On the night before I teach…
I have this dream where I enter a hoarder’s house and discover that some of the rooms are being used as a kind of hotel. For some reason there is also a creative writing class set up in the living area, chairs carefully placed around huge piles of clothes and rubbish. I know that I am meant to teach this class, but after introducing myself I instead start talking about Gerald Murnane. I say that Gerald would probably hate creative writing classes, because his peculiar writing is an example of the opposite of any kind of advice one might receive in a writing class. Then Luke Carman (apparently in the class, somewhere up the back) pipes up and says, ‘I hate Gerald Murnane. I hate his work and everything he stands for.’ I am a little taken aback by this outburst, but then a great defender quickly appears from a sidedoor and interjects with an eloquent defence of Murnane’s work. The students sit there, dutifully taking notes.
sounds too real to be true
ReplyDelete