June 15, 2024 • 50 mins
In this episode, Krystle chats with G. S. Dickson about his debut novel A Minor Fifth, a satire about the death of fictional Australian rock icon, Billy Ordain, recounted, albeit unreliably, by five people who knew him. Krystle and Gareth wax lyrical (and theoretical) about character voice, the influence of Ulysses on the novel’s structure, and the cultural tendency for posthumous mythicism. Inevitably, Proust and The Beatles are mentioned.
About G. S. Dickson:
G. S. Dickson is an Australian author whose work has been published and anthologised in both Australia and the UK. A Minor Fifth, an early draft of which was shortlisted for the prestigious Vogel Literary Award in 2022, is his first novel, and has been described as an ‘incredibly innovative’ work that ‘takes a lot of risks’ (Rohan Wilson, author of 2011 Vogel award-winning The Roving Party).
Find A Minor Fifth:
Find G. S. Dickson:
Hunters Publishers
About Krystle Marie:
Krystle Marie is a mixed, neurodivergent sort-of writer based in Meanjin. She’s thrilled to have interned with SWN as a soon-to-be graduate of UQ’s Master of Writing, Editing and Publishing program. She's currently into Japanese-language immersion. She's always into noise-cancelling headphones.
The Science Write Now (SWN) Podcast is for people who love science and the arts. If you’re interested in learning more about great books, plays, and films; writing, research or editing; the lives of scientists; and creative insights into contemporary science; then you’ve come to the right place!
The SWN Podcast is hosted by Amanda Niehaus and Jessica White and produced by Taylor Mitchell with funding from the Australia Council for the Arts.
Listen on-the-go on Google Podcasts (soon to be YouTube Music), Apple and Spotify now!
You can also f
Enjoyed this episode? Share the SWN love!
If you liked this episode, leave us a review and share it far and wide.
Science Write Now is dedicated to accessibility, connectivity, inspiration and collaboration across disciplines. Our content is free to access and we want to keep it that way, so if you’re keen to be part of this growing community of creative writing inspired by science, hit subscribe!
We’ll be back with another episode soon, and more conversations inspired by science and creativity to come!
We acknowledge the Jaegara and Turrbal People, Traditional Owners of the land on which this podcast is created, and the unceded cultural lands on which our guests live and continue to make and tell sto
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
G. S. Dickson (00:00):
I recall this mate of mine is a concert
pianist and and we did this quizthing once with him and said,
'Can you, like, alter a melody?
And he did this thing thatsounded bizarre and what he'd
actually done was played theNokia ringtone. Yeah, (mimics
mobile ringtone).
Krystle Marie (00:19):
(laughs)
G. S. Dickson (00:20):
He transposed the notes to different octaves so
that it was a sort of - butplayed it in time - and nobody
could work out what this thingwas that sounded familiar.
'Yeah, I know what that is!' Butit was absolutely unrecognizable
-
Krystle Marie (00:34):
- weirdly uncanny -
G. S. Dickson (00:36):
...yeah. I r ecognise at some point your mind
- the mind that understands thatmusic on that kind of level -
can, can listen to the 'R2D2band' and, and be like, 'Yeah',
but I'm not there.
Krystle Marie (00:49):
No. That's okay.
Yeah, that's fine. We can stickwith The Beatles for now. That's
fine. I understand that -
G. S. Dickson (00:55):
- I will never grow tired of The Beatles.
Krystle Marie (00:59):
I'd first like to acknowledge the Jagera and
Turrbal people as theTraditional Custodians of
Meanjin, from where I recordtoday, as well as the Yugambeh
People, the TraditionalCustodians of the lands and
waters of the Gold Coast, fromwhere my guest G. S. Dickson
joins me this afternoon. I paymy respects to Elders past,
(01:20):
present and emerging.
Sovereignty has never beenceded. This always was and
always will be Aboriginal land.
G. S. Dickson is an Australianauthor whose work has been
published and anthologised inboth Australia and the UK. 'A
Minor Fifth' is his first novel,the early draft of which was
(01:41):
shortlisted for the prestigiousVogel Literary Award. Rohan
Wilson, author of 'The RovingParty, which won the 2011 Vogel
Award, describes 'A Minor Fifth'as 'funny, sad, moving,
engaging' and 'incrediblyinnovative' - an 'incredible
book' that 'takes a lot ofrisks'. So, on that note,
(02:03):
welcome to Science Write Now...
do I call you 'G. S.'? Or do Icall you Gareth?
G. S. Dickson (02:10):
I think, yeah, let's just go with Gareth. Yeah.
Krystle Marie (02:13):
Yeah. Yep.
G. S. Dickson (02:14):
(smiling) yes.
Krystle Marie (02:17):
I don't want to start on a morbid note, but I
can't help myself because itfeels relevant. So recently, I
had a friend of mine inform methat a mutual acquaintance of
ours from a very long time ago,may have passed away. Vague
(02:38):
details about it. But I couldn'thelp but notice, my impulse was
to explain who this person wasvia my stories with him. And so
it made me think about yourbook, in that the protagonist is
(03:01):
sort of 'made flesh' by thesepeople who knew him - whereas
it's almost as if he didn't geta say in reporting what actually
happened, in terms of how hedied. So I think it's quite
interesting that you lead withthe death. And the narrative
(03:23):
actually follows from that fact.
G. S. Dickson (03:26):
Yeah. I think, yeah, the leading with the death
was, was, I think, somethingthat was was going to be really
important for the book, which isall about the absence of the,
kind of, central figure and, anda kind of 'negative space'
(03:48):
that's, that's, that thecharacter has been 'sketched in'
through, which is by all thesepeople who knew him, and their
differing perspectives, youknow, kind of create this, this
kind of fuzzy-edged figure, Ithink, which is analogous in
some way to what death does whenit occurs. You know, all we have
(04:11):
are your memories and, you know,one's own stories, I suppose.
And I've had similar experiencesbefore - and since writing the
book - to what you describewhere you hear, secondhand, that
someone you know, contemporaryor not - not even necessarily
(04:32):
that, but someone - has diedand, and you'd lost touch, and
it creates that, that, kind of,indeterminate hole. So I think
that's what I was maybe tryingto achieve with, with that kind
of structure to the book ofhaving a character who's only
ever, only ever revealed throughother people's words, as it
(04:57):
were, who doesn't exist - whichof course, on a kind of
metafictional level, you know,he doesn't. He is only made up
of these layered perspectives.
Krystle Marie (05:09):
Yeah, I read that this was - I may be using the
term incorrectly - it was 'theRashomon Method'? The 'Rashomon
Effect'? which was initially afilm - like, a cinematic method?
Was it Akira Kurosa-
G. S. Dickson (05:24):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Kurosawa and in Anglo
American cinema, 'Citizen Kane',famously, you know - you never
see, you never get Kane's lifethrough his own perspective of
it. And I think that film waswas particularly interesting for
(05:44):
me in relation to this one inhaving that central figure be
someone who, whose existence tothem is very much about image
and narrative, and the way they,they appear in the media and in
the, sort of, popularimagination. So yeah, 'Citizen
(06:06):
Kane' was, was definitely aninspiration for this. But I also
tried to find another way ofdoing the same thing, which -or
a complementary thing, I suppose- in layering also the
possibilities of the narrative,and having a 'forking path'
(06:26):
structure to it. So you know,the character dies in in each of
these accounts, but with eachaccount that death is moving
backwards in time, while thecha- the narrators - are still
staying in the same 'presentday' or, well, '2015' moment,
and looking back on this, sortof, gradually receding event.
(06:51):
And that allowed for a lot of, alot of different opportunities
for me to play with things,especially the Rock 'n Roll
legendarium, you know, the sortof rockstar 'burning out' in all
these different ways and, andthe ways that, that... that kind
of gets, gets absorbed into thepopular imagination, you know,
(07:14):
John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, or,you know, at the other end,
Bowie in late middle age or, youknow, that events to the public,
you know, fans, the people whohave followed them sort of
resonating in different ways indifferent times of our lives as
well. And the, those kinds ofripples were something I found
(07:38):
really interesting to explorethrough through that device, you
know, the different things thathappened, and depending on how I
'offed' the guy.
Krystle Marie (07:46):
Yeah. I mean, that's such a funny idea,
because I thought about how... Ishould probably explain just
quickly that... So, Billy Ordainis dead, Australian rock legend,
and he has these variousaccounts reported about how he
died, and the kind ofrelationship each of these
(08:07):
people had with Billy. Andthey're all very different -
very different in 'voice' aswell - which I thought was
incredible. And that issomething that I want to talk
about. I think that's such aninteresting idea that Billy
couldn't come back and set therecord straight. He can't
correct the details of any ofthese accounts. And there's this
(08:31):
kind of simmering injusticeunderneath all of that. What I
was saying to John, your, yourpublisher, at the at the book
launch, was that one of thethings I loved most about 'A
Minor Fifth' was that itactually surprised me - and that
a book could still do that. Thatsounds very cynical. But when I
(08:54):
started reading this, I thoughtit to be a very straight, you
know, mythical satirical accountof an Aussie rock legend. It
completely switches up severaltimes throughout the book, which
is fantastic. So that makes fora challenging, yet very
entertaining, read. I'm stilltrying to make sense of it. But
(09:17):
I like that I'm still thinkingabout it. I'm still sort of
connecting... I think it wouldbe helpful to go through the
different characters, give a bitof a an overview of who's
involved, just so that peopleget a sense of how it is
structured. So we've got BillyOrdain, who is the
quintessential rock 'leadingman'.
G. S. Dickson (09:40):
Yeah, sort of reflecting bits and pieces of
different legends of rock from,from different times and places.
It's, sort of, in a kind ofFrankenstein way. Yeah. I'm so
pleased that you're stillpiecing together things - that
was an effect I really did wantto to happen - so that's very
(10:01):
gratifying (laughs)
Krystle Marie (10:03):
I couldn't help but think of... when I was
thinking of Billy Ordain, in myhead because it is a very... It
is quite a cinematic bookbecause it is very vivid. And
the characters are so... theyreally pop. I can't think of a
more sophisticated way to saythat. I was thinking someone
like 'Angry Anderson', for somereason. Because, like, that is
(10:26):
kind of... if I think ofAustralian rock music, I don't
think we necessarily have maybe,like, conventionally suave,
handsome... it's more like, sortof, 'no nonsense', Wife
Beater-wearing... that's what Iwas thinking. So in my head,
that's what I envisioned.
G. S. Dickson (10:45):
Yeah, I agree. I think we you know, we never kind
of churned out that, sort of,'clean cut' kind of feel like
the Americans did. They... Ilike to think of him as, as like
a combination. Like, if youcould take Cold Chisel, but then
take Barnsy's singing andfrontman, Mossy's
(11:09):
guitar-playing, and Don Walker'ssongwriting, and put them all in
one person. That's what I sortof imagined.
Krystle Marie (11:17):
I did think - that was the only other person I
thought of - was Jimmy Barnes,so... So, that's Billy Ordain.
Violet. Violet worked with Billy- Leighton and Billy - I should
say -
G. S. Dickson (11:28):
yeah, yeah.
Krystle Marie (11:30):
This was with...
their TV show -
G. S. Dickson (11:33):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (11:33):
- she was involved in production. I
envisioned her as kind of...
maybe this is showing my age abit - and I don't know that many
people will maybe recognisethese references - but I was
thinking 'Coronation Street' and'EastEnders'?
G. S. Dickson (11:50):
Yeah. She's, yeah, a Londoner. And, and
she's, she's in London, they'rein London, and this - working in
producing this - awful realityTV show that Billy and, is one
judge on, and Leighton is, isthe producer and, and other
judge - and he's a, sort of, a'toff', and also, you know,
(12:15):
thinks quite a lot of himself.
Whereas, yeah, Violet, is thismore, sort of, down-to-earth
kind of character? Who's, who'sthe narrator of that first part.
Krystle Marie (12:26):
Yeah.
Down-to-earth but very flawed, Isuppose. I thought - that was,
sort of, the first instance Iremember being surprised - when
she kind of, you know, almost asif she's 'breaking the fourth
wall'. And she goes, 'Okay, letme level with you. And I'll let
you know what's really, what'sreally happening here. And I'm
not really the kind ofperson...' And you, kind of,
very literally play with thisunreliable narrator, by - she
(12:49):
herself is admitting that she isnot to be trusted. So, that's a
cool - that was a cool twistvery early on.
G. S. Dickson (13:01):
I mean, it's, it was kind of a... meant to be
quite fun. And, sort of comingat the outset, also lets you
know, something of what you'rein for with the rest of the book
and the structure - that maybeyou don't want to, you don't
want to trust any given realityfor too long.
Krystle Marie (13:20):
I mean, as you said, that's a good way to put
it. It kind of sets you up forhow to 'steel oneself' for the
rest of the book. You know,'Don't get too comfortable,
because this is my take.' So,next is Steve Murdoch -
G. S. Dickson (13:35):
Yup.
Krystle Marie (13:36):
- the drummer of Billy's band - I shouldn't call
it 'Billy's band' (laughs) -
G. S. Dickson (13:42):
(laughs) - he would object, yeah.
Krystle Marie (13:43):
- yes, 'Hand of Fate' - aka 'Mongrel'
G. S. Dickson (13:46):
Yep. Yep.
Krystle Marie (13:47):
Again, I was thinking balding, quite
heavy-set gentleman - very shinyand red for some reason - I
don't know why.
G. S. Dickson (13:56):
(laughing) - sort of 'boiled ham' effect.
Krystle Marie (13:59):
Yeah! Drummers are very - I have a couple of
drummer friends - and drummershave more of a say in the band
than I think a lot of peoplegive them credit for. But
they're still so classicallyoverlooked. So I feel like maybe
that... I do think that thatplays out a bit in Steve's
(14:19):
recount. You can tell that he'sa little bit unsure of himself.
He's somewhat aware of hisfading into obscurity and that
'colours' his, his retelling.
G. S. Dickson (14:32):
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's it's funny about that
aspect of drummers as a, as a'general rule'. Yeah, I guess
that was what's in the back ofmy mind for one reason - that
the drummer is the 'overlookedmember', like the 'Ringo' kind
of figure, but you know, Ialways felt like in, you know...
(14:55):
Ringo Starr -is just a classicdrummer that doesn't do much
more than hold down the beat,straightforward, does what he is
there to do. But such a, sortof, important figure,
nonetheless. Like, I don't knowif you saw that - I'm guessing
that you did the same thing asme and watched 'Let It Be' from
beginning to end, the PeterJackson...
Krystle Marie (15:15):
I haven't watched it yet! Which is criminal.
G. S. Dickson (15:18):
Oh, Krystle.
Krystle Marie (15:19):
It's usually - what happens is, when it's
something like that, I have togive it my full attention -
because any less than that is'disrespectful'. So, it's that I
want to ensure that I can giveit my full, undivided attention.
And I can really relish it.
And...
G. S. Dickson (15:34):
Can you just book that room for, like, nine hours
now? And we'll just, beginningto end and -
Krystle Marie (15:40):
(laughing) I should get a - I should try and
find a way to put it on aprojector or something. And
then... Let's have a viewingparty!
G. S. Dickson (15:47):
Yeah! Yeah, maybe do it twice, like, 18 hours. You
need that to really soak it out.
Krystle Marie (15:54):
Sure. Bunker down -
G. S. Dickson (15:55):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (15:56):
- and just...
bunker down and 'Beatle out'.
G. S. Dickson (15:58):
Yeah, no - I was just, I was thinking about that
- there's this moment in thatdocumentary, where Paul
McCartney, like, comes up withthe 'Get Back' riff in real
time.
Krystle Marie (16:07):
Yeah.
G. S. Dickson (16:08):
And he sort of able to do it, because he's got
Ringo there, sort of,interacting with him in this,
sort of, moment where it's likePaul's song, but the, sort of,
spark of inspiration iscollaborative with Ringo. So
yeah, I mean, there was - Ithought it was kind of a cool
thing about drummers thatthey're, on the one hand, so
(16:28):
easily and often overlooked, andon the other, so integral to the
whole thing.
Krystle Marie (16:34):
Yeah. They're kind of, like, pulling strings
behind the scenes. They'realmost like - they are kind of
the 'glue', but people don'treally think of it that way.
Maybe I'm biased, because I'mdefensive of my musician
friends, but, totally agree.
I've got Martin Ordain...
G. S. Dickson (16:52):
Yep.
Krystle Marie (16:52):
Billy's son. I was getting 'Hamlet' vibes from
him.
G. S. Dickson (16:57):
(laughing) Yeah, complicated father-son
relationship. Yeah.
Krystle Marie (17:00):
He's a 'tortured intellectual'.
G. S. Dickson (17:02):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (17:03):
I should, I should explain that each of
these, each of these accounts istold very much in the voice of
that particular character. Andthat was tremendous. Martin's,
for instance, it's very... it'sa very dense chapter in the
book, because it's almost as ifhe is 'allergic' to speaking
(17:23):
simply - his use of language andemotional reflection is almost
masturbatory - but that's justwhat made it so enjoyable.
Particularly... (laughs) Icouldn't help but resonate with
Martin a little bit? Just, sortof, at one point in my life, as
a youth, feeling like thistortured intellectual that no
(17:45):
one understands. And yeah, youknow, Martin, still - he's still
very much wallowing in that.
G. S. Dickson (17:54):
Yeah, atrophied at that, sort of, 14,
15-year-old, emotional state,but kept ageing physically, but
never quite developed out ofthat.
Krystle Marie (18:04):
Yeah. Again, I thought, it's almost as if
Martin, in a way, in his ownway, experienced the same tragic
alienation that his father did,socially, but just, sort of, in
a different sense. I mean, like,Billy, you know, when you're
(18:25):
that famous, people have an'idea' of you. And people tell
their own stories about who youare, and what you mean to them.
That, in and of itself, is quitealienating, because you don't
know if people are reallyengaging with you. You know, so
there's a disconnect there,which meant that Billy, from the
outset, probably experienced alot of alienation, and
(18:49):
disconnection. And then Martin,just being so... he's just, it's
almost like he's not at the same'pace' as other people. Like,
he's kind of like, he can't keeptime - if, if we're going to use
another music metaphor. It'skind of like everybody else is
in on the rhythm, and he justcan't quite clap in time. That's
(19:10):
kind of how it struck me.
G. S. Dickson (19:12):
Yeah, yeah. He's always that... Yes, somehow out
of step with the way ofeveryone, no matter what the
circumstance, no matter whichreality he's occupying, he still
manages to never quite connectin that fostering sense. Yeah.
Krystle Marie (19:29):
Did you draw inspiration from any particular
characters or personalities?
G. S. Dickson (19:35):
For Martin specifically?
Krystle Marie (19:38):
Yeah, yeah.
G. S. Dickson (19:39):
I, I mean, Joyce was a big influence throughout
the book, but I guess Martin, ina way, is sort of the 'Stephen
Dedalus' of it, you know,he's... but maybe, kind of, a
very 'degraded' Stephen Dedalus,you know - he likes to imagine
himself this torturedintellectual... his - I suppose
(20:01):
I should say that this part isstructured as these 'diary
entries' that he's made over theyears - or decades, in fact -
and he's kept them all, and hasthis kind of compulsion to
transcribe into his new entriesthe salient bits of the old
ones. And so there's a lot ofopportunity for irony in that,
(20:22):
in that his progressively newerselves kind of undercut his
current ones. And so you know,he'll say things like, 'Oh,
well, wasn't I such an arrogantlittle twerp', and then go into
this ridiculously long sentence,that's an even more pretentious
thing.... just to make fun of...
Yeah, he's kind of sort ofanti-Stephen. Like, a
(20:43):
'burlesque' Stephen Dedalus, ina lot of ways. And there were,
you know, a lot of other peoplethat I, sort of, drew on... He's
a character that very much comesfrom the, you know, he's sort of
so self conscious about thelanguage that he uses, that he
reflects, in a way, those thosepeople who have similarly that
(21:04):
deliberate or, you know,stylistic... Important stylists,
I think, we're quite importantto him. Martin Amis, in the way
he sort of, kind of dropsregisters suddenly, and, and
maybe even in, in something ofthe character, I guess...
Perhaps by osmosis, looking tohim for for style - or something
(21:28):
of that cynicism of his - one ofthe many things I love about -
loved, I should say - about him.
Krystle Marie (21:39):
I do dwell on Martin, just because the fact
that he was journaling soobsessively... It was like he
was adamant on recordingsomething in his 'own' voice,
which I thought, I read atleast, is kind of an interesting
contrast to Billy's ultimatefate - that we can't really have
ever known Billy, and whathappened to him, and who he was
(22:02):
- because we only know thatthrough what other people have
reported.
G. S. Dickson (22:07):
Hmm, yeah. I, I think that's, yeah, really
interesting. It's... Here he isso painfully self conscious, and
so, so extraordinarilyintrospective, it becomes sort
of a hyperbole for that impulseto record yourself to express
what one sees, what one hasexperienced, to try and
(22:30):
transcribe one's subjectivity sototally - which, in one way, is
a kind of 'myth' of, of thenovel, yo u know - that, that
kind of 'Proustian' impulse -who was definitely another kind
of figure I had in mind as inMartin, and the construction of
it - you know, that kind of...
Well, the remembrance of thingspast, as it were. So, the kind
(22:51):
of impossibility of that taskis, I think, something that
Martin can't recognise. Andhe's, sort of, driven to keep
trying to achieve, but by thesame token - is that any more
'whole' of a human beingcontained in papers in, any more
(23:12):
so than if it were possible to,kind of, eavesdrop in on
someone's consciousness - whichis the mode of the next part of
the book. Or, is that any moretrustworthy than, than Steve's
possibly hallucinated stories of'doo wop demons' in the desert?
Or, or Violet kind of 'rippingthe rug out' from under you,
(23:35):
narratively, in the first part.
So, yeah. Yeah, I think, kind ofcollectively, they create a
contrast. There's all thesekinds of modes of narration and
modes of expression thatspeakers of it can't express
themselves fully. And yet, herewe have this other character who
becomes the centre of the book -though he's never heard from
(23:57):
himself. Perhaps, you know, he'sthe one that we've seen - from
all these angles, and throughall these different
possibilities of his life,collectively that - maybe the,
the most 'complete', kind of,character that you can be.
Krystle Marie (24:11):
Yeah, that's an interesting point. You know, the
other thing that I felt aboutBilly was that - I think
something that is really easy todo when someone dies, at least
initially, is to kind of, iskind of 'glorify' them a little
bit, you know, that's protocol -is that you always, you remember
someone in the most positivelight, and it's almost as if you
(24:33):
completely forget some of the,the nasty things that they've
said and done. And the way thatBilly is painted in the novel is
that you can't determine whetherhe is an 'all good' or 'all bad'
person based on what thesepeople have shared, you know,
which is actually very realisticbecause it just, you know, you
(24:54):
can be a loving (bleep), thereare a lot of them, and... I
might have to 'bleep' that(laughs)
G. S. Dickson (25:03):
(laughs) could you not make it the name of the
podcast? 'The Loving (bleep)'
Krystle Marie (25:08):
(laughing) just, just a heap of asterisks. You
know, that's so realistic, inthat people are so
three-dimensional, butinitially, our reaction is to
kind of go, 'Oh, they were sogenerous. Oh, they're so
talented.' And then a littlefurther down the line, we
actually think, 'Do you rememberwhen he did that?'
G. S. Dickson (25:30):
I think that's true that... It's true on a
personal level, I think it'salso true on a kind of social
level - somebody who's acelebrity of whatever
description, there's a, thatsame kind of process happens,
where that, there's that sort ofperiod of celebration and
(25:51):
reverence. And then thereassessment sort of comes
somewhat later. I think it's abit of a cycle too. Like, they,
then there's a period of sort offallow post-reassessment. And
then there's the renaissancethat gets discovered, you know,
50 years after they've died orwhatever.
Krystle Marie (26:12):
Yeah, that's, kind of, devoid of all of that
personal significance. And itjust becomes more about what
that person's output was.
G. S. Dickson (26:20):
Yeah. And, kind of, the bits that have, have
survived in, in popularimagination and memory, and the
highlights or the infamousepisodes that, you know, stand
as anecdotes or something.
Happens on a, on a grand scaleand a small scale.
Krystle Marie (26:42):
Yeah. Well, just to bring it back to, you know,
there's Martin's chapter whichis quite verbose and dense
and... and then, you switch tosomething very different with
Lydia's recount - well, if youcould call it that. Lydia was
(27:04):
Billy's wife, ex-wife, whostruck me as, you know, a very
poetic soul, ex-model...
probably not quite appreciateddue to her beauty, and gave her
this very persistent anxiety, Ithink. That was a real surprise,
because it's very... I don'tknow if the term for it is
'stream of consciousness'?
G. S. Dickson (27:27):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. That sort of
stream of consciousness interiormonologue kind of thing is
what's happening in that one.
Krystle Marie (27:34):
Yeah. Was this the... the Joycean influence?
G. S. Dickson (27:38):
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner -big fan of, kind of, modernist
writing and literature. So yeah,I love stream of consciousness
writing, sort of, old and new.
Will Self, I think, does itreally well at the moment. Yeah,
it was, in one way something Ireally wanted to work in as a,
(28:02):
as a literary medium. But italso provided yet another way of
expressing a character that,that, sort of, contributed to
that, that kind of study incontrasts that, uh...
Krystle Marie (28:16):
And was that very deliberately Lydias...? That was
deliberately for Lydia?
G. S. Dickson (28:21):
Yeah. I mean, I think the reason it was, was
her, as opposed to to anyoneelse was... partially the
temporal structure that, that'shappening in the book meant that
in the previous sections -Violet, Steve's and Martin's -
when all of the those threecharacters are, sort of,
(28:42):
speaking in or narrating fromtheir 'own' 2015, in which
Billy's died, in sort of, youknow, 2015, 2005, I think, and
in the 90s. And this time, whenhe's, he's died in the 80s,
Lydia is narrating it, but inall those other ones, she, in
(29:06):
fact, died in the 80s. And soshe'd been this, sort of, other
'absence', that had, had beenkind of haunting the book, as it
were. You know, she's Martin'smother, Steve's kind of always
cherished this, sort of,hopeless flame for her. I think
Violet at one point, says, youknow, something about his
(29:29):
'perfect dead wife' or... and soshe's sort of being absorbed
into the popular consciousnesssimilarly to Billy, when the
change sort of occurs, and nowshe's, she's alive and speaking
her own story and ownperspective on both her life and
Billy's life. You know, Ithought that the stream of
(29:50):
consciousness was, was reallyappropriate to that kind of
'rebirth' in the narrative andto kind of, to render her
presence more, as undeniably asit's possible to do, you know.
Stream of consciousness kind ofputs the character's mind smack
(30:11):
at the, at the front and theprocesses of mind and
recollection, all those sorts ofthings. And so it sort of
emphasises her in terms of theimmediacy of the narration, I
think. So, that was kind of thereasoning for why she gets that
treatment.
Krystle Marie (30:28):
Yeah. And I did notice my inclination,
potentially due to that, thatmethod, to sort of want for hers
to be the most 'true' account ofBilly, I suppose? And then, then
noticed, you know, that's also atrick maybe? Because it's not as
if we ever stop creating thesenarratives, even when we're
(30:50):
speaking to ourselves. So...
G. S. Dickson (30:53):
I'm glad that that sort of struck you at that
point. That yeah, definitely wassomething I was sort of hoping
to, to ask, you know - or tostill be wondering if people
would still be wondering by thatpoint in the book - like, is
there, is one of these going tobe true? Or whether you'd start
saying, 'Well, hang on. I'mreading fiction. None of it's
(31:14):
true.' Yeah.
Krystle Marie (31:16):
And it was a good contrast between Martin and
Lydia, because Martin, as yousaid, is so conscious of his
language. And, by extension,conscious of what he's
recording, you know, physicallywriting down. Whereas Lydia's
account comes entirely, weassume, from her, from her own
mind.
G. S. Dickson (31:35):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (31:36):
So...
G. S. Dickson (31:37):
Mmm, yeah, totally unfiltered. She can't -
and unstructured - she can'tsteer where her mind's gonna
take her. And yeah, she, she'swaking up in a in hospital after
an accident. And so herconsciousness is, sort of,
fragmented and she's drifting inand out of different levels of
(31:58):
pain and pain medication, and,sort of, just disorientation
and... And so that provided agreat means of letting me dip
into the deep past, and, as wellas, for what to buy them become
quite a long period betweenBilly being alive and the sort
of period since, so yeah... itwas it's quite a supple medium,
(32:21):
I think.
Krystle Marie (32:22):
And then next, we've got Janet, who is Billy's
'girl on the side', and who Ithought perhaps most... well,
most consciously tried toconvince us of her ownership of
the authenticity over Billy's...
the 'true Billy' - how it reallyhappened. Yeah, almost using her
(32:43):
position as, what I perceived asmaybe 'working class' - not
weaponizing, but kind of usingthat as like, 'Oh, well, I'll
tell you what really happened.'Everybody probably has some
underlying agenda in the waythat they've described Billy and
their relationships with Billy.
(33:04):
So with Janet, because she, shesort of comes at the the end of
the book - was that on purpose?
Or did you already know whereshe might fit into the novel's
structure?
G. S. Dickson (33:17):
Oh, I definitely knew that, that was, the fifth
part was going to be hers. Ihadn't quite come to the full
vision of what that part endedup being. But yeah, the last
word was always kind of reservedfor her. There was, was kind of
a parallel, or meant to be a bitof symmetry to it, in that the
first and last people werepeople who were somewhat
(33:41):
tangentially connected to Billy,whereas the sort of central
three, were the really closepeople in his life. So you know,
for Janet, you know, it wassignificant. It was this sort
of, in her mind, at least thisgreat romance, that she's had 40
odd years since of, of her ownlife, where she's, sort of,
(34:01):
built up this business of the,the bar that she, she runs. But
at the same time, sort of dinedout on the stories of the time
for for all those years. Soshe's kind of conflicted in a
way, that on the one hand - yes,she does have, kind of, want to
project this authority, and atthe same time, sort of
(34:25):
objectivity - but by that veryimpulse she could, she's sort of
trying to set herrself up as akind of 'keeper of the stories'
or keeper of this, the truth ofthis guy, which is, sort of, in
that part, undermined by prettymuch everything else that
happens, you know. From thiskind of radio interview that's
(34:46):
overheard where Steve says theopposite of what she's just told
someone the interview - she'strying to do this interview for
a music magazine with this guy,and, and, and in this attempt to
tell the story, is kind of besetby interruptions and obstacles,
(35:09):
physical and social and, andliterary - because it keeps
drifting off into thesevignettes of the patrons of the
bar.
Krystle Marie (35:18):
So disruptive.
G. S. Dickson (35:19):
Yeah, yeah. So as much as she's kind of
interrupted, so the the parts isinterrupted by these narrative
gravities, I suppose that wantedto then give their own story of
how Billy has or hasn't affectedtheir lives.
Krystle Marie (35:38):
Yeah, and I feel like, too, how fragmented that
was, and then sort of howincreasingly distracted it gets
towards the end - the way thatBilly is mentioned, towards the
end more in terms of people'consuming' him, in a way,
they're using, using his music,you know, in all of these very
(35:58):
sort of inconsequential moments- but I felt like, at least how
I read it, was this coming toterms with Billy dissolving into
time, dissolving into memory?
G. S. Dickson (36:10):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You know, in all the ways
that, that happens - which Ithink is probably a, you know,
in a way, that, that sort offigure of the rock star has been
- it's something that the booklooks at a lot. And when it sort
of comes to that moment, it'sabout, yeah, the, the way,
(36:31):
it's... it's that what's left ofthe, the artists, you know, the
performer is... what's leftbehind gets broken up and
diffused, and, and used,consumed - and, you know, for
purposes, good and bad, youknow, or, you know, some more
venal than others. There'speople who have memories that
(36:54):
come from, from listening tomusic, you know, connections
that it reminds them of, there'speople who who respond to the
message of the ad that it'splaying underneath. Yeah, it's
sort of spreads out, I guess, ina kind of ripple through time.
Krystle Marie (37:11):
Yeah. I was so impressed by how you articulated
these characters so clearly,because they're all so diverse.
And I just, I'm curious as tohow you went about curating
these voices. So... so clearly,so vividly.
G. S. Dickson (37:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think partly, the contrast
element helps to do that, whenthey're side by side - a stream
of consciousness, as to a seriesof journal entries, as to a
character narrating the world asthey see it - or perhaps as they
didn't, like the early ones.
Also, I think, developingcharacters through language,
(37:49):
through idiolect, I think is, issomething I'm really interested
in. I'm interested in, you know,how we both construct and come
to understand ourselves throughthe language that we use. The
way the words and idioms thatwe, we select, tell, tell other
people something about us andmaybe reaffirm things about us.
(38:12):
I'm also interested in the waylanguage can kind of undercut
us? Irony is a very big part ofthis book, obviously, the
dramatic irony in that we kindof know what's what's going to
keep happening, as we go throughthe book is... comes into play a
lot. But it also comes into playin the way that the characters
(38:33):
reveal deeper truths aboutthemselves, sort of
unconsciously, and in spite oftheir, their words - which I
think is interesting. And Ithink it's something we, I think
we all do, but the differentways we do it, I think, tend to
be quite suggestive of somethingabout ourselves, particularly in
psychologies...
Krystle Marie (38:56):
Yeah. Something that I raised to Grace Chan in
the podcast before this one - wetouched on the value of
authenticity, the fact thathumans seem to, at least,
proclaim that we valueauthenticity - and that doesn't
necessarily reflect always inour, our choices and our action.
(39:17):
But I think, you know, similarcould be said for the way that
these people are telling theirversion of things, is that there
is kind of this underlyinginsistence that 'I'm an
authentic person, and this isthe authentic version.' And, you
know, as you said, how can yoube sure if any of these - if any
(39:40):
one of them are - the, the trueversion of events? And that's a
fascinating, that's afascinating thought.
G. S. Dickson (39:47):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it goes
to the maybe the nature ofwriting fiction itself. You...
when, when someone puts, youknow, 'this is a true story' on
something, you know, people go,'Oh, it's a true story!' And I'm
sure that, you know, more thanhalf the time it, there's
(40:09):
nothing, in no way, reflects anyreality that actually
transpired. But, but I thinkthere's different kinds of
authenticity. You know, there'swhat may have occurred, that
there's also people'sperspectives of what they
thought occurred. And there's nokind of sense in which that
(40:30):
objective reality is in any wayaccessible except through
subjectivity. You know, that,that's kind of interesting in
itself. But, but I think interms of fiction, there's
another level of remove there,and that we're making this stuff
up. That there is no underlyingtruth to, to this book any more
(40:51):
than, than there is to 'GreatExpectations' or 'The Hobbit',
you know, it's - and yet neitherof those books, I think, could
be described as 'inauthentic'.
Writing, or writing fiction, atleast is, is kind of this
process of mashing up realityand truth and reassembling it in
(41:12):
different ways. And this sort oflittle light that we can, sort
of, dangle of claims to truth,to verisimilitude, or, or
whatever - I think we probably,more often than not, that -
that's more of a tactic. Then,then any, you know, I'm
(41:33):
sceptical of any claim thatreality can be represented
through, least of all writingwords on a on a page, you know?
Get a video camera, man! That'sif you want to say 'this is
reality, this is true', youknow. I think that's, that's
kind of what's interesting aboutit is that you still do try to
(41:55):
represent something that feelstruthful, that in some way,
reflective of reality andexperience but, but in this
highly artificial, extremelyold-fashioned means, you know,
the, the one that that's beenbettered so many times as a
reflector of reality - butthat's, that's what's good about
(42:19):
it. That's what's interestingabout it, I think, is the way it
insists on, or forces you to, todepict reality in... through
different lenses, throughdifferent filters. And yeah, I
mean, it's, it's constructed oflanguage, which is also the way
we have to express ourselves inour day to day lives. You know,
(42:42):
there's a... it's at once sostrange and so familiar, I
guess.
Krystle Marie (42:50):
Yeah... I was actually curious - who knows
whether this will, sort of, makeit into the final cut - but I
was curious if you werelistening to any music while you
were writing this? Because it isa very, sort of, music centred
book - or at least musicculture.
G. S. Dickson (43:05):
Yeah. Do you mean like, like, literally listening
to music? While -
Krystle Marie (43:09):
Yeah.
G. S. Dickson (43:10):
I did have a kind of go at that with the Lydia
parts, particularly, you know,that, that one was a, probably
the most challenging to come at,you know, the consciousness
that's, you know, beingexpressed in, in language,
obviously, but also that it's acharacter who's certainly much
(43:31):
further from me, then well, thenMartin, who, you know, arguably,
was the closest. So I was, waskind of putting a lot of jazz
on, on the headphones. Like,while I was writing it, just as
an experiment, I guess,considering the sort of analogue
of improvisation having to comefrom this sort of stream
(43:57):
together of consciousness,together with this effective of
trying to get language to followthe, or create a simulacrum of
consciousness. I don't knowwhether there's any truth in it
or not, or whether it would havebeen the same either way, but um
-
Krystle Marie (44:14):
- it's an interesting experiment.
G. S. Dickson (44:15):
Yeah, yeah. It just felt like that sort of...
listening to improvisation,like, sort of modern jazz
Coltrane kind of stuff.
Improvisation, I'm sure youknow, from it isn't just
expression, you know, it's it's,it's structured. It's based on
principles and how they'reapplied. And I felt like maybe
it's meant to feel like it orsold as if, you know, Coltrane's
(44:40):
started on stage and just justtapped into his mind and those,
which is not the case at all.
And in a way, spendingconsciousness reading I thought,
didn't was the same thing. It'slike it's meant to create
effective consciousness. Hisrambling on and to create it,
(45:02):
maybe you do want to let yourimagination imitating
consciousness ramble on him insome ways. And, and so yeah, I
thought like, jazz kind of was agood way to tap into that, that
sort of way of thinking.
Krystle Marie (45:20):
Yeah, definitely.
You know, as you said, you know,as jazz, you're still... you
still must have this strongknowledge of, of the the artform
and the instrument before youcan pass off, as completely out
of the ether, this'improvisation' and, you know,
the funny thing with the streamof consciousness writing is you
(45:42):
still have to use words toarticulate those thoughts. And
then... something happens, then,between the thought occurring
and applying language to it.
So...
G. S. Dickson (45:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, I'd probably evengo further and say, the stream
of consciousness, sort of, usingit as a technique, requires you
to draw MORE upon understandingof narrative, and narrative
structure, and, well,principles, you know - the kind
of 'music theory' of writing -in a way that something,
(46:19):
probably even like Violet,you're sort of excluding that,
those kinds of metafictionalexcursions of hers, you know -
that's quite a straightforwardmanner of, of imitating, uh,
consciousness, narrating a story- you have to have a much
clearer and more complex sort offramework in place to create
(46:40):
the, the effect of a stream ofconsciousness... and have it go
somewhere.
Krystle Marie (46:50):
Yeah. Otherwise, it's just a cat walking on a
piano.
G. S. Dickson (46:52):
(laughing) exactly, yeah. Yeah. I've been
to a few gigs like that.
Krystle Marie (46:59):
(laughing) Okay.
Well, I think to finish, I justwant to plug your book, because
you're not on Instagram, as faras I understand?
G. S. Dickson (47:12):
I'm, yeah, absent from social media.
Krystle Marie (47:15):
I admire that about you. I think that's,
that's really cool. A lot ofhipsters would be very jealous
of you for, for that, but -
G. S. Dickson (47:24):
I'm quite genuinely... it's not a wrench,
I can -
Krystle Marie (47:28):
It's not a ploy.
You genuinely just don't want tobe there.
G. S. Dickson (47:32):
This is true.
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (47:34):
You know, as with most good books, if you can buy
local, buy local. If your localbookstore doesn't have it, you
can request 'A Minor Fifth'.
Although, I think in Brisbane,you could pretty easily get your
hands on a copy. You had - I'mstruggling for the name now -
the St Lucia bookshop that wasselling from -
G. S. Dickson (47:55):
Yeah, Books at -
Krystle Marie (47:56):
- what was it, sorry?
G. S. Dickson (47:57):
'Books at Stones' at Stones -
Krystle Marie (47:59):
- at Stones. So, Books at Stones. They were were
selling copies at your launch.
So,on if you're in that area, ifyou're on that side of town,
Stones Corner is just aninteresting place to be, I
think, so if you're on that sideof town, go do some exploring
and pick up the book. The usualhaunts - Avid Reader. Riverbend.
You were at Dymocks?
G. S. Dickson (48:23):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (48:24):
QBD. Yeah. So, it's really out there.
G. S. Dickson (48:28):
If you're if you're flying - good for a
long-haul plane trip, I'm sure.
Krystle Marie (48:32):
Yeah! I think this would be really cool to do
as an audio book, actually. I'vebeen listening to a lot of audio
books lately. And some of themget a whole cast of actors in -
I didn't realise that was athing. But this would be really
interesting to do as an audiobook. If you could get different
people to voice - I don't knowhow that works, and I don't know
how much that costs, butsomething to consider. But yes,
(48:58):
'A Minor Fifth'. G. S. Dickson.
It's a FUN read. I have ADHD -so I don't say that lightly. It
kept my attention. It willchallenge you and it will make
you laugh out loud, quitelegitimately. So, thank you,
Gareth, for chatting with me.
Thank you for understanding mylimitations in audio
(49:22):
engineering. I'll hopefully seeyou in the flesh soon.
G. S. Dickson (49:27):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (49:28):
Until then, enjoy London!
G. S. Dickson (49:31):
Thanks. Yeah.
Should be good. Yeah, yeah.
Krystle Marie (49:34):
Safe travels.
G. S. Dickson (49:36):
Thank you. Yeah.
Oh, I've got the WritersFestival thing before...
Krystle Marie (49:41):
Oh, that's right! Actually, I will say, Brisbane
Writers Festival. So...
G. S. Dickson (49:45):
Yeah, it's a session on the, on the Friday,
called 'Pitch Perfect'. Yeah,Noel Mengel will be chairing the
panel, which will be cool.
Krystle Marie (49:57):
Excellent. Yeah - such a good book!
G. S. Dickson (50:01):
Oh cheers, thank you.
Krystle Marie (50:02):
Yeah. I'm not just saying that, really. It
made me properly laugh.
I recall this mate of mine is a concert
pianist and and we did this quizthing once with him and said,
'Can you, like, alter a melody?
And he did this thing thatsounded bizarre and what he'd
actually done was played theNokia ringtone. Yeah, (mimics
mobile ringtone).
Krystle Marie (00:19):
(laughs)
G. S. Dickson (00:20):
He transposed the notes to different octaves so
that it was a sort of - butplayed it in time - and nobody
could work out what this thingwas that sounded familiar.
'Yeah, I know what that is!' Butit was absolutely unrecognizable
-
Krystle Marie (00:34):
- weirdly uncanny -
G. S. Dickson (00:36):
...yeah. I r ecognise at some point your mind
- the mind that understands thatmusic on that kind of level -
can, can listen to the 'R2D2band' and, and be like, 'Yeah',
but I'm not there.
Krystle Marie (00:49):
No. That's okay.
Yeah, that's fine. We can stickwith The Beatles for now. That's
fine. I understand that -
G. S. Dickson (00:55):
- I will never grow tired of The Beatles.
Krystle Marie (00:59):
I'd first like to acknowledge the Jagera and
Turrbal people as theTraditional Custodians of
Meanjin, from where I recordtoday, as well as the Yugambeh
People, the TraditionalCustodians of the lands and
waters of the Gold Coast, fromwhere my guest G. S. Dickson
joins me this afternoon. I paymy respects to Elders past,
(01:20):
present and emerging.
Sovereignty has never beenceded. This always was and
always will be Aboriginal land.
G. S. Dickson is an Australianauthor whose work has been
published and anthologised inboth Australia and the UK. 'A
Minor Fifth' is his first novel,the early draft of which was
(01:41):
shortlisted for the prestigiousVogel Literary Award. Rohan
Wilson, author of 'The RovingParty, which won the 2011 Vogel
Award, describes 'A Minor Fifth'as 'funny, sad, moving,
engaging' and 'incrediblyinnovative' - an 'incredible
book' that 'takes a lot ofrisks'. So, on that note,
(02:03):
welcome to Science Write Now...
do I call you 'G. S.'? Or do Icall you Gareth?
G. S. Dickson (02:10):
I think, yeah, let's just go with Gareth. Yeah.
Krystle Marie (02:13):
Yeah. Yep.
G. S. Dickson (02:14):
(smiling) yes.
Krystle Marie (02:17):
I don't want to start on a morbid note, but I
can't help myself because itfeels relevant. So recently, I
had a friend of mine inform methat a mutual acquaintance of
ours from a very long time ago,may have passed away. Vague
(02:38):
details about it. But I couldn'thelp but notice, my impulse was
to explain who this person wasvia my stories with him. And so
it made me think about yourbook, in that the protagonist is
(03:01):
sort of 'made flesh' by thesepeople who knew him - whereas
it's almost as if he didn't geta say in reporting what actually
happened, in terms of how hedied. So I think it's quite
interesting that you lead withthe death. And the narrative
(03:23):
actually follows from that fact.
G. S. Dickson (03:26):
Yeah. I think, yeah, the leading with the death
was, was, I think, somethingthat was was going to be really
important for the book, which isall about the absence of the,
kind of, central figure and, anda kind of 'negative space'
(03:48):
that's, that's, that thecharacter has been 'sketched in'
through, which is by all thesepeople who knew him, and their
differing perspectives, youknow, kind of create this, this
kind of fuzzy-edged figure, Ithink, which is analogous in
some way to what death does whenit occurs. You know, all we have
(04:11):
are your memories and, you know,one's own stories, I suppose.
And I've had similar experiencesbefore - and since writing the
book - to what you describewhere you hear, secondhand, that
someone you know, contemporaryor not - not even necessarily
(04:32):
that, but someone - has diedand, and you'd lost touch, and
it creates that, that, kind of,indeterminate hole. So I think
that's what I was maybe tryingto achieve with, with that kind
of structure to the book ofhaving a character who's only
ever, only ever revealed throughother people's words, as it
(04:57):
were, who doesn't exist - whichof course, on a kind of
metafictional level, you know,he doesn't. He is only made up
of these layered perspectives.
Krystle Marie (05:09):
Yeah, I read that this was - I may be using the
term incorrectly - it was 'theRashomon Method'? The 'Rashomon
Effect'? which was initially afilm - like, a cinematic method?
Was it Akira Kurosa-
G. S. Dickson (05:24):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Kurosawa and in Anglo
American cinema, 'Citizen Kane',famously, you know - you never
see, you never get Kane's lifethrough his own perspective of
it. And I think that film waswas particularly interesting for
(05:44):
me in relation to this one inhaving that central figure be
someone who, whose existence tothem is very much about image
and narrative, and the way they,they appear in the media and in
the, sort of, popularimagination. So yeah, 'Citizen
(06:06):
Kane' was, was definitely aninspiration for this. But I also
tried to find another way ofdoing the same thing, which -or
a complementary thing, I suppose- in layering also the
possibilities of the narrative,and having a 'forking path'
(06:26):
structure to it. So you know,the character dies in in each of
these accounts, but with eachaccount that death is moving
backwards in time, while thecha- the narrators - are still
staying in the same 'presentday' or, well, '2015' moment,
and looking back on this, sortof, gradually receding event.
(06:51):
And that allowed for a lot of, alot of different opportunities
for me to play with things,especially the Rock 'n Roll
legendarium, you know, the sortof rockstar 'burning out' in all
these different ways and, andthe ways that, that... that kind
of gets, gets absorbed into thepopular imagination, you know,
(07:14):
John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, or,you know, at the other end,
Bowie in late middle age or, youknow, that events to the public,
you know, fans, the people whohave followed them sort of
resonating in different ways indifferent times of our lives as
well. And the, those kinds ofripples were something I found
(07:38):
really interesting to explorethrough through that device, you
know, the different things thathappened, and depending on how I
'offed' the guy.
Krystle Marie (07:46):
Yeah. I mean, that's such a funny idea,
because I thought about how... Ishould probably explain just
quickly that... So, Billy Ordainis dead, Australian rock legend,
and he has these variousaccounts reported about how he
died, and the kind ofrelationship each of these
(08:07):
people had with Billy. Andthey're all very different -
very different in 'voice' aswell - which I thought was
incredible. And that issomething that I want to talk
about. I think that's such aninteresting idea that Billy
couldn't come back and set therecord straight. He can't
correct the details of any ofthese accounts. And there's this
(08:31):
kind of simmering injusticeunderneath all of that. What I
was saying to John, your, yourpublisher, at the at the book
launch, was that one of thethings I loved most about 'A
Minor Fifth' was that itactually surprised me - and that
a book could still do that. Thatsounds very cynical. But when I
(08:54):
started reading this, I thoughtit to be a very straight, you
know, mythical satirical accountof an Aussie rock legend. It
completely switches up severaltimes throughout the book, which
is fantastic. So that makes fora challenging, yet very
entertaining, read. I'm stilltrying to make sense of it. But
(09:17):
I like that I'm still thinkingabout it. I'm still sort of
connecting... I think it wouldbe helpful to go through the
different characters, give a bitof a an overview of who's
involved, just so that peopleget a sense of how it is
structured. So we've got BillyOrdain, who is the
quintessential rock 'leadingman'.
G. S. Dickson (09:40):
Yeah, sort of reflecting bits and pieces of
different legends of rock from,from different times and places.
It's, sort of, in a kind ofFrankenstein way. Yeah. I'm so
pleased that you're stillpiecing together things - that
was an effect I really did wantto to happen - so that's very
(10:01):
gratifying (laughs)
Krystle Marie (10:03):
I couldn't help but think of... when I was
thinking of Billy Ordain, in myhead because it is a very... It
is quite a cinematic bookbecause it is very vivid. And
the characters are so... theyreally pop. I can't think of a
more sophisticated way to saythat. I was thinking someone
like 'Angry Anderson', for somereason. Because, like, that is
(10:26):
kind of... if I think ofAustralian rock music, I don't
think we necessarily have maybe,like, conventionally suave,
handsome... it's more like, sortof, 'no nonsense', Wife
Beater-wearing... that's what Iwas thinking. So in my head,
that's what I envisioned.
G. S. Dickson (10:45):
Yeah, I agree. I think we you know, we never kind
of churned out that, sort of,'clean cut' kind of feel like
the Americans did. They... Ilike to think of him as, as like
a combination. Like, if youcould take Cold Chisel, but then
take Barnsy's singing andfrontman, Mossy's
(11:09):
guitar-playing, and Don Walker'ssongwriting, and put them all in
one person. That's what I sortof imagined.
Krystle Marie (11:17):
I did think - that was the only other person I
thought of - was Jimmy Barnes,so... So, that's Billy Ordain.
Violet. Violet worked with Billy- Leighton and Billy - I should
say -
G. S. Dickson (11:28):
yeah, yeah.
Krystle Marie (11:30):
This was with...
their TV show -
G. S. Dickson (11:33):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (11:33):
- she was involved in production. I
envisioned her as kind of...
maybe this is showing my age abit - and I don't know that many
people will maybe recognisethese references - but I was
thinking 'Coronation Street' and'EastEnders'?
G. S. Dickson (11:50):
Yeah. She's, yeah, a Londoner. And, and
she's, she's in London, they'rein London, and this - working in
producing this - awful realityTV show that Billy and, is one
judge on, and Leighton is, isthe producer and, and other
judge - and he's a, sort of, a'toff', and also, you know,
(12:15):
thinks quite a lot of himself.
Whereas, yeah, Violet, is thismore, sort of, down-to-earth
kind of character? Who's, who'sthe narrator of that first part.
Krystle Marie (12:26):
Yeah.
Down-to-earth but very flawed, Isuppose. I thought - that was,
sort of, the first instance Iremember being surprised - when
she kind of, you know, almost asif she's 'breaking the fourth
wall'. And she goes, 'Okay, letme level with you. And I'll let
you know what's really, what'sreally happening here. And I'm
not really the kind ofperson...' And you, kind of,
very literally play with thisunreliable narrator, by - she
(12:49):
herself is admitting that she isnot to be trusted. So, that's a
cool - that was a cool twistvery early on.
G. S. Dickson (13:01):
I mean, it's, it was kind of a... meant to be
quite fun. And, sort of comingat the outset, also lets you
know, something of what you'rein for with the rest of the book
and the structure - that maybeyou don't want to, you don't
want to trust any given realityfor too long.
Krystle Marie (13:20):
I mean, as you said, that's a good way to put
it. It kind of sets you up forhow to 'steel oneself' for the
rest of the book. You know,'Don't get too comfortable,
because this is my take.' So,next is Steve Murdoch -
G. S. Dickson (13:35):
Yup.
Krystle Marie (13:36):
- the drummer of Billy's band - I shouldn't call
it 'Billy's band' (laughs) -
G. S. Dickson (13:42):
(laughs) - he would object, yeah.
Krystle Marie (13:43):
- yes, 'Hand of Fate' - aka 'Mongrel'
G. S. Dickson (13:46):
Yep. Yep.
Krystle Marie (13:47):
Again, I was thinking balding, quite
heavy-set gentleman - very shinyand red for some reason - I
don't know why.
G. S. Dickson (13:56):
(laughing) - sort of 'boiled ham' effect.
Krystle Marie (13:59):
Yeah! Drummers are very - I have a couple of
drummer friends - and drummershave more of a say in the band
than I think a lot of peoplegive them credit for. But
they're still so classicallyoverlooked. So I feel like maybe
that... I do think that thatplays out a bit in Steve's
(14:19):
recount. You can tell that he'sa little bit unsure of himself.
He's somewhat aware of hisfading into obscurity and that
'colours' his, his retelling.
G. S. Dickson (14:32):
Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it's it's funny about that
aspect of drummers as a, as a'general rule'. Yeah, I guess
that was what's in the back ofmy mind for one reason - that
the drummer is the 'overlookedmember', like the 'Ringo' kind
of figure, but you know, Ialways felt like in, you know...
(14:55):
Ringo Starr -is just a classicdrummer that doesn't do much
more than hold down the beat,straightforward, does what he is
there to do. But such a, sortof, important figure,
nonetheless. Like, I don't knowif you saw that - I'm guessing
that you did the same thing asme and watched 'Let It Be' from
beginning to end, the PeterJackson...
Krystle Marie (15:15):
I haven't watched it yet! Which is criminal.
G. S. Dickson (15:18):
Oh, Krystle.
Krystle Marie (15:19):
It's usually - what happens is, when it's
something like that, I have togive it my full attention -
because any less than that is'disrespectful'. So, it's that I
want to ensure that I can giveit my full, undivided attention.
And I can really relish it.
And...
G. S. Dickson (15:34):
Can you just book that room for, like, nine hours
now? And we'll just, beginningto end and -
Krystle Marie (15:40):
(laughing) I should get a - I should try and
find a way to put it on aprojector or something. And
then... Let's have a viewingparty!
G. S. Dickson (15:47):
Yeah! Yeah, maybe do it twice, like, 18 hours. You
need that to really soak it out.
Krystle Marie (15:54):
Sure. Bunker down -
G. S. Dickson (15:55):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (15:56):
- and just...
bunker down and 'Beatle out'.
G. S. Dickson (15:58):
Yeah, no - I was just, I was thinking about that
- there's this moment in thatdocumentary, where Paul
McCartney, like, comes up withthe 'Get Back' riff in real
time.
Krystle Marie (16:07):
Yeah.
G. S. Dickson (16:08):
And he sort of able to do it, because he's got
Ringo there, sort of,interacting with him in this,
sort of, moment where it's likePaul's song, but the, sort of,
spark of inspiration iscollaborative with Ringo. So
yeah, I mean, there was - Ithought it was kind of a cool
thing about drummers thatthey're, on the one hand, so
(16:28):
easily and often overlooked, andon the other, so integral to the
whole thing.
Krystle Marie (16:34):
Yeah. They're kind of, like, pulling strings
behind the scenes. They'realmost like - they are kind of
the 'glue', but people don'treally think of it that way.
Maybe I'm biased, because I'mdefensive of my musician
friends, but, totally agree.
I've got Martin Ordain...
G. S. Dickson (16:52):
Yep.
Krystle Marie (16:52):
Billy's son. I was getting 'Hamlet' vibes from
him.
G. S. Dickson (16:57):
(laughing) Yeah, complicated father-son
relationship. Yeah.
Krystle Marie (17:00):
He's a 'tortured intellectual'.
G. S. Dickson (17:02):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (17:03):
I should, I should explain that each of
these, each of these accounts istold very much in the voice of
that particular character. Andthat was tremendous. Martin's,
for instance, it's very... it'sa very dense chapter in the
book, because it's almost as ifhe is 'allergic' to speaking
(17:23):
simply - his use of language andemotional reflection is almost
masturbatory - but that's justwhat made it so enjoyable.
Particularly... (laughs) Icouldn't help but resonate with
Martin a little bit? Just, sortof, at one point in my life, as
a youth, feeling like thistortured intellectual that no
(17:45):
one understands. And yeah, youknow, Martin, still - he's still
very much wallowing in that.
G. S. Dickson (17:54):
Yeah, atrophied at that, sort of, 14,
15-year-old, emotional state,but kept ageing physically, but
never quite developed out ofthat.
Krystle Marie (18:04):
Yeah. Again, I thought, it's almost as if
Martin, in a way, in his ownway, experienced the same tragic
alienation that his father did,socially, but just, sort of, in
a different sense. I mean, like,Billy, you know, when you're
(18:25):
that famous, people have an'idea' of you. And people tell
their own stories about who youare, and what you mean to them.
That, in and of itself, is quitealienating, because you don't
know if people are reallyengaging with you. You know, so
there's a disconnect there,which meant that Billy, from the
outset, probably experienced alot of alienation, and
(18:49):
disconnection. And then Martin,just being so... he's just, it's
almost like he's not at the same'pace' as other people. Like,
he's kind of like, he can't keeptime - if, if we're going to use
another music metaphor. It'skind of like everybody else is
in on the rhythm, and he justcan't quite clap in time. That's
(19:10):
kind of how it struck me.
G. S. Dickson (19:12):
Yeah, yeah. He's always that... Yes, somehow out
of step with the way ofeveryone, no matter what the
circumstance, no matter whichreality he's occupying, he still
manages to never quite connectin that fostering sense. Yeah.
Krystle Marie (19:29):
Did you draw inspiration from any particular
characters or personalities?
G. S. Dickson (19:35):
For Martin specifically?
Krystle Marie (19:38):
Yeah, yeah.
G. S. Dickson (19:39):
I, I mean, Joyce was a big influence throughout
the book, but I guess Martin, ina way, is sort of the 'Stephen
Dedalus' of it, you know,he's... but maybe, kind of, a
very 'degraded' Stephen Dedalus,you know - he likes to imagine
himself this torturedintellectual... his - I suppose
(20:01):
I should say that this part isstructured as these 'diary
entries' that he's made over theyears - or decades, in fact -
and he's kept them all, and hasthis kind of compulsion to
transcribe into his new entriesthe salient bits of the old
ones. And so there's a lot ofopportunity for irony in that,
(20:22):
in that his progressively newerselves kind of undercut his
current ones. And so you know,he'll say things like, 'Oh,
well, wasn't I such an arrogantlittle twerp', and then go into
this ridiculously long sentence,that's an even more pretentious
thing.... just to make fun of...
Yeah, he's kind of sort ofanti-Stephen. Like, a
(20:43):
'burlesque' Stephen Dedalus, ina lot of ways. And there were,
you know, a lot of other peoplethat I, sort of, drew on... He's
a character that very much comesfrom the, you know, he's sort of
so self conscious about thelanguage that he uses, that he
reflects, in a way, those thosepeople who have similarly that
(21:04):
deliberate or, you know,stylistic... Important stylists,
I think, we're quite importantto him. Martin Amis, in the way
he sort of, kind of dropsregisters suddenly, and, and
maybe even in, in something ofthe character, I guess...
Perhaps by osmosis, looking tohim for for style - or something
(21:28):
of that cynicism of his - one ofthe many things I love about -
loved, I should say - about him.
Krystle Marie (21:39):
I do dwell on Martin, just because the fact
that he was journaling soobsessively... It was like he
was adamant on recordingsomething in his 'own' voice,
which I thought, I read atleast, is kind of an interesting
contrast to Billy's ultimatefate - that we can't really have
ever known Billy, and whathappened to him, and who he was
(22:02):
- because we only know thatthrough what other people have
reported.
G. S. Dickson (22:07):
Hmm, yeah. I, I think that's, yeah, really
interesting. It's... Here he isso painfully self conscious, and
so, so extraordinarilyintrospective, it becomes sort
of a hyperbole for that impulseto record yourself to express
what one sees, what one hasexperienced, to try and
(22:30):
transcribe one's subjectivity sototally - which, in one way, is
a kind of 'myth' of, of thenovel, yo u know - that, that
kind of 'Proustian' impulse -who was definitely another kind
of figure I had in mind as inMartin, and the construction of
it - you know, that kind of...
Well, the remembrance of thingspast, as it were. So, the kind
(22:51):
of impossibility of that taskis, I think, something that
Martin can't recognise. Andhe's, sort of, driven to keep
trying to achieve, but by thesame token - is that any more
'whole' of a human beingcontained in papers in, any more
(23:12):
so than if it were possible to,kind of, eavesdrop in on
someone's consciousness - whichis the mode of the next part of
the book. Or, is that any moretrustworthy than, than Steve's
possibly hallucinated stories of'doo wop demons' in the desert?
Or, or Violet kind of 'rippingthe rug out' from under you,
(23:35):
narratively, in the first part.
So, yeah. Yeah, I think, kind ofcollectively, they create a
contrast. There's all thesekinds of modes of narration and
modes of expression thatspeakers of it can't express
themselves fully. And yet, herewe have this other character who
becomes the centre of the book -though he's never heard from
(23:57):
himself. Perhaps, you know, he'sthe one that we've seen - from
all these angles, and throughall these different
possibilities of his life,collectively that - maybe the,
the most 'complete', kind of,character that you can be.
Krystle Marie (24:11):
Yeah, that's an interesting point. You know, the
other thing that I felt aboutBilly was that - I think
something that is really easy todo when someone dies, at least
initially, is to kind of, iskind of 'glorify' them a little
bit, you know, that's protocol -is that you always, you remember
someone in the most positivelight, and it's almost as if you
(24:33):
completely forget some of the,the nasty things that they've
said and done. And the way thatBilly is painted in the novel is
that you can't determine whetherhe is an 'all good' or 'all bad'
person based on what thesepeople have shared, you know,
which is actually very realisticbecause it just, you know, you
(24:54):
can be a loving (bleep), thereare a lot of them, and... I
might have to 'bleep' that(laughs)
G. S. Dickson (25:03):
(laughs) could you not make it the name of the
podcast? 'The Loving (bleep)'
Krystle Marie (25:08):
(laughing) just, just a heap of asterisks. You
know, that's so realistic, inthat people are so
three-dimensional, butinitially, our reaction is to
kind of go, 'Oh, they were sogenerous. Oh, they're so
talented.' And then a littlefurther down the line, we
actually think, 'Do you rememberwhen he did that?'
G. S. Dickson (25:30):
I think that's true that... It's true on a
personal level, I think it'salso true on a kind of social
level - somebody who's acelebrity of whatever
description, there's a, thatsame kind of process happens,
where that, there's that sort ofperiod of celebration and
(25:51):
reverence. And then thereassessment sort of comes
somewhat later. I think it's abit of a cycle too. Like, they,
then there's a period of sort offallow post-reassessment. And
then there's the renaissancethat gets discovered, you know,
50 years after they've died orwhatever.
Krystle Marie (26:12):
Yeah, that's, kind of, devoid of all of that
personal significance. And itjust becomes more about what
that person's output was.
G. S. Dickson (26:20):
Yeah. And, kind of, the bits that have, have
survived in, in popularimagination and memory, and the
highlights or the infamousepisodes that, you know, stand
as anecdotes or something.
Happens on a, on a grand scaleand a small scale.
Krystle Marie (26:42):
Yeah. Well, just to bring it back to, you know,
there's Martin's chapter whichis quite verbose and dense
and... and then, you switch tosomething very different with
Lydia's recount - well, if youcould call it that. Lydia was
(27:04):
Billy's wife, ex-wife, whostruck me as, you know, a very
poetic soul, ex-model...
probably not quite appreciateddue to her beauty, and gave her
this very persistent anxiety, Ithink. That was a real surprise,
because it's very... I don'tknow if the term for it is
'stream of consciousness'?
G. S. Dickson (27:27):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah. That sort of
stream of consciousness interiormonologue kind of thing is
what's happening in that one.
Krystle Marie (27:34):
Yeah. Was this the... the Joycean influence?
G. S. Dickson (27:38):
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner -big fan of, kind of, modernist
writing and literature. So yeah,I love stream of consciousness
writing, sort of, old and new.
Will Self, I think, does itreally well at the moment. Yeah,
it was, in one way something Ireally wanted to work in as a,
(28:02):
as a literary medium. But italso provided yet another way of
expressing a character that,that, sort of, contributed to
that, that kind of study incontrasts that, uh...
Krystle Marie (28:16):
And was that very deliberately Lydias...? That was
deliberately for Lydia?
G. S. Dickson (28:21):
Yeah. I mean, I think the reason it was, was
her, as opposed to to anyoneelse was... partially the
temporal structure that, that'shappening in the book meant that
in the previous sections -Violet, Steve's and Martin's -
when all of the those threecharacters are, sort of,
(28:42):
speaking in or narrating fromtheir 'own' 2015, in which
Billy's died, in sort of, youknow, 2015, 2005, I think, and
in the 90s. And this time, whenhe's, he's died in the 80s,
Lydia is narrating it, but inall those other ones, she, in
(29:06):
fact, died in the 80s. And soshe'd been this, sort of, other
'absence', that had, had beenkind of haunting the book, as it
were. You know, she's Martin'smother, Steve's kind of always
cherished this, sort of,hopeless flame for her. I think
Violet at one point, says, youknow, something about his
(29:29):
'perfect dead wife' or... and soshe's sort of being absorbed
into the popular consciousnesssimilarly to Billy, when the
change sort of occurs, and nowshe's, she's alive and speaking
her own story and ownperspective on both her life and
Billy's life. You know, Ithought that the stream of
(29:50):
consciousness was, was reallyappropriate to that kind of
'rebirth' in the narrative andto kind of, to render her
presence more, as undeniably asit's possible to do, you know.
Stream of consciousness kind ofputs the character's mind smack
(30:11):
at the, at the front and theprocesses of mind and
recollection, all those sorts ofthings. And so it sort of
emphasises her in terms of theimmediacy of the narration, I
think. So, that was kind of thereasoning for why she gets that
treatment.
Krystle Marie (30:28):
Yeah. And I did notice my inclination,
potentially due to that, thatmethod, to sort of want for hers
to be the most 'true' account ofBilly, I suppose? And then, then
noticed, you know, that's also atrick maybe? Because it's not as
if we ever stop creating thesenarratives, even when we're
(30:50):
speaking to ourselves. So...
G. S. Dickson (30:53):
I'm glad that that sort of struck you at that
point. That yeah, definitely wassomething I was sort of hoping
to, to ask, you know - or tostill be wondering if people
would still be wondering by thatpoint in the book - like, is
there, is one of these going tobe true? Or whether you'd start
saying, 'Well, hang on. I'mreading fiction. None of it's
(31:14):
true.' Yeah.
Krystle Marie (31:16):
And it was a good contrast between Martin and
Lydia, because Martin, as yousaid, is so conscious of his
language. And, by extension,conscious of what he's
recording, you know, physicallywriting down. Whereas Lydia's
account comes entirely, weassume, from her, from her own
mind.
G. S. Dickson (31:35):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (31:36):
So...
G. S. Dickson (31:37):
Mmm, yeah, totally unfiltered. She can't -
and unstructured - she can'tsteer where her mind's gonna
take her. And yeah, she, she'swaking up in a in hospital after
an accident. And so herconsciousness is, sort of,
fragmented and she's drifting inand out of different levels of
(31:58):
pain and pain medication, and,sort of, just disorientation
and... And so that provided agreat means of letting me dip
into the deep past, and, as wellas, for what to buy them become
quite a long period betweenBilly being alive and the sort
of period since, so yeah... itwas it's quite a supple medium,
(32:21):
I think.
Krystle Marie (32:22):
And then next, we've got Janet, who is Billy's
'girl on the side', and who Ithought perhaps most... well,
most consciously tried toconvince us of her ownership of
the authenticity over Billy's...
the 'true Billy' - how it reallyhappened. Yeah, almost using her
(32:43):
position as, what I perceived asmaybe 'working class' - not
weaponizing, but kind of usingthat as like, 'Oh, well, I'll
tell you what really happened.'Everybody probably has some
underlying agenda in the waythat they've described Billy and
their relationships with Billy.
(33:04):
So with Janet, because she, shesort of comes at the the end of
the book - was that on purpose?
Or did you already know whereshe might fit into the novel's
structure?
G. S. Dickson (33:17):
Oh, I definitely knew that, that was, the fifth
part was going to be hers. Ihadn't quite come to the full
vision of what that part endedup being. But yeah, the last
word was always kind of reservedfor her. There was, was kind of
a parallel, or meant to be a bitof symmetry to it, in that the
first and last people werepeople who were somewhat
(33:41):
tangentially connected to Billy,whereas the sort of central
three, were the really closepeople in his life. So you know,
for Janet, you know, it wassignificant. It was this sort
of, in her mind, at least thisgreat romance, that she's had 40
odd years since of, of her ownlife, where she's, sort of,
(34:01):
built up this business of the,the bar that she, she runs. But
at the same time, sort of dinedout on the stories of the time
for for all those years. Soshe's kind of conflicted in a
way, that on the one hand - yes,she does have, kind of, want to
project this authority, and atthe same time, sort of
(34:25):
objectivity - but by that veryimpulse she could, she's sort of
trying to set herrself up as akind of 'keeper of the stories'
or keeper of this, the truth ofthis guy, which is, sort of, in
that part, undermined by prettymuch everything else that
happens, you know. From thiskind of radio interview that's
(34:46):
overheard where Steve says theopposite of what she's just told
someone the interview - she'strying to do this interview for
a music magazine with this guy,and, and, and in this attempt to
tell the story, is kind of besetby interruptions and obstacles,
(35:09):
physical and social and, andliterary - because it keeps
drifting off into thesevignettes of the patrons of the
bar.
Krystle Marie (35:18):
So disruptive.
G. S. Dickson (35:19):
Yeah, yeah. So as much as she's kind of
interrupted, so the the parts isinterrupted by these narrative
gravities, I suppose that wantedto then give their own story of
how Billy has or hasn't affectedtheir lives.
Krystle Marie (35:38):
Yeah, and I feel like, too, how fragmented that
was, and then sort of howincreasingly distracted it gets
towards the end - the way thatBilly is mentioned, towards the
end more in terms of people'consuming' him, in a way,
they're using, using his music,you know, in all of these very
(35:58):
sort of inconsequential moments- but I felt like, at least how
I read it, was this coming toterms with Billy dissolving into
time, dissolving into memory?
G. S. Dickson (36:10):
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You know, in all the ways
that, that happens - which Ithink is probably a, you know,
in a way, that, that sort offigure of the rock star has been
- it's something that the booklooks at a lot. And when it sort
of comes to that moment, it'sabout, yeah, the, the way,
(36:31):
it's... it's that what's left ofthe, the artists, you know, the
performer is... what's leftbehind gets broken up and
diffused, and, and used,consumed - and, you know, for
purposes, good and bad, youknow, or, you know, some more
venal than others. There'speople who have memories that
(36:54):
come from, from listening tomusic, you know, connections
that it reminds them of, there'speople who who respond to the
message of the ad that it'splaying underneath. Yeah, it's
sort of spreads out, I guess, ina kind of ripple through time.
Krystle Marie (37:11):
Yeah. I was so impressed by how you articulated
these characters so clearly,because they're all so diverse.
And I just, I'm curious as tohow you went about curating
these voices. So... so clearly,so vividly.
G. S. Dickson (37:29):
Yeah, I mean, I think partly, the contrast
element helps to do that, whenthey're side by side - a stream
of consciousness, as to a seriesof journal entries, as to a
character narrating the world asthey see it - or perhaps as they
didn't, like the early ones.
Also, I think, developingcharacters through language,
(37:49):
through idiolect, I think is, issomething I'm really interested
in. I'm interested in, you know,how we both construct and come
to understand ourselves throughthe language that we use. The
way the words and idioms thatwe, we select, tell, tell other
people something about us andmaybe reaffirm things about us.
(38:12):
I'm also interested in the waylanguage can kind of undercut
us? Irony is a very big part ofthis book, obviously, the
dramatic irony in that we kindof know what's what's going to
keep happening, as we go throughthe book is... comes into play a
lot. But it also comes into playin the way that the characters
(38:33):
reveal deeper truths aboutthemselves, sort of
unconsciously, and in spite oftheir, their words - which I
think is interesting. And Ithink it's something we, I think
we all do, but the differentways we do it, I think, tend to
be quite suggestive of somethingabout ourselves, particularly in
psychologies...
Krystle Marie (38:56):
Yeah. Something that I raised to Grace Chan in
the podcast before this one - wetouched on the value of
authenticity, the fact thathumans seem to, at least,
proclaim that we valueauthenticity - and that doesn't
necessarily reflect always inour, our choices and our action.
(39:17):
But I think, you know, similarcould be said for the way that
these people are telling theirversion of things, is that there
is kind of this underlyinginsistence that 'I'm an
authentic person, and this isthe authentic version.' And, you
know, as you said, how can yoube sure if any of these - if any
(39:40):
one of them are - the, the trueversion of events? And that's a
fascinating, that's afascinating thought.
G. S. Dickson (39:47):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, you know, it goes
to the maybe the nature ofwriting fiction itself. You...
when, when someone puts, youknow, 'this is a true story' on
something, you know, people go,'Oh, it's a true story!' And I'm
sure that, you know, more thanhalf the time it, there's
(40:09):
nothing, in no way, reflects anyreality that actually
transpired. But, but I thinkthere's different kinds of
authenticity. You know, there'swhat may have occurred, that
there's also people'sperspectives of what they
thought occurred. And there's nokind of sense in which that
(40:30):
objective reality is in any wayaccessible except through
subjectivity. You know, that,that's kind of interesting in
itself. But, but I think interms of fiction, there's
another level of remove there,and that we're making this stuff
up. That there is no underlyingtruth to, to this book any more
(40:51):
than, than there is to 'GreatExpectations' or 'The Hobbit',
you know, it's - and yet neitherof those books, I think, could
be described as 'inauthentic'.
Writing, or writing fiction, atleast is, is kind of this
process of mashing up realityand truth and reassembling it in
(41:12):
different ways. And this sort oflittle light that we can, sort
of, dangle of claims to truth,to verisimilitude, or, or
whatever - I think we probably,more often than not, that -
that's more of a tactic. Then,then any, you know, I'm
(41:33):
sceptical of any claim thatreality can be represented
through, least of all writingwords on a on a page, you know?
Get a video camera, man! That'sif you want to say 'this is
reality, this is true', youknow. I think that's, that's
kind of what's interesting aboutit is that you still do try to
(41:55):
represent something that feelstruthful, that in some way,
reflective of reality andexperience but, but in this
highly artificial, extremelyold-fashioned means, you know,
the, the one that that's beenbettered so many times as a
reflector of reality - butthat's, that's what's good about
(42:19):
it. That's what's interestingabout it, I think, is the way it
insists on, or forces you to, todepict reality in... through
different lenses, throughdifferent filters. And yeah, I
mean, it's, it's constructed oflanguage, which is also the way
we have to express ourselves inour day to day lives. You know,
(42:42):
there's a... it's at once sostrange and so familiar, I
guess.
Krystle Marie (42:50):
Yeah... I was actually curious - who knows
whether this will, sort of, makeit into the final cut - but I
was curious if you werelistening to any music while you
were writing this? Because it isa very, sort of, music centred
book - or at least musicculture.
G. S. Dickson (43:05):
Yeah. Do you mean like, like, literally listening
to music? While -
Krystle Marie (43:09):
Yeah.
G. S. Dickson (43:10):
I did have a kind of go at that with the Lydia
parts, particularly, you know,that, that one was a, probably
the most challenging to come at,you know, the consciousness
that's, you know, beingexpressed in, in language,
obviously, but also that it's acharacter who's certainly much
(43:31):
further from me, then well, thenMartin, who, you know, arguably,
was the closest. So I was, waskind of putting a lot of jazz
on, on the headphones. Like,while I was writing it, just as
an experiment, I guess,considering the sort of analogue
of improvisation having to comefrom this sort of stream
(43:57):
together of consciousness,together with this effective of
trying to get language to followthe, or create a simulacrum of
consciousness. I don't knowwhether there's any truth in it
or not, or whether it would havebeen the same either way, but um
-
Krystle Marie (44:14):
- it's an interesting experiment.
G. S. Dickson (44:15):
Yeah, yeah. It just felt like that sort of...
listening to improvisation,like, sort of modern jazz
Coltrane kind of stuff.
Improvisation, I'm sure youknow, from it isn't just
expression, you know, it's it's,it's structured. It's based on
principles and how they'reapplied. And I felt like maybe
it's meant to feel like it orsold as if, you know, Coltrane's
(44:40):
started on stage and just justtapped into his mind and those,
which is not the case at all.
And in a way, spendingconsciousness reading I thought,
didn't was the same thing. It'slike it's meant to create
effective consciousness. Hisrambling on and to create it,
(45:02):
maybe you do want to let yourimagination imitating
consciousness ramble on him insome ways. And, and so yeah, I
thought like, jazz kind of was agood way to tap into that, that
sort of way of thinking.
Krystle Marie (45:20):
Yeah, definitely.
You know, as you said, you know,as jazz, you're still... you
still must have this strongknowledge of, of the the artform
and the instrument before youcan pass off, as completely out
of the ether, this'improvisation' and, you know,
the funny thing with the streamof consciousness writing is you
(45:42):
still have to use words toarticulate those thoughts. And
then... something happens, then,between the thought occurring
and applying language to it.
So...
G. S. Dickson (45:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, I'd probably evengo further and say, the stream
of consciousness, sort of, usingit as a technique, requires you
to draw MORE upon understandingof narrative, and narrative
structure, and, well,principles, you know - the kind
of 'music theory' of writing -in a way that something,
(46:19):
probably even like Violet,you're sort of excluding that,
those kinds of metafictionalexcursions of hers, you know -
that's quite a straightforwardmanner of, of imitating, uh,
consciousness, narrating a story- you have to have a much
clearer and more complex sort offramework in place to create
(46:40):
the, the effect of a stream ofconsciousness... and have it go
somewhere.
Krystle Marie (46:50):
Yeah. Otherwise, it's just a cat walking on a
piano.
G. S. Dickson (46:52):
(laughing) exactly, yeah. Yeah. I've been
to a few gigs like that.
Krystle Marie (46:59):
(laughing) Okay.
Well, I think to finish, I justwant to plug your book, because
you're not on Instagram, as faras I understand?
G. S. Dickson (47:12):
I'm, yeah, absent from social media.
Krystle Marie (47:15):
I admire that about you. I think that's,
that's really cool. A lot ofhipsters would be very jealous
of you for, for that, but -
G. S. Dickson (47:24):
I'm quite genuinely... it's not a wrench,
I can -
Krystle Marie (47:28):
It's not a ploy.
You genuinely just don't want tobe there.
G. S. Dickson (47:32):
This is true.
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (47:34):
You know, as with most good books, if you can buy
local, buy local. If your localbookstore doesn't have it, you
can request 'A Minor Fifth'.
Although, I think in Brisbane,you could pretty easily get your
hands on a copy. You had - I'mstruggling for the name now -
the St Lucia bookshop that wasselling from -
G. S. Dickson (47:55):
Yeah, Books at -
Krystle Marie (47:56):
- what was it, sorry?
G. S. Dickson (47:57):
'Books at Stones' at Stones -
Krystle Marie (47:59):
- at Stones. So, Books at Stones. They were were
selling copies at your launch.
So,on if you're in that area, ifyou're on that side of town,
Stones Corner is just aninteresting place to be, I
think, so if you're on that sideof town, go do some exploring
and pick up the book. The usualhaunts - Avid Reader. Riverbend.
You were at Dymocks?
G. S. Dickson (48:23):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (48:24):
QBD. Yeah. So, it's really out there.
G. S. Dickson (48:28):
If you're if you're flying - good for a
long-haul plane trip, I'm sure.
Krystle Marie (48:32):
Yeah! I think this would be really cool to do
as an audio book, actually. I'vebeen listening to a lot of audio
books lately. And some of themget a whole cast of actors in -
I didn't realise that was athing. But this would be really
interesting to do as an audiobook. If you could get different
people to voice - I don't knowhow that works, and I don't know
how much that costs, butsomething to consider. But yes,
(48:58):
'A Minor Fifth'. G. S. Dickson.
It's a FUN read. I have ADHD -so I don't say that lightly. It
kept my attention. It willchallenge you and it will make
you laugh out loud, quitelegitimately. So, thank you,
Gareth, for chatting with me.
Thank you for understanding mylimitations in audio
(49:22):
engineering. I'll hopefully seeyou in the flesh soon.
G. S. Dickson (49:27):
Yeah.
Krystle Marie (49:28):
Until then, enjoy London!
G. S. Dickson (49:31):
Thanks. Yeah.
Should be good. Yeah, yeah.
Krystle Marie (49:34):
Safe travels.
G. S. Dickson (49:36):
Thank you. Yeah.
Oh, I've got the WritersFestival thing before...
Krystle Marie (49:41):
Oh, that's right! Actually, I will say, Brisbane
Writers Festival. So...
G. S. Dickson (49:45):
Yeah, it's a session on the, on the Friday,
called 'Pitch Perfect'. Yeah,Noel Mengel will be chairing the
panel, which will be cool.
Krystle Marie (49:57):
Excellent. Yeah - such a good book!
G. S. Dickson (50:01):
Oh cheers, thank you.
Krystle Marie (50:02):
Yeah. I'm not just saying that, really. It
made me properly laugh.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com