Lines of Fire: Manning Clark & Other Writings by Peter Ryan
Binalong, NSW: Clarion Editions, 1997 ISBN 0909759030
It's hard to believe that Peter Ryan died over five years ago. I for one miss his monthly columns in Quadrant magazine - each month a page or two of reflections on life in the country, literature, politics, or just a reminiscence of someone he knew, either famous or unknown. For 25 years Ryan was the director of Melbourne University Press, and regularly wrote columns and reviews in major daily newspapers and other magazines and journals. He wasn't quite a public intellectual (he would have hated to be known as such), but was a man who had things to say, and who said them in a manner that was fluent and very readable.
He was also a war hero - awarded the Military Medal for his service behind the lines in New Guinea during World War II. The book he wrote about his time in New Guinea - Fear Drive my Feet - is a classic which is still in print, and became the "favourite" war book of many, including a friend of mine, who was horrified to learn that the Peter Ryan who had subjected him to a rigorous exam when he ascended to the Bar of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Ryan moved from Melbourne University Press to the position of Secretary of the Supreme Court's Board of Examiners) and whose views as expressed in the newspaper he found abhorrent, was the same Peter Ryan who had written his favourite book!
Lines of Fire is a collection mostly of the columns and reviews that Ryan wrote over the years, and includes an excerpt from Fear Drive my Feet. Many of Ryan's columns celebrate people he has met, from former Governors-General to people unknown by the general public but dear to Ryan, usually owing to their silent heroism and service to the nation. Quite often he uses his personal knowledge of a person to poke holes in public perceptions, and a significant part of this book is devoted to poking holes in the "legend" of Manning Clark, and his History of Australia.
Ryan was in a good position to do this - he was taught by Clark at Melbourne University after the War, and became a drinking acquaintance of his, before becoming his publisher (from Volume II of History of Australia onwards) at Melbourne University Press. The picture he paints of Clark is one of someone driven by his own ego, and - from a promising start - producing a work that had less to do with accurate history and more to do with Clark's grandiose conceptions of Australian history and of himself as a litterateur. Ryan became more and more embarrassed to be a part of the publication of this work, which increasingly departed from factual history and became more and more narcissistic scribblings of someone who thought they could influence history, and not merely record it.
Ryan's initial essay, where he expressed his doubts about Clark and his magnum opus, caused a storm of controversy. Clark had recently died when Ryan's article was published, and many academics and "public people" rushed to defend Clark and his work, while at no stage answering the criticisms and questions raised by Ryan. Ryan predicted that Manning's work would sink into obscurity, as would the controversy that he himself had stirred up. He was right - who now refers to History of Australia? Clark has not become the prophet of our past and future that he hoped to be.
Overall, Lines of Fire is an insight into an enquiring mind, packed with essays that will not only make one think, but also lead to other profitable reading. A great little collection of wisdom.
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