Impossible Adaptations and Tour Updates
The giveaway is a copy of Winnie Dunn’s debut novel, 'Dirt Poor Islanders'
Hello from the airport at Townsville! My event here last night was so brilliant. About 100 people came out, and I was signing books for ages, and my friend Katie (from the Egypt trip) had organised with her friend’s local bar—Hooch & Fellow—for a special blueberry cocktail for us. Now that is hospitality. The local bookstore here, Mary Who?, are wonderful and have backed me since the Eggy and Beauty days. Last night I met a busload of school students, and I think it’s important for them to see and hear from authors. The access-to-culture divide between regional and metropolitan Australia is a shame.
The only downside is that it’s going to take me most of the day today to get back to Sydney. And to get up here I had to leave home at 5.15am yesterday. I know I can say this to N&R readers and you’ll know this is an observation not a complaint: it’s tough to tour in a country as vast as Australia. Going beyond the major east coast cities is important to me. I’m lucky to have a publisher who’ve backed me and budgeted for this. But I’ve also taken the entire month off other work to do it. When I closed the door behind me again yesterday morning Judit (normally a silent hound) howled.
I’ve slept in my own bed maybe five nights in total this month? The glorious whirlwind has involved flying (or being driven by my extremely hard-working publicist) to a difference city almost every night. We have to go straight from location to location in a row because to break it up would mean doubling or tripling the costs in both money and time. (A-B-C-D-E is cheaper than A-B-A, A-C-A, A-D-A, etcetera.) That has meant 20+ events plus interviews and media and bookseller drop-ins so far. I have a new-found and deep respect for musicians and performance artists who do big tours. Just when I thought my tank was empty this morning, re-packing my suitcase, someone tagged me in a picture of a street poster (A STREET POSTER!!) in Brunswick and I was giddy again.
All of which is to say, I think the lesson for me personally right here and now, is that it is possible to be simultaneously exhausted and full of gratitude. The words I’d normally use, like ‘shattered’ and ‘wrecked’ and ‘I’m-a-shell-of-a-human’, don’t feel quite right, because they’re so negative. Do we have any positive vocabulary for this phenomenon? I’m struggling to find it.
A question I’ve been asked a lot in the last three weeks is ‘what’s-the-difference’ between doing fiction and non-fiction. One of the many answers to this question is that I try to take a rigorous approach to both, and both are intellectually and artistically satisfying, but there was a pain with the non-fiction where there is now a joy with the fiction. It isn’t that fiction is ‘easier’. It isn’t writing-lite. Touring is the same. The Work, and the conversations that The Work raise, require serious thought and consideration from me and from my interlocutors and from the audiences. I might spend my entire professional and artistic life unpicking the old pain = hard = good cliché. What does it mean to be tired in a good way? What does it mean for rigorous work to flow from joy instead of pain? Sorry if this is garbled. I think I’m trying to work towards a more sustainable approach to productivity and creativity. Thank you to every single one of you who has come along on this journey. I’ve got four days off starting tomorrow, then just two events next week. See you in Hobart on Tuesday night!
Also, for my local Sydney readers, as you would probably have seen, all the Sydney events for The Work sold out weeks ago, so my lovely friends at Ace Hotel offered to host an extra special night there. I’ll have the bookings link for you next week, but for now please save-the-date of Tuesday 21 May. My brilliant friend Jordan Turner (of Gertrude & Alice Bookstore) will be running the in-conversation and the ticket will include a drink on arrival.
Out from Behind the Paywall
I’m sitting on a goldmine of beautiful work from past editions of News & Reviews Magazine so I’ve decided in each week’s regular edition I’ll bring something out from behind the paywall for you to read for free.
This week it’s from the just-published ‘BriLeeRama’ special edition. A piece by reader and writer Samantha Rosenfeld, about how The Work made her reflect on her father’s career and the end of her own marriage. I really loved this piece, and it barely needed any edits because Rosenfeld had clearly given her ideas and expressions so much thought. Enjoy. xx
Good News
It looks like Bruce Lehrmann is gonna get fully boned on costs for losing the defamation trial—the second-biggest self-own of all time after Channel 7 and Ben Roberts-Smith. Why? It turns out he refused an offer to ‘walk away’ from the defamation suit in August last year, and that usually means the losing party has to pay what’s called ‘indemnity costs’ from that time onwards. Sort of like extra punishment for not coming to the table. Guardian Australia report here that Network 10 ‘also argued the Ben Roberts-Smith v Fairfax decision in a previous defamation action had set a precedent for an applicant being ordered to pay indemnity costs because they abused the legal process in bringing the claim.’
After 30 years of campaigning by the Gweagal community four spears stolen 250 years ago from Kamay (now known as Botany Bay) in Sydney have been returned. Captain James Cook stole forty, but these four are all that’s left. Guardian Australia reports ‘The spears will be housed on country in a new visitor centre at Kurnell, Kamay, near where they were first taken on the day Cook and his crew landed at Kamay… The spears are the first objects taken by the British from Australia that remain in existence, according to Nicholas Thomas, the director of Cambridge’s archaeology museum, which has held the artefacts since the early 20th century.’ Sally Davies, the head of Trinity College, said they’re ‘committed to reviewing the complex legacies of the British empire, not least in our collections’.
I love this story from the BBC: there’s now an artist called ‘Nature’ that bands and musicians can list as co-authors on tracks, and when people stream those tracks, money gets siphoned off into environmental charities. Read about it here and then just type the word ‘Nature’ into your Spotify search bar and see the top artist result. ‘Called Sounds Right, the project is the brainchild of the Museum for the United Nations - UN Live. which hopes it will raise $40m in its first four years.’ Do you want to fall asleep to frogs croaking and a babbling brook? In the artist’s bio on Spotify it says ‘4.6 million years ago a star was born.’ Hehe; I love it.
Bad News
Long-time readers of N&R will know how hard we stan ABC South Asia bureau chief Avani Dias. After her investigations into the Modi government went public she started having issues getting her visa renewed, and ultimately couldn’t stay in India. As the ABC reports here, ‘Dias was informed of the decision via a phone call from an official at the Ministry of External Affairs, who said her most recent Foreign Correspondent episode [which was blocked online in India] “crossed a line”.’ Dias has been made to feel so uncomfortable—and has been prevented from being able to access events and do her job there—so has had to leave. Listen to her excellent podcast, Looking for Modi, if you want to know what’s happening.
I got excited when the Sydney Morning Herald reported that two prospective candidates for the inner-Melbourne federal seat of Higgins—Lucy Bradlow and Bronwen Bock—announced that they would run as job-sharing independent candidates. (Imagine how many more women and people with caring experiences/obligations could be MPs!) But our go-to constitutional law expert, Anne Twomey, has pretty conclusively shut it down in this article for The Conversation and this video. Bummer.
The Australian Human Rights Commission ran a quiet inquiry about workplace sexism in the marine unit of the Australian Border Force and jesus fucking christ I’m just going to quote the ABC verbatim here: ‘A survey of staff within the unit found every woman surveyed had witnessed sexual harassment or discrimination, and nearly all had experienced it directly.’ That’s a workplace of around 555 people, majority male, remote and isolated, enacting this nation’s often-cruel policies, and they’re also mistreating each other. So grim. The sample size of women who actually responded was unfortunately small, but the AHRC said ‘the results were consistent with findings in separate focus groups and interviews… [and] ABF leadership should be held directly accountable for cultural problems, calling for “defined consequences” for leadership failures.’
Bad Review
It’s interesting to ask why the Paramount+ adaptation of A Gentleman in Moscow doesn’t work. Because the book by Amor Towles works, and the audiobook version really works too. (I recommend it for a road trip with just about anyone.) I’ve seen Ewan McGregor display the twinkly-eyed charisma required for the titular role of the gentleman aristocrat, Count Rostov, in other roles, but it wasn’t enough here. I watched the first four episodes and this miniseries just doesn’t take flight.
All you need to know is it’s the Bolshevik revolution in Moscow, and Count Rostov has been put under ‘house arrest’ (instead of receiving the death penalty) in the brilliantly glamorous Metropole Hotel. He’s trapped, sure, but honestly, it looks pretty fucking great. It’s a long way from his palatial origins, but he’s got a secret stash of cash and eats and drinks whatever he pleases. His friends are under suspicion, and one of them is killed for trying to escape, but on a day-to-day basis his biggest problem is that he’s a little bit bored.
My operating theory is that there’s something about the closeness of perspective that a book can achieve that most screen adaptations cannot. What do I mean by that? The novel holds very tightly to the worldview of Count Rostov. And because on paper—in his own mind and in his dialogue—he is so charming and chatty and capable of character development, we forgive him (or at least indulge him) his aristocratic sins. We are right with him throughout, quickly endeared to him, keeping pace with him at all times.
There’s a scene in the show, for a contrasting example, when the hotel remove all the labels on the wine bottles—reducing the selection to ‘red or white’—because the wine list was unacceptably wasteful and an offence to the starving serfs in the snow outside. Rostov rails against this development because he’s a gourmande and his young friend, Nina, talks back to him for the first time. They fight, she leaves, and a world-weary heaviness descends. I had a similar feeling in the show when Rostov was eavesdropping on a meeting of revolutionaries fighting for workers’ rights and against the landed gentry. Obviously I don’t approve of the bloodthirstiness of the Bolshevik revolution, but I also don’t have a lot of sympathy for an aristocrat who’s proud to not have ever had a job… It was remarkable that the book (and audiobook) made me really like Rostov! But even the twinkly-eyed McGregor cannot save the magic feeling this show needs to work, because by allowing us to see the revolutionaries’ perspectives—from the unruly to the reasonable—Rostov’s position appears untenable.
He tries to say to one of his old rich buddies: ‘They can take away your property, but they can’t take away who you are.’ (Or something to that effect.) And you can’t help but look around them and think, what? What the fuck are you on about? Nobody should be born higher than anyone else. I never had such frustrating thoughts with the book, because I wasn’t really given the opportunity to. Because of the tightness.
For a television show to hold as tightly to Rostov as the novel does, we would never see a scene in which Rostov himself is not present. In the book there’s a speed and rhythm to Rostov’s dialogue and life which almost tapdances. Somehow, despite the severity of the revolutionary situation, because we understand the world of the Metropole Hotel only via Rostov, it’s quite fun. But the world of the Metropole Hotel isn’t as fun for other people, so when the adaptation shows us these other people, the weight of reality descends.
Without the lightness of the first half, I suspect the gut-punches in the later parts of the narrative won’t hit the same. If you’ve finished it and you feel differently let me know. But otherwise I’m putting A Gentleman in Moscow in the category of impossible-to-adapt.
Good Reviews
A friend of mine brought me a copy of this book—Phaidon’s The Art Book for Children—explicitly saying she thought any N&R readers who are also parents would be interested. Well, I flipped through, and, frankly, I personally am interested. It’s got a delightful range of 30 different artists inside, and the kind of simple-yet-thoughtful prodding you’re often looking for of a weekend gallery visit. These questions would be great conversation starters for a dinner party of adults. A lot of people (myself included) lament the lack of media literacy being taught to young people, and I think critical reading and media literacy are sister concepts. As well as encouraging young people to decided whether or not they ‘like’ a work of art, you’re also asking things like: Who made this and in what conditions? Who benefits from this work being sold or shown? Why are we seeing it here and now? At $40 I would absolutely gift this to a friend of any age.
I’m a huge fan of St. Vincent—not only as a musician, but also as a working artist in a bigger sense. I love how she refuses to try to control (or care about) the narratives about her work and life. This profile of her in the New York Times meant a lot to me when I read it on Friday last week. ‘Seven albums and 17 years into an acclaimed solo career, Clark has eked out a singular space in music, occasionally intersecting with the mainstream but for the most part staying uncompromisingly countercultural… In one of our later conversations, she said that she believed a performer’s duty is simply “to shock and console” ad infinitum. Explaining oneself is superfluous to that job description.’
Here are four more looks from tour that I loved! For my Brisbane event I chose Courtney Zheng’s ‘Heidi Pleated Kilt Maxi Skirt’ ($540; loaned) and the ‘Birgit Wool Twill Front Slit Shirt’ ($350; #loaned). Trust me when I say this is the skirt of the season. I wanted something a little more relaxed for Maleny so went with the Unikspace x RIISE two-piece silk set ‘Ling Top’ and ‘Ida Pant’ ($450 each; #gift). For the first of my two Perth events I wore this stripey Lee Mathews ‘Christo Dress’ ($699; #loaned); and for both my Margaret River and other Perth events this great Lee Mathews ‘Riley V-Neck Dress’ ($599; #loaned) which has a super cool rope detail on the side this picture doesn’t do justice to.
Upcoming Special Edition and Giveaways
The winner of the giveaway from BriLeeRama—any two of my books—is #122. Congratulations, Eliza Benson, I’ve emailed you!
This week’s giveaway is a copy of Winnie Dunn’s debut novel, Dirt Poor Islanders, which just came out this month.
Dirt Poor Islanders is a potent, mesmerising novel that opens our eyes to the brutal fractures navigated when growing up between two cultures and the importance of understanding all the many pieces of yourself.
Enter with your name and email address here and I’ll draw the winner at random next week.
The next special edition is going to be in two weeks’ time and will be a personal essay from me. Then, in June, we’ll do a deep dive into the works of Rachel Cusk. That’s right, CuskRama is coming and it’ll coincide the release of her new novel.
A friend of mine, who is neurodivergent, explains that overwhelm can be excitement or anxiety/stress. I’d never really thought about being overwhelmed with giddiness when something really good happens but yes, of course that’s possible. So maybe you’re just overwhelmed in the most positive way? x
If I was to borrow a Cusk book from the library, what should I start with? I’ve yet to read their work