Tracks by Robyn Davidson

Sometimes there are books you pick up and you know instantly that you’re going to love them. For me, Tracks was one of those books. It may have helped that I had already watched the movie, and it was this that had prompted me to decide to read the book anyway, but I’m not convinced that explains it entirely. Instead there is something about the cadence of the early paragraphs, the feeling of the words spinning me straight into the mind of this woman “There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns – small intuitive flashes, when you know you have done something correct for a change, when you think you are on the right track. I watched a pale dawn streak the cliffs Day-glo and realised this was one of them. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated confidence – and lasted about ten seconds.”

Tracks is the true story of how Robyn Davidson set out to cross the Australian desert accompanied only by camels. She arrived in Alice Springs, a town for which she expresses little affection, equipped only with an idea, a dog (Diggity) and an independent streak. Davidson had no money, no real knowledge of camels and no support network in the local vicinity. Consequently she spent much of her early time in Alice Springs being taken advantage of, working rubbishy jobs, not really getting anywhere, hating the misogyny and the nasty attitudes towards the indigent Aboriginal population.

A considerable part of the book describes how Davidson put off, by any means possible, actually starting out on this journey. For a start, she knew next to nothing about camels and had to learn from scratch. This resulted in an exploitative relationship with a local camel rancher called Kurt whose behaviour was manipulative and abusive. Eventually she exits this relationship, but does so without getting hold of the camels she needs. Later on when she does acquire her camels, the problems she faces continue to grow. The camels are frequently sick, one of her first camels has to be euthanized due to illness, and when they’re not sick they’re wandering off. This trend continues on her trek.

I enjoyed the honesty that Davidson conveys in this early part of the story. That she was torn between going and not going becomes apparent, and some of her behaviour suggests that not going is the preferred option. She recognises this in herself, in her uncompromising nature which will not allow her to borrow the money she needs to start the trek. Then she encounters Rick Smolen, a photographer for National Geographic who convinces her to allow the magazine to sponsor her trip. She agrees, but at a cost: Rick must photograph her along the way and she must allow the magazine to report on her journey. Thus she embarks on a love/hate relationship with both Rick and the magazine which crops up at regular intervals throughout the trip (pretty much whenever Rick appears to take photographs).

The trip itself is the real meat of the story, and Davidson is equally honest about this. A lot of the time she hates the journey, the endless walking, the pain, the camels disappearing, the heat, the sweating, the drab food. Yet there are moments of sheer transcendence, as she describes here:

“And as I walked through that country, I was becoming involved with it in a most intense and not yet fully conscious way. The motions and patterns and connections of things became apparent at a gut level. I didn’t just see the animal tracks, I knew them. I didn’t just see the bird, I knew it in relationship to its actions and effects. My environment began to teach me about itself without my full awareness of the process. It became an animate being of which I was a part[…] What was once a thing that merely existed became something that everything else acted upon and had a relationship with and vice versa. In picking up a rock I could not longer simply say, “this is a rock,” I could now say. “This is part of a net,” or closer, “This, which everything acts upon, acts.” When this way of thinking became ordinary for me, I too became lost in the net and the boundaries of myself stretched out for ever.”

This is not just a story about a journey, but also a story about a place and time. Whilst Davidson is a key character, so is the desert, so is Australia and so are the Aboriginal people who make their home in this seemingly barren land. Davidson reflects widely on the position of Aboriginal people in Australian society and the cultural identity of the people themselves. That she generated a high degree of respect and admiration for these oft put down people is heavily apparent throughout the book, and whilst drawing the line at a complete understanding the nature of Aboriginal links to the land become more apparent to Davidson as she traverses the desert. I always find talk of the Aboriginal beliefs soul-stirring and this was no different hear. Davidson shares with affection her time travelling with Eddie, an aged Aboriginal man who helped her across a difficult part of the desert. I think this part of the story was the most heartwarming for me.

She also discusses in some depth the misogyny inherent in Australian ‘outback’ culture, and the way in which being absent from it freed her from social conventions. I’m not sure Davidson set out to write a feminist book, but throughout her musings she is also unable to contain her absolute belief that women, people, can achieve anything they set their minds to. As she explains here:

“I was now a feminist symbol. I was now an object of ridicule for small-minded sexists, and I was a crazy, irresponsible adventurer (though not as crazy as I would have been had I failed). But worse than that, I was now a mythical being who had done something courageous and outside the possibilities that ordinary people could hope for. And that was the antithesis of what I wanted to share. That anyone could do anything. If I could bumble my way across a desert, then anyone could do anything. And that was true especially for women, who have used cowardice for so long to protect themselves that it has become a habit.

The world is a dangerous place for little girls. Besides, little girls are more fragile, more delicate, more brittle than little boys. ‘Watch out, be careful, watch.’ ‘Don’t climb trees, don’t dirty your dress, don’t accept lifts from strange men. Listen, but don’t learn, you won’t need it.’ And so the snail’s antennae grow, watching for this, looking for that, the underneath of things. The threat. And so she wastes so much of her energy, seeking to break those circuits, to push up the millions of tiny thumbs that have tried to quelch energy and creativity and strength and self-confidence; that have so effectively caused her to build fences against possibility, daring; that have so effectively kept her imprisoned inside her notions of self-worthlessness.”

I have noticed a trend in my more recent reading, something I seem to seek out, to desire. It appears in this book in buckets, it was present in A Woman in the Polar Night, in Full Tilt, in Lost Paradise and A Book of Silence. It is this idea of transcending the limits of human social construct, of reaching a moment of pure blending with the world, of being present and at one and at peace. I crave it. I wish I knew why, but until I do I am willing to keep seeking and finding it in wonderful books like this. Tracks is quite different in character to the movie (for those who have seen it), it is more raw and brutal, it is more present, Davidson breathes hot dust and sand through the pages. She sees with honesty and frailty; she is human, she is alive and she is free.

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent

I’ve been avoiding Burial Rites. I’m not sure entirely why, but I avoided the chance to buy it cheaply and of all the Bailey’s Prize listed novels it’s been the one that least interested me. Perhaps it is because it has been touted as a ‘crime’ novel (which it is) and perhaps it is because of the cover which has those awful ‘Gripping’ says Kate Mosse (another writer I’ve avoided, probably quite unfairly. Now on the list, along with Tracy Chevalier who I’ve similarly avoided. Bad me. Reforming, reading more openly), A must-read’ says Grazia magazine (avoided, not unfairly I think). It’s a cover that smacks of desperation. ‘Please read me’ it says. I walk the other way.

Anyway, when I was picking up some books I really wanted to read from the library I saw Burial Rites sitting on the ‘new books’ shelf, untouched, and thought ‘oh go on then’ and I did, and this whole blog is a lesson to myself to never, ever judge a book by its cover and never judge a writer before you read them.

Burial Rites is based on a true story, the story of Agnes Magnúsdóttir the last woman to be executed in Iceland. Agnes is accused of the murder of two men, Natan Ketilsson a farmer and herbalist and Péter Jónsson a visitor. Her accomplices are Fredrik Sigurdsson the son of a local farmer and Sigrídur Gudmundsdóttir a fellow workmaid. The men were violently killed and then the farm set on fire to disguise the crime. The novel draws on real letters from the time, though much of Agnes’s life, and in particular her final days, are fictionalised.

Before her execution, Agnes was sent to live with a District Officer, Jón Jónsson and his family on their farm. The story picks up from the time that Agnes is transferred to the farm.  The District Officer’s wife Margrét and her two daughters Lauga and Steina are unhappy with the idea of a murderess living at their home, as are their neighbours. A priest is assigned at Agnes’s request, an Assistant Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson who is mystified to find that Agnes had requested him personally. These key characters descend upon Kornsá where Jón Jónsson’s farm is situated.

Not surprisingly the story begins quite coldly. Agnes is tolerated but unwanted, and she fits quietly into the role of servant, saying little and offering nothing more than labour. Yet Kent reveals the burning heart that lies beneath the quiet, compliant exterior. Agnes’s back story is revealed though her own, quiet remembrances and the gradual opening up to the inexperienced Reverend Thorvardur Jónsson, Toti. Through Agnes’s story we learn more about the terrible burden of poverty, at a time when orphans or abandoned children, often the bastard children of landowners, were tossed on the mercy of local charity. This often meant service work which for women often meant rape or sexual servitude both to the master and the other servants. As Agnes’s story develops, we discover that her failing, if any, was pursuing love in a place and time when none was offered nor, it seems to some views, due.

As Agnes’s story develops, so we see the sympathies of those around her turning. Slowly she stops being seen as the ‘murderess’ and becomes Agnes. Yet she is still awaiting fulfilment of her sentence of death. As the older and more learned of the two workmaids, perhaps also the less pretty, the heavier weight of blame is laid at Agnes’s door. Whilst the District Officer, Björn Blöndal, seeks leniency for the young and guileless Sigrid, Agnes is to serve her sentence as an example to others. It is, as Agnes notes ruefully, because she is too knowing that she must suffer. An intelligent, educated servant woman is something to be suspected and feared.

Through Agnes’s story Kent reveals the destitution of poverty, the sad burden placed on women in society, the ways in which people use, and abuse, other people for their personal gain. Around these stories Kent weaves the Icelandic winter with its endless hours of darkness, the fearsome beauty of the Northern Lights, the isolation and the deathly cold. It is a beautifully written book, mindful of the Icelandic sagas (Kent mentions she referenced the Laxdæla saga, in particular the line ‘I was worst to him I loved best’ when reflecting on Agnes’s story) and unafraid of dipping deep into this dark story from history. The prose is stunning, like here as Agnes reflects on her fate:

“He is so kind, he is reaching around me, he is pulling my body closer to his, but I don’t want him near. His mouth is opening and shutting like a fish, the bones of his face like knives under his skin, but I cannot help him, I do not know what he wants. Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a nest of rocks with only an empty egg in it. I am barren; nothing will grow from me any more. I am the dead fish drying in the cold air. I am the dead bird on the shore. I am dry, I am not certain I will bleed when they drag me out to meet the axe. No, I am still warm, my blood still howls in my veins like the wind itself, and it shakes the empty next and asks where all the birds have gone, where have they gone?”

It is an emotional story, told without sentimentality. I’m not ashamed to say that I was moved to tears towards the end, as Agnes is being taken to the axe and a man, a stranger accompanying her on her journey, gives her some brandy. “’Drink it all, Agnes,’ the blond-haired man said. ‘I brought it for you.’” It brought to mind the thought that whilst Agnes may have lacked, or felt she lacked love, there was always o possibility of kindness, though it is kindness, often, rather than anger or abusiveness, that brings us to our knees. And though Agnes’s fate was well known, I still found myself hoping that there was a way out for her, somehow. As did she, I suppose.  

Hannah Kent is another example of the fantastic skill and storytelling-ability coming out of the antipodes right now along with Eleanor Catton’s excellent The Luminaries and Evie Wyld’s peerless All The Birds, Singing. It’s really caught my attention. They manage to combine excellent storytelling with beautiful, complex prose and an almost flawless delivery. All three of those writers have written engaging, powerful stories that simply lift the reader along. I will be watching out for more work from all three.

Burial Rites receives an epic 10 out of 10 Biis.