Hey there, it's Ruby Jones. Each Sunday, we're sharing one of our favorite episodes from our sister podcast, Read This. The show features interviews with some of Australia's best and most beloved writers. Today, we're going to hear from Bruce Pasco. Bruce is a novelist and historian who's twenty fourteen book At Dark Emu became a national bestseller. Michael Williams is the host of Read This, and he's with me now.
Ruby Jones.
Halle Michael, how are you.
I am great lovely to be back with you again for another episode of Read This. So on this episode, listeners are going to hear your conversation with Bruce Pasco. Tell me a bit about how you first came to read his work.
Listeners are going to have to put up with me waxing a little nostalgic in this episode because I first met Bruce on a family camming holiday in Malacuta, where he was selling copies of his book at the farmer's market on a Sunday and I went and bought one because I'd run out of things to read on the summer holidays, and that was the first time I read Bruce's book or Met Bruce the human Being, So we
do have a little nostalgic reverie about Malokuda. But my favorite thing about this episode is that Bruce Pascoe was well and truly dragooned into the culture wars when Dark Emu came out, News Limited in particular decided that he was public enemy number one for the ways in which he wanted to rethink First Nations history in this country.
And so I meant that a lot was written, a lot was said about Bruce that didn't represent who he is, the kind of scholar he is, the kind of thinking he does, and the deep integrity and generosity of his storytelling. And so for me, it was very exciting to have an opportunity to talk to the actual author about what motivated him, rather than rely on secondhand nonsense.
It's true, so much of the narrative around Bruce is around the controversy that has been stood up by what he's written, and less on the craft of his writing.
Absolutely, and I think listeners will be very surprised to hear what the new novels about and hear Bruce talk about. And it couldn't be more diametrically opposed to the kind of preconceptions that I think people bring to the table when it comes to this fabulous writer.
Coming up in just a moment. All Bruce Pasco needs is a burrow.
When I was a kid, my mother would take my sisters and I for camping holidays in the height of summer. Of the recurring destinations, Malakuda was a particular favorite, on the edge of crowajing Along National Park, at the mouth of this series of beautiful inlets. So I'm the far north coast of Victoria and it's one of those places where while the year round population is only about a thousand, in summer, when the camping run is full, that number
is more like eight thousand. I remember those long, glorious days splashing around on Becka Beach, or sitting in the basketball hall watching the makeshift cinema. But of those entertainments, the app sa lude pinnacle was the farmer's market each weekend, not least because it was a reliable source of secondhand books. It was there one summer, having exhausted the reading I packed for the holiday, that I picked up my first
Bruce Pascoe novel. In hindsight, it's clear to me that the quiet bloke with the big beard who sold it to me was the author himself. This wasn't a second hand stall. This was someone who loved to write, making a connection with potential readers in between the DreamCatcher stall and the homemade chutneys. That more than two decades later Bruce Pascoe would be a household name was unthinkable at the time that he would still be writing, still honoring
his commitment to telling a great story. That is utterly unsurprising. I'm Michael Williams, and this is Read. This the show about the books we love and the stories behind them. It was twenty fourteen when Bruce Pascoe went from being a prolific yet relatively unknown writer to public enemy number one in Australia's culture wars. That was the year he published his now infamous book Dark Emu and its re examination of accepted historical accounts of pre invasion Australia. It's
a book that struck a chord. More than three hundred and sixty thousand copies have been sold so far, and it's inspired various spin off books, from a young adult edition to entire books published to refute its claims about First Nations people and their relationship with the land. Newscorps in particular, have expended a lot of energy framing Bruce as this ahistorical force of propaganda. Its nasty, ugly stuff.
But part of what I like about Bruce Pasco is his calm, implacable generosity, his engaged critics and detractors, and welcome the debate. For all the attempts to co of them into the culture was Bruce is not so interested. He has other stories to tell, and the latest one
is his novel Imperial Harvest. It's set in thirteenth century Mongolia, and it follows a one armed soldier, yen See, as he contemplates the expectations of others and how a single person can navigate war and colonialism with grace and endurance. And it begins with a disclaimer, this author's warning that sums up how Bruce Pasco approaches the world.
This novel tells a story of great armies, the calumny of powerful men traveling across the vast lands of Eurasia. But if there's a date here or a town there which seems strange, remember that history tosses all fact in the air, so the victor can choose his own confetti. In this case, the confetti is chose by the losers, so be patient. It's not always possible to catch the polics in their original order, and in any case, it will be confetti again tomorrow. Don't be dismayed by this fact.
You're alive, aren't you.
I love the idea of returning to confetti and also telling your readers not to be dismayed. I mean, often, particularly with historical fiction, we have this anxiety of not just what's true and what's not, but what's a legitimate speaking position from which to tell history and what's not? And setting that note at the front of the novel seems to be saying, it's a book, it's here for you to have farm. See what it sparks that there is a lot of implied goodwill in that request of your readers.
And because of that, it ends in a restaurant where people enjoy wine, they enjoy food, and they enjoy sharing it, and they are slightly alarmed by their It was meant to be a kind gesture of asking people not to hate, but to come together a little bit. And you know, it's easy for people to polarize their situation and to take positions. But I'll never forget being told by a very old Hawaiian woman that when you're having these arguments,
leave no one behind. In my own tale of Malakuta, there are debates which have ended up being polarized when a perfectly good, compromised situation was available. You know, compromises messy, muddy, unsatisfying to most people, but they're usually more right than wrong. And we need to treasure the messiness of democracy because the cleanliness of autocracy is to be a bored and we've seen no good example in the world of autocracies
where marginal groups weren't flayed. So I hope we can sit down in a restaurant together, the restaurant being the world and keep talking.
When people think Bruce Pasco, they don't generally think thirteenth century Mongolia. So what's that about.
Yeah, I know everyone was expecting a certain kind of novel, and it did come as a bit of a surprise to a lot of people. But the whole idea of the novel is to look at the propensity of men to commit violence, where does it come from? And I didn't want to just concentrate on the Europeans because people are expecting me to be critical of European colonialism, but there are other examples of colonialism, and Genjis Khan is as good as anything.
It's one of the biggiest. That's a decent one to go for.
To leave me well, to cover an entire continent is pretty ambitious before.
We get to calm temperamentially? Is that typical of you, Bruce, Like you know what people expect from you, and so you're determined not to give it to them.
It wasn't a determination this novel. I've been writing for fifteen years, so it began before Dark Emu. So I'm not a curmudgeon in that sense. I am a curmudgeon in many senses, but not that particular one. It's just the way my thoughts have been going, and they're a little bit out of sync. But to me, it doesn't matter.
I'm just looking forward to talking about the book and for readers to wonder about the book, and then let's have a conversation about it, because it's the conversations very timely.
The conversation is incredibly timely, and sadly it always will be a conversation about the nature of war, about the ways in which it impacts a life, a psyche, a people. More generally, you're always going to be blessed with that feeling topical.
Yeah. Look, when I went to school, I was taught that war is the natural condition of man. And I thought at the time, what a bleak prospect for the world, what a bleak prospect for people individuals, that we have to do that. I remember in primary school listening to the last post on Anzac Day and being so deeply affected by it because you know, our family had lost people in both wars and there were very emotional services, and I thought, Gee, we're just going to keep doing
this forever. There'll be a new Anzac Day and it'll just repeat ad infinitum. And I thought how sad that was. But I didn't have the resources as a kid to look at whether or not that is the truth. And I've been very fortunate to have met and lived with people who have another experience of the world, the Aboriginal cultural world, and our families are connected to that story, and it's a story without war. So what I'm really hopeful for is that Australia can have this conversation that
is war the natural condition of man? Is there another way for humans to behave towards each other, and I think there is I think that's a fabulous philosophical challenge for this country to think that it might have on this continent a solution to what's happening in Palestine at the moment.
I love that idea and it's a kind of stirring and wonderful thought, but I can't help but feel that colonial Australia, settler Australia does what so many countries do in its national myth building, which is it appears to believe that war is essential for your sense of yourself. We fetishize that experience of war rather than look for a way to never reproduce it.
Yeah, we see it as essential to ourselves and that you know, if an argument gets to a certain point, then eventually you will go to arms. And that's a
legitimate political and philosophical stance to take. So to consider something else is going to take maybe two hundred and thirty years, and I obviously won't be around, but I'm determined contribute to that debate and for Australia to consider that their idea of Australian history might need some refinement, or that what Aboriginal Australian people were doing was not
hunting and gathering. We can see by the turmoil that has erupted subsequent to that discussion taking place that it's really hard to change people's minds and that they won't change them peacefully.
I do think there is something in what you had to endure in response to Darkama that is a real precursor to the way the Voice referendum took place, which is that there was a request, an offering of a space for a conversation, and instead of responding to that in good faith and taking it as a conversation, recognizing that there might be ground to be met in the middle, there might be disagreement, there might be whatever, but the
conversation itself is valuable. Instead of responding in that way, the response was vitriolic and violent and about tearing down rather than about being willing to take the chat further.
Yeah, I think there is a great parallel there. But I believe strongly that say, in one hundred and fifty years, when kids are at university is sitting down to do their essays, that they will be looking at the events of last year and the no vote will be a footnote. But I think Australia has an enormous and positive opportunity to lead the world intellectually on this point. Not always.
You know, it's not a league ladder and you don't remain champion for a But in this particular little moment of time, I think Australia can make a really decent contribution to world conversation about how we behave as humans. And what I love about the old people and all the so called myths or stories. It's really philosophy that we're talking about, and that philosophy is one of enormous piece about the kind of structures you put in place
to control humans. Because the human is a really difficult animal. The human will always be jealous, always be violent, always be loving, always be honorable. That mix that is in all of us, the humans always going to be like that. But to consider how best to use each of those, suppress some and enhance others, I think it's an enormous I just think it's a great thing for humans to consider and for us to discuss. It's not a blueprint that will be built tomorrow. It's up for discussion.
It's one of the things I so enjoy about your intellectual and cultural contribution generally, Bruce, is the optimism I don't understand. I'm sorry, I'm glad you hold it, and I wish I shared it, and that is great. But the generosity of inviting the conversation, inviting the chad, responding to your critics by saying, absolutely, let's talk about it.
That's not like. There are very few people in public life I can think of who have more grace when it comes to believing in the value of what you're doing, beyond whether people agree with you or don't agree with you.
You can blame my mother and grandmother for that, Yeah, because they insisted on decency. I haven't been able to escape that tug in my brain. But also, I think I'm in a good position to be in the argument because you know, obviously over eighty percent of our family is white and a small percentage is Aboriginal. So I've got an obligation to both sides. And I've got a huge obligation to white Australia because that's where most of
our genes come from. I have an obligation to that side of the family to say, look, I'm not ignoring the cornishman. I'm not ignoring the Englishman. But there's this other thing, and it's Australia. This is where we can have an effect on the history of the country.
When we return. Bruce Reveal's way, seas had towns are places of descent. We'll be right back. I remember reading one of your novels many many years ago and being so moved by the way you wrote, being so kind of carried along by the story. But also you write books clearly from a place of having an idea about the world that you want to share, you want to prosecute, you want to imagine.
Yeah, And I was talking to Melissa Lukashenko and Deborah Dank yesterday morning about Charles Dickens. This is a good conversation, good literary conversation, because we'd all read Dickens and we'd all felt touched by his compassion. But I've just read Preyo Satia Times Monster where she talks about Dickens's fascism as well, and that was incredibly disappointing. But he's a human,
He's a flawed human. We're all flawed humans. And it was just a fascinating conversation and it's very relevant when we're having these conversations. It's never black and white. The shades of gray and other literary reference are immense, and we have to accommodate that. We have to continue to have the conversation rather than saying you're too white or you're too black, you're so gray, and just keep talking.
And democracy is the slowest beast on earth, but it's a very very good beast to have in our paddock.
So accepting that you knew you wanted to write about the nature and the legacy of war and colonialism, you knew you wanted to begin that story that journey in the Northern hemisphere, and you knew that actually European colonialism wasn't the path that you wanted to look at. That kind of explains thirteenth century Mongolia as a choice. But tell us a little bit about a particular one armed horseman called yEnc and why he was the vessel for the story that you wanted to tell.
Well, I really wanted to choose someone who history would ignore. He wasn't a general, he wasn't even a particularly brave soldier. He was nothing. He was on the scrap heap of humanity. But he had the good fortune to fall into the company of a really good man who was also never going to be noticed by history, a baker, a Miller, But that Miller, his life's journey had taught him because of the pain he had endured, that people need care. So in a way, it's Penkei who is the driver
of the story. Yen say, He's just swept up in the stream and becomes more worldly and becomes more aware of his position as a human and finds himself in a position to make change. So I wanted an anonymous person. When I began writing Imperial Harvest, I was very anonymous. You know. You mentioned having read my novels. Well, I wondered who bought that book, because I've written seven or eight novels and the sales of each was really small.
I reckon I bought it from you in person and Malakuda camping around there, and when the market's set up, and I bought it from you then on a camping holiday.
Yeah. Well, we sold books from that little tent for a decade or more, nearly two decades. And the conversations in that tent, if they ever got to the Australia's spy Agency, we've been all in trouble. Because it was a ferment of rebellion.
I think the spy agency is known not to look at Malakuda, but it's a hotbed. There's dangerous stuff going on there. They're better to turn a blind eye.
Well, one of my novels talks about seaside villages as being places of descent because fishermen don't give us stuff about anyone.
Yeah, and they've got time to talk things through. It's not about action, it's about about scheming.
It is and in imperiod harvest through whole groups of sailors and fishermen, and that's what they do. They because their life is on the sea. They feel themselves totally independent of the land, and they have contempt for politicians and the pirates. You know, the sea and piracy go together.
It's one of the very nice things about how the book functions. Imperial harvest functions, and you kind of alluded to this before, But because it centers around a protagonist who is passive is the wrong word, but is kind of buffeted by war, by circumstance, by history, it means that the characters who emerge around the fringes of the story are often incredibly compelling. They're pushing it forward in really interesting ways.
Well, I'm glad you see it like that, because I was afraid that my mangling of history would have become a theme. Because if it's not an historical novel, because I've shifted geographies, I've shifted historical events. But I'm more fascinated by people than i am by history, and people generate history. But it's more or less like an aside. It's the people themselves, and I think goodness and badness drive the world, and it's that's up to us to decide which is which.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Finally, just because I have to ask for myself, because I haven't been back for years, how's Malakuda going past the fires?
Malakuda is his wonderful self. You know, three rivers, two lakes, the ocean. It's hard to destroy the beauty of that. The bush recovered very quickly, the people not as quickly. Friends of mine put the roof on their house a fortnight ago after losing their house in the fire. Another good friend of mine was a renter, doesn't have a house at all. The psyche of the town is different.
And maybe it's my age group because I've lost a lot of friends I've known since nineteen seventy in the last few years, and they were the real rebels and rat bags and the people with whom if you caught their eye in the street, they would not let you go because they'd want to talk to you about politics. They'd want to tell you how disgraceful the Australian cricket team is all that conversation. A lot of that's gone, so the fun for me has gone out of the town.
But there are young kids. They are making their own legends and their own society to which I'm not a part, and I have to get used to that because I'm an old man.
We all have to get used to that one way or the other. But as long as you keep writing books, you've got that entry point straight back into that. You can be an old man on the edge keeping an eye.
Look, I'm writing such a wonderful thing.
You know.
I look at musicians, you know, tugging their cello onto the airplane, artists you know, with rolls and rolls of fine paper, and you know, I jump on the plane with a buyer.
Yeah. Perfect, perfect. Bruce Pasco, thank you so much for your type. Thank you Bruce Pasco's latest novel, Imperial Harvest, is out now and you can get it at all good independent bookstores. And just to piss off Andrew Bolt, go buy another copy of Dark Emu while you're at it, just to twist that If.
Thanks for listening to Bruce Pasco and read this. For the next couple of months, we're going to bring you some of the best interviews from the show. Every Sunday, listen out for conversations with Eric Beacher, Mary Beard.
And more.
And if you don't want to wait until next Sunday to dive in to read this, you can search for it wherever you listen to podcasts. There's a whole year's worth of fascinating conversations ready for you.