ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 42 | December 1999
The Barry Oakley diaries
Barry Oakley at the Spoleto Festival, Melbourne, 1989. Photo reproduced courtesy of Virginia Wallace-Crabbe
Compulsive diarists have always been a rare breed, but occasionally the Library has acquired a series of diaries that not only reveal the thoughts and passions of the writer but also shed light on the communities in which they worked and lived. The diaries of the politician Patrick McMahon Glynn and the vice-regal Audrey Tennyson are both fine sources on Adelaide and Melbourne society at the turn of the century. In more modern times, Donald Friend, Geoffrey Dutton and Barbara Hanrahan kept diaries for most of their adult lives and they are outstanding sources for biographers and for literary and art historians.
The diaries of the playwright, novelist and editor Barry Oakley, which have just been purchased by the Library, join this very select group of manuscripts.
Oakley first achieved fame in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the author of exuberant, picaresque novels such as A Wild Ass of a Man and A Salute to the Great McCarthy. At the time, Oakley lived in Melbourne and was intrigued by the enigma of Glen Waverley man, homo surburbiensis. His first plays were performed at that time and in the next 20 years he wrote a series of themdiverse in style and themes, often comic but at the same time exploring relationships in a subtle and compassionate way. As a dramatist, he mixed with actors, directors and other playwrights and in later years his work as literary editor of the Australian brought him into contact with a great range of writers, journalists, newspaper proprietors, arts administrators and politicians.
Barry Oakley began keeping a diary in 1974. At first the entries were sporadic, but within a few years he was writing it up virtually every day. He maintained it without a break through the 1980s, but after 1991 his enthusiasm seems to have waned gradually and blank pages begin to appear. The last volume covers 1997. The diaries are written in a neat but minuscule hand and in most volumes every square millimetre of paper has been utilised. They look a little like medieval manuscripts and long readings would endanger eyesight, but they are a fascinating and entertaining read.
Although a few excerpts from the diaries have been reproduced in the press, the original diaries are likely to be restricted for some time. Oakley wrote frankly about his own feelings, relationships and work. He set down succinct criticisms of plays and books, he meditated on politics and the arts in Australia, and he recorded his encounters with thousands of Australians, ranging from Prime Ministers to obscure actors. Opening nights of plays, previews of exhibitions, gatherings of writers at literary festivals, long boozy lunches with fellow-journalists, and even longer dinners and parties are described with relish. In the early years Oakley was living in Melbourne and then Sydney, but he travelled widely and there are amusing vignettes of the literary communities in Adelaide, Perth, Hobart and elsewhere.
One commentator has compared Oakley with Samuel Pepys and the Goncourt brothers. This may seem a little far-fetched, but in some ways he does resemble Edmond and Jules Goncourt, whose journals portray Parisian literary life in the period 186090 in minute detail. In time the Oakley diaries should prove to be a magnificent resource for Australian cultural historians concerned with the last quarter of this century.
Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: lkirwan@nla.gov.au