Webb, Jen

English

This year’s Miles Franklin shortlist is lyrical in voice, complex in form, and perhaps a little more hopeful than usual. The threads of shared concern across the volumes leave me wondering whether there is something in the zeitgeist. Maybe it’s writers, publishers and judges reacting to the doom of the past two years, and the dread ofwhat the future might bring. These novels seem infused with a sense of play, of measured optimism, of the capacity to tease out – and tease – the old verities and the wildly random “truths” that circulate across our culture

University of Canberra Research Repository

Academic rigour, journalistic flairJen WebbDean, Graduate Research, University of CanberraThis year’s Miles Franklin shortlist is lyrical in voice, complex in form, and perhaps a little morehopeful than usual. The threads of shared concern across the volumes leave me wondering whetherthere is something in the zeitgeist.Maybe it’s writers, publishers and judges reacting to the doom of the past two years, and the dread ofwhat the future might bring. These novels seem infused with a sense of play, of measured optimism,of the capacity to tease out – and tease – the old verities and the wildly random “truths” that circulateacross our culture.Lines that connect them include the recounting of childhood experiences in the traditions of the Bildungsroman (coming of age novel) and Künstlerroman (artist coming of age story). These booksalso include reminders that being a migrant, particularly a visible migrant – or even the child orgrandchild of visible migrants – means there is never a close and comfortable fit with Australiansociety.They include stories of male violence: whether the organised violence of the boxing ring, the casualviolence of young men, or predatory masculinity. And they are filled with accounts of the act ofwriting itself, in a collection of writings that together provide a remarkable reading experience.Grimmish by Michael WinklerA touch of hope after the doom? Your guide to the MilesFranklin 2022 shortlistPublished: July 19, 2022 9.47pm AESTMichael Winkler’s Grimmish careers through decades and across the globe, with narrative controlshifting between uncle, nephew and a talking goat. It is, absolutely, a male story, though the narratoroffers tongue-in-cheek gestures toward an idea of equity.The eponymous Joe Grim, “the human punching bag who never won a fight”, cannot be crushed bypain, and functions very much as an analogy – for “Something in men […] desperate to scramble upthat hill of pain to see how high they can get” and for the ludicrous and pointless nature of brutality-as-sport.Grim can never win a match, but his indefatigable capacity to endure leaves the winner confused andshamed, and the sport itself exposed:Williams steps back instead of forward, marshals his wind for a while, then drives back intoGrim’s ugly flesh, twists another big right into his face, and Grim goes down again. Thecrowd is ecstatic; this is the finest of sport. Apparently.This novel surprised and enchanted me on (almost) every page – the playful use of footnotes, thesatire and philosophy and social critique, the stories about stories. It’s a mind-whirl of sensation andimpression; a densely packed, vivid narrative that reads more like dream.The Other Half of You by Michael Mohammed AhmadAgain on male violence, The Other Half of You, Michael Mohammed Ahmad’s second Miles Franklinlisting, and the third installation in the story of Bani (whom we last met as a high school student inThe Lebs) takes us back to western Sydney and all the rough affection and abuse of his family.Bani has grown up since 2018; completed his arts degree at Western Sydney Uni, fallen in love,married, divorced and become a father, and finally found his feet.Michael Winkler. Monique FergusonThe problem he explores in this novel is his father’s law: do whatever you want, but do not marry anoutsider. (And what constitutes an outsider is a very broad church.) His passion and hisbroken/breaking heart are played out against the backdrop of his parents and siblings and cousinsand aunts, and against his own continuing uncertainty about how to be himself, and a good Muslim,and a good son, and an autonomous artist.It’s a worrying and then deeply heartening account, not merely because of Bani’s ability to wrestlewith the tension between critical thinking and the deep bonds of tradition, but because the traditionsthemselves prove more generous and more flexible than he had imagined.A funny, roughnecked, tender novel, it reminds us that “there was something shamelesslyunwelcoming about Australians”; but also insists tenderness and love co-exist everywhere: “she spokein the language of my ancestors, and … I dreamed in the language of hers”.One Hundred Days by Alice PungAlice Pung’s One Hundred Days is another first-person narration; another coming-of-age story; andanother that – like Ahmad’s – is addressed to the narrator’s not-yet-born child.Karuna, like Bani, is confined by her parent’s perspective of tradition and its rules, and like Bani,though she struggles against the bonds, she does try to be a good daughter. With good reason, sinceher mother assures her that the alternative is ruin:“Tread carefully,” she would tell me. “A girl who makes one wrong move is wrecked for life.”Her mother, Grand Mar, is hyper-controlling, often brutal, rarely tender. Her father, a white Aussiemechanic, presents initially as patient and affectionate, but once the marriage is over he desertsdaughter and ex-wife to penury and precarity.Michael Mohammed Ahmad. Monique FergusonAlice Pung. Courtney BrownThey, Karuna and Grand Mar, end up in a poverty version of a fairytale tower: a flat in councilhousing. Here, once Karuna finds herself pregnant at 16 to a young man who is no longer on thescene, Grand Mar plays the villain and locks her up, where she languishes, a princess for whom noprince is seeking.There is a strong sense of co-dependency even in Karuna’s rage and resistance:I know for certain that your Grand Mar might lock me up, but she would never, ever kick meout. It is never a problem that your Grand Mar doesn’t care enough for us. The problem withyour Grand Mar is that she cares too much.Perhaps. But it’s complicated. This is a lyrical account of a messy, abusive family, but also a familywhere, with a switch of perspective, the “mean and paranoid” mother might re-emerge as “loving andreasonable”.Bodies of Light by Jennifer DownBodies of Light, Jennifer Down’s Bildungsroman, is another first-person narration, this time in thevoice of an orphan, Maggie Sullivan, who has fallen into the dubious care of Family Services and thestring of foster families and care homes that follow.It’s a story of profound loneliness, punctuated by some kind individuals, but none who remain part ofMaggie’s life and identity:At night I lay in bed and counted the bodies I’d left behind. Viv, Holly, Tiny, Mr and MrsDunne, Jodie, Mr Miller, Jacinta, Alana, Ian, Dinesh. Mum, Dad. Graham. I pictured themall laid out in a paddock like human dominoes. I had no way of knowing what happened toany of them.It is also a story of profound trauma, with Maggie experiencing sexual abuse from her earliestmemories, a silent, watchful little girl turned into a sex toy by any man who felt like it. And it remains,for the most part, unrelentingly sad.Maggie is a bootstraps sort of girl, who manages to get herself grown, and even to enter university,read literature, find a way to flee her past; but the bright moments are few and far between. Sheremains, even as a successful and capable adult, something of an alien, someone who never learned atthe right age how to be a human, someone who doesn’t even have photographs from her childhood.But don’t feel sorry for her; “I am just trying to live my way through it”, she says, at novel’s end; “Wehave nothing left to fear”.Jennifer Down. Monique FergusonScary Monsters by Michelle de KretserMichelle de Kretser is an old hand at the Miles Franklin, having already won the prize twice, and shegives double value here in a novel that is two separate stories, treating the same sorts of issues –racism, sexism, class, migrant status, love, belonging – but from two very different perspectives andhistorical moments.In the Kindle edition, readers are offered a choice of where to start; in the print version, the book hastwo front covers. I chose to start with Lili, and found myself in John Berger country. The novellacombines a lovely homage to that remarkable writer in a lyrical, yet often excoriating, portrait of ayoung woman far from home in what presents as the late 1970s to early 1980s. It’s another migrantnarrator, another young person trying to work out how to be, in an often unwelcoming world.Lili teaches English in France, and at the same time is learning French and finding “something brutalabout being flung into a foreign language – something thrilling, too”.She is lonely, of course; she leans on one friend, Minna, who is drenched in privilege, and full ofaffection, but still abandons Lili. Nonetheless, Minna opens up possibilities to Lili, exposing her toplayful creativity, and offering perhaps some small consolation in a time when the Yorkshire Ripper ismassacring women and when the philosopher Louis Althusser murders his wife almost with impunity.“Ce n'est pas normal,” is, Lili realises, the best answer, and the idea of Simone de Beauvoir a woman’sbest defence.Flip the volume, and we move to the near future, back in Australia, and a nation run according to theworst impulses of the Border Force and hypercapitalism, where Muslims are banned, theenvironment is on life support, and people adopt the names of luxury products like Porsche or Pradaif they’re wealthy, Ikea if they’re just getting by.The poetic expression and the idealism of Lila’s story are set aside in favour of a blunt determinism,and equally blunt jokes: “Australia is an egalitarian place. The rich aren’t discriminated against andleft to fend for themselves here.”Lyle, the narrator in this section, bears the same shadow as 1984’s Winston Smith: a reasonable manperforming unreasonable functions in an unreasonable and unreasoning society. Like the joke goes, itwould be funny if it wasn’t so sad (and vice versa).This is a remarkable story that illuminates something deeply touching and deeply disturbing about21st century Australia.Michelle De Kretser. Joy Lai

A touch of hope after the doom?:Your guide to the Miles Franklin 2022 shortlist

https://researchsystem.canberra.edu.au/ws/files/67498409/Conversation_MF_reviews.pdf

A touch of hope after the doom?:Your guide to the Miles Franklin 2022 shortlist

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