Year 12 have recently completed their Trial HSC examinations. Three sections from three separate English papers caught my attention. Each focused on the power of literature to tell the truth, reveal possibilities, and trigger reflection. The English Extension 1 examination included an interesting extract from the Irish writer Colum McCann. In his nonfiction text Letters to a Young Writer, McCann states, ‘language is a great weapon’ that is ‘capable of dealing with truth’. The accompanying epigraph from Zadie Smith urges writers to ‘Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it.’ A question from the English Advanced examination asked students to write an essay on the poetry of T.S. Eliot after considering the following statement, ‘The storyteller is the truth teller. Writing has the power to show what can be otherwise, what it is that the hard, domineering eye cannot see.’ And finally, the English Standard paper asked students to compose an essay on the poetic works of Robert Gray in conjunction with the statement, ‘The power of literature is to hold a mirror up to the audience and reflect important concerns that need to be examined.’

The thread running through these examination questions reminded me once again of Salman Rushdie’s memoir Joseph Anton – a book I referred to in my Literacy Links article three weeks ago. I was shocked to hear that Rushdie was brutally attacked at a literary event a week later. The importance of storytelling and its association with truth-telling, further validates Rushdie’s assertion that we are storytelling animals, the only creatures on earth who tell themselves stories to understand what kind of creatures they are.

The following extract from Rushdie’s memoir quite chillingly talks about the power of good literature to endure – long after their composers have gone. ‘The poet Ovid was exiled by Caesar Augustus to a hellhole on the Black Sea called Tomis. He spent the rest of his days begging to be allowed to return to Rome, but permission was never granted. So Ovid’s life was blighted; but the poetry of Ovid outlasted the Roman Empire. The poet Mandelstam died in one of Stalin’s labour camps, but the poetry of Mandelstam outlived the Soviet Union. The poet Lorca was killed by the Falangist thugs of Spain’s Generalissimo Franco, but the poetry of Lorca outlived Franco’s tyrannical regime. Art was strong, artists less so.’ This last comment most certainly reverberates with significance given the violent act which nearly claimed the author’s life.

I am still reading Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, a book  which took him five years to write. As I engage with his  storytelling, I am reminded that some stories draw us back into the past, while others project us into the future. Some take us to places far away, while others take us on journeys to the interior landscape of the mind. Some illuminate the day, while others take us into the darkness of the human condition. Ultimately, the best storytellers raise profoundly important questions in the minds of reflective people.

Mrs Clare Murphy

English Coordinator & Literacy Instructional Coach