Brothers, sisters and anthologies : oh the irony

So when I got home this afternoon from fifteen rounds with a sibling -- the ferocious upfront one, all teeth and claws all the time, and no backing down until one of you dies -- so stratospherically stressed out that my eyeballs and teeth were aching and there was a strange metallic taste in my mouth that no amount of medicinal chocolate would shift, I found two things in the mail.

One was a copy, kindly sent by Allen & Unwin, of Charlotte Wood's new themed anthology of specially-commissioned stories by Australian writers about siblings, entitled Brothers and Sisters. The other was my copy of the current Australian Book Review, in which critic Peter Craven continues his attack on the team of scholars of Australian literature (of which he is not one) who edited the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, including moi, that he began in his magisterially and savagely opinionated review of the anthology in the previous issue.

I've been a fan of Charlotte Wood's since I read her novel The Children, in which she shows great interest in the sibling dynamic and great skill in representing it, an impression further borne out by the brilliant, funny, moving introduction to this new book. And after reading the ABR correspondence pages I'm considering the possibility that one way to understand the shifting, endlessly complex dynamics of the literary scene and all its tortured interrelationships is to think of it in terms of sibling relations, where the keynote is intensity for better or worse, and where endless fights for territory, dominance, independence, sentimental vases and Mummy and Daddy's approval all take place in the hothouse arena of shared interests and common experience.

At the very least, I find that thinking about these things anthropologically and psychoanalytically helps me to get some distance on them, to back away from the rage. It's that or the bottle shop, and I have too much work to do tonight for the bottle shop to be an option. Besides, I want to be fully alert when Germaine takes on Planet Janet on Q&A.


Cross-posted at Australian Literature Diary

To be had, and srown away

There's no time to look it up, for there are chocolate bunnies and assorted hot cross buns to be bought, Aged Ps to visit and yet more Australia Post bags of books to open and sort, but somewhere in one of Helen Garner's essays (I think) is a discussion of how important it is, when planning to write or make something, to have a plan -- but how easy it then becomes for you to be ensnared by the plan, and to be unable to see beyond it to different possibilities. She once had a Polish friend, said Garner, whose opinion of plan-making was as follows: 'A plan is to be had, and srown away.'

I think of this dictum often, and in many different situations. It has been of particular help to me in the cut and thrust of blog thread discussions, especially on big group blogs. For there are some regular commenters whom one knows by now to be a bit bonkers, and engaging in protracted debate with them is never a good idea.

Lately I have been trying harder and harder to avoid getting into it with certain of these people, even when they post comments into which one is truly desperate to sink one's teeth. What works in this situation is exactly the same technique as the letter or email that you write and do not send. Writing it is not only cathartic, but it forces you to articulate clearly what it is that you actually think, and sometimes it even turns out that it was that act of articulation -- rather than the fight itself -- that you were longing for.

And I've written three different blog comments this morning that I've then deleted without posting, either because I've resisted engaging unproductively with someone, or because I know that what I have to say will bring down dreadful abuse upon my head. But that's fine. They were comments to be had, and srown away.