Christos Tsiolkas on 'Omar and Enzo in the Big Talking Book'
The following is a transcript of the speech given by Christos
Tsiolkas at the launch of Colin Batrouney’s novel, Omar
and Enzo in the Big Talking Book (Hares & Hyenas Bookshop,
25 January 2007)
What is it that we writers of fiction wish to do? What is it
that we wish to achieve? Such questions, of course, are capable
of resulting in an infinite number of answers. One writer might
reply that all she wants is to get published, another that she
wants to make some money, yet another that she wants to change
the world. But I don’t think that I am wrong in saying
that there is a basic impulse all writers who really care about
their work, who are committed to the craft and art of words
and language share. This is the hope that one day we can write
a great work, a work that through the mastery of language, a
work through dedication and commitment and craft, allows us
to create a world that we as readers can submerge ourselves
within - be it for hours, for days, for weeks, for years to
come - and that this world of creation has an authentic material,
existential and psychic parallel to the real world we find ourselves
in. What we hope to achieve is that incredible suspension of
disbelief in which a reader finds a make-believe world constructed
through mere words has the ability to reflect and to refract
the actual world, and by doing so this work of fiction illuminates
our real world and allows us to see the world, and ourselves
within it, anew. This is the promise of great fiction. This
is the promise that keeps us at the desk, that keeps us working,
keeps us fervently hoping that we can rise to the challenge.
It is this hope that we cling to when we confront our despair
over our limitations, when we read the rejection letter, when
we read the bad review. It is also this hope that acts as a
warning for us not to become complacent, to not allow praise
and the good reviews to go to our heads.
What is it that we writers of fiction wish to do? We want to
write a great book. Really, at the bottom of it all, that is
what we really want to do.
Sometime in the late 1990s, Colin Batrouney asked me to read
a manuscript called Omar and Enzo in the Big Talking Book.
I had worked with Colin, I admired and respected him as a friend.
There is always that moment of anxiety that arises when a friend
asks you to read their work. What if I don’t like it? What
do I say to them? That anxiety disappeared immediately I began
to read the book. By the end of the first few pages I knew that
Colin Batrouney was a writer, that he knew how to use words,
the tools of our craft. I slipped into his world. I slipped
into a world that was sweaty and dirty and ugly and violent
and profane but one in which there was also immense tenderness,
love, beauty and anguished hope. Rereading his book reminded
me that I have been living with Omar and Enzo in the Big
Talking Book for nearly ten years now. Not that the book
as it is now is not a more coherent read, not that the structure
is not tighter. Mr Colin Batrouney is not a lazy man in real
life so it is not a surprise that as a writer he is disciplined
and exact. In ten years Omar and Enzo in the Big Talking
Book has become an even better novel. He has a poet’s
eye, I realised this very early on about Colin, but he also
has a poet’s ear which is probably more important for a
writer. And let me be clear by what I mean when I say to you
that Colin’s sensibility is that of a poet. I am not talking
about empty lyricism or clever-clever word play. I am talking
about a writer who knows how to conjure up scenes of great beauty
or longing or hate, who knows how to communicate a love that
is unspeakable and who also knows how to drop in a word like
"cunt" to remind us of its harsh violent abuse.
At the centre of the book is an act of desperate and despicable
violence. In the real world it arises from acts that fill me
with despair, hopelessness and rage. In the real world this
violence fills me with righteous venom: everything becomes black
and white. But by entering the world of Colin Batrouney has
created, something profound happens. His world of black words
on white paper make me confront that which is desperate and
despicable in myself and the truth in the mirror he holds up
to me is confronting and exhilarating. Exhilarating because
through Omar and Enzo I become witness to the terror that can
occur when the faultlines of sex and sexuality, of gender and
class, of love and hate open up and swallow us whole. In writing
this book, Colin has walked a very fine tightrope. There is
always a danger that when you deal with … and acts that
are brutal and savage that you risk exploitation. It is a very
thin tightrope, one I have walked and one I have often failed.
Colin walks that tightrope with dazzling assuredness and ability.
I mentioned before that he has the sensibility of a poet. There
is another aspect to his sensibility, the character he has as
a writer, and this aspect is compassion. Omar and Enzo in
the Big Talking Book is brutal and savage. It is also compassionate.
This is a side of Colin I know as a man. It is no surprise it
is part of the world he creates.
The labour of writing is something that demands time, maybe
more time than is suitable for our speeded-up, hollow, contemporary
world. Maybe Colin wants to kick my head in for what I’m
about to say, but I never doubted that one day this book would
be published, would enter our world. I’m sure for Colin
there were periods of self-doubt, confusion and fear. I’m
sorry, mate, that never goes away. But the time spent, the dedication,
the commitment of it all shows in the final work.
What does every writer of fiction want? To produce a great
work. Colin Batrouney, you’ve done it with this book.
Congratulations.
Batrouney, Colin - 'Omar and Enzo in the Big Talking Book'
ISBN: 978-0-9802983-1-4 | RRP $24.95
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