also:
House of Flame and Shadow by Sarah J. Maas (released January 30)
I’m personally an SJM hater, but as that is a controversial opinion I’ll mention that House of Flame and Shadow came out last month. It’s the third instalment in the Crescent City series, and the Google animation was a jump-scare when I was researching for this article. As one of my friends said, Oh God, she got to the tech bros.
Faebound by Saara El-Arifi (released January 23)
Elves, fairies, high stakes and romance providing all the escapist vibes for your Semester 1.
Tales of the Celestial Kingdom by Sue Lynn Tan (released February 6)
An illustrated collection of short stories set in the world of fantasy romance duology Daughter of the Moon Goddess and Heart of the Sun Warrior, inspired by Chinese legend.
Historical Fiction:
All We Were Promised by Ashton Lattimore
(Releases April 4)
‘A housemaid with a dangerous family secret conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape, in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia.’
Aside from a gorgeous cover, All We Were Promised proffers commentary on racial injustice, Western slavery, class divides, and female friendship. We follow three young Black women in 1937 Philadelphia fighting for freedom, inspired by the real-life Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Philadelphia abolitionist movements during the early 19th century.
I expect this one will be a brilliant debut from Ashton Lattimore, award-winning journalist and former lawyer.
More info here.
See also:
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo (Releases April 9)
The author of Shadow and Bone, Six of Crows, and Ninth House delves into the world of adult historical fantasy, set in the Spanish Golden Age.
Literary Fiction:
Hagstone by Sinéad Gleeson
(Releases April 11)
Recent years have seen some brilliant literary voices coming out of Ireland—I’m thinking of Sally Rooney, John Boyne, Maggie O’Farrell, among others—so I have high hopes for Sinéad Gleeson’s debut Hagstone.
Drawing on myth and folklore, Hagstone places our protagonist Nell on an isolated island, ‘the source of inspiration for her art, rooted in landscape…and the feminine.’ The island is inhabited by a commune of women who travel from all over the world seeking its refuge. Described as ‘beautifully written, prescient and eerily haunting,’ I think this one will be gorgeous.
More info here.
See also:
Until August by Gabriel García Márquez (releases March 12)
This one is super exciting—a lost novel by the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, to be published with the permission of his two sons. Sure to be an instant modern classic.
Anita de Monte Laughs Last by Xochitl Gonzalez (releases March 5)
‘A mesmerising novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her suspicious death.’ (Macmillan)
Whale Fall by Elizabeth O’Connor (releases April 25)
Set on a remote Welsh island, this one is a study of ‘loss, isolation, folklore, and the joy and dissonance of finding oneself by exploring life outside one’s community.’ (Penguin Random House)
Nonfiction: A Novel by Julie Myerson (released January 2)
I want to read this based on the title alone. Nonfiction dissects the relationship between a mother and her child. We look at motherhood, addiction, and the act of writing.
Crime & Thriller:
Anna O by Matthew Blake
(Released January 31)
Predictably and unsurprisingly, I work at a little independent bookshop in Kingston, which is in part how I’ve devised this list. Since its release at the end of January, Anna O has been selling well. According to our customer base, at least, it probably isn’t quite the ‘instant global phenomenon’ HarperCollins eagerly declares it to be, but it’s definitely getting some solid attention.
Anna O is an ‘ingenious’ (The Times) psychological thriller interested in the human mind and its subconscious. Anna O, suspected of the murder of her two best friends, has been in a deep sleep for four years. Forensic psychologist Doctor Benedict Prince must find a way to wake her, and in the process any information about what happened the night of the murders.
‘As he begins Anna O’s treatment – studying his patient’s dreams, combing her memories, visiting the site where the horrors played out – he pulls on the thread of a much deeper, darker mystery. Awakening Anna O isn’t the end of the story, it’s just the beginning.’
More info here.
See also:
Butter by Asako Yuzuki (releases March 6)
I believe Butter has met with success overseas, and is being published for the first time in Australia. We’re getting so much fantastic Japanese literature, which I’m loving (Japan and Ireland absolutely killing the game). Inspired by a real case, Butter is ‘a vivid, unsettling exploration of misogyny, obsession, romance and the transgressive pleasures of food in Japan.’ (HarperCollins)
James by Percival Everett (releases March 19)
A ‘harrowing and fiercely funny’ (Penguin) retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of the enslaved Jim.
Romance:
Funny Story by Emily Henry
(Releases April 23)
I think Emily Henry (author of Beach Read, Book Lovers, and You and Me on Vacation among other titles) could quite reasonably be called the mother of BookTok romance. Maybe I should confess that I haven’t actually read any of her novels yet, simply because romance isn’t a genre that I tend to gravitate towards, but her readership is so large and so devoted that it’s pretty clear Funny Story will be big this year.
There is absolutely something to be said for the importance of the romance genre, and the questionable foundations on which we often dismiss it as unimportant or holding less literary value. Romance as a genre is often written by women, typically for women, centring female characters. Lately I’ve been interested in the way we determine our hierarchies of artistic value, and the potential sociocultural issues underlying the way we perceive literature and its importance. Emily Henry herself did an interview with The Age last year which I thoroughly enjoyed—if you’d like to give it a read, here’s a link.
But I digress. Funny Story sets our heroine Daphne in a small town, ‘propositioning [her ex’s fiancé’s ex, Miles] to move in. As roommates of course. A temporary solution until she gets a new job literally anywhere else.’ The ‘awkward exes of exes-to-friends-to-lovers’ trope is a new one for sure, but I have no doubt all the romance lovers will eat it up.
More info here.
See also:
Fangirl Down by Tessa Bailey (released February 13)
The bestselling author of It Happened One Summer is jumping on the sports romance trend, but the love interest ‘was once golf’s hottest rising star’ (HarperCollins, italics added by me for emphasis). A romance novel where our protagonist is the hardcore fangirl of a ‘gorgeous, grumpy golfer’ sounds insane, and if I end up reading it you can be so sure of a review. (If not, someone else read it and tell me how it is.)
Token Non-Fiction:
Outspoken by Dr Sima Samar
(Releases March 6)
This list has been almost entirely composed of fiction (sorry, not sorry), and while there were several non-fiction titles I wanted to include, for the sake of keeping this readable and a not-absurd length we’ll stick with this super important memoir which I’m hoping to read when I can get my hands on it.
‘The impassioned memoir of Afghanistan’s Sima Samar: medical doctor, public official, founder of schools and hospitals, thorn in the side of the Taliban, nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, and lifelong advocate for girls and women.’
Outspoken is relevant and necessary; it recounts how Simar ‘[became] a revolutionary,’ single-handedly providing medical aid to remote areas and fighting tirelessly for the rights of Afghan women, and ‘all the citizens of her country.’ Important reading for our 2024.
More info here.
See also:
The House of Hidden Meanings by RuPaul (releases March 6)
‘From international drag superstar and pop culture icon RuPaul, comes his most revealing and personal work to date—a brutally honest, surprisingly poignant, and deeply intimate memoir of growing up Black, poor, and queer in a broken home to discovering the power of performance, found family, and self-acceptance.’ (HarperCollins)
Who’s Afraid of Gender? by Judith Butler (releases March 19)
Who’s Afraid of Gender? studies the relationship between authoritarian movements and gender as a concept, and the fearmongering surrounding particularly non-binary and trans people promoted by certain ‘anti-gender ideology movements’. ‘From a global icon, a bold, essential account of how a fear of gender is fueling reactionary politics around the world.’ (Macmillan)
Rebel Rising by Rebel Wilson (releases April 3)
A memoir from Rebel Wilson is so certain to be thoroughly iconic. Recalling her rise to fame with all the insane anecdotes our little hearts could desire, you just know this one will go crazy.
That’s all I’ve got for you today, but I always have one eye on the upcoming releases throughout the year, so expect a part two somewhere in your (relatively) near future.
Until next time!
Comments Off on Review: How to Date Men When You Hate Men
Fair warning: if you’ve come here in search of some profound insight into the matters of the heart, I apologise. I’m just an 18-year-old girl with uncommendable dating experience, who is also severely prone to falling into a pit of crippling anxiety at the mere sight of a text from a guy (it takes me five hours and a solid brainstorming session with three other friends to respond to a simple “Hey” followed by a series of sleepless nights). So, for the sake of honesty, I’ll admit I don’t know shit.
Perhaps now you can also see how a ‘self-help’ book called How To Date Men When You Hate Men would entice someone like me. To be clear, neither I nor the author hate men, we just hate the troubles we’ve to endure to date them and the patriarchal bit of it all.
For a long time, it was a running joke in my friend group that this book held the key to fixing our love lives. Armed with foolproof strategies to sail through the treacherous waters of dating a guy, we’d be unstoppable! So here I was, embarking on this transcendental journey, flipping through the pages of the book like a madwoman and hoping to finally learn the art of dating men just in time for Valentine’s Day. No more being lonely and miserable, I had declared!
By the first chapter, bitter disappointment had settled in. I had fallen prey to clickbait. The book was (unfortunately) neither misandrist propaganda nor, as the author herself admits, a proper “how to” book.
It hypes you up in the beginning, and you, naïve little you, are convinced that you’re about to read something so earth-shatteringly revolutionary that you will single-handedly end patriarchy and the systemic sexism prevalent in our society. But you’ll soon realise this is just a patronising version of your girls’ group chat.
‘It’s not that there are “good men” versus “bad men” (though there are some obvious monsters): all men have received this coding. They aren’t born evil, they’re born into an evil system! It just didn’t sound as catchy to name the book How to Date Men When They Are Born into and Brainwashed by an Evil System That Mightily Oppresses Women.’
The author, Blythe Roberson, is an American comedian and humour writer, who has previously written for publications like The New Yorker and The Onion. As expected, you can sense the immaculate sarcasm and wit right off the bat. Unexpectedly, though, it quickly falls flat.
Throughout the book, Roberson makes various attempts to put modern dating problems in a comedic and engaging light. Sadly she misses the mark almost every single time. Roberson fills the book with quirky little displays of her hilarity, but because the book is so inconclusive everything she writes becomes almost irrelevant due to the lack of direction. The snarky comments that probably would’ve gotten her a good laugh in a different format soon turn annoying (looking at the 125, 689, 871 Trump jokes).
This humour severely lacks purpose. Roberson describes the book as ‘made up of so many opinions all clumped together that they just might have congealed into some sort of worldview’, taking a step further to boldly call it a ‘comedy philosophy book’. I like to call it the ‘Roberson’s Attempt at Turning Her Journal Therapy Journey Commercial’ book. It truly does seem like she was advised by her therapist to try to pen down her feelings, and she thought, well, why not turn this into a book and make some money out of it?
Her personal reflections and all the bottled-up frustration she harbours towards dating finally find the light of day in these pages. She talks so extensively about patriarchy and its impact on modern dating that you wonder if you really are about to read a social philosophy book, but she doesn’t explore this problem with any depth or nuance and you’re just left pondering. The book ends up being a collection of Roberson’s dating expeditions. So, while I yearn to learn more about the nitty gritties of Roberson’s ‘intersectional-socialist-matriarchal revolution’, I find myself learning the superficialities of Roberson’s date with some film student named Luke instead.
While the first half of the book might irk you, to give Roberson due credit, the second half does get better.
‘And so: you, right now, are a full tree. You don’t need to be in love to count as a human. Look—you already ARE a human, existing!’
Even though it’s cliché big sister advice and I know at this point we’re all tired of listening to the ‘you can only be loved if you love yourself first’ crap, it is undeniably true, and Roberson’s take on it is, dare I say, quite refreshing! She preaches against overthinking by emphasising that ultimately people will always do what their heart desires and so, if they are talking to you, it is because they want to! Probably nothing you haven’t heard before, but it’s the unwavering conviction with which Roberson almost commands the reader to stop over-analysing every little thing that almost has me convinced every guy is in love with me.
Okay, I don’t actually hate How To Date Men When You Hate Men. I know by now I might’ve convinced you otherwise, but genuinely, my only qualm with this book is that it shouldn’t have been a book. The way Roberson describes her dating mishaps and all the valuable lessons she’s gleaned from dating guys all these years make for solid entertainment. Not for a book. But, perhaps, as the set for her Netflix special. Oh, what wasted potential the book has. It’s relatable and charming, with seamlessly woven humour, while also targeting the idiosyncrasies of modern society. It could have been a 10/10 comedy show.
For me, the true measure of a book lies in the emotion it evokes. Often, over time, plots and character arcs get buried and decay with memory, but the emotions etched in the heart stand the test of time. The brain forgets, but the heart remembers. And while this book did have moments of Roberson’s glittering wit, it failed to leave an imprint. All I’d remember five years later would be the riveting title.
So, final remarks. Firstly, nobody really knows what love is. Some days it’s peeling an orange, while other days even taking a bullet might not be enough. All we know is that love is cataclysmic in the most beautiful ways and sadly, no book will ever have the answer to all your questions. You just have to wing it, as frightening as that might be.
Secondly, don’t read this book. You probably won’t read it til the end (unless you’ve thought it’d be cool to review it for Valentine’s). I recommend spending that time hating some other aspect of your life.
Lastly, if you do plan on spending Valentine’s alone, all sad and pathetic (like me), remember that it’s just a day. A Wednesday too, literally nothing special. The human experience will have us all being melancholic the rest of the year, even those cringy people in love (I’m just jealous). Go get yourself an ice cream and be a hater for a day.
Comments Off on ANU Arts Revue: Sending Brian Back to Kansas
Arts Revue opens with a joke. Not a skit, a single joke. The keyboard player gets up, walks to centre stage, and announces that he’s going to tell a joke that’s ‘okay to say’, because he heard it on the radio.
“How does a pornstar get paid?
Income.”
(Get it, because it sounds like in-cum?)
It wasn’t a bad joke – it was fine, it got a laugh – but we were left confused. Who was this guy, who didn’t appear in a single skit after his one joke? Why was this the opener? Were they stalling while they sorted out technical issues? Did he just really want to be a part of it, while also playing his keyboard?
Arts Revue left all of these questions unanswered, but it gave us a great show to make up for it. The just-fine pornstar joke is thankfully followed by an excellent ‘Life is a Highway’ parody, ‘Life is a Parkes Way’, full of jokes about the perils of driving in Canberra. This was the first of many solid parodies. A special shoutout to ‘Love is an Open Door/There’s Vomit on the Floor’, an ode to a scenario many a Senior Resident has faced on a Thursday night, and a long but funny and oddly heartwarming skit where the Phantom of the Opera joins the Backstreet Boys. Though these were all good, the highlight had to be the number about society keeping Miss Piggy and Kermit apart. The costuming – a frog suit, a dress and a cheap wig – was exactly what you’d expect, and Georgia Mcculloch’s performance as Kermit was especially moving. From Kermit to Brian Schmidt’s American accent to the practised cadence of a newsreader, Mcculloch’s unique talent for impressions – ie. ‘doing funny voices’ – meant she never once broke character.
If a powerful, poignant anthem about the enduring power of frog-pig sex doesn’t sound like your kind of thing, then Arts Revue provided plenty of ANU-related comedy for the average revue enjoyer. A breakup between ANU and Schmidt, where his Nobel Prize is the other woman, captured the heartbreak of Schmidt’s departure. Even the Devil himself, accompanied by a grovelling minion he had an insane amount of sexual tension with, visited to announce his plans for a new and improved ANU. These ranged from not-that-bad-maybe-an-improvement-actually (sinking Wamburun into the depths of Hell) to downright evil (quadruple-factor authentication for every sign-on).
Not all of the skits were this good. A few were just drawn-out puns. A woman goes to the doctor about a lump on her arm; it’s Taylor Cyst, a cyst that plays Taylor Swift songs. Bird watchers make jokes about seeing nice pairs of tits. The latter does get points for walking right up to my co-writer and implying they had thrush, though. Excellent audience participation, almost as good as the bit where they turned off all the lights and ran a guided meditation, lulling us all into a false sense of security so that they could steal our belongings. Thankfully everything was returned after the show – no need to press charges.
Charlie Joyce Thompson deserves a special mention for bringing an extra laugh to every skit he starred in. His delivery, accents, acting and improv were fantastic and he had us keeling over, whether he was playing Miss Piggy or a South African High Court judge.
We saw Arts Revue on the opening night, so we were ready to forgive any tech issues. Which is good, because there were a fair few of them: lights going up randomly during scenes that were supposed to be dark (at least we think so), Taylor Swift playing during the devil’s speech and the wrong Powerpoint playing during a student presentation skit – somehow, this last one was still kind of funny.
Nonetheless, Arts Revue proved a funny, well-coordinated, well-acted performance. Its strengths were its actors and its parodies and musical numbers, each one somehow better than the last. It ended with a bang: a parody of ‘I’m Just Ken’ to the tune of “I’m Just Brian” and mashed up with even more Backstreet Boys. A fantastic way to the end night, and a charming and funny end to the revue season.
Comments Off on Review – The Bookbinder of Jericho by Pip Williams
The unread piles of books beginning to crowd my little B&G room have a peculiar habit of growing faster than I can explain away, but in spite of my love of stories, there are very few authors whose books I will always, without fail, scramble to get hold of. When I do, I will steal away with them, fingers crossed for upcoming grey skies and rain, the kettle boiling, Hozier/Lorde/Bon Iver (no, I won’t be taking criticisms on my obnoxious music tastes) playing, and curl up to try and squeeze myself between the letters, to temporarily live inside the pages.
One such author is Pip Williams, the writer behind 2021 multi-award-winning debut The Dictionary of Lost Words and, more recently, The Bookbinder of Jericho. And while I didn’t find it quite as beautifully executed as Dictionary, Bookbinder didn’t disappoint.
I was first made aware of the novel late last year, when Williams’ publisher Affirm Press posted a cover reveal on their Instagram. I was ecstatic, then promptly let it fall to the back of my mind. In March of 2023, I was vaguely aware of its finally landing on shelves, but even the new books of one’s much-beloved storytellers may be pushed aside by the chaos, the newness of things when one moves to a far-off city for university. (“Far-off” sounds like something the narrator of a fairy tale might say, so I’m happy applying it here as someone from Newcastle, New South Wales, exactly four and a half hours’ drive away.)
It wasn’t until the event Williams hosted in partnership with the Canberra Times and the ANU, held in the Kambri Cultural Centre on campus, that I recalled my excitement and determined to have it in my hands as soon as possible. I might note that this resolution was conditional: my first priority was to avoid paying the $32.99 it was being sold for at the event. I was fairly confident I could persuade Affirm to send me a copy in exchange for a review as I had so thoroughly enjoyed Dictionary, which they kindly did. (Thanks besties.) I left the lecture theatre more eager to read than I had been in a long while.
I remember feeling that The Dictionary of Lost Words embodied everything I love about words and literature. Bookbinder carries a lot of the same themes (and largely shares the context and setting, with a few familiar characters). Set against the atmospheric backdrop of Oxford University, The Bookbinder of Jericho explores the life, relationships, and ambitions of a woman in early 20th century England. Throughout the novel, Williams navigates these experiences through the lenses of literature, war, social class, and gender. We follow young, “pretty Peggy Jones,” a bindery-girl at Oxford University Press, whose job is to “bind the books, not read them,” but who longs to study instead.
Bookbinder’s great strength is its characters, who are already complex when we meet them, and whose development throughout the novel is seamless. Here, I think it did a better job than Dictionary, which felt marginally more inclined towards aestheticism than fleshed-out characters and their relationships. I also loved the relatively slow but realistic and still compelling plot, which is becoming characteristic of Williams’ writing—the dream for people like me, who are always in it for the vibe of the thing.
I think the novel left something to be desired in the writing, though. The beautiful prose was what I found most striking about Dictionary, but unfortunately I wasn’t especially impressed by the writing in Bookbinder. There is every possibility that my tastes have just changed since reading the former, but I sense an inkling of a shift in William’s style from the first book to the second, and that maybe something of the earlier eloquence was lost in favour of wider appeal. Much of the criticism Dictionary received was relating to what (I feel) may simply have been its literary style. Historical fiction doesn’t typically lean this way, but Williams’ writing is vaguely reminiscent of emerging literary voices in the vein of R.F. Kuang and Sally Rooney. I suspect that, understandably, there may have been expectations for the style which were not met, which might have put some readers off. Something about the style of Bookbinder felt more in line with its genre, but less in the distinctive voice of Pip Williams. I wonder if this was in response to some of the negative feedback on Dictionary. I also would like to note, however, that I have read very legitimate grievances, and if this book wasn’t for you, that’s so valid. Take my thoughts with a grain of salt; I’m only one person, one perspective. I have no authority whatsoever on the subject—I just talk with wildly unearned confidence.
I liked some of what Williams had to say about women’s suffrage, a topic she engages with a lot throughout the novel—super appropriate, of course, for the mid-WWII period. Her main idea is the fact that the vote did not extend to all women—only those in possession of land or a degree (which Oxford wouldn’t provide to women, even on the completion of a “degree course”)—excluding the vast majority. However, in only touching on land ownership and education, Bookbinder really only delves into class, and to me it felt like there was a gap left to be filled—the glaring whiteness of the early women’s suffrage movement, and the exclusion of women of colour in a context where it was made near impossible for women of colour to obtain either land or a degree. In a 2018 article for UK organisation Voting Counts, Natalie Leal writes, “While there was no direct, obvious discrimination based on race written into the legislation, implicit structural discrimination was still writ large, as so often happens race and class intersected.”
There is a surprising lack of conversation regarding this in relation to her books, possibly due to their both being fairly new. I did some digging to see if anyone else had reached a similar conclusion to me, and eventually stumbled upon a blog post which touched on the space for racial discourse in The Dictionary of Lost Words, which I found resonated with what may be considered the gap in Bookbinder.
Jenny A. at Righter of Words takes a brief but thought-provoking linguistic approach, which I would have loved to read more of. Dictionary has a particular interest in the way that certain kinds of words go ignored in particular circles (notably academic and literary). The protagonist Esme is raised in an Oxford ‘scriptorium,’ where words are collected and compiled—and routinely excluded—for each edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Esme begins to collate her own volume of omitted ‘women’s words’ which are overlooked—usually for vulgarity or being ‘lesser than’: they are “by women, about women, and for women” . Dictionary is interested in the words that are left out of a book which, having historically been put together chiefly by white men, is fundamentally biased, and asks whether that truly makes them any less credible or valuable.
The author notes that Dictionary is “focused…on early feminism in predominantly white circles,” but wonders about vernacular which is typically used within the circles of particular racial minorities, and is often looked down upon. They mention AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) as a well-known example, and consider it a “missed opportunity.” I agree; some ideas about the way that all women’s words (including and perhaps especially women of colour) have been excluded could have made for such a brilliant contribution to the plot.
Slightly more recent ideas about intersectional feminism didn’t quite reach these books, and I do think so much depth could have been added with a deeper dive into the historical exclusion of all women within academia, suffrage, and linguistics. Of course, however, not all books need to cover all issues, and Dictionary and Bookbinder absolutely pose valuable questions about class and gender. I thoroughly enjoyed both, and maintain that both are valuable contributions to Australian—and global—literature.
With the announcement of The Dictionary of Lost Words being adapted for TV, I hope to see more of Pip Williams and conversation surrounding her books. I’m excited to see what she produces next.
Director: Damien Chazelle
Writer: Damien Chazelle
Cast: Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and Diego Calva
Running Time: 189 minutes
Rating: 2/10
Babylon is lurid, aggressive, and utterly demented.
Damien Chazelle’s deep thrust into Dante’s Inferno of Hollywood stardom and obscenity, set amidst the technological metamorphosis of cinema and sound from the 1920s onwards, is a relentless barrage of visceral debauchery, sexual objectification, and human degradation. Chazelle has practically modelled the plot of Babylon on Singin’ in the Rain. As the moviemaking industry confronts the impending transition from the silent pictures to the immensely popular ‘talkies’, the careers of some of Hollywood’s nascent and established stars face ruination and obsolescence. So Babylon follows the contours of Singin’ in the Rain, except the former lacks any of the wholesome charm of the latter, and features orgies. It is a three hour lumbering beast of a movie that regularly refuses to die quietly, and it is not a picture I am inclined to ever watch again.
In recent years, it has become public knowledge that the Hollywood film industry has long harbored a toxic underbelly; wherein lies the expectation that one should degrade and subjugate themselves to make headway in the industry. This is Babylon’s treatise: to enlighten the viewer to a historical precedent of gendered and racialized discrimination and abuse within the Hollywood film industry. However, in the age of #metoo and #oscarssowhite, wherein the dominance of white, male power within the entertainment industry has come to the fore of the public consciousness amidst much scrutiny and debate, and where strides are being made to hold abusers to account, and to advocate for greater degrees of inclusivity, representation and respect within the industry, Chazelle’s treatise unfortunately feels both outdated and intensely laboured. And laboured it is in Babylon, with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and the pornographic sensibility of a horny teenager. Chazelle may believe that his movie belongs to the zeitgeist, except Babylon is more provocative than introspective, and it quite regularly feels like a regression, in lieu of a progression, in challenging the structures of white, male power that has long pervaded Hollywood. We should endeavour to find solutions, not reopen old wounds.
Chazelle’s contribution to the historical narrative of Hollywood culture involves the perverse degradation and depravity of its human subjects, which endures for the entirety of its three hour runtime. In the eternity that it takes to move from an elephant excreting onto a camera lens to a descent into the bowels of an L.A snuff dungeon, I wondered if the self-styled provocateur, Damien Chazelle, is punishing his audience as much as his characters. The film is an exhaustingly perennial exercise in human denigration that is summated in a pre-title prologue featuring a boisterous Hollywood mansion party filled with end-to-end debauchery that sets the underlying tone of the movie, and it never relents. Most scenes end with a grisly punchline, and it is truly exasperating. Babylon seeks to illuminate the institutionalised intolerance that white, heterosexual Hollywood has historically fostered towards race, gender, and sexuality, and whilst the film does confer rare moments of topical dialogue to its audience, Chazelle is all too keen to return to the hedonistic excesses of champagne, cocaine and sex, often depriving those fleeting moments of their power.
In what will surely become the most discussed sequence of the film, the climax of Babylon transports us through a cosmic, Space Odyssey-esque montage of cinema’s technological evolution, from cinema’s early beginnings and innovations, such as the conception and the capture of the moving image, to the more recent advances made in the filmmaking process i.e CGI and motion-capture. The montage is crudely stitched together as if Chazelle and his film editor, Tom Cross, only conceived of it a few hours before the production deadline. Ironically, the montage celebrates films that are infinitely superior to Babylon, such as Jurassic Park, The Matrix, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, as well as films that are not so great such as James Cameron’s technically superb, but albeit total bloat-fest Avatar. But what does the montage actually signify? In essence, the montage illustrates how the art of cinema has ultimately endured, thrived, and evolved throughout the decades, despite the personal toll that Hollywood has demanded from its artists. Ultimately though, it is yet another trite argument on the separation of Hollywood art from the Hollywood culture that produces it, and worst still, Chazelle proves himself to be too immature to handle such themes with any tact. Furthermore, the montage creates a dissonance between the evolution of filmmaking technology and the personal losses that come from pursuing a Hollywood career. These two ideas are often irreconcilable, and lack elucidation, but if I had to guess, I’d conclude that Chazelle holds the belief that achievement and progress always requires some measure of personal sacrifice, and that, whilst cinema will live on through its technological change, its stars will inevitably fade. However, as the weight of the film’s preceding three hours of carnage bears down on its montaged climax, one can’t help but interpret Chazelle’s controlling idea as nothing short of cynical and misguided, especially given the recent developments coming out of Hollywood visual effects houses detailing the exploitative working conditions that artists are operating under for demanding and unscrupulous film studios like Marvel Studios and Disney.
Damien Chazelle’s long-time collaborator, Justin Hurwitz, infuses the film with a pulsating and jazzy score – which has been riding high on my Apple Music playlist for a few weeks now. It is the film’s single most creative element, and it certainly accentuates the film’s manic persona. To my ear, the soundtrack also features melodies that are inspired by Hurwitz’s Oscar-winning score from Chazelle’s 2012 La La Land. This is a purposeful decision made by both Hurwitz and Chazelle. La La Land is arguably a love letter to the Hollywood dream, and therefore, Hurwitz’s allusion to La La Land lends a profoundly darker note to Babylon’s nightmarish inversion of that very same dream.
With all its grotesquely lurid and over-the-top proceedings, Babylon evidently wants to polarise audiences and wants to be deemed ‘provocative’ yet one cannot help but feel that such an intent is merely an attempt to excuse the film’s appalling lack of both substance and of any adept directing on Chazelle’s part. Babylon is crude and humourless, and frankly, I was given more enjoyment out of wondering what the boomer couple in front of me thought of the ‘golden-shower scene’. The film’s inter-textual relationship with Singin’ in the Rain is also misjudged, and I doubt that Stanley Donen or Gene Kelly would have appreciated their feel-good film being used as the inspiration for this story. With Babylon, Chazelle self-styles himself as a provocateur and an auteur, which might just be the film’s flattest joke of all given that he’s made one of the worst films of 2023 thus far.
Aphrodite’s body, born of foam, and risen from a scallop shell, speaks in echoes of sea-salted flesh, sensuality, fertility, desire. She is the namesake of aphrodisiacs, those foods professing to be of sexually stimulant quality.
Bridging the most basic of instincts – food and fornication – aphrodisiacs have long played an important part in the continuation of our species. And thanks to the miracle that is modern agriculture and refrigeration, ambergris aside, these remedies are readily available year-round.
But do these foods stand up to their potential? Have we diluted their potency with GMOs and factory farming? Were the Ancient Greeks really onto something, or were they simply horned up from poppy juice and legalised sex work?
A requisite Adonis appointed as my lab partner, I committed an afternoon and an evening to investigate these pressing concerns. To intuitively eat my way through the aphrodisiac almanac. For science, of course.
OYSTERS
An eyebrow-raisingly suggestive offering on any menu, there is a covenant formed in the ritual of ordering oysters. A pact unspoken but known by all.
Oh-so-casually, it is thrown in as an apparent afterthought – “Oh, and a dozen oysters as well. Yep, the natural ones, thanks.”
You pretend not to nervously sweat, and the waiter pretends not to knowingly glance at your companion. Everyone else in earshot, or joining you at the table, smiles wanly and pretends they aren’t being assaulted by depraved intrusive thoughts.
Faced with open pools of slippery seawater, even the physical act strikes a nerve. Tipping your head back, pushing past a choking spasm, maintaining coy composure.
An oyster requires you to take it whole, to devour an entire life in one greedy swallow. For optimal freshness, it is still alive when you suck it from the shell.
It’s the obvious choice, but obvious for a reason. An oyster is voyeuristic.
FIGS
More than flavour, there are aesthetic, textural elements to the fig. It is more about the mythology, the build-up, than the finish. Downy and supple, the skin gives way to insides like burst capillaries, rosy and blooming.
Some say that Eve’s forbidden fruit was actually a fig. Does that alone not tempt you – to taste that which destroyed the innocence of man?
Which is to say: it tastes okay. Kind of a combination of honey and dirt.
PISTACHIOS
This one is more about edging than anything else. It’s thinking that you’ve just about got the damn shell open, but in reality, you’re far from it.
Maybe you’ll never quite get that teasing seam to open. Maybe you’ll never feel that sweet release. But the thought keeps you going at it for a good long while.
POMEGRANATE
Everyone seems to have a trick to harvesting the seeds from one of these things until it gets down to the doing. And then it’s just you and the pomegranate and the kitchen tools are discarded in favour of fingers and there’s claret and pith everywhere and it’s dramatic and frenzied and savage. An exercise in delayed gratification.
A lot of these foods lend themselves more to being eaten with our hands, without barrier, skin on skin. Seeds leaking from the pomegranate beg to be plucked, and pushed into a breathless mouth. The juice, known only to the onlooker, aches to be brushed away. Hands guiding hands, towards satiation, towards satisfaction.
DARK CHOCOLATE
Like sex, this is a flavour that gets better with age. The cheap, saccharine stuff that you binged on when you were younger just doesn’t taste as good. Eating dark chocolate feels adult. It feels like needs being met, like dessert with a side benefit of antioxidants, like missionary with a side benefit of orgasm.
STRAWBERRIES
When up against the heavies, like oysters, pomegranates, or wine, strawberries come off a bit cliche. Why be Serena van der Woodsen and Dan Humprey when you could be Persephone and Hades?
STRAWBERRIES IN WINE
Now we’re talking.
STRAWBERRIES AND POMEGRANATE SEEDS IN WINE
The night has unravelled. It’s started to become more Dionysian than Aphrodisiac.
STRAWBERRIES AND POMEGRANATE SEEDS AND BITS OF FIG SEED IN INCREASINGLY CLOUDY WINE
Don’t be foul.
ASPARAGUS
If you’ve resorted to asparagus as a turn-on, you should probably be looking for a more serious solution to your problem.
Acceptable only as a sex-related foodstuff when served alongside toast and poached eggs the morning after.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 5 ‘Cum As You Are’
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Sometimes traipsing around Canberra I feel haunted by an unreal ghost. The spectre is an unknowable woman, but one whose presence I feel like a current of electricity always.
The ghost’s name is Kate, and she attended the ANU in 1984. She lived raucously and radiantly, testing limits of appropriateness, in existential opposition to ‘The Man’. She bleached her hair to a frizzy and discoloured bird’s nest, wore exclusively second-hand clothes and was most often accompanied by a misbehaved and clumsily oversized dalmation.
Beyond graduation, Kate had an equally remarkable and passionate life. She eventually had a daughter, who now attends the same ANU, and who lives in perpetual wistfulness about this version of her mother whom she will never meet. I’ve heard many stories centring Kate as protagonist. Through these histories, I know her to be bold and outrageous and someone I think I would’ve liked to befriend.
On the day I was born Kate became Mum. She describes the transition as cataclysmic –suddenly she looked down at the crying, clawing lump of purple flesh in her arms, and knew that this infant was the most precious thing in the world. Where Kate was irresponsible and chaotic, Mum was completely dedicated to the lives and wellbeing of her children. She says the best thing she ever did in her life was her children and they are her proudest accomplishment. The loss of Kate was worth the gain of Rose and Natalie, according to Mum.
I describe Mum’s devotion to me and my sister as selfless in the sense that she sacrificed parts of herself to be our mother. The pressure placed on mothers to deprioritise aspects of their life, like their career, friendships and hobbies, is too frequently dismissed as part and parcel of motherhood. Motherhood is sacrifice – to be a ‘good’ mother you must sacrifice. Mum first, self second. My Mum is selfless in the sense that upon my birth Mum took precedence over Kate.
Whether brainwashed by hormones or not, Mum was completely enraptured with my infant self, and gladly devoted herself to motherhood. I am so indebted to her for her wholehearted commitment to this identity. My childhood was one smothered with love and gentleness. My mother let me try every sport, musical instrument or obscure hobby that I became interested in on a whim, despite my tendency to give up immediately. She came to every school assembly and cheered for me and my participation awards.
Mum is supportive, caring, generous and the most patient and loving person I know. It’s hard to see much of myself in that. I consider that I must be more like Kate, maybe if only for the fact that we both came to the same university, in the same city, through the same years of our lives.
Kate used to sing at Tilley’s in Lyneham, back when it was a lesbian club, while I now order soy lattes from the same venue. Kate had drinks in Union Court with her friends after class, which I do too, and modelled nude for students at the School of Art (another shared profession). She had shitty boyfriends, fought with her parents and sometimes she was reckless just because it was fun. She cycled down University Ave; studied at Chifley and attended classes in AD Hope and Copland. Balancing work and university made her stressed, not that she was particularly studious or dedicated to her work in bars, but she cut loose often and wholeheartedly.
Kate and myself, though we never met, have much in common. While at ANU we both cried in an academic office, both had too much to drink on too many occasions, both failed a course and both found ourselves at times in and out of love and lust. There is a closeness between us which extends beyond the superficialities of two twenty-something women. We feared and hoped for the same things, for ourselves and others, share the same hurts and frustrations.
Kate had the light in the 1980s and she was celestial.
I have the light now and though I think my shine might be dull in comparison to hers, I love my youth. I love coming home at all hours, having spent the night doing whatever with whomever. I love that the only person I have to take care of is myself, and that I can generally get away with only doing that to a passing grade of fifty percent.
When I float through Canberra I wonder if she felt the same freedom. I wonder if she felt the power in her beauty and trappings of youth that I do, or if she would have sneered at my vanity. At my age, like me, she never wanted to be a mother. Like me, she feared the sacrifice of her personhood and the weight of that responsibility. She never imagined losing Kate to Mum and likewise I cannot imagine myself under any other name than Rose. We both could never see ourselves choosing someone else over our own self-absorption and joyful recklessness, and yet one of us did.
The connection I feel to the unknowable Kate is spiritual and I carry her with me through every Canberra moment that we share. It sometimes feels as if I could bump into her at a party at an inner-north share house or sit down next to her in a sociology tutorial. I am enchanted by the woman I’ll never know, simultaneously mythologising and mourning her.
My Mum is brilliant and wild and known for her energy and authenticity. I would never mean to insinuate she became dull when she became Mum. But it’s true that Kate, in a way, died when Rose and Mum were born. It’s not a sad thing but I still long to meet her, the version of my mother who was just like me but brighter.
This distance between mother and daughter is essential of course. Mum says Kate would not have been a good mother and I believe her because I believe I also would make for an appalling and neglectful parent. But at twenty-two years old I would not look to Kate for her maternity. I would look to her in reverence of Mum and all that she sacrificed for me. I would look to her in veneration of youth and its joys. I would look to her and she to me as mother and daughter, seeing each other in ourselves and ourselves in each other.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 5 ‘Cum As You Are’
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Comments Off on How To Have Sex With a Trans Person
The first time I had sex with my partner, my chest was bound with kinesiology tape. It was an inelegant process: I cut the tape to size, covered my nipples with bandaids, layered it across each breast, pulling the flesh sideways and sticking it to my ribcage. I didn’t even notice it was on till we were getting intimate. Then I looked down.
I should take it off. She probably wants to see my boobs. She probably thinks it’s weird.
But I couldn’t. Not without getting into a very unsexy pose and ripping my skin off. So I left it and accepted that I was having sex with a bound chest.
And I loved it. It made me feel really comfortable. The following day I felt a glow of pride – someone had made me feel sexy the way I wanted to be sexy.
When I’d had sex before, I had stripped completely naked. Sure, seeing my breasts and having them be seen freaked me out. I didn’t think I had any other option but to get used to being uncomfortable during sex.
My partner showed me that this wasn’t true.
If you’re cis (not trans), I want you to read this article because maybe, one day, you’ll want to have sex with a trans person. And it can be daunting. It requires communication and understanding of each other. Thankfully, the requirement of an open mind and forgoing of sexual conventions allows an opportunity for really great sex.
FOR CIS PEOPLE
Before the Bedroom
It’s essential to take note of things that may make your partner feel feminine versus masculine. The kind of touch and the type of words you use while intimate can be quite powerful.
For a transmasculine person, this might be holding their arm while walking, sitting on their lap, or using compliments like ‘hot’ or ‘handsome.’ For a transfeminine person, touching their waist, putting your arm around them, and using compliments like ‘pretty’ or ‘beautiful.’ This doesn’t mean you are limited to these behaviours – they’re just things that can affirm your partner’s gender.
Using Toys
Whether you’ve used toys during sex before, it’s worth considering what they might mean to your partner. For cis, straight couples, sex toys can be a type of foreplay or a once-in-a-while thing. For trans people, they might mean a lot more. If this is the case, reevaluate your perception of toys. They don’t need to take away from the intimacy of sex, and they don’t mean that either of you are incapable of manually pleasing the other. Try to keep an open mind, and if neither of you is experienced, head to Fyshwick and take a look through the sex shops. You’re bound to find something that makes both of you feel good.
Understanding dysphoria
Dysphoria is the discomfort trans people feel with their assigned gender at birth, ranging from mild unease to extreme distress. It can be a big part of someone’s life or not present at all. Either way, it’s often exacerbated during sex, so it’s vital that you understand the basics of how it works and talk to your partner about their specific experience.
Dysphoria is not static, and levels of dysphoria will fluctuate naturally and in response to triggers. The things that trigger dysphoria may be being misgendered, having certain parts of their body touched, or seeing themselves naked.
Having sex is a vulnerable act. Be kind to your trans partner by being aware that they could feel dysphoric during sex and respecting their boundaries, even if they may seem odd to you.
FOR TRANS PEOPLE
Your trans body is sexy!
I spent so long feeling unsexy. I didn’t want to be sexy as a woman, and I could never be sexy in the way a cis man is. But what makes someone sexy isn’t how well they look like the ideal of a man or a woman. If your partner wants to have sex with you, they find you sexy. Be proud and secure in that.
Unpack your feelings during sex
Investigate why something makes you feel weird or bad during sex. This way, you can learn what your boundaries are. Ask yourself: What precisely is making me uncomfortable? Is it dysphoria, do I not like it, or is it just new? Is this pleasurable for me?
Be specific
Your cis partner may not know what questions to ask or won’t want to ask in case they make you uncomfortable. Before sex, try telling your partner your boundaries, what you like, and what language you are comfortable with using.
Trust yourself & your partner
Don’t keep going along with sex just because you don’t want to offend your partner. Sometimes you get a random wave of dysphoria – you’re always better off stopping rather than pushing through. Doing so strengthens your own self-awareness and the trust you place in your partner.
Be mindful of your partner’s experience
When I didn’t like the way my partner was touching me, I used to just pull away. Feeling dysphoric, I would be too ashamed to say much to her. I didn’t realise that this was making her uncomfortable.
It’s painful to feel like you have triggered someone’s dysphoria during sex – like you’ve failed as a partner. Be mindful of this experience. Explain what you’re feeling, and clarify what you want to do next. If you need a specific touch to stop, a simple;
“Could you not ——, I’m feeling a bit dysphoric” does the trick.
It’s also okay to be urgent and brief. Try;
“Can we take a break” or “we need to stop”
Once you’ve calmed down, explain what happened to your partner and do something together that makes you feel closer – watch a movie or cuddle. Aftercare is important after sex, but it’s even more important after ‘failed’ sex.
This may seem like a lot to remember. But all of these things will develop over time. It may take a little more consideration than ‘traditional’ sex; but I promise, it’s worth it.
Originally published in Woroni Vol. 72 Issue 5 ‘Cum As You Are’
Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.
Comments Off on Love Stories: In Conversation with Trent Dalton
Go hug someone you love, ASAP!
On Saturday the 13th of August, I sacrificed an hour of my busy afternoon to the gods of the Canberra Writers Festival. The event? Love Stories: In Conversation with Trent Dalton. The attendee? Me, alone – I had failed to convince any of my friends that this was an event for normal people (I.e., non-bookworms, people who hadn’t read his book and therefore didn’t immediately begin writing a series of letters to all the people they love). Love Stories is Dalton’s most recent book, inspired by his best friend’s mother leaving him her antique typewriter. In honour of her and her life, Dalton took to the busiest corner in Brisbane with a sign saying, “Sentimental writer collecting love stories. Do you have one to share?” The stories he collected and the conversations he had with people, safe to say, had quite an impact on me.
Having attended another Canberra Writers festival event that morning, I was dubious about this one. Although I love, admire and deeply respect Trent Dalton, the morning panelists had made me want to (in order):
become a leader of industry (maybe like a CEO in a male industry type vibe), using her position to pull other women and disadvantaged groups up with her;
pursue journalism (idk, one of the panelists was a journalist and she sounded like a baddie);
hug my parents (and thank them for never telling me women should be seen and not heard);
hug my (dearly departed) grandmother and tell her that while I understood why she was forced to be polite, accepting etc. etc., things had changed, and I wished she hadn’t been so strict on forcing my sister and I to become nice, quiet, polite young women.
The ability of this event to inspire these feelings within me came from the honest and inspiring connections between all the panelists and the discussions of their experiences. I was therefore unsure that the one white man on stage (being interviewed by the wonderful Lisa Miller) would be able to provoke in me the same thought-provoking, inspiring, empowered ideas that the morning event had. And yet, it kinda did??? Maybe even more so?? Weird. The fact that the first event managed to instill so many immediate and forceful feelings within me and yet not be the best event of the day is still disturbing to me.
When he (Mr Dalton, naturally) first came on stage and began speaking, I was a little shocked and offended at the number of times he used the word “like.” Although I study linguistics and am aware that no forms of language are inherently better than any others and I shouldn’t judge people for how they speak and so on and so on, I’ll be honest, it made me cringe. It made him sound (in my humble opinion, speaking with all the authority of an undergraduate university student) rather inarticulate. The opposite of the eloquent, moving speaker I expected him to be.
As the event went on, I began to see how wrong my first impression truly was. Not that Dalton didn’t use the word “like” a lot, he did. And not that he didn’t swear, because he did. Or have a bit of a bogan accent (he definitely did). I just came to see that there was far more to him and his message than his initial appearance led me to believe. And like, I knew this before, but he really made me believe it. Because he appealed not to my head, and my university education, which said, rationally, the first event had been better, but to my heart. And my heart said that any person who could make me, over the course of an hour, want to:
Go and hug every person in my life,
Fall in love (straight away, if possible – anyone interested?)
Cry
Send a message to all the people I’ve lost
Begin saying ‘I love you’ more (maybe even to my tutors? Life is too short)
was someone that I should really take notes from.
I could tell that everyone around me was affected in the same way. As Trent (calling authors by their last name is so outdated) spoke about his dead best friend’s mother, who bequeathed him the typewriter he used to write the book, the two women in front of me hugged, clearly having also lost someone recently. As he spoke about his mother’s experiences of horrific domestic violence, the audience all around me gasped. When he joked about his former teacher telling him he would one day be the head of an outlaw bikie gang, we laughed. That was the power of this event, and what the first event had, in some way, been missing. Trent speaking so openly and honestly about love, and its importance in all our lives, made us all feel a little closer to the person sitting beside us than we had been when we first sat down. He used love, his experiences of it, and others’ experiences of it to weave the common thread of humanity through every row of that theatre.
I was also deeply impacted when Lisa Miller, the interviewer (or conversation partner I suppose), asked Trent what the whole point of his book was. While most of his responses to questions were rather roundabout, he did directly answer this one in the end. And the simple answer was: love.
He described it as the kitchen scene within his Brisbane home. The environment that you look forward to returning to at the end of the day. The place you tell your loved ones about your stuff-up at work. The place you laugh and hug and cry and get relief from the world at the end of your 8-hour workday. The place you feel safe. And while not everyone has the luck and incredible privilege of having a place like this to return to, many of us do.
And I, on behalf of Trent (and I hope he would approve of this, as I am not sufficiently close to him to ask), would like you to appreciate that extra hard today, or tomorrow, or whenever you are next there. Appreciate the people who make you laugh when you’re on the verge of tears, and who make every problem seem smaller just by sharing it. Appreciate the fact that we, as humans, have the need, the desire, the drive, to create these connections which give our life meaning. And don’t forget that you, too, are part of this ongoing and resilient chain of humanity, and that you deserve a pat on the back for your role in it.
After all, if you go and hug someone, or tell someone you love them, or you, personally, get yourself through a tough period in your life, you are contributing to the loved and lived experiences of others, and of yourself. We are all a little patchwork of the love we have given and received over the course of our lives, something which Trent made me incredibly proud of and grateful for. Thanks, Trent (love you!).