Dearest Munx: The Letters of Christina Stead and William J Blake By Margaret Harris Ed, The Miegunyah Press: 2005, , 558 pages, hardcover, $54.95. Reviewed by Bianca Ferguson in the February 2006 issue. Help more readers find out about this article
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Many thanks for you letter; of course I read it forty-one times; no one will ever believe that we have known each other some fourteen years! It would be a difficult thing, I imagine, compiling letters for publication. One cannot do much you see, except to provide history and background and handy footnotes explaining exactly who the aunt of the friend referred to was and the names of her seven children. And, I imagine this would grow frustrating. For one could not edit, could not remove one letter in the sequence for being too boring, nor embellish another letter for drama. In short one is helpless.
The only person with the right to embellish her own life was the woman in strong possession of that life, Christina Stead Herself. The introduction beings with the line 'Everyone turns their life to story...' and while this is an immensely satisfying line to begin with, being both poetic and truthful, it is especially significant in this case. For while the editor cannot, as I say, embellish or enhance, there seems to be some thought, and indeed, a little evidence, that Christina did exactly this to her own accounts of her life. She presents conflicting stories, 'factual' accounts which conflict with documented accounts, which again, conflict with her own later revised accounts.
While her life may have been embellished, edited, re-written and re-told, these letters are genuine heart and soul. Heart and soul and love. Love above all.
Christina Stead is now heralded as one of Australia's finest novelists. I say 'finest' and mean it to apply to every facet of her person, her outlandish personality, her humor, her writings, and faith, her bravery, her ability to love honestly and eloquently and, not least, her letter-writing finesse. I deliberately omit the word 'female' (she is not one of Australia's 'finest female' writers, just finest) because to take advantage of gender politics would, I feel, only act to belittle Ms Stead and I need no such petty excuse to praise her to the heavens as her talent, and indeed her life, serves as justification enough.
One must not, in all this, forget that this is correspondence. In a day before fax, text messages, before e-mail, before 5 cent deals on international phone calls ... letters were the way two people not immediately accessible to each other communicated. And, as only natural when two people are living as man and wife there will be, simply by necessity, any number of small domestic references. If these do not interest the reader, than by all means, skim, skip and jump to the next sentence, section, paragraph. No one expects you to note down eagerly in the margins the price and color and quality of the second spare set of pillowcases for the guest bedroom Christina may or may not buy depending on finances. As I say, it would be terribly unprofessional to take liberties and edit this information out for readability. Though, I must confess, quite the nosy housewife behind frittering curtains I find secret delight at noting the company each keeps when alone, the drinks they drink and the money the spend and the why and the when.
Layered between the mundane trivialities, the mumbles of lovers, there is a extraordinary love story. Though perhaps, story is the wrong word, and indeed should be left out. There is an extraordinary love, full stop. Strange though it may seem, the letters themselves are not the story of a young woman in love with a married man with an expectant wife, their subsequent flee to Paris, and return to live as (married) man and woman in the 1940's where marriage is still a most sacred institution. There is very little detail (though of course, they themselves have full knowledge of it and need not remind the other) of such out of the ordinary practices, and their necessary social consequences, and those that are commented on are always by Christina and always with her excellent dry humor -- they do not dwell, fuss or mope. The few times Blake's wife and daughter are mentioned, it is with the kindness and fleeting brevity of one of the may many acquaintances.
But ... my God. The power of these letters! The emotive force of daily correspondence between two human beings! The love! For it is the love that makes these letters extraordinary. It is not the eloquence, it is not the humor, it is not the intelligent insight and witty portrait of the times, but it is the love, sheer love that draws one in and keeps one in.
The signings off are (along with the fanciful nicknames), I must rather quietly admit, the red ribbon that ties it to my heart. If the love doesn't bit and bury its head deep into your heart then the signings off will, at very least, elicit a coo, or a laugh or a gentle smile. And the nicknames! William Blake goes by each and every of the following; Wee, Brown Wee, Billo, Wilheim, Babe, My own Duck, Munx, Villy (Blakey), Binky, Darling Bink, Sweet William, Chick and Monk. Her humor, daring, imagination, creativity and love, love, love are all exemplified in these and in my favorite of signings off;xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
These are ordinary kisses, for your orifices,
MMMMMMMMMM
These are sounds that come, when an X is applied to your tum,
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
These are whirlwinds of oscillations to exhaust your patiens.
These can only say. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh! And I can't think where they should go.
Can you? (pp 27) 'I suppose the arrival of your letter is the great, great even in my life' (pp 117) writes Christina. Love at first sight, love between brick walls, love across oceans and countries and through sickness and health and poverty -- love above all else; it is about love. And what is all the more remarkable; this is no story, it is a real life love story crafted out of domestic trivialities, hurried mis-matched notes and hard times in a harder world. William Blake may have been no remarkable writer, arousing no renoun, no excitement in the literary world neither then nor now. However what these letters tell him to be is a far far greather thing; he immoralised as a 'great love'. A great love to a great woman. What finer tale is there to tell?
Citation - Bianca Ferguson. 'Review: Dearest Munx: The Letters of Christina Stead and William J Blake by Margaret Harris ed' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), February 2006. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 21 May 2013].
Back Cover Blurb - From the time Christina Stead, a shy Australian girl in London, met William J Blake, a cosmopolitan American, theirs was one of the great love stories. Dearest Munx presents the extraordinary correspondence that records their lives together from 1928 until Blake's death in 1968. The letters take us from London and Paris to New York and Hollywood and back to post-war Europe, mingling domestic detail and world events, hopes and disappointments.
This exceptional collection gives a rare glimpse into the life and thoughts of one of Australia's most renowned novelists. Especially revealing is the intensity of Christina Stead's relationship with her life partner, the paradoxical Marxist banker and author. Although less well known, William J. Blake was the dominant character in Christina's story-a lover, mentor and literary confidante. Striking insights into Stead's fiction also emerge from these energetic, witty and moving letters.
Nearly 300 letters are published here for the first time. Margaret Harris skilfully guides the reader through their story, teasing out the relationship between fact and fiction, literature and life. Dearest Munx is simultaneously an unusual love story, an intriguing insight into the writerly mind and a rich and valuable contribution to Stead's literary legacy.
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