PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT
JENNIFER: And now (applause) to Cloudstreet, our national book of sorts, right, which uh- which has clearly found a place deep in our hearts, but worship is so boring, so we We decided to reread it, and who knows? Maybe re-evaluate what makes this book so special.
THE VOICE OVER TELLS WHAT HAPPENED TO CLOUDSTREET
JENNIFER: There, there's the man who brought it, Peter, how
PETER: (nodding) Yeah
JENNIFER: – how does it compare?
PETER: Look, it stacks up beautifully, Jennifer, and when you asked me which book I wanted to recommend, I recommended this one because when I first read it, I loved it , I thought I had read a great Australian novel and I really like Tim. Winton writes a lot. But coming back a second time has been an amazing journey, it's better than I imagined, there's much more than I imagined, I think it's a true classic, and, to be honest , it's great literature that reads very well, and it touches very deep chords in all of us, I suppose, and it's really difficult to find the words, it was a wonderful wonderful experience
JENNIFER: mm
PETER: Sit for a week or two in January and get back to it.
JENNIFER: Did you cry? When you went-
PETER: Oh yeah, and uh — eh — look, it's the community, it's the community of these people, and their character, and the characters that come out of it, and it's the way that they confront their own humanity and their limitations, and ultimately it's about the fact that this thing continues, you know, this young boy is born, and they have the barbecue and the picnic down by the river, but there's so much more to it, ah the writing is extremely powerful, imaginative, evocative, but not spectacular — ah, it has a really brave sort of Australianism, I think in a real sense, without being cheesy or cliché, and ah, yeah, I think it's going to be one of the great books of all time.
JENNIFER: Hmm. Memory.
MEM: I couldn't agree more, I couldn't agree more. When I said I hadn't read any books since October, of course I read those two books, and I read them both, in three days because I just immersed myself in them.
JENNIFER: Well, you read the right side (?)
MEM: because I need it, ha! Ha! I really need to read these books, and when I saw this, when I watched Cloudstreet, which I remember loving when it came out, it's thick! It's a very thick book, and I had to read it for this program, and it felt like homework for half a second, OK, until I started rereading it.
(she PAUSES)
If you haven't read Cloudstreet, your life is diminished. Decreases! If you haven't met these characters, this generous community, these dramas, this humor — it's so funny — every now and then there's this line where you burst out laughing, and it could be in the middle of a tragic paragraph. — and you're screaming, you're literally laughing out loud, it's so wonderful.
MAREIKE: Oh, I agree that your life would be less if I hadn't read this book, but I also agree that rereading it was much richer than I remembered.
JENNIFER: Right?
MAREIKE: Or I imagined, so I think I read it, and then really appreciate it when you read it again, it's just, it's, it's, it's Australia, um – but it was really like coming home (JENNIFER and MEM CLUCK appreciatively), it's like looking out the plane window when you come back to the country, it really is, I mean it's like , fuck the citizenship teff knowing Don Bradman's birthday, give everyone a copy of Cloudstreet and get them to read this before they enter the country
PETER: (lowers his head and waves a large HAND) But it's a very good suggestion.
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