Gillian Polack's Blog, page 195

gillpolack @ 2012-04-03T12:57:00

I so want to argue that Fernand Braudel should have been writing time travel novels to solve his dilemma of the small life, the institutional history and the longue duree. It's a natural mechanism for bringing these aspects of history together.

Now I shall spend my day wondering what a science fiction novel would be like, if written by Fernand Braudel. Baxterian, I suspect.

On robust criticism

A phrase I use keeps coming back to haunt me. That phrase is 'robust criticism.'

Given I dreamed of it last night (why can't I dream the dreams I was taught I would dream? last night was all about saving the world, one critique at a time - SF critics were all superheroes, defeating a world-encompassing plague through superior analytical technique and fancy raincoats) I thought a simple explanation might not be amiss. It will help the people who have asked (although I've mostly explained privately) and it will help the people who take the phrase and assume I mean the same as they do (which I sometimes do) and, above all, it will mean that migraine dreams next time will be about something quite different. When I finish this post, I shall have earned my breakfast.

When I say 'robust criticism' I'm talking about the structure of the critique, and the argument, and whether that argument is properly backed up. The robustness refers to the strength of the critique and its ability to be a useful part of an ongoing discussion on a work or author. I do not mean the strength of the diatribe aspects and especially I don't mean the number of ad hominem/feminam attacks contained in the criticism, for they're likely to drag the critical discourse somewhere nasty - in doing so, they undermine robust criticism.

If I said that Ink-Blotter's work lacked charm, that is my personal response and it might read delightfully (for, of course, I would say it with much wit), but it's not critically robust. It doesn't help others understand the work, nor how I reached my conclusions.

If I said that Ink-Blotter's work on papercuts lacked charm because the sentences were all of a length, the adjectives chosen were all placed in the same pattern around the verb and were vapid, standard choices (and gave examples) and that use of the work by Ink-Well would have helped because Ink-Well's work was full of the precise type of rather amusing anecdotes that would have lightened Ink-Blotter's dry style, that's more robust.

If I said that Ink-Blotter should give up on Indian Ink and never write again for I don't like his shoe size, it is not only not robust criticism, it doesn't help in the critical understanding of Ink-Blotter at all. It makes what I'm writing more about me than about Ink-Blotter's magnum opus. I question whether it helps anyone except the biographer of the person who says it, because it takes the game right away from considered criticism in a way that can be hurtful. But, for the purposes of my definition - I don't consider it robust criticism and it's not the sort of thing I was waxing passionate about when I said Australian spec fic needed more robust criticism nor when I mentioned the Clarke controversy.

If I gave a full scholarly analysis of Ink-Blotter's work, covering style, content, structure, contexts - that's very robust.

If I said "Pfft - didn't finish it" or "One day I ought to get round to reading it" then that's not only not robust, it isn't criticism.

Have I earned breakfast?

gillpolack @ 2012-04-02T22:55:00

I love the world again. It's not just the eyes, it's the last book I'm reading tonight, Mark Rose's Alien Encounters. I like the way he approaches genre. He understands its fluidity; he places it in time; he understands how writers push limits and how they don't. It fits my Medievalist interpretation of genre far more than the work I threw a hissy fit over yesterday. I'm going to try to finish his book before I give up for the night.

After that, I'm having an early night. I don't want to. What I want to do is sit up late and watch old Dr Who.

I've been fighting a migraine since about lunchtime, and I'm finally losing the battle. Chocolate will get me through for a little, but not for more than a half hour. Most migraines I can work through (with care) but every now and then one hits that requires a dark room, medicine and hot water bottles. I did that earlier tonight and it worked well enough so that I ate dinner and did some solid work. And I answered my telephone. And I blogged.

It's all caught up with me again, alas. I like Rose's treatment of genre, though - it redeems my jaundiced view of humankind. When I lie in bed with those hot water bottles and with painkillers inside me, I shall be smiling.

gillpolack @ 2012-04-02T19:39:00

I have - entirely unexpectedly - totally bamboozled a telemarketer. First off, he called me 'Mrs Polack' and I accepted it with, "That's not quite correct, but what do you actually want?" I'm afraid I used my teacher-with-a-class-that's-trying-my-patience voice. This has been known to give innocents nightmares of homework not yet done, even when I haven't actually assigned homework.

This flustered him and it took him a moment before he said, "I'm calling about your mobile phone usage."

"I don't have mobile phone usage because I don't have a mobile phone."

"Do you want one?"

"If I wanted one, I would have one."* I used my firm I-don't-believe-a-dog-ate-your-homework-and-if-you-give-any-more-excuses-it's-a-week's-detention voice. I didn't even know I had this voice in me.

I went silent.

He started asking me his next question and stopped in his tracks and suddenly realised that none of his scripts applied. He turned and said something about this to his colleague. I missed most of it, but the words "I'm just trying to..." definitely appeared.

He thanked me politely and we both hung up.





*And so I will, when money is better. Although I actually do have the one I borrowed from J for the UK, but I haven't used it since I was in London and it's not actually mine.

gillpolack @ 2012-04-02T17:35:00

My right eye is finally stable. I have one last check in 6 weeks and I'll be out of danger, but the specialist pronounced himself very pleased.

I did a bunch of work prior to this and will do a bunch of work in about an hour, but now I'm waiting for painkillers to kick in. It was coincidental, but well timed, for the eyedrops haven't faded entirely yet and everything looks harsh still.

This week is a strange mixture of messages, health and catching up on all my work.

Women's History Month

I've had such a wonderful WHM celebration. Thank you, everyone, for being part of it.

Just in case you missed a post by a favourite author, I'm listing them alphabetically by first name. I was going to write a couple of posts myself, to fill in gaps, but there were no gaps. It was a very fine month. Lots of writers I love remembered by other writers I love, all that gorgeous art and music... maybe I'll do this again next year.

Alma Alexander

Angela Slatter

Anita Heiss

Deborah Biancotti

Deborah Kalin

Delia Sherman

Donna Maree Hanson

Elizabeth Chadwick

Felicity Pulman

Jack Dann

Joanne Anderton

Kaaron Warren

Karen Simpson Nikakis

Kari Sperring

Kate Forsyth

Kay Kenyon

Kylie Chan

Laura Goodin

Lisa Hannett

Lucy Sussex

Marty Young

Mary Victoria

Nicole Murphy

RJ Astruc

Russell Farr

Samantha Faulkner

Simone Penkethman

Sue Bursztynski

Sue Isle

Thersa Matsuura

Thoraiya Dyer

Trent Jamieson

gillpolack @ 2012-04-01T23:20:00

I feel I need to make it very, very clear that I do not share the genre views of the literary historian I was reading earlier tonight. Tomorrow I plan to dedicate my day to writers who either don't look at genre at all, or who have some basic understanding of it. Or I could read Oscar Wilde.

gillpolack @ 2012-04-01T22:38:00

Something's really bugging me tonight.

I'm back (finally) where I ought to have been and am engaged in research. Sounds good. It would be good...except...*

I notice that the treatment of novels - the methods used to analyse them and the very words used to describe them - changes according to whether the work is seen as a Special Literary Work of Genius or whether it's a a novel or whether it's a simple genre work. The tone of the text changes to match the type of text being discussed. The final summaries don't bring these disparities of analysis into account, but assume that they're entirely properly analytical ways of handling the subject of study.

The various tools for analysis in each case are perfectly fine. The problem is that apples are being mixed with oranges being mixed with baskets of fruit without us being told first "Look, they're fruit. This is how they're the same - now let's look at differences." No, it's worse than that. We're told that the big baskets are dull and that the apples are mass-produced and for mass audiences and that the oranges are delicate one-off subtle blends of flavour and scent and special petalness.

This may well be true, but it needs to be demonstrated. You know - evidence, examples, clear explanations. Pronouncing postmodernism and declaring metafiction and citing Barthes and Derrida isn't enough. Switching approaches without evidence and explanation of the different approaches is not a demonstration of difference in types of text, it's a demonstration of a scholarly belief in difference.

I might be tempted to think that this particular scholar has no understanding of how genres work or how writers work with and within genre constraints and where they break them and how they play with them and what these add up to for the best genre writers** and how these compare with the oranges. And you can't do this wild leaping between different types of analysis without admitting that some writers happen to do the PoMometasignifier thing from within the constraints of genre.***

In other words, one academic writer need to sort out their premises.

And that was me having a temper tantrum. Ahem. I will return to the book and finish taking notes and move on. There is really a lot of good stuff in the book - it's just that the shifting sands made it hard for me to negotiate. It would have made several really wonderful essays.




*Today is elliptical therefore today I use ellipses. It makes sense to me. Other days I get dumped by life and things come to a full stop, so I use periods. When I feel punny, I find that comma comma comma comma comma chameleon picture, and send it to someone.

**Who are mostly baskets but who might be apples, depending on where the analysis is shifting from and to**** - this confusion is another reason why shifting ground without clear reasoning is really not a thing of wisdom.

***This paragraph is an example of writing so pretentious it needs translating into French to make sense. That's a critique of quite another scholarly work. The only thing it had in common with the one I'm currently finishing is a fascination with Derrida.

****I needed to footnote a footnote! By the end of the book, one of the apples and a whole basket of strange fruit turned out to be oranges, of the very wondrous special petal variety. No explanation was given as to how they modified their basic characteristics nor why most genre (but not this one set) was inferior. It was like a symphony by Victor Borge.

gillpolack @ 2012-04-01T17:01:00

Last night I had a fabulous time meeting roller derby and discovering its extraordinary nature. It's the sport of geeks. I was going to tell you about it in enormous detail except... I have just had the most astonishing and wonderful afternoon.

silvanime has a father (as one does) and that father has a friend and he took me on a tour of his private rock collection. He's going to replace the very few times from my own rock collection (gypsum, calcite and quartz) that were missing - and the pieces will have stories attached (for he understands rocks and their stories) and I got to tell him about Hattah Lakes and about fossilised sea urchins (which were not in the same story). I saw the most amazing rocks and learned so much about them. And a hole that the burglary had left in my heart has healed.

Burglary isn't about money - it's about emotions and one's life history. The small pieces of rather interesting stone (I will show anyone who visits - you don't even have to hint hard) I was given (fossil and crystal - this was in addition to the replacements he's finding me - rock people are so wonderfully kind!) were worth more to me than any insurance payout.

There's only one small thing that I now must do. I've rediscovered my childhood ambition of owning an uncut diamond - a natural crystal like the ones that John probably lost in the Wash. I could use it for teaching...

Women's History Month - special final guest post - Samantha Faulkner

Women's History Month – Nurturing your own strong black woman !

As an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman who has been my inspiration? Upon reflection over the last couple of days, I thought back to how I came to love the written word which led me to answer this question.

Growing up on Thursday Island in the Torres Strait I remember my grandfather buying Phantom comics and reading these. They were sold at the local shops and new editions would come out for sale on a regular basis. My grandfather would buy these and pass on to me and my sisters to read, and these comics would be added to his growing collection contained in large cardboard boxes hidden under our beds.

At first I didn't read the word bubbles, but looked at the pictures instead. I liked what I saw, a guy in a purple suit fighting crime, in the jungle with a strong female role model, Diana who was beautiful and intelligent working at the United Nations. I also liked Hero, the horse and Devil his wolf-dog.

Diana wasn't mentioned much at first but she came into her own with the character developing over time. She married the Phantom, they had twins and continued to live in the skull cave and also in a tree house (this was very appealing to a girl who liked to climb trees). Diana still had a career which was at times dangerous, yet she balanced that with her family, supported by a tutor and nanny for the kids.

I wasn't interested much in school, English and the written word. I grew up speaking Creole as a first language which was like a broken English and included some island languages and Malay words.

Moving to the mainland in the 80s, I started reading Trixie Belden books, which were stories of a young female detective. My friends read these and we would read and share books. I was also watching television programs of the Famous Five at the time.

As I grew older I moved onto Agatha Christie novels and I don't think I've ever tired of these. Who can beat the history, adventure and romance of her writing? Her central characters of a Belgian detective, Poirot and a retired older lady Miss Marple were not your average people. It was amazing that murder occurred almost on a daily basis in an English village! However, she made it work. Agatha Christie transported me to those local and exotic places and I went along for the journey.

My journey continued with seeking strong black woman as role models. Today, I belong to a group of strong black women writers with Kerry Reed-Gilbert, Jenni Kemarre Martinello, Lyndy Delian, Lisa Fuller and Jeanine Leane. The group welcomes Indigenous men and we have one man at the moment who actively encourages and supports us.

I admire writers such as Anita Heiss for her tenacity and determination to do what she loves and keep pushing the boundaries. I love the poetry of Ali Cobby Eckermann.

Who has been my inspiration? My mum, aunty and grandmother have been my inspiration thus far. My sisters and friends continue to support me. I've found that the search for the strong black woman must start from within. You must nurture your own strong black woman, for yourself but also for your peers and the next generation. We owe ourselves that much to be the best that we can be.

Weaving connections

Women sit on the wide brown land
Out in the evening, sun going down
Slowly they work as time stands still
Talking and laughing, hand over hand
They thread the reeds, dry and green

Women babuk*, with the ocean in sight
Cool breeze caress their brown skin
As their fingers move quickly
With the palm leaves over ugamali*
Sound of the Mills sisters filling the air

They work quickly and quietly
Creating designs to use and to purchase
For family and visitors
Occasionally yarning of life in the past
And what there is to come

Stories exchanged and songs sung
Women have done this over the years
Relationships forged and culture learned
Elders to youth, women to women
Weaving connections, then and now.

Samantha Faulkner

*babuk – sitting cross legged on the ground
*ugamali – island dress

Samantha Faulkner is an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman, with links to Badu and Moa Island in the Torres Strait and the Yadhaigana people of Cape York Peninsula. She wrote a book on her grandfather's life, Life Blong Ali Drummond published by Aboriginal Studies Press in 2007. She recently had her poetry published in Etchings Indigenous: Treaty. She has a passion to share the stories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australia with other Australians and the international community.