Australian literature lost one of its best writers this week with the passing of Les Carlyon, AC.
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The journalist, editor and author captured the national identity in his writing, particularly in sport and history.
At the risk of using the “perpendicular pronoun” that he so resisted, I first came across Carlyon the author through his seminal works Gallipoli and The Great War.
The tomes are the greatest Australian telling of those conflicts since war reporter Charles Bean’s official volumes.
While Bean had the advantage (if you could call it that) of trudging the trenches and frontlines to gather his stories, Carlyon had the ability to bridge the years and bring his readers there through his writing.
Gallipoli is everything good writing should be: tight, to the point, sceptical of florid language and hyperbole but with an eye for detail that evokes truth and the time.
When his prose is poetic, it serves to highlight the pathos inherent in war: the understanding of it and its aftermath. Take the first sentences from the opening chapter, where Carlyon describes a shepherd in fields that had once been battlegrounds.
“Spring is coming to the Gallipoli Peninsula, so surely there is a pulse to it. The shepherd bends down, cups his hand under a new lamb, all clanging heart and spongy ribs, and tucks it under his arm.”
He goes on to describe the shepherd’s clothing, the smells and warm winds and the history of the peninsula from antiquity to modern warfare that still turns up in the burst shells unearthed by ploughshares.
“He wears a woolen fez and brocaded vest and grins through stubble. He appears to be straight from antiquity, doing what shepherds have been doing here for thousands of years. So long as the Athenians weren’t fighting the Peloponnesians, that is, or the Ottamans the Venetians. And so long as the city-state at one end of the Dardenelles wasn’t scrapping with the Persian stronghold at the other end.”
Carlyon brings the reader to the present with a description of farming and families working the land. He ends the chapter describing the 85th commemoration of the Anzac landing, finishing with these two terse sentences: “Politicians and pilgrims come and go but the earth abideth forever. The wind keens and burns your face.”
It is an amazing book. One that blends history, myth and reality to tell something told a hundred times before with originality and insight.
In The Great War, Carlyon details the exploits that won Albert Jacka and Evandale’s Harry Murray their Victoria Crosses.
It is an exercise in contrast. Jacka was regarded as the reckless solider who rushed headlong into danger, while Murray showed a strategic bravery that won victories and saved many lives.
Gallipoli is everything good writing should be: tight, to the point, sceptical of florid language and hyperbole but with an eye for details that evokes truth and the time.
Never to my knowledge did Carlyon write about Teddy Sheehan’s heroics in that later conflict, which is a shame because he would have written something amazing.
Not that Sheehan’s story needs much sparkling prose to make it shine - the story itself is brilliant.
Edward “Teddy” Sheehan was an ordinary seaman serving on HMAS Armidale in World War II when it came under attack.
The Armidale was hit by torpedoes dropped from Japanese planes and was sinking fast as the crew abandoned ship.
Though wounded, Sheehan, aged 18, strapped himself into the 20mm gun and fired at the planes that were machine gunning survivors in the water, downing two.
Crewmates said the gun was still firing as it and Sheehan sunk beneath the waves, tracers piercing the surface.
Though mentioned in dispatches, many think he deserves a Victoria Cross and have been working tirelessly to see one awarded posthumously.
It is hard to disagree.
The Defence Honours Awards and Appeals Tribunal has accepted a request from Veterans’ Affairs Minister and long-time campaigner Guy Barnett to review the case.
What a story that would be.
An 18-year-old sailor from Latrobe becoming the first Australian navy personnel awarded our highest military honour, the 101st Australian and the 15th Tasmanian.
Carlyon would have written it beautifully but, to be fair, it writes itself.
- Mark Baker is Australian Community Media - Tasmania managing editor