Sunday 16 July, 2006

A storm in a publishing house

I can't decide whether I think this article from the Australian, in which publishers were sent chapter 3 from Patrick White's The Eye of the Storm, and, by and large, rejected it, makes a meaningful point or is a cheap trick. A point worth making (which the article didnt') is that many Patrick White books have spent large swathes of time out of print, which is consistent with the publishers' view the book was not a commercial proposition. I'd be interested to know how many journalists at the Australian have read The Eye of the Storm. For example. Or whether there was a synopsis sent with it or whether it was a random chapter without any context or explanation.

This notion that educated people 'get' culture when they see it, that great art has a kind of luminous quality which can't be denied, is totally spurious. Perhaps the article should have made mention of the fact that far more people have read David Marr's biography of Patrick White than White's novels. The problem, in my view, is that commercial operations are expected to keep our culture in tact. Laughing at a few publishers and agents is fun, and I admit, the following did make me laugh because it sums up how patronizing those in the industry can be: 'Cunnane . . . wrote: "Alas, the sample chapter, while (written) with energy and feeling, does not give evidence that the work is yet of a publishable quality. . . . I suggest you get a copy of David Lodge's The Art of Fiction (Penguin) and absorb its lessons about exposition, dialogue, point of view, voice and characterisation."' Jeez, the young people of today just don't know how to write, do they? But the real issue is that Economic Rationalism will not maintain Australian culture. So the question isn't, why did Text Publishing, or Random House (currently The Eye of the Storm's actual publisher) reject a chapter of a novel sent to them? A question might be is why should they be even expected to accept unsolicited manuscripts, a system which is essentially a public service that publishers feel obliged to perform.

What I want to know is what is this or any other government going to do to maintain aspects of our culture that don't have immediate economic rewards?

Update. Here's Peter Craven on the whole business. I think he misses the point.

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