宅男导航

Brigid Rooney is affiliated with the University of 宅男导航 where for several decades she researched and taught Australian literature and Australian studies. She has published widely on twentieth century and contemporary Australian writing and is the author of听Literary Activists: Writer-Intellectuals and Australian Public Life听(2009) and听Suburban Space, the Novel and Australian Modernity听(2018).

Fiona Morrison is an Associate Professor in the School of the Arts and Media at UNSW 宅男导航, where she has taught and supervised in the areas of postcolonial and world literatures, Australian literature and women鈥檚 writing. Her most recent book,听Christina Stead and the Matter of America听(2019), won the Walter McRae Russell Award in 2021 (ASAL). She is currently working on a book-length study of Henry Handel Richardson.

听

听

Congratulations Fiona and Brigid on the publication of your book, Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark鈥檚 Fiction! What first drew you both to the work of Eleanor Dark?

听

F&B:听Our first collaboration as editors was in 2016 on a special issue of Australian Literary Studies devoted to Christina Stead. Stead also features in Drusilla Modjeska鈥檚 seminal work Exiles at Home (1981) which drew attention to a group of women writers who (unlike Stead) stayed at home in Australia between the wars yet were international or cosmopolitan in their outlook. Modjeska was the first scholar to suggest that while Stead was an experimental and political writer working in the world, Eleanor Dark was an experimental and political writer working at home in 宅男导航 and the Blue Mountains. While Dark and Stead are quite different writers, both adopt innovative, modernist uses of language, themes and locations and both are engaged with social and political issues of their time and place.

There is a specific 宅男导航 connection that drew us into this project. Both Stead鈥檚 Seven Poor Men of 宅男导航 (1934) and Dark鈥檚 Waterway (1938) present intellectually rich and strikingly memorable representations of interwar 宅男导航. Both adopt distinctly modernist styles of narration. Waterway vividly conjures 宅男导航 Harbour as a modern place layered by time and the past. Unfolding through a single, eventful day, Waterway follows multiple characters as they move between their village-like suburban cove and the city. Waterway stands as a kind of hinge text in Dark鈥檚 career. It continues some of the modernist techniques of Dark鈥檚 earlier fictions about interwar Australian life while pointing towards the historical trilogy that she would write next. The relation between these two phases 鈥� between modernist interwar and later historical fiction 鈥� fascinated us. We wanted to draw in colleagues to help us think about the shape of her writing and its development over time.

听

Time, Tide and History features contributions from a number of scholars and experts. Tell us a bit about how this project came together.

听

F&B:听With this connection to Stead in the background, and some work accomplished on Dark either through essay writing or supervision in the foreground, we had an eye out for the ways in which the field was becoming more and more interested in modernist Australian women鈥檚 writing. There seemed to be a groundswell of interest from early career scholars working on Dark, and through conferences and correspondence, we thought the time was right and the tide of scholarly interest turning in her direction. Our project started life as a one-day symposium on Dark that aimed to bring scholars and writers together. We worked on symposium plans together with our colleagues Meg Brayshaw and Melinda Cooper, both experts on Dark and interwar fiction generally. Melinda鈥檚 thesis on Dark gave rise to her excellent, multi-award-winning book, Middlebrow Modernism: Eleanor Dark鈥檚 Interwar Fiction (SUP, 2022). Meg had featured Dark鈥檚 Waterway as a focal text in her wonderful study, 宅男导航 and its Waterway in Australian Literary Modernism (2021).

Our call for papers for the symposium met with a healthy response. We were just preparing to negotiate with Varuna 鈥� formerly the Blue Mountains home of Eleanor and Eric Dark, and now The National Writers鈥� House 鈥� as a possible venue for an event in May 2020, when the Covid19 pandemic struck. With little prospect of an in-person event, we decided to cut to the chase and begin working on an edited collection. We reached out to our initial symposium contributors, and to others in the field 鈥� early career researchers and more experienced hands 鈥� that we thought might be interested in, or already working on, Dark. The book formed around two main hubs: Dark鈥檚 interwar modernism and her mid-century and postwar historical fiction (the Timeless Land trilogy). We wanted to know more about Dark鈥檚 influence on the writing of Australian history, so we ventured to invite two eminent public historians 鈥� Tom Griffiths and Grace Karskens 鈥� into the project. They agreed, generously contributing a brilliant dialogue exploring Dark鈥檚 legacy for Australian history.

听

In the book you note that Dark鈥檚 work was held in great esteem during her lifetime, yet there has long been a deficit of critical interest in her work. Why do you think that is? And what do you make of the more recent revival of this interest?

听

F&B:听It鈥檚 important to note that this isn鈥檛 Eleanor Dark鈥檚 situation alone. There is much work to do in Australian literary studies on writers of significance, past and present. The gaps are partly to do with the marginalisation of literary studies in universities and public culture, which also affects Aust lit as a smaller, more highly specialised field. There are too few scholars for the work waiting to be done.

As we emphasise in our introduction, Eleanor Dark holds a firm place in Australia鈥檚 literary heritage. But critical responses to her works have fluctuated. There has been ebb and flow in the type and scale of scholarly and critical interest. If you compare the bodies of criticism on Dark to, say, Henry Handel Richardson, Patrick White, Martin Boyd and Christina Stead it is not insignificant. But neither is it full-bodied and well-tethered. A sustained and capacious engagement with her fiction is genuinely overdue.

In Dark鈥檚 case, Modjeska鈥檚 Exiles at Home was an important milestone, drawing the attention of feminist critics to the interwar fiction. Biographies appearing after Dark鈥檚 death in 1985 built this momentum further. As essays in this collection show, Dark鈥檚 interwar fiction continues to inspire innovative work by a new generation of scholars. Across the same period, however, and despite its remarkable public success and visibility, The Timeless Land and its sequels have been far less frequently examined. It was our hunch the moment had arrived to think about the historical trilogy in relation to both its own time and ours.

听

A key theme in Time, Tide and History is how Eleanor Dark represents and 鈥榶et simultaneously erases鈥� Indigenous presence in Australia. Can you expand upon this briefly?

听

F&B: We鈥檇 like to adjust the wording of your question a little, to shift focus from the person of the author (鈥淓leanor Dark鈥�) to her fiction. But yes, we do feel that her Timeless Land trilogy represents and at the same time erases the presence of Australia鈥檚 First Peoples. Founded on Dark鈥檚 meticulous research into the colonial archive, The Timeless Land broke entirely new ground in Australian fiction and in the writing of Australian history. It was the first such work to reimagine the events of 1788 from both British invader and Indigenous perspectives. In this endeavour Dark was radically progressive. Her Timeless Land trilogy, especially volume one, cuts right across the triumphalist official narrative of settlement that prevailed at the time of her writing. Her book seized the imagination of, among others, the influential Australian historian, Manning Clark. As the dialogue between Tom Griffiths and Grace Karskens attests, although it was a work of fiction, The Timeless Land galvanised historical approaches to colonisation and helped reshape the way Australians imagined the past. 听

How then, you ask, does her writing also erase Indigenous presence? Unsurprisingly, Dark鈥檚 imagining of Indigenous culture was necessarily limited by her own lack of deeper contact or personal connection with First Nations peoples of her own time. Her novel takes certain liberties in imagining the culture of 宅男导航鈥檚 First Peoples (Gadigal, Gamaragal, Bidjigal, Darug and many groups), drawing on anthropological studies of First Nations cultures that were quite distant in time, space and language from the 宅男导航 people of 1788. Her narrative is also conditioned by prevailing ideas about First Peoples at the time of her writing. One of these is the idea that they belonged to a dying race. Essays in our book that examine the trilogy consider this problem from different vantage points. All recognise how Dark鈥檚 writing confronts the brutality of invasion and the injustice of dispossession yet, at the same time, identify narrative assumptions that Aboriginal people were 鈥渢imeless鈥�, unmodern and bound for extinction. Although Dark鈥檚 portraits of Indigenous characters are based on historical figures, like Wularawaray Bennelong and his wife Barangaroo, according them the humanity and dignity of inner lives, her narrative also positions them as doomed, tragic figures. Her narrative sees their culture as in many respects morally, ethically and even environmentally superior to 鈥� more noble than 鈥� that of the British invaders. Yet they are also seen as inherently unable to survive the modern world of the colonisers. Awareness of the survival and resistance of Aboriginal Australians 鈥� arising in the very same period 鈥� does not penetrate the narrative, or not apparently. Essays in our book recognise and tackle these complex contradictions. In so doing, they also engage with questions that continue to shape Australia as both society and nation today.

听

In your opinion, what is Eleanor Dark鈥檚 greatest contribution to Australia literary culture?

听

F&B: Eleanor Dark contributed immensely to Australian literary culture, in ways that continue into the present. Her writing and spirit are intimately connected to Varuna, in the Blue Mountains, her home with her husband Eric Payten Dark. Their far-sighted son, the late Mick Dark, gifted Varuna to Australian literary culture. It is now known as the National Writer鈥檚 House, and provides writers with a retreat, a place of beauty, inspiration and support for their efforts.

On the other hand, it鈥檚 impossible to ignore the impact of the fiction itself, not least of The Timeless Land which so challenged and reshaped settler Australians鈥� historical imagination. Dark鈥檚 engagement with the experience of people in the past was studious, ethical, richly imaginative and important. The richness of her approach to history has been somewhat obscured by the idea that her historical novels were destined for the mass market in some way. It is time to reorient our understanding of this work

Dark鈥檚 other abiding contribution was the creation of experimental and responsive stories about the modern Australian experience in and beyond the interwar years, especially about women. Hers was not a textbook avant-garde writing: it was grounded in profound ways in place, and in the space of her characters and their relations. At the heart of her writing is a beautiful, idiosyncratic and expansive sense of Australian landscapes, regions and scenes that were significant to her. And the fascinating layering of philosophical and political interest in her fiction makes a distinctive contribution to both national and international writing of this period.

听

For readers interested in exploring Australian modernist literature, what other authors and literary works might you suggest?

听

F&B: As we know from scholarship informed by new modernist studies, Australia鈥檚 response to modernism has been incorrectly labelled derivative and belated. Patrick White was, for a time, held up as the first Australian modernist writer. Dark鈥檚 body of work, however, and the interwar work of her peers, confounds any such timeline. More importantly, if literary modernism extends well beyond any single period or style, and is understood as responding to modernity鈥檚 various phases, then Australian literature is still engaged with modernism.

That said, there are some outstanding texts from the interwar period that unambiguously exemplify breakthrough modernist styles, themes and approaches. At the top of our list are some obvious, and very significant candidates: Kenneth Slessor鈥檚 poetry, and 鈥� as mentioned earlier 鈥� Christina Stead鈥檚 first novel, Seven Poor Men of 宅男导航. And yet we would also recommend Henry Handel Richardson鈥檚 wonderful trilogy, The Fortunes of Richard Mahony which blends realism with a distinctly modernist sensibility. Many writers of our own time 鈥� before, during and beyond the so-called postmodernist period 鈥� engage modernism as a dynamic living legacy and as resource for their stories. Considered this way, there many books to recommend 鈥� not only the brilliant works of Patrick White, but also (to name only a few) fiction by Randolph Stow, Elizabeth Jolley, Thea Astley, Brian Castro and Gail Jones. Most recently there is Alexis Wright whose novels are not only profoundly shaped by her First Nations heritage but also Joycean in their play with language.

听

Time, Tide and History: Eleanor Dark's Fiction is available now. Order your copy听here.