When you’re lining up out the front of a theatre waiting to see a Nobel Laureate, it can be difficult to avoid inflating your expectations.
In a black suit and
open-collared linen shirt, Coetzee cuts a stern figure on the stage, his carved
features and shock of grey hair betraying an intense seriousness. He says that
he hasn’t had much experience working in the form of the short story, and that
the piece he will be reading (“A House In Spain”) was initially published
thirteen years ago.
Like much of Coetzee’s work,
the story is more or less plotless. Centred around a man who has recently
bought a house in Catalonia, it proceeds more like an essay than a traditional
story, examining the psyche of an ageing man with an extensive history of
failed relationships. Coetzee speaks intently, his brow furrowed. The story’s protagonist
develops a relationship with the house that eerily parallels the relationships
with his former wives – buying the house makes “a deeper kind of sense” than an
economic one – and Coetzee’s strange, almost academic, style allows him to
depict the lingering presence of the past in our everyday lives.
Things shift in tone when Cate
Kennedy approaches the podium and begins to read from “Flexion”, a story from
her collection Like A House On Fire. Kennedy’s prose is furiously
written, shifting between lyrical description of landscapes to blokey
Australian vernacular. The story details the deterioration of a marriage in the
aftermath of the husband’s debilitating accident. Told from the wife’s
perspective, it’s a frank and brutal study of the failures of masculinity, and
the anxieties of encroaching death.
The final story of the night
comes from David Malouf. Walking across the stage in a red turtleneck, he
speaks in a energetic, raspy tone. Told from the perspective of a nine-year-old
girl, “Closer” examines the tensions between a devoutly religious farm family
and their gay son who leaves them for more prosperous territory in Sydney. The
naivety of the narrator underscores the absurdity of a religion that preaches
tolerance castigating someone for their sexual orientation, with humour and
lyricism.
As the sell-out crowd shuffles towards the book signing tables, people speak of the stories in hushed, almost reverent tones. Though extended readings can often prove tiresome, to sit and listen to three Australian masters feels like a true privilege.
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