The Guardian 28 May, 2008
Culture and Life
by Rob Gowland
Our greatest realist writer
Henry Lawson was, and arguably still is, our greatest realist writer. As Peter Ustinov observed on a visit to this country, Lawson’s prose is strongly reminiscent of the work of another great realist writer, Maxim Gorki.
In the days when working men and women in this country were proud of our developing Australian culture (as opposed to an imitation American culture or an affected snobby British culture), Lawson was immensely popular. Not only was his prose read from one end of the country to another, his ballads of life in the bush were well known and recited — at working class social gatherings, on the waterfront by wharfies and in pubs.
Some of Lawson’s works dealt with the travails of the urban poor, but the majority were rooted in the lives and struggles of the rural battler, either the small selector, forced to leave his family to take work as a drover because his little bit of scrub could not support a family, or the itinerant shearers and bullockies, the militant unionised workers of the bush.
The domination of our lives these days by the mass media, and the corporate domination in turn of that mass media, means that the continued development of a distinctly Australian culture (let alone an Australian working class culture) has been submerged by the cultural imperialism of the US ruling class.
Our own homegrown capitalists, of course, are not at all averse to this, having the same class interests as their US (or British) counter-parts. A lively, democratic culture concerned with the plight of the poor and the downtrodden in our society is not favoured by the ideologues of the corporate-dominated part of the world we live in.
They have been diligent in their efforts to dismiss and undermine our once-proud tradition of realist writing. Lawson in particular has been hammered, and the anti-realist Patrick White extolled in his place.
Lawson’s place in literature, like Gorki’s, is secure however, for the innate inequality, injustice and exploitation of capitalism will always generate new readers for their works, readers who will recognise these authors’ characters, conflicts and situations as being drawn from the reality of life.
The Communists were the backbone of the promotion and defence of the realist tradition in the arts in Australia, even though some of them understood the concept only imperfectly. This was most noticeable when dealing with the concept of Socialist Realism, popularised by Gorki.
Too often this was seen in Australia (but not only in Australia), not as an approach to art on the part of committed socialist artists, but as either a formula or a genre. As a formula it was thought to prescribe the sorts of themes, subject matter or characters that would be appropriate for a socialist art work.
On the other hand, seen as a genre, socialist realism was viewed as a distinct form just like cubism or romanticism, isolated from and separate to any other genres. Artists with this view thought they could switch from socialist realism to some "other" genre as the mood took them.
But socialist realism is neither an instruction manual on how to produce a "socialist" work of art, nor is it merely yet another genre in its own right. Socialist realism places no restrictions on the artist, who can write or paint or compose on any theme, using any characters, he or she chooses. In the same way, the artist can choose whatever style he or she thinks is best suited and appropriate to the subject.
Socialist realism is in fact a two-fold commitment on the part of the artist: to pursue realism in art, and to use his or her art to advance or defend the cause of socialism, the cause of human progress. Precisely how is a matter for the artist.
There is no requirement for the central character (or indeed any of the characters) to be a communist.
The vulgarisation of Gorki’s concept was the result of attempts by petty officials — here as in the USSR — to "administer" artistic concepts they simply failed to grasp. And in failing to grasp the artistic concepts they successfully stuffed up the politics as well, which has allowed the bourgeoisie to slander and malign socialist realism ever since with considerable success.
Realism of course has no restrictions on its subject matter. Witness this little section from a minor work of Lawson’s, Bush Cats.
"A selector started a vegetable garden about the time when rabbits were beginning to get troublesome up-country. The hare had not shown itself yet.
"The farmer kept quite a regiment of cats to protect his garden — and they protected it. He would shut the cats up all day with nothing to eat, and let them out about sundown; then they would mooch off to the turnip patch like farm labourers going to work.
"They would drag the rabbits home to the back door, and sit there and watch them until the farmer opened the door and served out the ration of milk. Then the cats would turn in. He nearly always found a semi-circle of dead rabbits and watchful cats round the door in the morning.
"They sold the product of their labour direct to the farmer for milk. It didn’t matter if one cat had been unlucky — had not got a rabbit — each had an equal share in the general result. They were true socialists, those cats."