Best Australian Science Writing 2015, edited by Bianca Nogrady

We've done essay collections before - by Peter Singer and Oliver Sacks, for a start - and we've done short story anthologies including our very first book, Room to move, but an anthology of science essays is new territory for us. It proved, however, to be a very successful choice, for a number of reasons, as you'll read below. The book, Best Australian science writing 2015, was edited by science journalist/communicator Bianca Nogrady, and contains articles or essays "celebrating the finest Australian science writing of the year".

While most hadn't finished the book by the meeting, all enjoyed it, for various reasons, including that:

• it could be read in "small snippets";
• several of the articles linked to radio and TV programs we'd heard or watched in recent years;
• many of the articles challenge popular conceptions (or misconceptions) regarding, for example, cane toads, managing endangered species, placebos, and statins.

One member commented that there aren't always clear ethical standards by which the work of scientists can be evaluated. Another enjoyed Adam Spencer's introduction, and liked the links at the end of each article to related articles. In fact, one member read the book by following these links, whereas most of us read it in table-of-contents order.

To discuss it, we asked each person to name her favourite article. Following are our choices. We could have gone on much longer, except that Kate's delicious "healthy" banoffee pie started to call:

Uncharted waters, by Daniel Stacey
Our member nominated this article about the search for Malaysian Airlines MH370 because it's an example of those events or activities that can have unintended spin-offs, that lead to the development of further knowledge or new technologies, the way, for example, that wars and space research do. One member, though, suggested that there's an opposite argument which is to keep this apparently unexplored area of the Indian Ocean pristine or free from interference.

Field guide to the future, by Ian Lunt
The member choosing this gorgeous article, which compares old printed field guides with their new digital counterparts, loved its tone and language. She shared a couple of quotes, including this one on how printed field guides (unlike digital ones with their audio features) must use words to describe bird calls:

With a budget for paint – one illustration per species – but none for sound, cheerful ornithologists turned to onomatopoeia: ‘Pee-pee-pee-peeooo, Wee-willy-weet-weet, It-wooa-weet-sip, Zzzt zzzt zzzt. Cher-cher-cherry-cherry, Wah-i-wah-i-wah-oo, Twitchy tweedle, Kupa-ko-ko, Lik-lik-lik’. Less cheerful colleagues followed suit: ‘Chop-chop, Four o’clock, Wide-a-wake, Walk to work. Want a whip? It’s for teacher. Tweet-your-juice, Sweet pretty creature’. (All real calls, I assure you.)

All dressed up for Mars and nowhere to go, by Elmo Keep AND Messages from Mungo, by John Pickerel
The member nominating these liked the jump from exploration in the future to research into Australia's deep past. She liked the way the Lake Mungo "story" was written,  and quoted from its last paragraph:

'Aboriginal people have an intense commitment to country even today. Europeans have lost that connection. Country to us is something you dig up and export to China', Jim says.

How I rescued my brain, by David Roland
Not surprisingly, one of our medical members picked one of the medical articles, this one about a man retraining his brain after suffering a stroke. She enjoyed thinking about it from a medical point of view. She liked that by telling it first person, the author took us on his journey with him. We all liked how this one provided a wonderful practical example of reports we've been hearing about plasticity of the brain. It also led to a discussion about ageing, memory and keeping our brains active! (You can tell we are all of a certain age!).

She shared an example of the writing:

As he talks, his words appear in my mind slowly. They often disappear before I can get hold of them, as if they are in line, each being jostled along by the next.

Aliens versus predators: The toxic toad invasion, by Michael Slezak
The member chose this one because it counteracts what we have been told about the devastating effects of the cane toad invasion. She shared this quote:

The toads are spreading further and faster than anyone expected, and they do have a devastating impact when they first arrive in a region. But most animals are adapting to their presence surprisingly quickly, and some even benefit. 

‘If you’re a frog, the toad is your superhero,’ says Shine. ‘You’ve got its picture up on the wall. This guy is coming in, he looks like a frog and is killing everything that attacks frogs. If you’re a green tree frog, what more could you hope for in life?’

[...] 

 ‘I’ve gone to thinking it’s a good-news story about the resilience of ecosystem.

The past may not make you feel better, by Christine Kenneally
The member who chose Kenneally's article about Huntington's chorea and genetic counselling was fascinated by the fact that the gene can be found way back in time in the slime mould. She felt that the gene must have (had) some benefits to have survived through evolution to humans. We discussed how research into DNA sequencing opens up our understanding of genes. We also discussed the ethics of DNA testing services, and how some people, who are at a risk of carrying or suffering from genetic conditions, choose not to be tested. It can be tricky to know what to do with information about health.

(Kenneally won the Stella Prize in 2015 for her book The invisible history of the human race).

Other articles named in the second round free-for-all:

• Honest placebos, by Jane McCredie: we loved the word nocebo.
• How dust affects climate, health and … everything, by Tim Low: we were fascinated by how far in place and time dust can extend and the information it therefore provides.
• All dressed up for Mars and nowhere to go, by Elmo Keep: the idea of choosing to buy a one-way ticket to Mars to be part of experimental community sounded a bit "whacky" until someone suggested that this could be our equivalent of those 16th century seafaring explorers who set off not knowing what they would find, where they would end up, and whether they would come back.
• The women who fell through the cracks of the Universe, by Lauren Fuge: of course, we liked the story of the unsung late 19th to early 20th century women astronomers of "Pickering's harem".

All in all, a very engaged discussion that didn't let up until we absolutely had to ... 

Charlotte Wood's The natural way of things

When our group met this month to discuss Charlotte Wood's Stella Prize winning novel The natural way of things, it was a case of the realists facing off against the willing suspenders of disbelief, with a couple of fence-sitters in between - and ne'er the twain did meet. It all made, however, for a lively, but always respectful, discussion!

The realists couldn't work out why the ten women hadn't ganged up to overpower their two guards, why they didn't work out they could dig their way out under the electric fence. The women were twits, one said. They should have fought back. She also felt the rabbit trapping was far more successful than you'd expect and that the book had the longest mushroom season ever! It just wasn't plausible. The willing suspenders, on the other hand, talked more about about the book in terms of metaphor, allegory and parable, though they didn't all agree on which of these the book represents, if any! Some also felt that Wood, in the opening scenes, showed the disempowering of the women, explaining why they didn't fight back.

One issue we grappled with was some vagueness in the plot. It's the story of 10 women plucked ("foolishly lured and tricked") from their normal lives and transported to a nightmarish place in the outback where they are imprisoned behind an electric fence and controlled, labour-camp style, by two boorish men, bruiser Boncer and the preening Teddy. We are not given the full background but it's clear that the women are being scapegoated for their sexuality. Some had been raped or assaulted while for others the sex had been consensual (think affair with a politician or the flight attendant in a “mile-high” situation). In all cases, though, the women are being punished to protect the man/men. As time passes, and as circumstances at the facility change, the women move from disbelief and anger, through resignation, to a sort of acceptance and an attempt to make the best of their situation.

Some members struggled with the story, with its darkness and/or with the lack of full disclosure about parts of the plot. How did the women let themselves be taken there? Who had taken them? Who were Boncer and Teddy waiting for? One member particularly hates women being presented as victims, which resulted in her disliking the book. She was frustrated by their impotence. Most of those who liked the novel, agreed that they initially felt a little uncertain, for various reasons, but on reflection found the journey worthwhile, seeing it as a provocative, absorbing story about women and power, sexuality, femininity and femaleness.

Dystopia 

Is The natural way of things a dystopian novel, like, say, Margaret Atwood's The handmaid's tale? Not all were comfortable with this idea, feeling it was too near, too real, "not that much removed from our reality", to be a true dystopia. Others felt dystopia simply means a world characterised by all that is bad or negative, and that this book satisfies that.

But what are Wood's targets? In some dystopian novels, they are clear - climate change, totalitarian regimes, for example - but it's more nebulous here. The novel was inspired by the idea that women are still being abused and scapegoated, but Wood's focus is not the trauma they experience, but in the way "femaleness" and "womanhood" is (mis)constructed in our society.  Complicating our pinpointing of targets is that partway through we realise that guards/gaolers Boncer and Teddy are also victims: this is not a simple gender dichotomy story. It's more complex, about current social system/mores that allow powerful people (more often men) to control and manipulate the less powerful (more often women).

And what about that ending? Did it offer any hope? Some of us thought Yolanda's action at the end showing her rejection of society's power plays, and Verla's finally relinquishing her long-held beliefs and attitudes about her feminine powers, contained hope.

And two words force their way through everything in Verla, pushing through all these months, through failure and fear and degradation, fighting through this last defeat. They thrust up through Verla's centre, bursting into flower in her mouth. Two words: I refuse.

But others just hated that designer handbag scene, and the way the other women leapt unthinkingly into what they wanted to see/believe.

Characters 

The book has a lot characters, and we don't get to properly know them all. However, we liked getting to know the two 19-year-olds, Yolanda (rabbiter) and Verla (mushroom gatherer), and were able to feel sympathy for them. In becoming the hunter, Yolanda took back some power for herself, a member suggested, making this book a metaphorical story of power, rather than a psychologically-focused story.

We did think, though, that, psychologically, Hetty represents abused person's behaviour. We wondered about the grotesque doll the women make for her. What does its grotesqueness mean? That what she was doing represented a perverted sort of nurturing?

Landscape and nature 

Landscape description and nature imagery feature throughout in the novel. One member shared a 2010 interview with Wood in which she commented on her frequent reference to birds, saying they represent flight, escape, freedom - as they do here too:

Outside the cockatoos are starting up for the evening. Boncer sits, staring at Yolanda, running there leash slowly through his hands.

However, in this novel there are also hawks and crows, suggesting "prey" and "death", which is also relevant here.

Verla keeps seeing a white horse, which is her personal escape image, perhaps referencing the idea of a "knight on a white charger" as she believed her "cabinet minister" would save her.

Another member suggested that Yolanda's gradual reliance on and ultimate "return" to nature might be Wood suggesting that human survival is closely tied to a positive relationship with landscape and nature.

So, what is the "natural" way of things? There's irony in the title's suggestion that women "somehow, through the natural way of things, did it to themselves", that they lured abandonment, abduction, mistreatment. Natural? No way!

William Thackeray's The memoirs of Barry Lyndon

Prepared by Sue B.

Our classic novel this year was The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon by William Makepeace Thackeray. A select group of four of us gathered on a winter’s night to discuss it. Our responses to it varied considerably. A couple found it a tedious read, particularly the period in Europe with his uncle, but they were glad they'd read it,  One noting that it showed how literature has moved on. Another enjoyed it as a rollicking romp and yet another enjoyed the recreation of the period and sense of an era conveyed. 

Historical details mentioned included the hair treatments such as pomander. The book was set at the time of the Seven Years War in Europe in the 1760s, but Thackeray actually wrote it about 80 years later in 1844, so it was an historical novel. One member suggested that the novel also describes the transition from the times when the aristocracy was in control to the rise of the bourgeoisie.

It was originally written as a serial so we discussed the effect this had on the style and structure of the finished book and thought this might account for some of the repetition, and thus the tediousness.

The book’s “hero” Barry Lyndon himself is the narrator and we noticed that Thackeray left us in no doubt that he was a very unreliable narrator, reminding us of this at least 3 times in footnotes. Despite his strong sense of his own "honourability", Barry is a real anti-hero, a scoundrel - even a sociopath. We compared him with the hero of the ABC TV series Rake who we thought was a much more lovable rogue, and with another Thackeray anti-hero, Becky Sharp of Vanity Fair. We wondered to what extent our opinion of him was coloured by changing social mores. For example the blurb on a 1970s edition of the book listed his offences. Missing was any mention of the blatant wife and child abuse which is so much more on our radar and so much less forgivable these days. 

We thought that Thackeray was satirising the romantic novels so popular at the time and even the clichéd idea of a gentleman exemplified by the novels of Sir Walter Scott for example. Barry Lyndon says of his wife: “Novel reading and vanity had turned her brain” and in a long footnote towards the end of the book Thackeray says

Do not as many rogues succeed in life as honest men? more fools than men of talent? And is it not just that the lives of this class should be described by the student of human nature as well as the actions of those fairy-tale princes, those perfect impossible heroes whom our writers love to describe? 

One of us noted that the character of Barry Lyndon was inspired by real people, including Andrew Robertson Stoney-Bowes who married the Countess of Strathmore. Another found the first line memorable: “Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it” – which of course says more about our hero than any of the women in his story! Barry Lyndon was, as one member said, a great self-justifier. We wondered to what extent Barry Lyndon was actually in control of his own future, and whether he was addicted to gambling – which was effectively his profession.

Finally, we couldn’t help talking about the 1970s movie starring Ryan O’Neal. We remembered it mainly just as being gorgeously filmed and with a beautiful soundtrack of contemporary music.