Some thoughts on Julia Leigh’s ‘Disquiet’ (Penguin 2008)
The primary motivation of this website is to advertise my manuscript service, but as I can post literary musings here too…well, why not? And this is a subject and an author of particular interest to me.
I’ve been waiting some time for Julia Leigh’s second novel – as has a big slice of the literary world – since her debut novel, ‘The Hunter’ (1999), became a major success. Back in 2000, it inspired the Observer to name her as one of the twenty authors to watch in ‘the new millennium,’ and gained her the first Rolex mentorship in New York with Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison. Perhaps this success, and the natural weight of expectations that followed, created difficulties for Julia – she apparently abandoned a second novel following ‘The Hunter’ – although it’s worth noting she had earlier chosen to not seek publication for her very first novel. Like many successful artists, she places exacting standards on her own work
However, she may also have been daunted in publishing by the unfortunate tendency of many of our own critics to be still in thrall to the ‘tall poppy’ syndrome. Having read Disquiet I googled some reviews and found that those in the English papers were more generous than in our Australian ones. Now why doesn’t this surprise me? In particular, one in the Sydney Morning Herald by a certain reviewer was particularly harsh – and, I believe, misguided. She talked about ‘nameless horrors’ and towards the end of the review states, ‘it remains until the end so seemingly misguided it’s hard to know what to make of it’. It begs the question that if she didn’t know what to make of it, maybe she shouldn’t have written the review? And I seriously wonder if we were reading the same book.
I should say here that I knew Julia quite well in the late 90’s; we both worked at the office of the Australian Society of Authors in Redfern, and when the phone wasn’t ringing we would often talk about literature. I was doing the MA in Writing course at Sydney’s UTS at night, and would discuss what we were learning; and she would tell me about the progress of her own novel, which was to become ‘The Hunter’. I remember her telling me of undergoing a trek in the wilderness of Tasmania for background research (the novel follows a ruthless hunter trying to locate the last Tasmanian tiger for a multinational company); at one stage her blisters were so bad she had to take off her shoes and walk barefoot – but this only made things worse! Anyway, after I had left the ASA in mid ‘98, I was surprised that she contacted me and asked if I could do a report on her novel. This was my first paid manuscript assessment, which I did for a nominal fee. I told her I would be supercritical in the assessment, because that was what I knew she wanted, due to her previously mentioned high standards. Even at this draft stage, the writing was very accomplished, and the descriptions of the hunter in the wilderness were particularly compelling – but (of course!) I mentioned aspects of her work that I thought could be improved. Looking back now, it’s a little weird that the first manuscript I assessed may well be the most successful literary project I’m ever involved with. Hopefully not – though I treasure my copy of ‘The Hunter’ in which Julia wrote ‘Thank you for your help with this manuscript’. [Pardon the trumpet blowing, it’s just a way to attract work].
And so to ‘Disquiet’. I have to admit I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to read this. Having read a couple of Australian reviews – the dire SMH one mentioned above, and another which focused on her writerly brilliance, but gave only a lukewarm endorsement of the new novel, I was bracing myself to be disappointed. And that was wrong of me: reading, whether it’s as an assessor, or critic, or for pure enjoyment – should concentrate on the words on the page, not what someone has said about them. Another factor was that at the time I was in the middle of Tim Winton’s marvelous and jarring collection of stories, ‘The Turning’, and appreciating the unaffected directness of his writing. Leigh’s work is in an utterly different style. ‘Disquiet’ is set in a rambling French chateau, focusing on a woman who has apparently escaped an unhappy marriage in Australia and returned to her family’s estate, with two children in tow. Initially I had sympathy with those who found the writing a little mannered, the atmosphere slightly airless. In the early stages of the book I was reminded of that strange French film ‘Last Year at Marienbad’, whose screenplay was by the French ‘new novelist’ Alain Robbe-Grillet. For those who haven’t seen this film, it is beautifully realised, but highly stylised and surreal. Although Julia’s novel isn’t surreal, it shares the film’s brooding and stylised nature. At the recent Byron Bay Writers’ Festival, Leigh herself introduced a reading from the book with almost an apology to the audience, as the style was not strictly naturalistic, but written in what she called a ‘heightened’ manner.
One of the great things about worthwhile literature is that it continually upsets your expectations. This occurred in the last third of ‘Disquiet’; page by page the novel and story grew in power and beauty – it was utterly compelling, and unexpected. How was such magic achieved? As Julia mentioned herself, she omitted a great deal of the naturalistic detail you normally expect in a novel, along with descriptions of each character’s thoughts and state of mind. By ‘staying on the surface’ as it were, and only including dialogue and action, a wonderful compression is achieved. This is of course, a great way to involve the reader, as one has to use their own imagination to perceive the inner life and motivations of the characters. When thinking of the book, two metaphors come to mind. Structurally it is like a gothic cathedral – the stone foundations are built up carefully and cautiously, but it ends with soaring grace and colour and light. And emotionally the book is like a python – as you read you don’t notice the coils of the story gradually surrounding you – then it has you, and leaves you breathless.
Another term to describe ‘heightened’ writing is ‘poetic’ – and especially at the end, this is poetic prose. Julia has a poet’s attention to each word, each paragraph builds on the previous one, like stanzas in an epic poem. And without the ‘clutter’ of normal prose, by the end of the book the characters operate both as themselves and as archetypes, symbols of loss and redemption. Sophie, who has brought home a still-born baby, which she refuses to allow to be buried, is inconsolable loss. She waves at the two children in a canoe as they try to run away, because ‘all children go’; and when the canoe tips over and the children are in danger of drowning, she is motionless. You realise that her grief is so profound and demented that children as a whole have ceased to exist – ‘all children go’. It’s chilling and powerful. As David Lodge has mentioned, the effective use of symbols in novels is very difficult, but Leigh has carried this off.
Before leaving the subject of children, critics have already noted that there is an almost identical set of children in ‘The Hunter’. Apart from being wonderfully rendered characters, the children are useful in Leigh’s fiction as an ironic counterpoint to the sometimes crazy behaviour of the adults – they’re kin to the fool, and the play-actors in Hamlet. They illuminate the action from an entirely different angle, and are very effective at puncturing a too-rarified atmosphere.
I can only speak for myself, but I think ‘Disquiet’ is in many ways an advance on ‘The Hunter’. So why the sometimes poor Australian reviews? The tall poppy syndrome’s been mentioned, but the simple answer is that it’s easier to run in a groove that someone else has created; also, if you’re not able to appreciate it, a basely self-protective reaction is to trash it. Some people can’t appreciate a fine use of black humour or understand that, for all it’s ‘nameless horrors’ ‘Disquiet’ has a positive, almost optimistic conclusion. But forget what I’ve said and read it yourself – and then re-read it, as you would worthwhile poetry. The challenge for the writer and the intelligent reader is to overcome received wisdom and make your own mind up – otherwise, what’s the point of anything?
