One of my old creative writing lecturers, Elizabeth Jolley, died this morning.
I didn’t know her writing work much at all. I think I was from the wrong generation. But I had her as a lecturer for the same class three semesters in a row because I kept having to pull out of it or whatever. We read a bad translation of Medea that had early 20thC English expressions throughout it (i.e. ‘by golly’ ‘dear god’, etc). She was a pretty harsh marker. Plus, her ‘old lady’ performance was total bullshit.
She was my lecturer as well and one of the few I had respect for.She totally did her own thing.
hi alison,
my message above hopefully doesn’t appear glib. I feel sad thinking about the time I spent in her class at Curtin. She was a curious woman.
I used to wonder about her ‘old ladyness’ as she was a bit like my nan. I read in one of the obit’s that you were never supposed to second guess her ‘old lady’ ways and simply take them for face value, because she didn’t like it! Well I failed on that count!
She used it like how Iago used his lesser rank against Othello. Jolley as villainous old lady? Not quite, but she could certainly give you a look sometimes that was meant to convey the fact she could bloody well be.
I had her as a lecturer in the late 1990s.