Literature Entry Week 12
It is with great sadness that I make my final live journal posting as part of the ACU Literature course.
My immediate thanks is to MG for introducing me to this awesome creative outlet. Through live journal, I have gained a renewed confidence in my writing because this medium has allowed me the license to write freely. So pleased was I with live journal that I made it a part of my teaching to Year 9 boys! The Literature course in general has allowed me to discover a love for reading and deciphering poetry; a skill I lacked confidence in, and it has exposed me to the work of some brilliant Australian Authors in Alex Miller and David Malouf. Most importantly, this exposure has allowed me to learn more about the plight of the Indigenous of Australia. I must admit that prior to this year I lived in supreme ignorance of the Aboriginal story. However, thanks to the stories of Bo and Annabelle, the tragedy of Panya, and the heartache of Judith Wright among others, my eyes have been opened and I regret the time when I did not expose myself to the truth of Australia’s history.
This is a picture of a map of Australia as the Indigenous would have marked out the regions of land. Look at the thousands of different tribes and ways of life which governed this land prior to European occupation.
I am also so thankful for the cyber friends I have made who have diligently commented on my work, and have provided me with a great creative resource in their own writing. The breadth of talent in this course is amazing, and I am committed to checking in on my friends in live journal land to see how the poetry and creative writing is expanding.
Now before this final farewell spirals into an OSCARS type speech, I would like to make a few final comments on David Malouf and his book The Conversations at Curlow Creek.
David Malouf presented as a softly spoken, yet intensely intelligent man at his lecture on Wednesday. I felt so privileged to have heard him speak about his novel and to share his insights into his own writing.
I found his comments on the two realities he presented at the end of the novel to be the most interesting part of his presentation. He spoke of the fact that Adair most definitely would have carried out the execution, and of the virtual identity of Adair created through the reader’s, and societies wish for his character, which makes us believe that he could have possibly not followed through with the execution. Despite Malouf’s testament to Adair’s carrying out of the execution, there is a defiance in the belief in the human spirit to prevail that makes me want to believe that Carney lived. This is my prerogative as a reader with an imagination, and a testament more so to the quality of Malouf’s writing that he could allow the reader to challenge themselves on the subject.
The Conversations at Curlow Creek was possibly the most difficult book I have read. Malouf’s writing was challenging in that it did not conform to the expectations of traditional prose and grammar, and the content of the novel was confronting; it made me challenge what I think about natural and man-made law, and its role in our lives. However, it’s challenging nature also endeared the novel to me as I found the reading to be one which I pondered every time I put the book down. It is therefore, a book I consider to be one which I will revisit again and again.
So this is it for me - thank you, good luck and best wishes!
Emma