There is nothing quite like the romance a classic novel can inspire. A writer woos with the wonder that is their words. Readers reciprocate with public dialogue and herald in a literary master. Britain has Orwell, Amis, Woolf; America has Faulkner, Steinbeck, Proulx – to name a few. The names of equivalent Australian writers – Dorothy Hewett, Patrick White, Christina Stead etc – are familiar to many, but their works are increasingly marginalised in schools, universities and the publishing realm.
The Burning Library is a book inspired by anger over the almost non-existent preservation of the works of our national literary legends, and looks to reclaim such cultural capital from unwarranted obscurity by reminding readers of its value. Geordie Williamson, chief literary critic of The Australian, ultimately aims to showcase a body of national literature that we should appreciate for its beauty, diversity and eccentricity – and because it is our own.
In his introduction, Williamson surveys the Australian literary canon and provides contextual insights into why its presence has diminished. He is scrupulous in identifying and detailing the culprits that include, but are not limited to, the emergence of critical theory and the impinging twinge of guilt in promoting a nationalist literary corpus within a postcolonial environment. Readers are bound to rally with Williamson and his convictions for the most part but may disagree with some of the finer points of his arguments. Nevertheless, a dynamic call – a provocation – is made to the reader to contemplate the state of Australian literary classics, and to keep reading.
Williamson claims that the minimal activity surrounding the dissemination and teaching of classic Australian literature is often borne from a sense of duty, rendering the canon with a ‘museum-like quality’. Impassioned, he takes on the task of removing novels from the ‘museum’s shelves’ and places the power of conservation in readers’ hands, through a series of chapters – each a considered distillation of the essence of an author’s writings – that serve as illuminating portraits of writers such as Patrick White, Christina Stead, Elizabeth Harrower and David Ireland.
In every chapter, Williamson compellingly conveys the sense these writers are at once artists portraying Australian places and identities, each with idiosyncratic styles and merits, and characters of interest and intrigue. His approach – which weaves together textual analysis and appreciation, biographical and socio-political contexts, and novel extracts – is delivered precisely and artfully. The result is a series of essays conveying the sense of each author’s accessible critical and cultural significance, in such detail as might be intuited from reading a whole volume celebrating a literary master.
The Burning Library allows Williamson to prove each writer’s innate worth and capacity for enduring relevance, illustrating that good books are indeed ‘slow-burning fuses’, their success not reliant upon a small propitious window. He shows us wealth within the plurality of our Australian literary heritage: bush yarns with anthropological and ecological intelligence ahead of their time (Dal Stivens), a female novelist who was the first Australian author to be published in The New Yorker (Amy Witting), the symbiotic relationship of a female duo who have influenced contemporaries such as Drusilla Modjeska (M. Barnard Eldershaw), and more. A handy ‘Further Reading’ section is also included as an extra guide for the inspired reader.
Erudite, insightful and engaging, Williamson’s The Burning Library ignites interest in the canon of Australian literature, and encourages readers to learn more about the narrative of our classic national literature.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Burning Library: Our Great Novelists Lost and Found
By Geordie Williamson
Paperback, 304 pp, RRP $32.99
ISBN: 9781921922985
Text Publishing
