Anne Skyvington
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Anne Skyvington

The Craft of Writing

  • Writing
    • Craft
      • Structuring a Short Story
      • Alternative Narrative Approaches
      • Genre in Writing
      • A Grain of Folly
        • Novel Writing
          • The Sea Voyage: a metaphor
          • How I Created My Debut Novel
          • What I learnt from writing a novel…
          • Short Story
            • At the Swimming Pool
            • The Night of the Barricades
          • Poetry
            • a funny thing happened …
            • An ancient mystic: Rumi
            • A Window into Poetry
            • The Voice of T.S. Eliot
  • Publishing
    • A Change of Blog Title
    • 5 Further Publishing Facts
    • 5 Facts I Learnt About Self/Publishing
    • Highs and Lows of Self Publishing
    • A Perfect Pitch to a Publisher
    • A Useful Site for Readers and Indie Authors: Books 2 Read
  • Book Reviews
    • A Story of a Special Child
    • Discovering Karrana
    • A Young Adult Novel: My French Barrette
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • The Trouble With Flying: A Review
  • Mythos
    • Ancient Stories from Childhood
    • Births Deaths and Marriages
    • Duality or Onenness: The Moon
    • The Myth of Persephone and Demeter
    • Pandora’s Box
    • 7 ancient artefacts in the British Museum
    • Symbolism of Twins
    • The Agony and the Ecstasy of Change
    • Voices From the Past
  • Australia
    • A Country College Residence
    • A Kit Home Goes Up in Vacy
    • A Sydney Icon or Two
    • 5 things about Coogee
    • Moree and Insistent Voices
    • Things To Do in Sydney
  • Travel
    • A Bird’s Eye View
    • A Tuscan Village Holiday
    • Back to Cavtat in Croatia
    • Travel to Croatia
    • 5 or 6 Things About Valencia
  • Guest Post
    • a father’s tale … by Ian (Harry) Wells
    • A Guest Poem: “First Loves” by Roger Britton
    • A Love Sonnet by Ian Harry Wells
    • “Snakey” by Roger Britton
    • Randwick Writers’ Group: Sharing Writing Skills
    • A Story of a Genteel Ghost told by Roger Britton
  • Psychology
    • Creativity and Mental Illness
    • Networking and Emotional Intelligence
    • C.G.Jung’s Active Imagination and the Dead
    • Psychology as a Field of Study
    • Western Influencers Down Through The Ages
  • Life Stories
    • Adriatic Romance … Rijeka to Titograd
    • Always something there to remind me…
    • A Well-Loved Pet
    • Candidly Yours…
    • Memoir Writing
    • River Girl: An Early Chapter of my Memoir in Progress
Book ReviewsBooksWriting

There’s Something About Helen

written by Anne Skyvington September 27, 2012
melbourne-graffiti
the-first-stone-cover-1995

The First Stone 1995

I studied The First Stone by Helen Garner at the University of Technology, Sydney as part of a Master’s degree in Professional Writing. I noticed that there were two camps: those who loved her book, and those who saw her as a traitor of the feminist cause. I was in the former camp, but many of the (younger) women belonged to the other side, along with (I think) the male teacher at the time.

Admittedly, this was one of her more polemical works, in that it dealt with her support of a master at a Melbourne university college, who in 1995 was accused of sexual misconduct towards two female residents. The main reason for her support, I gathered, was her compassion for the master and his family, over what she saw as a minor incident that could have been handled differently. Instead, he and his family had to suffer the ignominy of his sacking and public disgrace.

More recently, I have been part of a book club whose members chose to study Garner’s first novel, Monkey Grip, set in the seventies in Melbourne. Again there was a polarising effect: we either loved or hated this fictional work based on Helen’s diaries from the time. The book revolves around the lives of members of a communal household and their friends, focusing for the main part on Nora and Javo who are in a co-dependent relationship, he addicted to heroin, she simply love-addicted. They are typical of the hedonistic, often anarchistic, youth that congregated around certain places, such as university campuses, in the 60s and 70s, intent on experimenting with life-styles, drugs and sexual freedom. The strength of the novel is its recording of a social movement at a moment in time that in itself polarised society and widened the generation gap for years to come. Tempers flared during the discussions, one side having only positive things to say about the book, the other side seeing only its flaws. “So honest and brave!” said one side, “A truthful historical account of the 60s and 70s as a poetic/creative era of experimentation, symbolised by the poetry throughout.” ” It needs a good editor!” said the other side.

By coincidence, another friend who belongs to a book group on the Central Coast also read Garner around the same time as my group. To quote her words exactly, she thinks of Helen Garner more as a friend than as a name on a book cover. “Helen got so used to me lining up for her to sign her latest work that she wrote in one: ‘To Denise, in queue after queue’. Another memorable time I happened to see her in David Jones. Holding a brand new copy of her My Hard Heart and a lot of chutzpa, I approached her to sign it. She wrote on the flypage: ‘To Denise, just before Christmas in the DJ’s knicker department! Warm regards.'”

garners-first-novel

Monkey Grip 1977

 Denise goes on to say: “The main reason I think of Helen Garner as a friend is the same one held by many of her readers, especially women. It’s her personal, intimate writing style, which invites the reader into her life and into her heart. She holds nothing back, even if it’s controversial, as it was with The First Stone. She is able to say so much with so few words. Her style is always spare, even chiselled, yet never dry. Re-reading her collection The Feel of Steel I was struck again by the economy of her prose which expresses such fiercely honest emotions. How does she do it? Just as an artist achieves a likeness with a few strokes, so she paints vivid word pictures of feelings, events, sights and smells. Strangely enough, only I and one other member of our book group liked Helen Garner and her work; all the other members disliked her intensely for the very same reasons that I love her. People complained that she was too personal, even invasive with her tell-all style. One woman announced that she didn’t need people like Helen in her life because she sounds too angry. We were discussing The Spare Room, her latest novel in which anger does play a part, but to my mind only to fuel the exposure of suspect alternative medical practices and their exploitation of vulnerable people like the woman in the story. We try to be democratic in our book club, but I began to feel like a voice in the wilderness.”
I have read all of Garner’s books, and place myself squarely on the side of those who love her, and think that she writes well. I lived through the same radical era in Sydney of the 1970s as Garner did in Melbourne. I relate to her perspective and empathise with her exploration of the inner self. I have always admired her honesty and the fact that her books speak of “real life” and “emotional truth” while still using fictional techniques that make for pleasant reading. I admire especially her courage and the fact that she explores, among other things, personal issues and mundane events that are often seen as unimportant by other writers, because they are linked to family and to domesticity. Looking over the Sydney Writers’ Festival program, I am disappointed to see only a mention of Helen Garner in a talk by Brigid Rooney on “Literary Activists” and her “intensely politically engaged” stance as a “crusader of the keyboard.”
Is this, perhaps, what puts the other side off?
Related articles
  • Helen Garner: The Spare Room (2008)
  • Helen Garner on Finding the Right Words

There’s Something About Helen was last modified: July 13th, 2018 by Anne Skyvington
a courageous writera feminist who refuses the narrow side of the roadfiction and non-fictionhelen garner a melbournianmelbourne capital of victoriathe first stone a classic
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Anne Skyvington

I have been a reader/writer all of my life as far back as I can remember. Blogging has opened me up to another world, where I can share my skills and continue to create through word and picture. Writing is about seeing the world and recreating it for others to see through different eyes.

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Anne Skyvington

Anne Skyvington is a writer based in Sydney who has been practising and teaching creative writing skills for many years. You can learn here about structuring a short story and how to go about creating a longer work, such as a novel or a memoir. Subscribe to this blog and receive a monthly newsletter on creative writing topics and events.

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About The Author

About The Author

Anne Skyvington is a Sydney-based writer and blogger. <a href="http://anneskyvington.com.au She has self-published a novel, 'Karrana' and is currently writing a creative memoir based on her life and childhood with a spiritual/mystical dimension.

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