At our last class, week thirteen, and a small turn-out,
we joked about the Monday test: tick the correct answer:
which of the following characters are NOT siblings, or step-siblings?
Oliver Twist and Monks, Oliver Twist and Rose Maylie, Cynthia
Kirkpatrick and Molly Gibson, Rose Maylie and Agnes,
Marian Halcombe and Laura Fairlie. Ye gods!
I couldnšt have told you the twists of the Twist story
on the day I finished it, and I was giving the lectures!
which paid no attention to siblingship, may I be forgiven
Then Sinead pointed to her name and mine (the tutor)
on the cover of her essay. Max, she said, when Mum
and my grandmother saw me writing your name there,
they said: Max Richards, he tutored us!
The others knew I was old, but that old?
Oh, I started in this job when I was about fifteen.
But was your grandmother young back then?
No, in her forties. She came when Mum came,
having had no schooling in Ireland and legally blind,
ten per cent vision: held the book right up under her nose:
Mary, so happy to be studying then in Melbourne.
Carmel, her daughter, studying alongside;
and soon she'd mother Sinead, proud of her Irish ancestry.
Tests! I say. When I began here, English One ran three terms,
from March to November, and ended after all the essays
with three three-hour exams. Write on all the books!
Wore ourselves out with assessment, we did.
And what authors! Donne, Austen, Conrad, Lawrence.
Well, Austen survives. The reading Irishwomen survive.
A Bildungsroman is: a novel about building? No, not exactly.
What is Marneršs profession? Folk-doctor, homoeopath,
foster-carer? Not exactly. In which of the five novels studied
do we NOT see the death of a mother, or mother figure
IN THE COURSE OF THE NARRATIVE? Victorian fiction,
so many sick-beds, death-beds, dangerous excursions,
hang on to your siblings and your grandmas, everybody.
- 8.55am, Wednesday October 22, 2003
- Max Richards, North Balwyn, Melbourne
|