Today I finished reading Bob Ellis’s book The Capitalism Delusion which was great, as you can see in my previous post. I was then free to plunge into Paul Kelly’s memoir How to Make Gravy. I read an extract in The Age a couple of weeks ago and I bought it last week along with the Ellis book with a Readings voucher my generous mother-in-law had given me for my birthday. If there’s one thing in the world better than a book voucher it’s a book voucher you’ve forgotten you’ve had and then remembered when you’re already on your way to Readings to buy a book that you simply must have.
I have much to say about Paul Kelly and this first Post will be brief. I decided a few years ago that Paul Kelly is Australia’s best writer. Note the present tense there. I haven’t read enough old Australian writing to say “best ever.” But stuff it, who has? That does it then. Paul Kelly is Australia’s best ever writer and no, I’m not talking about the “Editor-at-large” of The Australian. I may write about that Paul Kelly another time, but this post is not about him.
So this is Paul Kelly in How to Make Gravy telling us what sort of a writer he is:
The kind of man, who, appalled at his poor memory, throughout his life and in the middle of his life – though who’s to say it’s the middle? – kept putting out a net to catch scraps from the rushing river on its way to the wine-dark sea.[1]
Not bad eh? But this is not exceptional writing for him. It’s nearly all like this. After reading something he wrote in The Monthly a while ago I was struck by how well he wrote prose. This was years after I had decided he was our best-ever writer and still I was surprised how well he strung a sentence together. But after 300 songs he really does know how to write. He writes plainly and with great precision but he’s not afraid of a metaphor and he doesn’t censor himself.
I noticed in about 1993 that there was a point in To Her Door that tears came to my eyes. It was the point at which the man is almost home and is full of trepidation:
Did they have a future?
Would he know his children?[2]
Now as the years have passed tears come to my eyes more readily and Kelly’s book will soon have my face awash. It’s what he says and how he says it that takes my breath away. In his song Adelaide he describes “all the great aunts are either insane or dead.” And he didn’t really mean that his aunts were insane, they were all lovely actually and of sound mind, the un-dead ones anyway. But the line sounded good and he kept it and then found some trouble with his family as he tried to explain why he had done it. He puts it like this:
You shouldn’t trust a songwriter. They distort, they exaggerate, they juggle things around to get what they want…Know that if you get close to them they’ll grab bits of you, too. Out of their mouths true things become lies and lies become true. They’ll rhyme, and murder while they rhyme. They’ll take your precious wine and spill it all over town.[3]
Well maybe he’s right and we shouldn’t trust a songwriter. But if you write as well as Paul Kelly we’ll forgive you and beg for more.
My life is very good right now. The weather is fine and warm, I have a beautiful house and a lovely family and there’s food in the kitchen and wine in the bottle on the bench. I have friends and a cricket team and I’m fit and well.
And I’ve got 496 pages of How to Make Gravy still to read.
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