The real Australia

by Alfred Buchanan

X

THE NOVELIST
AND HIS SELECTION

Some are born great, some achieve

greatness, and some have greatness

thrust upon them.—Malvolio in Twelfth Night.

He is a remarkable figure. It has remained for Australia to produce him, and he is peculiar to Australia. He stands now in the full blaze of the limelight. It has been centred on him for the past couple of years or more, but the operator has not thought it necessary to move the screen, and the audience, for its part, is quite satisfied. Business is keeping up splendidly. There are some who say that a prophet, and especially a literary prophet, must be without honour in his own country. True as the statement is in the main, there are occasional exceptions. One of these is furnished by the young man in the shirt sleeves and the riding breeches, the young man with the resolutely modest expression on his features, the young man who has been photographed and paragraphed throughout the continent. He is a man of much talent. English Punch and Sydney Bulletin both say so. Sir John Madden declares that a copy of one of his books should be in the hands of every boy and girl in the Commonwealth. That should be enough. Let us, therefore, sing Viva! Let us sing it unitedly, for the winter of our literary darkness is passing, nay, has passed away.

Every one is aware by this time that Mr “Rudd” writes about the back-blocks of Australia. He has discovered them. In fact, he has almost invented them. What a region it is! To the casual observer it may lack something in variety of scenery, in charm of association, in human interest. But then the casual observer is not one who need be taken seriously. Still less is he one whose opinion on literary matters is of much value. In this interior region of the great Southern continent there are shingle huts, and wire fences, and occasional gum-trees, and the dry beds of creeks, and the thin crops struggling above the surface of the ground, and, for the rest, a flat monotony of desolation. For human interest there is an occasional sun-browned, dirt-begrimed settler, an occasional ragged and vacant-faced youth, an occasional dull-eyed, but stout-hearted woman. These people are part of the life of the nation, and it is instructive to read about them. In “Steele Rudd’s” pages they have their exits and their entrances, their humorous, tragical, quaint, fantastic, sordid, and pathetic phases. The novelist has done them every justice. So much justice has he done them, that they have come, in a manner of speaking, to obscure the horizon. Three books have been written about them, and the reading public is not yet satisfied. It is still—or was a few months ago—clamouring for more; it will take as much more as the author cares to give.

It is admitted that “Steele Rudd” has done a great thing; but it may still be asked whether it is possible to praise a local writer sanely and temperately, without going into ecstasies about him, without making both himself and ourselves look ridiculous. Is there only one man in Australia whose books are worth purchasing? Has the city life, the business life, the artistic life, the ambitious life, the intense social and political life of civilised Australia nothing to say for itself? Must we reserve all our superlatives, all our limelight, and all our hard cash for this writer who keeps telling us, with persistent and applauded iteration, about the shingle hut and the awful wire fence, and the frightfully monotonous prospect of ragged selector and sunburnt plain? What of our million and a half city residents? What of the light and the love and the laughter of Collins Street and Circular Quay? Is it not a fact that these have been crowded out, unfairly crowded out, of the canvas? It is no wonder that outsiders call us parochial. It is no wonder that they say we are lacking in perspective. It is no wonder that, when we go to London, they judge us by our odd pieces of genre-painting, and tell us that there is no market for that sort of thing in the metropolis—that we had better have stayed at home.

It is astonishing how few people, even of those who have lived in Australia all their lives, have succeeded in discovering Australia. It gives one almost a shock to reflect upon the amount of misconception that has been spread throughout two hemispheres by Mr A. B. Paterson, Mr Henry Lawson, Mr “Rudd,” and one or two others. Incredible as it seems, it is yet a fact that there are several varieties of soil and climate to be met with in this benighted part of the world. A man may take himself out of sight of the seacoast, he may even settle on the land, and yet have no experiences of drought, of duststorms, of dry creek beds, or of thermometers at 120° in the shade. He may even find that the weird melancholy of his place of abode has to be manufactured out of his own imagination. In one part of the continent, and that a part getting well up towards the Equator, there are the Darling Downs, which are neither monotonously melancholy nor afflicted with recurrent drought. And at the opposite end of the continent, in the south of Western Australia, there are magnificent forests of karri and jarrah, a soil capable of luxuriant growth, a hundred thousand square miles of rain-fed land waiting for the plough. In the western district of Victoria is to be found the Southern home of English grasses, of European cereals, and of leafy trees. Another land of streams and of fertile country stretches south from Port Jackson to Twofold Bay. Within a couple of hours’ train ride of Sydney there is the western mountainous district, than which there is no finer tourist ground in this or in any other continent. When will some one write for us the romance of the jarrah and the karri forest? When shall we hear, as a change from the foreign sentiment of the Tyrolean Alps, the love story of Katoomba and of the Blue Mountains? Is there ever going to be an Australian Hardy to make lifelike fiction out of the Victorian western district? Are these scenes, these places, these happy hunting-grounds of the nature and humanity lover, to be, like the brave men who died before Agamemnon, always unknown because of the want of an inspired bard?

It is true that there is a dry and dusty and drably monotonous side to Australia. This is the side that is most constantly written about. Geographically it is of the greatest importance, because it takes up so much space. So far as its population is concerned, it amounts to little more than a bagatelle. The people who inhabit it are about as numerous as the ghosts of lost explorers in the Arctic Circle. Everything is against it as a residence for white men—its blare of relentless and scorching summers, its bleak and rainless winters, its dry creek-beds, its brick-like plains, its ungenerous soil, its tremendous distances, its fearful monotony, its unspeakable isolation. Yet it is an extraordinary circumstance that white men go there. They go to live at Burke, and at the back of Burke. Other land is waiting for them, other and more genial parts of the continent are clamouring for settlement. Yet, for some unknown and inexplicable cause, because of some hope that is greater than experience, because of some pioneering instinct that is superior to reason, because of some courage that is stronger than death, men are to be found ready to plunge into this hard wilderness, believing they can tame it and break it in.

The books of the most successful Australian novelist are concerned with the doings of these agricultural pioneers. He has exploited them for all they are worth; a critic might be inclined to say for more than they are worth, if he had not in mind the extraordinary result of the recent flotations. There has been quite a sensation on the local literary exchange. Mr “Rudd’s” debentures, after three successive issues, are as firm as ever. He has monopolised the market. Who else can command a price for this kind of paper—the paper that gives a mortgage over Australian literary securities? The promoter of Dad and Company, Limited, has had on his side the most experienced “bulls” to be met with in Melbourne and Sydney. The “bears” have so far had no voice in the matter. One particularly useful “bull” is he who operates with a pencil. The illustrations of “Our Selection,” and of “Our New Selection,” and of “Sandy’s Selection,” are very striking and effective. If there is something that the terse language of the novelist has failed to convey, or if the imagination of the reader is not quite vivid enough to conjure up the whole picture, there is the artist’s sketch or portrait to help out the illusion. Another individual, whose value in sending up literary stock can hardly be overestimated, is the journalistic fugleman. He has been unanimous from end to end of Australia, and his share in the “Steele Rudd” boom must not be allowed to go unrecognised.

It is a game that many play at, this game of novel-writing; and when some one appears with dramatic suddenness, and carries off the one prize worth having, it is necessary, it is inevitable, that we should endeavour to find out how the feat has been accomplished. We know that he has succeeded, but how, and by virtue of what gift, or mannerism, has he succeeded? Is it by sheer virtue of literary merit, style, finish, or that kind of attribute? These are what one would naturally look for in any contest where pen and ink are the chief weapons. But the search in this instance would upset preconceived ideas. “Steele Rudd’s” literary garment is pure homespun. There is no embroidery, no tapestry, no rich colouring of any sort. Even the favourite Australian expletives are much watered down. One character says “damn you” to another character, and says it often, but otherwise the vocabulary of profanity is not drawn upon. The Australian novelist might have been tempted to take a leaf out of the book of Rudyard Kipling, but he has not done so. For this we can thank him. He gives no fresh terms, puts no strain on the meaning of adjectives, and takes no liberties with the English language. He deals very largely with monosyllables. Often he leaves out introductory and connecting words, thus giving his paragraphs a jerky, staccato effect. It is a style that Henry James would marvel at, but one that the man in the street thoroughly understands. The intelligibility constitutes its great merit. Yet, even this latter quality, though it may be rare, is hardly rare enough to carry the possessor to affluence and fame.

In what, then, does the supreme virtue of “Steele Rudd’s” novels consist? Is it in the character-drawing? Here again the answer must be in the negative. A thousand readers will rise to their feet as one man, or as one woman, and point to the figure of Dad, the original selector, as a supreme triumph of characterisation. But what has Dad done to render himself original, or in any special way distinctive? As he appears in these pages he is ragged, sun-browned, simple-minded, good-hearted, optimistic, and persevering. It is a character one likes, a temperament one admires. It is a figure that the Australian public has taken to itself, and one that only a sacrilegious person would speak of in disrespectful terms. We pass by Dad with all deference, only venturing to remark that while we admire his courage and perseverance, we find his optimism somewhat reminiscent of Micawber, and his simple-mindedness faintly suggestive of my Uncle Toby. And we say without any deference, that the subsidiary figures, the Dan’s, and Joe’s, and Kate’s, and Sal’s of the “Selection” series, exhibit very little character-drawing worthy of the name.

There must be some other reason for the author’s triumph. If the cause is not to be found in a superlative literary quality, or in the subtle analysis of character exhibited by Meredith and others, it may be discoverable in the absolute fidelity to nature of certain scenes and incidents. Have we unearthed in “Steele Rudd” the Australian painter of real life—a man who can emulate in the Southern Hemisphere the example set by Gorky in Russia, or Zola in France, or Gissing in England? Scarcely this, either. From the pen pictures of these back-blocks novels the element of realism is, for the most part, dexterously eliminated. There may be—there are, pages out of real life. But if the author, or any one else, told the whole truth, or half the truth about the stunted growths and dull intelligences that result from too long and too intimate an acquaintanceship with the Australian desert, the book would not be considered pleasant reading. The people who buy it now would put it on one side with a slight shudder, and a Chief Justice would not refer to it as the kind of volume that should be in every household, and studied by every boy and girl. Mr “Rudd’s” so-called lifelike pictures are much idealised. The palace of Claude Melnotte by the Lake of Como was not more preferable to the gardener’s hut, than is the cheerful, breezy existence of Dad and Mother and their entourage to the soulless, hopeless life-struggle of a certain kind of Australian family. To be a genuine realist, you must not only give the hard facts, but reflect the atmosphere of your characters and places. The atmosphere of “Steele Rudd” is nothing if not buoyant; the writer is always confident, and always smiling, even when he is telling about ruined crops, and suffering adults, and hungry children. If he is not a true romanticist, neither is he an absolute realist. He is as far from being a Zola as he is from being a Beaconsfield.

Yet a triumph is a triumph; there must be some reason for it; it cannot be built, or, at least, it cannot be sustained on air. If we put aside the literary quality which is not stipulated for, and the character-drawing which scarcely exists, and the realism which is mainly imaginary, we are driven back on the humour—that impregnable Torres Vedras behind which every devotee of the “Selection” novel sooner or later entrenches himself. It must be the humour. The word is one that has a very wide meaning. A man might more profitably endeavour to number the stars than to bring the elusive quality of humour within the four quarters of a satisfactory definition. For practical purposes it may be observed that a humorous thing is that which strikes you as humorous—though how, and when, and why it should strike you, are matters that rest entirely with yourself. The most learned pundits have laid it down as an axiom that there is great humour in the spectacle of the fool in Lear reminding his mad and weather-beaten master of the sorry spectacle he is making of himself. “Steele Rudd,” beyond all question, is a humorist, and not the less one because his comic episodes take place in an atmosphere that is compounded much more of tragedy than of mirth. The incidents themselves—say, for example, those of the parson and the scone, of the racecourse and the worn-out brumby, of Dan and the snake-bite, of Dad and the hoe—are scarcely calculated to make a sympathetic reader laugh. But running through the episodes as a whole, and colouring the work as a whole, there is a certain suggestion of humour which it is difficult to locate or analyse; a certain lightness of touch which can hardly be explained in words; a certain buoyancy of treatment that makes reading easy; a certain creative quality that is rarest of all, and hardest of all to define.

The humour and the local colour would appear, therefore, to have carried the day. An author has arisen in this country who can make his readers smile, and who can convey to them an impression of certain places and of certain people peculiar to Australia. It does not matter so much why they smile, so long as the smile is visible. In regard to the local colour, it is necessary to remark that this is not quite the same thing as realism, though the two are often associated. Local colour is the mask behind which realism may or may not exist. With the aid of these two qualities, or gifts, or attributes, the young man who writes under the pseudonym of “Steele Rudd” has travelled a long way. Perhaps no one is more surprised at the distance he has compassed than himself. There is evidence in his latest work that he is beginning to collect himself; that he is recovering from the shock of his literary advancement, and is beginning to attempt stronger and less fantastic things. He may do better even than he has done yet. Every one will hope that it may be so; for the writer with a gift like his is not common in this or in any other country.

But there is another phase of his literary enterprise that must be considered. It has to be borne in mind that the “Selection” novel does not exhaust the methods of communication between Mr “Rudd” and his public. The people who acclaimed the author in book form, are—or were until a few months ago—getting him in magazine edition. The monthly print which has sprung into existence on the strength of its editor’s reputation is not only baptized with his pen name, but contains regular instalments of his wit and fancy. Once again the familiar figures rise before us. Once again we are invited to gaze on Dad with the whiskers, and Joe with the patched trousers, and Mother with the arms akimbo and the round face. Once again we breathe the atmosphere, once again we hear the language. Once again we are reminded of the simple economic truth that, so long as there is a demand for any commercial or literary product, a supply will be forthcoming.

It is distinctly a matter for congratulation that there should be original effort, and individual style among the writers of Australia. The continent should be well able to maintain two or three magazines of its own. One has only to think of the talent that is running to waste. In a majority of the Sydney and Melbourne daily papers, brains are allowed to show themselves, and are occasionally encouraged. If any one takes the trouble to read, critically and carefully, six successive issues of one of these big “dailies,” he will find much that is calculated to surprise him. If he is not surprised, it is only because he has been long accustomed to the menu. A great deal of skill in the use of sentences, some vivid delineations of men and places, much artistic discernment, undoubted eye for effect, literary or dramatic criticism of a bright and illuminative character—all these, and more, can be found now and then in the columns of the metropolitan press. Talent is going to waste for the reason that the authors are usually unrecognised, the work is underpaid, the public take all for granted, and the writers, when their brilliancy begins to wane, are expected to remove themselves and their fading fortunes to another arena. There should be Australian magazines strong enough and popular enough to win for the man—the really able man—who grinds out his soul on a morning or evening paper at least an Australian recognition. There should be, but there are not. The reason, if sought for, is to be found in the deep-rooted, the seemingly ineradicable habit of obtaining magazines, along with the latest book, the latest melodrama, the most up-to-date hat, and the newest thing in waistcoats, from London or Paris, and from nowhere else.

“Steele Rudd’s” magazine can claim the great merit, the unusual distinction, of standing on its own feet. Whatever else it does, or does not do, it gets its materials from within the continent. When it deals in new ideas—a somewhat rare occurrence for a monthly magazine—the ideas can be set down as its own. It finds no trouble in filling up space. The old friends are there, but they dance to slightly different tunes. Here and there a costume has been altered, here and there is a fresh streak of colour, here and there is a new dab of paint. There is nothing décolleté about any of the literary figures, or about those supplied by writers in this magazine. All are decent and proper on the moral side. The one stipulation is that they must be Australian. How they grin and twist and tumble, these subsidiary performers whom the “Selection” novel has called into existence! Here is the contributor who is to speak a piece about art and the Bohemian quarter—save the mark!—of Sydney and Melbourne. Here is our amusing friend of the red page. Here is our local story writer, with his rather tragical humour, and his rather humorous tragedy. Here is our minor poet, tuning his lyre and tearing his hair. And here is the editor himself, smiling genially, conscious of his triumph, but modest, inflexibly modest, the while. They are all writers for “Steele Rudd’s” magazine. The trail of “Steele Rudd” is over them all.

What is to be thought of this latest development? Is there scope for it in Australia? Will it be permanent? Or is the author giving us a little more than we originally bargained for? Does he recollect the parallel case of Tithonus:—

I asked thee: Give me immortality;

And thou didst grant mine asking with a smile,

Like a rich man who cares not how he gives.

The analogy is obvious. We, the suppliant public, are Tithonus; Mr “Rudd,” the person supplicated, is Aurora. We asked him to give us more of his “Selection” literature, and he, the rich man mentally, granted our request—granted it with a smile. But, again like Tithonus, we scarcely realised what we were asking for, or how much we were likely to get. For Mr “Rudd” himself we have always a welcome, and always some pieces of silver. But for a whole school of “Rudds”—a recurring atmosphere of “Rudds”—a monthly and ever present edition of Joe and Sandy and the rest—we were not entirely prepared. The significant circumstance is that writers in Mr “Rudd’s” magazine are beginning to imitate Mr “Rudd.” When a young lady contributor is found beginning a sketch of a place out back with monosyllabic question and monosyllabic answer—when “Mick” and “Sam” and “the girls” are once more brought forward—it is to be apprehended that the influence of the master is at work, and that others are attempting a task which can be safely entrusted only to one.

The story of the “Selection novel” as popularised in this country teaches a useful, if rather obvious, moral. In any world, literate or illiterate, there is nothing succeeds like success. There is no fixed law or principle about these matters. There is no critic whose opinion is worth anything when weighed against the opinion of any other critic. “What am I, the dreamer, but a dream?” writes Victor Daley, à propos of the riddle of existence. How can we, the lookers on at the game, know what the verdict of the public will be, or whether thumbs will be turned up or down? One man has a fondness for the poetry of Shelley, and another prefers the prose of Mr Lorimer; one man has a passion for Lohengrin, another would rather have three hours of The Country Girl. And if the majority prefer it, if it gives them more genuine pleasure, The Country Girl is the better work of the two, whatever some opinionated critic may say to the contrary. It is useless to argue about opinions. There is only one recognised criterion, and that is success. There is only one way of measuring success, and that is by the monetary standard. When cast into the scales, the third, and in some respects the weakest of “Steele Rudd’s” books, weighs out at £500. And this for an Australian literary man is the most conspicuous success yet achieved.