This Excellent Machine by Stephen Orr

‘Looking back, I can’t say what made 1984 so special.’

For Clem Whelan, 1984 is a pivotal year. He’s not sure what he wants to do with his life.  He has choices to make, but decisions are not easy.  He could matriculate (he’s smart enough) but he’s not interested.  He might like to be a writer, and while his neighbour Peter encourages him, he’s not sure.  It’s tough being a teenager on the brink of more responsibility.  Clem lives in a working-class suburb of Adelaide, where just about everyone has lived long enough to have known him since he was a baby.  He lives with his sister, mother and grandfather.  There’s a mystery about his father, who left when he was young, but no-one will tell him.

So, Clem tries to make his own sense of the world: using his telescope to spy on his neighbours, looking to John Lennon on his wall for advice.  His sister tells him he’s a pervert, the adults in his life encourage him in different directions, and his best friend Curtis gets hooked on sex.

I remember 1984, from a different perspective, as the mother of a small child.  I remember Sunnyboys and Datsun 120Ys.  But while I was reading Clem’s story, I was also remembering my own equivalent matriculation year in 1973.  And I can hardly forget the Datsuns: my father was the service manager for a local Datsun (now Nissan) dealership in regional Tasmania and I learned to drive in Datsuns.  But memories are often gentler than the actual experiences, of trying to negotiate a path through possibilities, of trying to work out what is important and why. Clem finds some teachers more helpful than others, but Nick the art teacher, the most helpful one, is quickly moved on.

‘Sometimes dreams are bouncy castles, half-filled with air.’

Clem’s grandfather is starting to grapple with dementia. He’s spent years working on cars, but he’s finding it more difficult to remember the sequence for repairs.  But Clem’s grandfather has a dream: it involves Lasseter’s Reef and requires Clem to pass his driving test to help him get there.

This novel is peopled with interesting characters, each with their own story.  And these stories feed into the novel Clem is writing about life; the excellent machine where people go in and emerge changed. Clem’s 1984 is generally a much more benign place than George Orwell’s ‘1984’.

‘Life has a way of making you live it.’

Which was your pivotal year?  Was 1984 memorable for you? Clem’s story is worth reading.

I’ve only read three of Stephen Orr’s novels so far.  I want to read the rest.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

 

 

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