Post
by Stephen Whiteside » Sat May 31, 2014 11:33 am
I find it interesting that Australia has never really seen itself as a maritime nation. We have a massive coastline and, of course, before the days of air travel, it required a huge ocean journey to get here - yet the whole idea has never really stuck. The shearers and drovers came along, and crushed everything in their path - at least as far as national myth making was concerned.
Nowadays, it's the trucking stories that are popular. It's interesting to talk to Jim Haynes about it. He compiles these huge collections of Australian stories on a range of themes, published by Allen & Unwin. He did a maritime collection recently, which I really enjoyed, but apparently it did not sell very well at all. The collection of trucking stories, on the other hand...
I have always loved the ocean and the sea, and do write about it quite a lot, but I am aware that there is not much market for it - outside of the children's market, of course, which is quite different.
Australia has a greater area under snow every year than Switzerland, yet the mountains have also not really captured the public's imagination to a great degree. The myth of the mountain cattlemen has, but that really only refers to the mountains in the summer time. Most Australians simply associate snow with skiing and elitism, which is a shame. Again, the children's market is different (thank heavens!).
The national myths all relate to the outback - red desert, box forests (not rainforests, though). The surf life-savers are the only coastal dwellers that have any cut-through.
Of course, the other big one is Gallipoli - but not the Western Front. And Kokoda.
It's a fickle business, this national myth making. The logic of it all is often hard to see, but once the moulds are set, they never seem to break.