Book Report: On Shirley Hazzard

20. Michelle de Kretser, On Shirley Hazzard (2019) (8/4/2020)

It has been over two weeks since my last book report, and when it goes that long, I tend to search about for something short. This book, at 96 undersized, comfortably leaded pages, certainly qualifies. A friend of mine on FB mentioned it, or rather, she mentioned reading a book by Hazzard, and a friend of hers mentioned this one, about Hazzard, in glowing terms.

The two books I've read by Shirley Hazzard (1931–2016) are The Transit of Venus, which won the 1980 National Book Critics Circle Award, and her next book 23 years later, a historical novel, The Great Fire, which won the National Book Award. I remember being very impressed with both, and wonder if it isn't time to reread at least Transit.

But I was intrigued by the fact that de Kretser (b. 1957)—herself, like Hazzard, an Australian novelist, but also an emigrant at age 16 from her homeland of Sri Lanka, just as Hazzard, at 16, left Australia with her family, first for Hong Kong, then New York—would decide to write a piece of criticism—and admiration—about the writer.

The chapters are generally very short. The first few answered my question: she invokes the strong affinity she feels for Hazzard, both in terms of life experienced and reflected in the novels, and in language, writing, the representation of character, morality, telling detail.

One doesn't have to have read the novels she discusses and quotes from to get what she's saying. There's something larger at play here than "what the books are about." Writing about a particular description of Hazzard's, de Kretser says:

There's the moment when you see yourself in a book, and the moment when a book sees you. And a third kind, rare, spooky: when something recognized that isn't a memory comes out of a book to find you; it might be something that's waiting to arrive. When time is revealed not as a flow but a tangle. The moment passes. A shimmer is left behind.

Yes: that description felt like something I'd experienced reading The Transit of Venus, even if I can't remember the specifics now. But I do recall being mightily impressed at the time. De Kretser notes that Hazzard "practices an ethics of noticing," and provides many examples. Those perfect details that somehow can paint a character, a place, a moment, in four dimensions.

The final chapter is perfect, and I will end with it, in its entirety. And soon, when I get back to cleaning the garage, I will see if I can find either of those books. I'm sure they're in there somewhere.

Not Exactly Why

When I look back on half a lifetime of reading Shirley Hazzard, here's what I remember.
 The room in which I first read her: a cold Melbourne room, high above a courtyard, in which a green curtain had been drawn back from the window to admit afternoon light. And a different room—dimmer, filled with books—also in Melbourne, in which I began to read The Transit of Venus for the second time: the scene of a tremendous revelation.
 I remember books that entered my life like events; like meetings with strangers whom one recognizes instinctively as friends.
 I remember writing that made a nonsense of time.
 I remember writing that proposed a larger life.
 I remember writing that expanded my understanding of what it's possible for writing to achieve.
 I remember the tribute, compounded of awe and envy, I wish I'd written that.
 I remember exhilaration. And the ruse of gratitude: that such writing existed, that it had come my way.


I remember the lines from Auden that serve as an epigraph to The Bay of Noon [and also to On Shirley Hazzard]:

  though one cannot always
  Remember exactly why one has been happy,
  There is no forgetting that one was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Map seems to be by
metropolitan areas:
"Hot Spots"

It's been a week and a day since I've shown up here with stats, and boy oh boy, Covid-19 shows no sign of letting up. Today the numbers for Monterey County stand at 4,966 confirmed cases—up a whopping 884 since my last accounting (and there's a note on the Health Department website saying that the cumulative data may be an undercount); hospitalizations, 302—up 47; and deaths now stand at 34—up 11. Since last week. Four new deaths just today, eight since Friday. Monterey County has the tenth-worst case count per 100,000 population—and most of the ones that are worse are, like us, agricultural counties: Kern, Merced, Kings, Colusa, Tulare, Fresno Madera, Lassen (Lassen?), and San Benito. I mentioned the documentary "Covid's Hidden Toll" in another post, but I'll mention it again: it's worth watching.

Stay safe. Stay healthy. Wear a mask, dammit.