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FEDERATION AND BUNYIP BLUEGUM
a brief reflection on an Australian literary canon
Copyright
Carmel Bird 2001, All rights reserved
I begin with a quotation from The Magic Pudding. This is a description of Bunyip Bluegum *:
‘He found a great many things to see, such as dandelions, and ants, and traction engines, and bolting horses, and furniture being removed, besides being kept busy raising his hat, and passing the time of day with people on the road, for he was a very well-bred young fellow, polite in his manners, graceful in his attitudes, and able to converse on a great variety of subjects, having read all the best Australian poets.’
*The Magic Pudding by Norman Lindsay, Angus and Robertson, 1918
I am a very small part of the Australian Canon Industry, myself. This happened more or less by default, and I never imagined I would be invited to speak in public on the subject of the canon. In 1990 I was invited by an American publisher to edit the first ever anthology of Australian short stories specifically for the American market*. Note if you will the words ‘publisher’ and ‘market’. The market and the publisher are key players in the formation of canons. There was a perception in the publishing house that American readers would be interested in buying a text containing a selection of about twenty pieces of short literary fiction written by Australians from the early days of white settlement until the late 1980s. It was up to me to do the selecting. They wanted stories that were representative of Australian prose writing over that period. I suppose that such a volume is a little guide to a part of Australian literature, that it makes life a little easier for American readers or students wanting a quick introduction to the general area.
*Australian Short Stories edited by Carmel Bird, Houghton Mifflin, 1990
And so whose stories are there? Why, there are stories by Patrick White, by Barbara Baynton, by Peter Carey, by Thea Astley, Frank Moorhouse – and you can probably fill in most of the other names. I chose the stories I thought would interest and engage readers (not just American readers) from the Australian writing to which I had access. I suppose it is partly in such ways that literary canons are created. They – canons –are perhaps inevitable. To tell you the truth I had never given them (canons) much thought until I was invited to speak on this panel. Only then did I discover myself as part of the Australian Canon Industry. Have I done an evil thing? It feels pretty harmless.
I got deeper into the industry at the end of 1999. This time I did it myself. I proposed to the Australian cell of an international publisher that I would like to edit an anthology of a hundred stories spanning the twentieth century in Australia. They figured there was a market for this kind of thing. And here is The Penguin Century of Australian Stories. I actually don’t think this is just harmless, I think it is positively useful.
But please don’t imagine that I imagine that these are the only writers, the only stories worth reading. This is a selection (mine) – it’s a taste, it’s a context. And of course I can’t overlook the fact that the enterprise is politically and economically driven to a certain extent. Publishers have a business to run; they have to publish things; if they can get a subsidy from the Federal Government that is all to the good; the Federal Government is partly in the business of promoting Australia to the world; it will subsidise a book of Australian short stories. Way down this food chain is the editor, and further down are the writers of the stories. But to get back to the context I was talking about –
I think of canons in that way, actually, as a useful context from which readers or students of literature can move. It seems to me that a canon is something that develops more or less automatically – the forces driving it being within commerce and education – mainly – but also within popular culture and taste. And I mustn’t discount the power and significance of the news media in this – what would they put in the weekend papers if they couldn’t list the ten best books, the hundred best books and so on, from time to time. I have a cute program on my computer – it’s called The Library of the Future. Somebody had to select the books to put on it. I don’t know who they were, or what their criteria were for selection, but by default the selection becomes a kind of canon in the mind of the user of the program.
When it comes down to the question: what are we going to teach the kids? I reckon it’s a reasonable idea to introduce them to a certain amount of literature which has become – for one reason or another – embedded in world literature, and also to introduce them to some texts written throughout the history of the country in which they find themselves – in this case Australia. I would never wish to discount the tastes and selections of the students themselves. If they want to read something, I don’t see why they shouldn’t. (I am not here entering a debate on censorship.) I see great merit in undertaking study of texts of their choice. But I also don’t see why they should be sheltered from the canon – leaving aside for now just how a canon (Australian) might be constructed. Educators and writers of the curriculum know more or less what writing from the first two hundred years of white presence in Australia is more or less significant. I see no reason for keeping Henry Lawson a secret. Get Henry out into the open and see how he goes.
I believe I know – from my own reading and from the experience of teaching reading and writing students of all ages – that an exposure to the writing of the past is a rich foundation for the reading of the works of the present. Students don’t necessarily need to know who the other Homer was in order to get The Simpsons, but there is, I think, a certain pleasure and enrichment for them if they do realise there was once a Greek poet named (possibly) Homer. Who coined the statement: ‘Big Brother is watching you’ and why? I think the comprehension of the present, of the language of the present, of the literature and culture of the present, is assisted by a knowledge of the past, and I should add that this knowledge is further enhanced by the development of research skills which can take students into a personal exploration of canons.
It doesn’t hurt the students to be able to converse on a great variety of subjects – and I think it doesn’t hurt them to read at least some of the Australian poets who have come to be known – for a variety of reasons – as the best ones, at least by the standards of Bunyip Bluegum.
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