The Importance of Australian Literature in the English Language Canon

As someone who studies literature, I have to admit that I've always felt a sense of neglect towards Australian literature. Growing up, I didn't even recall studying an Australian writer in school, and when I did come across one, it was just a fleeting glance at an excerpt. This lack of representation in the literary canon is a theme that resonates deeply with me, and Leah's book on the subject hits home beautifully.

Leah's discussion of Australian literature as a conversation and at large is both fascinating and frustrating. As someone who isn't from Australia, it's likely that I'll miss out on a wealth of insight into the culture and society that underpins this literature. However, I'm more than willing to acknowledge my own limitations and make up for them by reading and engaging with Australian authors. The problem is that when we're not familiar with the context, even well-intentioned discussions can feel superficial or missing key perspectives. This is where Leah's book shines – it provides a nuanced exploration of the Australian literary landscape, including its current state and the challenges of publishing.

One of the most striking aspects of the book is its examination of translation. As someone who has always been fascinated by the process of translating literature from one language to another, I found this section particularly thought-provoking. Leah discusses the difficulties of translating books and the ways in which meaning can be lost or altered during the process. This topic is crucial in understanding the complexities of Australian literature, where cultural contexts and linguistic nuances can be easily overlooked by readers outside the country.

Of course, no discussion of Australian literature would be complete without mentioning PIPA – Leah's eponymous protagonist who is at once both enigmatic and fascinating. As a character, PIPA serves as a microcosm for the book's themes, and her interactions with other characters reveal a great deal about the human condition. We see her through the eyes of Celeste, a French woman living in Paris; Sibel, an Australian Sri Lankan woman who grapples with PIPA's presence; and Cassie, a white Australian woman dating a Sri Lankan man. Each of these perspectives offers a unique lens through which to view PIPA, highlighting both her flaws and her virtues.

One of the most striking aspects of PIPA's character is her tendency to create divisions between people – whether it's racial or national divisions, or even just misunderstandings between individuals. As we see through Celeste's eyes, PIPA can be a source of both fascination and frustration; she is both captivating and infuriating at the same time. However, as Cassie grows and learns from her interactions with other characters, we begin to see glimmers of PIPA's humanity – her vulnerability, her empathy, and even her capacity for love.

The contrast between PIPA's development throughout the book serves as a powerful commentary on the complexities of human relationships. We see people grow, change, and evolve over time, while others remain static. This dynamic is particularly striking in Leah's portrayal of Cassie, who undergoes a significant transformation from an isolated individual to someone more open and receptive to others.

One of the most surprising aspects of the book is its lack of discernible plot – at least, not in the classical sense. Rather than following a traditional narrative arc, the story unfolds slowly, revealing itself through multiple perspectives and vignettes. This approach requires patience and attention from the reader, but it's also richly rewarding. The book is less about plot twists and turns than about exploring the human condition – with all its complexities, contradictions, and nuances.

Ultimately, I find Leah's book to be both a critique of the Australian literary landscape and a celebration of its diversity. It's a complex, nuanced work that challenges readers to engage more deeply with the literature and culture being discussed. While it may not be to everyone's taste – particularly those who prefer faster-paced narratives or more traditional storytelling methods – I believe that Leah's book is an essential read for anyone interested in Australian literature.

As someone who has recently become acquainted with Leah's work, I'm excited to explore her backlist further. Her writing is both nuanced and accessible, offering a unique perspective on the world that is at once both local and universal. With the Stella Prize nomination underway, I hope that Leah will receive the recognition she deserves for this outstanding achievement. For those readers who haven't yet had the chance to engage with Australian literature, I highly recommend starting with PIPA – it's a compelling introduction to the complexities of human relationships and the importance of cultural context.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey I'm hundred Winchester welcome back to my channel so today is something unusual for me and that is for me to review a single book normally I just give you like an overview if you want more information you could ask questions that kind of thing but sometimes I'll read a book that I really love or a book that just really makes me think I think this is both of those things because I just love this book so what am i reviewing well I am reviewing the life to come by Michelle de Kretzer this is out from catapult here in the US this is shortlisted for the Stella prize at the time I'm recording this they have not announced the winner so I I really enjoy this one I have not read terra nullius yet but it's coming I'm probably going to say that for vacation but yeah I really enjoyed this book I've never read to Kratzer before she is a Sri Lankan Australian writer and this is her seventh book six book I don't know she's written a lot of books and this is I don't know I'm just gonna stop gushing and tell you a little bit about it hey editing Kendra here so I realize I never actually gave you the synopsis of the book code I was reviewing it which might be a problem right so here it goes so this book is about a cast of characters it's not about a single character which I talked about later just about Pippa because she is in all of the book and so she's like scattered in and out through there but it's about five different characters in five different episodes and there really is no discernible plot but it's at all over the world much of it set in Australia there's a section of set in France our flashbacks in other countries like Sri Lanka where the authors from so it really is just a very wide-ranging almost indescribable novel you might say so I'm gonna let pass Kendra continue to try to describe this book for you so this book is not a book you can spoil so as we go through just know there are no spoilers because you can't spoil the book because it's sort of like Ali Smith or Virginia Woolf it's a very stylized kind of character driven type novel that's more about like what kind of like what the characters are and what they're doing and how they interact also this is told in five parts and each part is like its own insular store they're like how David Mitchell you know most famous example of this like he does so you can't really spoil a lot really so if you really love slow stylized books this is for you I'm looking at you Sean let's start with the overall view of this book so this book is as long sort of it's like 360 some pages it's very slow book so I would say that would probably be first off the biggest fault of this book is that it is so so slow moving but you can tell that de Kretzer uses the structure that I'm gonna talk about here in a second to combat that she uses the insular stories to give you a break so you notice that Ellie Smith and Virginia Woolf write books they're usually 200 to 250 pages because maintaining that style or should I say the reader maintaining reading that style is just more difficult so this is set in five parts as I mentioned the Kretzer cause them episodes so we have these overarching ideas one of them is Australian literature and each viewpoint character is connected somehow to Australian literature and then I was listening to this interview and a cursor was like I liked the idea of having a main character who was not central to the novel she's kind of in peripheral or moving around and that is Pippa the Pippa is an aspiring novelist she's a white middle-class woman you know just doing her thing and she's very fluffy she does not a lot of substance to or sometimes very shallow in certain circumstance and I think she's a critique on a certain type of person which we'll talk about closer to the end of the video so let me tell you about the sections so I had my notes here so we have part one it's called the victim self it's about George George wanted to get his PhD in Australian literature and he realized that they were kept Jeremy having him read non-australian books so he's changed universities and then read novels and it was happy in he becomes a novelist and he's mentioned throughout the novel he's a shortage section next we have the Ashfield tamil who this is by cassie viewpoint I guess Cassie and she is dating a cache Sri Lankan man and so she has the interest in you know like South Asian kind of cultures and and stuffs which is why we get the title and then she's a peach to use PhD student in Australian literature and as a woman she's suffering like she has the whole sexism in academia she's facing so the next section is celeste the Museum of romantic life she translator she grew up in France for her mom moved to Australia after her dad died in a certain event and then what Celeste was older she moved back to France and became a translator of literature and then we have part four which is pit called Pippa passes that's actually her Twitter username and Pippa is throw all of the not all those different sections what's interesting about Pippa is that we view her from several different viewpoints we have doors she doesn't think she's actually talented he kind of gives her like a pity recommendation kind of deal that we have her best friend who is Cassie the PhD student we have her also she's a friend and Celeste I'm Peppa has a residency in Paris he makes one just less Anna last section is Cristobal who's a Sri Lankan Australian like immigrant too you know to Australia and she's Pippa's neighbor but we see all of these different views of Pippa but it's totally different the help he'll use herself Pippa kind of writes these very fluffy novels don't sell well she can't thinks means they're more literary because they're not commercial whatever but she's never really that successful either with the critics or with sales so she's just really not a great novelist and she thinks when people don't want to read her books it's because they are snobby or they're mean but really they just don't want to read a bad book and pip is just so interesting because she is really that stereotypical white feminist who think she's really woke but she's not she's not no but she's just really shallow another thing about Pippa is that she takes people and puts them into her novels she says these people are would never be noticed or they're unimportant or whatever and so I'm gonna put them in my novel and no one will notice and it's kind of like how she feels she has the right to do that and how she has the right to do certain things to certain people and that's is amplified in the last section because Cristobal is one of those people let's put in Peppa's novel and she has like a platonic life partner she's a roommate named Bunty and they lived together and they're not romantically inclined but then the Pippa writes her into her novel her most successful novel actually near the end of the book and puts her as like a closeted lesbian and describes her in very unattractive terms and Christabel really takes it very difficult but she actually loved Pippa as a friend and Pippa didn't really think Toofer and that's actually emphasized again at the end of the book which is a spoiler sorry which is a spoiler and I won't I won't think about that but oh my goodness guys so how she does this structure and how everyone I'll show you a little diagram I drew because Kendra loves diagrams see it's like yeah pit but in the middle and they have all the different characters around her and how they all kind of reflect different parts of Pippa back at her and show all of her fault and this critique Allah's idea of a liberal individual who thinks they know all of these things but they they don't and they're very insensitive actually to other cultures but by kind of like talking over them and different things like in a societal way they're talking over them and yeah it was just so well done I really enjoyed this book just because the style really Affleck's reflects each character and just how she moves through so I want to read you a section we're gonna start with George so George is meeting his mother for for dinner a meal I don't know anyway so it says over the years George's mother's hair had been various colors and links and now it was soft yellow sunburst again still with the central dark star she produced a supermarket receipt from her bag and read it from the back of it here a parent do or die fun there you get it okay the head gardener replied Dortch moody hair they were in the habit of noting down the names of hairdressing salons for each other his mother said also I saw this in an airport shop stainless steel is immune to rust discoloration and corrosion this makes for a new fence jewelry George's and his mother had the same high laugh hehehe and otherwise didn't resemble each other at all the Bonnard was beside her done up in a cardboard and propped up in chair when George asked what it was like his mother said a naked woman and wallpaper you need an excuse to paint light it just goes on like that this seems on like connected to anything but by seeing all these little details we see George as a person and his life and he as a novelist throughout the book one of the big ideas I'd mentioned was Australian literature and how Australian literature is treated in the large discussion of English language literature and how just does not really have a place of honor that that it should and you know I think this really hit home with me as someone who study literature I've read so few Australian writers and I can't even remember studying one in school and I was thinking like I may might have read an excerpt of something but it was just not something that we studied a lot so I feel like she definitely hits home with that she talks a lot about the Australian literature as a conversation and at large and the state of like current Australian literature and how books are published so one of the things that I would say is if you're not from Australia you probably haven't read these writers 1 and 2 we're gonna probably miss a lot of the insight so I would love to see someone like Leah from hide-and-seek review this book and talk about the Australian literature mentioned in this book so I'm really excited to see that because I as an American I know I'm missing stuff it's just inevitable but that's fine because I'd know that and then I can go read these other authors so I'm fine with that because I know that's there but I feel like you know you have you hadn't made the connection or you might feel frustrated because you're not interacting with the book as you normally would what I've mentioned more like English or American authors so I thought that was an interesting look at it and the other thing of course is PIPA as a character I feel like she is one of the biggest facets of me she is one of the biggest facets of this book because she is one of the biggest critiques of the book again I think one of the biggest parts of this book is seeing her from all the different perspectives as someone even like when we see people who are from other countries view her so we have Celeste who is from Paris you know she lives there sees Pippa and help him but interacts with her versus how her Sibel interacts with her as a Sri Lankan Australian woman and how there is this like racial divide that Pippa puts there unintentionally but thinking that she is being literally aware and I find them very fascinating but how that's portrayed and how well done that is I'm also we see in contrast with Pippa we see her best cassie who is dating a sri lankan I think he's English I think he's like you know feel like an English man he's biracial and we see her interact with other people for similar reasons but she actually learned something I would say like she doesn't learn like stellar amount but she does grow she grows as a character we see that growth the people we don't see any growth until the very end of the book we see no growth she is a static character and I think the contrast of the possibilities of what could be as just well done and seeing the trend there's discussion of translation which is interesting was so lost I would love to hear our translators you on that section because she talks about translating books and the what's lost in translation different things so we had the licit novel as a whole just has so much going on and I feel like PIPA is the thing that we use in and out of the different sections and makes this a coherent whole I could talk about this book for a long time but again I'll stop so you can go and read it for yourself and learn things you will probably pull other things out that I have not talked about just because there's so much here that you could talk about and again I will say if you don't like slow novels and you don't like really in-depth looks at that then this might not be the book for you because there really is no discernible plot so it's definitely a novel that you have to like this type of novel I don't think this is a novel for everyone which is fine different people like different things but if you do like slower moving novels then this will probably be a book that you'll really enjoy so that is the the life to come but I'm still decried sir I am so happy that I read this book and can't wait to read more by her because she has again a great back list that I can go check out so we'll see happens good luck to moschella Kretzer for the Stella Prize I hope she does well and I hope that she's recognized more internationally because she definitely has a lot of talent um this isn't a perfect book but it is a really good book so and thank you so much for watching if you have any questions about this book or other things that I didn't mention that you've read in the book or whatever let's just have a conversation down in the comments I'll see you next time guys byehey I'm hundred Winchester welcome back to my channel so today is something unusual for me and that is for me to review a single book normally I just give you like an overview if you want more information you could ask questions that kind of thing but sometimes I'll read a book that I really love or a book that just really makes me think I think this is both of those things because I just love this book so what am i reviewing well I am reviewing the life to come by Michelle de Kretzer this is out from catapult here in the US this is shortlisted for the Stella prize at the time I'm recording this they have not announced the winner so I I really enjoy this one I have not read terra nullius yet but it's coming I'm probably going to say that for vacation but yeah I really enjoyed this book I've never read to Kratzer before she is a Sri Lankan Australian writer and this is her seventh book six book I don't know she's written a lot of books and this is I don't know I'm just gonna stop gushing and tell you a little bit about it hey editing Kendra here so I realize I never actually gave you the synopsis of the book code I was reviewing it which might be a problem right so here it goes so this book is about a cast of characters it's not about a single character which I talked about later just about Pippa because she is in all of the book and so she's like scattered in and out through there but it's about five different characters in five different episodes and there really is no discernible plot but it's at all over the world much of it set in Australia there's a section of set in France our flashbacks in other countries like Sri Lanka where the authors from so it really is just a very wide-ranging almost indescribable novel you might say so I'm gonna let pass Kendra continue to try to describe this book for you so this book is not a book you can spoil so as we go through just know there are no spoilers because you can't spoil the book because it's sort of like Ali Smith or Virginia Woolf it's a very stylized kind of character driven type novel that's more about like what kind of like what the characters are and what they're doing and how they interact also this is told in five parts and each part is like its own insular store they're like how David Mitchell you know most famous example of this like he does so you can't really spoil a lot really so if you really love slow stylized books this is for you I'm looking at you Sean let's start with the overall view of this book so this book is as long sort of it's like 360 some pages it's very slow book so I would say that would probably be first off the biggest fault of this book is that it is so so slow moving but you can tell that de Kretzer uses the structure that I'm gonna talk about here in a second to combat that she uses the insular stories to give you a break so you notice that Ellie Smith and Virginia Woolf write books they're usually 200 to 250 pages because maintaining that style or should I say the reader maintaining reading that style is just more difficult so this is set in five parts as I mentioned the Kretzer cause them episodes so we have these overarching ideas one of them is Australian literature and each viewpoint character is connected somehow to Australian literature and then I was listening to this interview and a cursor was like I liked the idea of having a main character who was not central to the novel she's kind of in peripheral or moving around and that is Pippa the Pippa is an aspiring novelist she's a white middle-class woman you know just doing her thing and she's very fluffy she does not a lot of substance to or sometimes very shallow in certain circumstance and I think she's a critique on a certain type of person which we'll talk about closer to the end of the video so let me tell you about the sections so I had my notes here so we have part one it's called the victim self it's about George George wanted to get his PhD in Australian literature and he realized that they were kept Jeremy having him read non-australian books so he's changed universities and then read novels and it was happy in he becomes a novelist and he's mentioned throughout the novel he's a shortage section next we have the Ashfield tamil who this is by cassie viewpoint I guess Cassie and she is dating a cache Sri Lankan man and so she has the interest in you know like South Asian kind of cultures and and stuffs which is why we get the title and then she's a peach to use PhD student in Australian literature and as a woman she's suffering like she has the whole sexism in academia she's facing so the next section is celeste the Museum of romantic life she translator she grew up in France for her mom moved to Australia after her dad died in a certain event and then what Celeste was older she moved back to France and became a translator of literature and then we have part four which is pit called Pippa passes that's actually her Twitter username and Pippa is throw all of the not all those different sections what's interesting about Pippa is that we view her from several different viewpoints we have doors she doesn't think she's actually talented he kind of gives her like a pity recommendation kind of deal that we have her best friend who is Cassie the PhD student we have her also she's a friend and Celeste I'm Peppa has a residency in Paris he makes one just less Anna last section is Cristobal who's a Sri Lankan Australian like immigrant too you know to Australia and she's Pippa's neighbor but we see all of these different views of Pippa but it's totally different the help he'll use herself Pippa kind of writes these very fluffy novels don't sell well she can't thinks means they're more literary because they're not commercial whatever but she's never really that successful either with the critics or with sales so she's just really not a great novelist and she thinks when people don't want to read her books it's because they are snobby or they're mean but really they just don't want to read a bad book and pip is just so interesting because she is really that stereotypical white feminist who think she's really woke but she's not she's not no but she's just really shallow another thing about Pippa is that she takes people and puts them into her novels she says these people are would never be noticed or they're unimportant or whatever and so I'm gonna put them in my novel and no one will notice and it's kind of like how she feels she has the right to do that and how she has the right to do certain things to certain people and that's is amplified in the last section because Cristobal is one of those people let's put in Peppa's novel and she has like a platonic life partner she's a roommate named Bunty and they lived together and they're not romantically inclined but then the Pippa writes her into her novel her most successful novel actually near the end of the book and puts her as like a closeted lesbian and describes her in very unattractive terms and Christabel really takes it very difficult but she actually loved Pippa as a friend and Pippa didn't really think Toofer and that's actually emphasized again at the end of the book which is a spoiler sorry which is a spoiler and I won't I won't think about that but oh my goodness guys so how she does this structure and how everyone I'll show you a little diagram I drew because Kendra loves diagrams see it's like yeah pit but in the middle and they have all the different characters around her and how they all kind of reflect different parts of Pippa back at her and show all of her fault and this critique Allah's idea of a liberal individual who thinks they know all of these things but they they don't and they're very insensitive actually to other cultures but by kind of like talking over them and different things like in a societal way they're talking over them and yeah it was just so well done I really enjoyed this book just because the style really Affleck's reflects each character and just how she moves through so I want to read you a section we're gonna start with George so George is meeting his mother for for dinner a meal I don't know anyway so it says over the years George's mother's hair had been various colors and links and now it was soft yellow sunburst again still with the central dark star she produced a supermarket receipt from her bag and read it from the back of it here a parent do or die fun there you get it okay the head gardener replied Dortch moody hair they were in the habit of noting down the names of hairdressing salons for each other his mother said also I saw this in an airport shop stainless steel is immune to rust discoloration and corrosion this makes for a new fence jewelry George's and his mother had the same high laugh hehehe and otherwise didn't resemble each other at all the Bonnard was beside her done up in a cardboard and propped up in chair when George asked what it was like his mother said a naked woman and wallpaper you need an excuse to paint light it just goes on like that this seems on like connected to anything but by seeing all these little details we see George as a person and his life and he as a novelist throughout the book one of the big ideas I'd mentioned was Australian literature and how Australian literature is treated in the large discussion of English language literature and how just does not really have a place of honor that that it should and you know I think this really hit home with me as someone who study literature I've read so few Australian writers and I can't even remember studying one in school and I was thinking like I may might have read an excerpt of something but it was just not something that we studied a lot so I feel like she definitely hits home with that she talks a lot about the Australian literature as a conversation and at large and the state of like current Australian literature and how books are published so one of the things that I would say is if you're not from Australia you probably haven't read these writers 1 and 2 we're gonna probably miss a lot of the insight so I would love to see someone like Leah from hide-and-seek review this book and talk about the Australian literature mentioned in this book so I'm really excited to see that because I as an American I know I'm missing stuff it's just inevitable but that's fine because I'd know that and then I can go read these other authors so I'm fine with that because I know that's there but I feel like you know you have you hadn't made the connection or you might feel frustrated because you're not interacting with the book as you normally would what I've mentioned more like English or American authors so I thought that was an interesting look at it and the other thing of course is PIPA as a character I feel like she is one of the biggest facets of me she is one of the biggest facets of this book because she is one of the biggest critiques of the book again I think one of the biggest parts of this book is seeing her from all the different perspectives as someone even like when we see people who are from other countries view her so we have Celeste who is from Paris you know she lives there sees Pippa and help him but interacts with her versus how her Sibel interacts with her as a Sri Lankan Australian woman and how there is this like racial divide that Pippa puts there unintentionally but thinking that she is being literally aware and I find them very fascinating but how that's portrayed and how well done that is I'm also we see in contrast with Pippa we see her best cassie who is dating a sri lankan I think he's English I think he's like you know feel like an English man he's biracial and we see her interact with other people for similar reasons but she actually learned something I would say like she doesn't learn like stellar amount but she does grow she grows as a character we see that growth the people we don't see any growth until the very end of the book we see no growth she is a static character and I think the contrast of the possibilities of what could be as just well done and seeing the trend there's discussion of translation which is interesting was so lost I would love to hear our translators you on that section because she talks about translating books and the what's lost in translation different things so we had the licit novel as a whole just has so much going on and I feel like PIPA is the thing that we use in and out of the different sections and makes this a coherent whole I could talk about this book for a long time but again I'll stop so you can go and read it for yourself and learn things you will probably pull other things out that I have not talked about just because there's so much here that you could talk about and again I will say if you don't like slow novels and you don't like really in-depth looks at that then this might not be the book for you because there really is no discernible plot so it's definitely a novel that you have to like this type of novel I don't think this is a novel for everyone which is fine different people like different things but if you do like slower moving novels then this will probably be a book that you'll really enjoy so that is the the life to come but I'm still decried sir I am so happy that I read this book and can't wait to read more by her because she has again a great back list that I can go check out so we'll see happens good luck to moschella Kretzer for the Stella Prize I hope she does well and I hope that she's recognized more internationally because she definitely has a lot of talent um this isn't a perfect book but it is a really good book so and thank you so much for watching if you have any questions about this book or other things that I didn't mention that you've read in the book or whatever let's just have a conversation down in the comments I'll see you next time guys bye\n"