A night at the opera is Bliss
The Age
Saturday March 13, 2010
ONE person missing from last night's premiere of Bliss at the Sydney Opera House was the author of the novel on which it is based, Peter Carey. Carey has recently finished publicity trips around the US and Britain for his latest novel, Parrot and Olivier in America. And Carey was in Australia for three days in January for his inclusion in the Australian Legends stamps. But he has already seen some of the new work. Composer Brett Dean and a couple of singers performed a few arias in New York and he went along. Carey said he hadn't really known what he would make of it all. "I think it packed an incredible emotional wallop. The work that Brett and (librettist) Amanda Holden have done with the love story €” obviously they've thought about a lot about it €” I liked it a great deal." Carey said he was really looking forward to seeing it. "I don't know where that's going to be . . somewhere."One thing that struck Carey was the ongoing life of the book in whatever form it has reappeared. "I think I was finishing it when the American embassy was occupied in Tehran, as I recall."Silencing dissentWHILE much of the focus on writers and China this week has been on the decision of the Chinese embassy to deny Robert Dessaix a visa to attend Australian Writers' Week in Beijing because of his HIV-positive status, another disturbing action by authorities in China has been to prevent Liao Yiwu from going to the literary festival in Cologne. He remains under house arrest.In a statement to German readers, Liao said: "Writers like me from the bottom of society still have to write, record, and broadcast [our stories], even to the dismay of the Communist Party of China. I have the responsibility to make you understand that the life of the Chinese spirit is longer than the totalitarian government." His most recent book, The Corpse Walker: Real-Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up, will be published in Australia by Text in August.The missing awardTHE Prime Minister flagged the introduction of two more categories to his annual literary awards, children's and young adult fiction. Which is to be applauded, of course. Allowing for the original fiction and non-fiction awards there is now only one glaring omission from the awards €” poetry.Dead rightIMAGINE Jim Crace's disgruntlement when he was in New York and discovered that his luggage had been sent to the Gambia. (As he said at Adelaide Writers' Week, it's never the other way round.) He was due to do a reading at Columbia University so had to buy a copy of his novel Being Dead, which was at the time his latest. He headed for Barnes & Noble in Union Square ("every employee an English major," he was told). Rather than grabbing a book from the table, he noticed a staff member unpacking a box and asked if "the shop had a copy of Being Dead by Jim Crace"? Without looking up, the bookseller responded: "It's 'Crachay'." "No," replied Crace (pronounced as in grace), "it's Crace." "It isn't," said the confident young man. "I knew then I was a disastrous loser," Crace said. "The argument that I was Jim Crachay would never have worked."Blair and a girl aloudBRITISH publishers seem to throw their money at some surprising targets. Tony Blair has apparently received an advance of 5 million ($A8.3 million) for his memoir, The Journey, which Random House will publish in September. According to his American publisher, Sonny Mehta, the book is refreshing, for both its candour and its vivid portrayal of political life. "We all knew Blair was an extraordinary statesman and gifted thinker [not all of us, surely?]. We can now add exceptional writer to that list." Another 5 million could be going to pop star Cheryl Cole for her autobiography. She is best known as a member of Girls Aloud and for her ongoing matrimonial trials with footballing husband Ashley "Cashley" Cole. Reports suggest that publishers are all a-twitter at the prospect of the dirt she might dish.Malcolm in the middleWHEN Malcolm Neil took over as chief executive of the Australian Booksellers Association, he hadn't bargained for the amount of time the parallel importation debate would require of him. With his contract finishing at the start of May, Neil is leaving the ABA for a position with REDgroup, the owner of Angus & Robertson and Borders. "At the start people said I bet you wish it [the PI campaign] hadn't happened. But it made the job really interesting. I was pretty lucky to play in the national pond."His job was not made any easier by having to deal with some large ABA members, notably Dymocks, which were in favour of allowing competing editions of books to be imported into Australia, and the majority of his members, who opposed it. Neil says the campaign to protect territorial copyright was important to keep "the barbarians from the gate" but ultimately developments in publishing technology could impose change.
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