S1E3: Other people’s diaries
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In this episode, we bring (1) the ba-goodness, (2) some hard-out HG fan-grrrling, and (3) other people’s (good) diaries.
In this third episode of Bad Diaries Podcast, we talk about the origin of BAD in Bad Diaries, and how, in our diaries, we can allow the badness – and the goodness – of our unedited lives to show. Jen coins the term ba-goodness, and we commit to making bad good (and making good bad).
We bring other people’s diaries to this episode of the podcast, raiding our bookshelves for a random selection of Not At All Bad But Really Very Good Diaries to discuss. Some are diaries that we love and have re-read a bazillion times. Others we’ve only dipped into, or haven’t quite got round to reading (no shame!), despite best intentions.
There’s some very heavy fan-grrrling on Helen Garner, and lots of love for Sylvia Plath, Katherine Mansfield and Derek Jarman (and Tracy’s decades-long obsession with his cottage and garden). Sarah Laing, in The Covid-19 Diaries, reminds us of The Bubble, but we can’t remember whether or not (or why) The Pillow Book was sexy. Different note-making and page-marking styles are revealed (Jen’s a corner-folder, top and bottom; Tracy’s appalled), we ponder crossings-out and missing facts in our diaries, and we talk about gaps and guilty pleasures (again, no shame) on our bookshelves.
As we often do, we talk about this (writing) life. We get into professional competition (and jealousy), writing relationships (spouses and parents and sibs, oh my), and the importance of sisters (and how sisters freak Tracy out).
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In this episode:
Michael Jackson’s 1987 ‘Bad’ – the 4-minute vid, and the Scorsese-directed 18-minute short (!)
Jenny’s first other people’s diary is Sei Shōnagon’s The Pillow Book
The Pillow Book was a 1996 film written and directedby Peter Greenaway, starring Vivian Wu, Ken Ogata and Ewan McGregor – here’s the trailer
The Diary of a Farmer's Wife 1796–1797 (or Anne Hughes’ Diary, or Anne Hughes' Boke) had a moment in the late 1970s/early 1980s, when a dramatised version was shown on BBC TV on Christmas Day 1978. The book was republished in 1980 and 1981, and reissued in 1992 and 2009. There’s an Anne Hughes’ Diary website!
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath, edited by Karen V. Kukil (PRH, 2000) – there’s a fantastic article on the British Library website by Karen Kukil, who edited the journals, which includes some reproductions of pages from the journals.
The Bell Jar (1963) was Sylvia Plath’s only novel. There are various collections of Plath’s letters, though none titled Bitter Greens – but there is a Plath poem titled ‘Bitter Strawberries’
Three volumes of Helen Garner’s diaries have been published by Text Publishing: Yellow Notebook: Diaries Volume I 1978–1987; One Day I’ll Remember This: Diaries 1987–1995; and How to End a Story: Diaries 1995–1998
Jenny talked about a Martin Amis anecdote regarding the work habits of Elizabeth Jane Howard and Kingsley Amis – Martin Amis talks about life with EJH and Kingsley here
The Helen Garner essay that we misremembered as being titled ‘Sisters’ is actually ‘A Scrapbook, An Album’. It’s in the Garner collection True Stories (Text Publishing, 1996; revised and reissued in 2017), but was first published in the collection Sisters, edited by Drusilla Modjeska (Angus & Robertson, 1993). Jenny wrote in 2013 about re-reading the essay.
Bernadette Brennan’s fabulous study of HG is A Writing Life: Helen Garner and Her Work (Text Publishing, 2017)
The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks (1997, Lincoln University Press) were edited by Margaret Scott. Volume One covers Katherine Mansfield's childhood and adolescence, and Volume Two covers her adult life. The covers of the volumes have photographs of all of KM’s notebooks.
KM’s notebooks have recently been digitised, and are now available online – here are excerpts, with links and images
2023 is the centenary of the death of Katherine Mansfield, and her life, work and creative legacy are being celebrated widely. Aotearoa’s National Library’s research guide to KM has information and links to KM’s notebooks, letters, among many other resources.
Are these Aotearoa New Zealand’s most namecheckable writers? Eleanor Catton (The Luminaries won the 2013 Booker Prize), Keri Hulme (The Bone People won the 1985 Booker Prize; Hulme, the first New Zealander to win the Booker, died in December 2021), Katherine Mansfield, Lloyd Jones, Kirsty Gunn … who’d we miss?
Tracy thought Kirsty Gunn’s 44 Things: A Year of Writing Life at Home felt diary-adjacent
Modern Nature by Derek Jarman – radical artist, filmmaker, writer, gardener, activist – was republished (Vintage Classics) in 2018 with a new introduction by Olivia Laing – read Laing on Jarman here
Olivia Laing is the author of Crudo, The Lonely City, The Trip to Echo Spring, and other works
Helen Garner (2016) and Olivia Laing (2018) have both been awarded Windham-Campbell Prizes
Prospect Cottage in Dungeness is the former home of Derek Jarman. A 2020 campaign, fronted by Jarman collaborator Tilda Swinton, to preserve the cottage was successful. An artist residency programme is now run at the cottage, and the garden and cottage can also be visited by the public.
Tracy mentions Derek Jarman’s 1993 film Blue and 1993/95 book Chroma (reissued 2017 with a new intro by Ali Smith)
Jen talks about Vivienne Westwood, who died in December 2022. Jenny had thought that perhaps Vivienne Westwood did the costumes for Jarman’s 1978 film Jubilee – but in fact Jarman and Westwood had a falling out over the film. Westwood wrote an open letter to Jarman about it, on a t-shirt – read the t-shirt/letter here.
Sarah Laing’s The Covid-19 Diaries are all published on her blog, and available in print direct from the author
Sarah Laing also wrote a superb graphic memoir, Mansfield and Me – a mix of memoir, biography and fantasy set in London, Paris, New York and New Zealand, it examines how our lives connect to those of our idols. (Te Herenga Waka University Press in NZ; Lightning Books in UK)
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Bad Diaries Podcast is recorded and produced in Naarm Melbourne, Australia, on the lands of the Kulin Nation; and in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, on the iwi lands of Taranaki Whānui, and Ngāti Toa Rangatira. We pay our respects to Mana Whenua, and to Elders past, present and emerging, of these lands.
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