{"id":3081,"date":"2018-10-15T12:46:19","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T10:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=3081"},"modified":"2018-10-15T12:46:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T10:46:19","slug":"shell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/?p=3081","title":{"rendered":"Shell: Revealing the inner murmur"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Shell is the latest novel by Australian author Kristina Olsson.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t cut coal,\u201d Australian prime minister Scott Morrison was reported as saying to The Australian<\/i> last week. Or something to that effect. In typical Oz style, The Australian<\/i><\/a> has a hard paywall. I somehow slipped behind it on the first link-click, but now can\u2019t go back and double check. They not gonna get any of my ronds.<\/span><\/p>\n

But <\/span>The Guardian <\/i>confirms the Morrison government’s stance<\/span><\/a>. For context, Morrison made his pro-coal statement the day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released what is colloquially called the 1.5 report<\/a>, which states we need to move to a zero-coal world, and soon soon, if we want to prevent the catastrophe that will occur if we overshoot 1.5<\/span>\u00ba<\/span>C global warming. Globally, we need to cut coal by 45% of 2010 levels by 2030 \u2013 that\u2019s in 12 years \u2013 and be rid of it entirely by 2050.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, basically, Morrison is giving the world the middle finger. Which makes him a dick. In fact, if Australia had a personality, it would be a dick. That\u2019s actually a line from one of Rob van Vuuren\u2019s comedy shows. And he knows. He\u2019s been there. I have never had a desire to. Well, not since I got over my childhood fascination with kangaroos, which was decades before Rolf Harris was found to be a paedophile. North Korea is higher up on the list of desirable travel destinations. How a society gets by within the goosestep of enforced conformity seems more interesting than a society that voluntary places itself beneath the bureaucratic short-sightedness of petty conservative white men. Yet I was only about a third of the way through Kristina Olsson\u2019s new novel, Shell<\/i>, when I realised that the Sydney Opera House is a fascinating building, and worth a pilgrimage. But, Australia. <\/span><\/p>\n

However, such is the delicate perception Olsson brings to the period of the building\u2019s construction \u2013 and it was a construction mired in controversy \u2013 and her insight into the damaged characters whose lives intersect because of its existence, that I might be amenable to a trip to Sydney. I mean, if someone offered. And on the proviso I wouldn\u2019t have to deal with any Australians. Except Olsson. And Geoffrey Rush. They can come along on a boat skippered by a former fisherman from North Korea so we can take in the Opera House from all its wonderful different angles.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because the way Olsson tells it, it\u2019s worth dealing with Australian customs to see it. In Shell<\/i>, the building is almost a character in its own right, constantly rewritten by whoever is looking at it. It\u2019s a foreign character, for it was birthed by a Dane, the architect J\u00f8rnUtzon, who caught a lot of flak from the Ozzies because, Olsson suggests, it scared them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe saw it plainly in the derision of Utzon in the papers, the growing clamour of voices mocking his vision. As if they were ashamed of a building that might reveal them, the soaring shapes of their dreams, the true interior of their hearts. As if they were afraid of grandeur.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly Olsson is critical of her countrypeople\u2019s desire to fit the mould, for she is half Swedish and not averse to the self-reflection that comes from long cold winters. Her oblique critique is mostly voiced through Axel Lindquist, who is Swedish and a glass maker, and finds himself in Sydney after uncharacteristically offering his services to Utzon and to his surprise being commissioned to make a work to hang in the Opera House lobby. Axel is from Sm\u00e5land, where what land there is, is surrounded by \u201cplates of water, glass-like\u201d. He has a poet\u2019s eye. He comes from a place where \u201cthere were no hard certainties, no one way of looking. Only a<\/i> way of seeing.\u201d And thus he sees what lies beneath the everyday, the layers, but is frustrated in his effort to see what came before; the paths and traces of the aboriginal people. The absence of them is a muted reminder of the small continent\u2019s genocide. <\/span><\/p>\n

The other main character is Pearl Keogh, who is an Australian and as Olsson admits in her postscript, represents her mother\u2019s side. Pearl is a journalist exiled, much to her chagrin, to the women\u2019s section of her newspaper as punishment for having being photographed participating in an anti-war demonstration. Because in 1965, which is when Shell<\/i> is set, Australia was starting to draft its young men so they could go join America\u2019s horrific folly in Vietnam. Pearl appears to be more pragmatic than Axel, but doesn\u2019t toe the mainstream conservative line. Although Olsson doesn\u2019t say so \u2013 the seduction of her novel is that it doesn\u2019t make any statements, rather allows your imagination to draw your own conclusions \u2013 Pearl\u2019s lifestyle was probably scandalous, but being a damn good journalist meant petty bullshit could entertain itself. <\/span><\/p>\n

Like Axel, she is wounded by parental loss. Both of them lug sacks of guilt, and how they shoulder this largely self-made burden, and stumble under its weight, is what informs the poetry of this novel, in the metaphorical and literal sense. For Olsson\u2019s writing straddles the line between poetry and prose. Plays hopscotch across it. She proves poetry can be conjured under the bleaching southern sun even as she makes Axel wonder how it is possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSurely this endless equatorial light broke through everything. Poetry couldn\u2019t be possible here; the air was too thin for it; the sun too hot. How could poetry be made and survive in such brutal clarity? This wasn\u2019t a place of poets but of the body. He\u2019d written as much to his mother on the back of a postcard \u2013 some forgotten beach, its surfers and bikinis, the shimmer of tanned flesh dulling the sky and the ocean behind them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Similes are also scattered across the pages, sometimes diminishing the view: \u201cThe wide sweep of the Pacific like a kinked cloth before him.\u201d And she\u2019s occasionally caught by clich\u00e9: \u201cShe \u2026 laughed like a drain.\u201d But they are a minor irritation, soothed by the plenitude of evocation: \u201cHe had arrived in Sydney as summer was tipping over.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the poetry contained in the writing and the depth of the characters, the further beauty of Shell<\/i> lies in its underlying metaphor; the idealistic ambition to atone, and through atonement create something that soars above the prosaic to serve as a beacon of what we are capable of. To resist the pull of mediocrity, the everyday urging to take the easiest course and be less generous, less loving, less self-aware, less committed to greatness. To be just like everyone else. <\/span><\/p>\n

To be able to see this drag, and resist it by going inwards towards grace, is Olsson\u2019s gift. A gift generous enough for to cross the Indian Ocean.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Shell<\/em> is published by Simon & Shuster UK, distributed in SA by Jonathan Ball Publishers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kristina Olsson is the author of Boy, Lost: A Family Memoir<\/em>, and Kilroy was Here<\/em>. She live in Brisbane<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe won\u2019t cut coal,\u201d Australian prime minister Scott Morrison was reported as saying to The Australian last week. Or something to that effect. In typical Oz style, The Australian has … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[6,10],"tags":[439,744,797],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecritter.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}