lace making' a review of pam brown's 'keep it quiet' by linda marie walker

8/10/2019 'Lace Making' a review of Pam Brown's 'Keep it Quiet' by Linda Marie Walker

1/5

Linda

Marie Walker

LACEIVIAKING

a

form,

madc

up

as muchby

holes as

fabric

review

-

Pamela

Brown's

Keeflt

Ouiet

(Sea

Cruise

Books, Sydney, 1982

$8).

This is

a

small

book, seventy-odd

pages. The

epigraph

says:

'The

something and

the something

and

the first

cigarette

of

the day.

Itts

a

fitting

sign,

it

indicites the

plain-like

style, made

with

absences,

spaces

for

the

reader. And

it

shows

the

vacancy

of some of the

language:

'Yesterday,

a

new person

told

me

that she

would

like

to

'get

to

know'

me. I

almost fell

asleep on the

spot.

1

Pamela Brown

is

a

feminist

writer living

in

Sydney.

This is her ninth

book, the

first

of

prose.

Sea Cruise

is

a small

Sydney

press run

by writer

Anna

Couani.

It's

a

non-commercial

enterprise

producing

cheap

books

in

close

cooperation

with

the

authors.

It's

been

operating

since

1976.

While

reading

Keep It

Ouiet

I

remember

two other small books:

The Expedition

To

The Baobab Tree

by Wilma

Stockenstr


2/5

With

Keep

It

Ouiet

you

must

(almost)

gtve up

the

expectation

of

portrayal,

explanation,

and

analysis.

But

this

is replaced

by a

freedom

for readers, who

can

consider

themselves

in

relation

to

the

work,

not

vicariously

though,

and

can

write/work

in

their own

time

(not

the

book's)

for

the

meaning.

This does

not

signal

a free-for-all

(or

as stated elsewhere:

...

a

whatever-gets-you-through-the-night approach

... ).

a

The

work

has

within

itself

a

form,

made

up

as

much

by

holes as

fabric.

The holes are

not

vacant,

but

sensual

expanses

where

possibility dwells.

The

work

is simultaneously

story

and

writing.

It's

concerned

with

writing,

with

how

understanding

comes

about,

how

we

know

things,

how we

interpret.

There

is room to

manoeuwe,

there can

be

no talk of

motivation.

Brown's

piece

toward

the end

of

her

book,

'Comprate

Del

Vircl',

is

a series

of

lists

about

places,

like

titles

for

snapshots:

ITALY

ROMA

Madonnas.

Cars.

Monuments.

Colosseo.

Pan and

Clothes.

The

nightrnare.

Chaos.

Laughter.

Cigarettes.

Music.

Caesar.

Marvellous.

Churches.

5

Stockenstrom

and

Kincaid

also

use

forms

of

listing:

My

labour

his.

My

sleep

his.

My

coming

and

my

going. My

sweat

My

hair.

The

soles of

my feet

The

ant

can

hide

away.

So can

the

cockroach.

And

the

rat.

Not

I.

-

Stockenstrdm

5

I

milked

the cows,

I

churned

the

butter,

I

stored

the

cheese,

I

baked

the

bread,

I brewed

the

tea,

I

washed the clothes,

I

dressed

the children;

the cat

meowed, the

dog barked

...

- Kincaid

7

The three books

are

about

alienation

and communion.

Both notions are

rendered

matter-of-factly

and

magScally.

They

are

not

victim

oriented,

they

are woman


3/5


4/5

Each

story/piece

is

compact,

self-affeted,

cut-off.

In

a

world

ruled

by

photographic

images,

all

borders

('framing')

seem

arbitrary. Anything

can be

separated,

car

be

made

discontinuous,

from

anything

else:

all

that

is

necessary

is

to

frame

the subiect differently.

(Conversely,

anything

can be made

adjacent

to

anything

else.)

... It is

a

view of

the

world

which

denies

interconnectedness,

continuit/,

but which

confers

on

each

moment

the

character

of

mystery.

-Susan

Sontag

la

The

moments

though

are

not

embroidered by Brown

(nor

by

Stockenstrom

or Kincaid),

in

their telling

they are quietened,

are

believed in for

themselves,

stripped

of

any

synthetic

symbolic:

She

looked

up

to see that Mrs Thompson had fallen

through

the

plate

glass door

in

the

butcher's shop and slashed her neck

wide open.

15

A

sense of distortion

comes

about because

there

is

no

detail, so as a reader I identify

instantly

but

give it

straight back to

the

author,

as she's only telling

me,

she doesn't

need

me,

she

hits

with

a

light

well-aimed fist

-

(Pamela

Brown

again):

A

young

woman,

bleeding

for

a

year.

The

women's

problem.

And

you

want

to

know

what it

means,

what

it

means

for her.

16

In

these

three books

there

is

longing

but

not

nostalgia,

a clear

response

to the

past.

These

are

wayward

womcn,

they don't

make

one

thing

follow

another,

their

order is

kaleidoscopic,

they

follow

memory. They

write

layer

by

layer,

committed

to

their

own

voice.

Instead

of

horizontally,

they

work

vertically.

Brown:

This

time,

the

time

I'm

thinking about,

she

said

she

had

come to

take

some

photographs. It's

the

last

time we'll

be

together

and

I

want

to

have

some

photographs.

I knew

that

this

was

so,

that

it

was

over, and

great

lumps

of sadness

had

crawled

into

my limbs

and

lodged

there.

17

Stockenstrom:

With

a

stiff-face

I

listened

on

his

skin-rug

to

the

noise of

the sea.

I

became a

shell

plucked from

the rocks

but

kept

my

oyster-shell

of

will,

my

thin deposit

of

pride, kept myself

as

I

had

been

taught.

I

did not

gtve in.

I

did

not

surrender. I let it happen.

I could wait. I

listened

to

the

beat

of

the waves far

behind

his

groaning

and

it

lulled me.

I

was

of

water.

18

Kincaid:


5/5

In

the

night

way into

the

middle

of

the

night,

when

the night

isn't

divided

like

a

sweet

drink

into

little

sips, when

there

is

no

iust

before

midnight,

midnight,

or

just

after

midnight,

when

the

night

is

round

in

some

places,

flat

in

some

places,

and in

some places

like

a

deep

holg,

blue

at the

edge

black inside,

the

night-soil

mcn

come.

le

Reading

Brown,

Stockenstrom,

and

Kincaid

is

likc

watching

movies

such as

'Stranger

Than

Paradise'

or

'With

Burning

Patience'.

There

is

a flickering

between

sadness

and

beauty,

and no

claim

for

thc

overall

vicw,

as

in

Pamela

Brown's

words:

"We

scrape

and

fold

and

turn

the muck

of

language

into

tentative

whisperings

of

image."

20

-

Linda Marie

Walker

references

1.

Brown,

Pamela,

Kcrep

It

Ouiet.

p 41

?.

Beniamin,

Walter,

Understanding

Brccht

NLB,

Londory

l977,pl7

3.

Brown,

Pamel4

Keep

It

Ouiet.

p

30

4.

N"ylon,

Iohn,

Words

ooershadow

works,

Advertiser.

Adclaidq

16

Oct

't 6,

p295.

Brown,

ibid.,

p

70

6.

Stockenstrdm,

Wilma,

The

Expedition

To

Thc

Baobab

Tree.

fabcrand

faber,

London,

7983,

p

M

7.

Kincaid,

famaica,

At The Bottom

of

The

River.

Picador,

london,

1984,

p

37

8.

Brown,

P.,

Selected

Poems

7971-82,

Redress

ltess,

Sydney,

1984,p69

9. Bnown,

ibid., p

59

10.

Stockenstrdm,

ibid., p

9

11.

Brown,

Keep It

Ouiet.

o

28

-^

12.

Brown

,

ibid.,

p

29

13.

Brown,ibid.,p2l

14.

Sontag,

Susan,

On

Photography,

Dclta,

N.Y., 1980,

p22

15. Brown,

ibid., p

20

16. Bncwn,

ibid.,

p 55

17. Brown,

ibid.,

p

12

18.

Stockenstrdm,

ibid.,

p

14

19.

Kincaid, ibid., p

6

20.

Brown,

ibid.,

p

51

lace making' a review of pam brown's 'keep it quiet' by linda marie walker

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