monetony
Bianca Nedin
1. There are many accounts where I believed I was placed on this Earth to witness it in all its majestic glory. Egotistical? I never did outgrow this, so it's highly likely. When I trek out to the country for camping or hiking, I embrace this egotistical mindset more than when I go to the city. During my adventures, there are places I’ve seen that are so pastoral [1a] personified that they just looked like they crawled out of a fantasy. Recently, I went to Lorne, Victoria, and as I was driving along the coast to Sheoak Falls with its towering cliffs of sedimentary rocks, I passed a field so vibrant and picturesque that I couldn’t tear my gaze from it. I imagined running through those fields and it felt… liberating. For a brief moment, I had stepped into an alternate reality. These cliffs towered so high that the council wrapped them in barbed wire to prevent the cliff from collapsing in on itself and dropping loose rocks onto the road. I find it fascinating that the cliffs were anticipated to be so hazardous that we had to intervene before they ever dropped a pebble. It’s like humans already know we are no match for nature. We could never compete, so we confine it, we cage, we restrict.
2. The pastoral has its origins in poetry [2a]. It is simultaneously a genre of writing, a literary device, and a discourse [2b] that focuses on the shepherd's life with idealised descriptions of the countryside, but it is not written by the shepherd [2c]. It is a Golden Age seen as a paradise or a longing for innocence lost [2d].
I remember a time in my early twenties when I finally moved out—no family, no sharehouse, my own place. I grew up in a broken home, and finally having my own space came with a wave of peace. I had been running for so long that this type of stillness was foreign to me, and with the world being in the middle of the COVID-19 lockdown, I had plenty of time to reflect on everything. I kept a journal my entire life and during this period, I wrote several nostalgic entries on my childhood and how I wished I’d listened to the people who told me to savour my youth [2e]. Despite how I grew up, my childhood was my Golden Age. I was surrounded by friends who cared for me, who rode bicycles with me up and down my street; cousins who played cricket and volleyball with me until the streetlights turned on or until my grandma poked her head out the backdoor and yelled, ‘yum bai’; grandparents, uncles, and aunties who shielded me in the middle of the storm. I yearned to live those moments again. I would’ve bargained anything to turn back time, but that’s not how life works. Your childhood collapses so silently that you never notice it, you never hear it until you are sitting in the silence of your life, wondering when was the last time you rode your bike down that hill. When was the last time you were called inside when the streetlights turned on? When was the last time you kissed your grandparents goodbye? Everything golden will always collapse. The pastoral, the honeybee, youth … and life goes on.
3. The Golden Age [3a], the Garden of Eden [3b], and Arcadia [3c] are synonymous with the pastoral. It is said to be a time when nature was in sync with humanity: when the environment of the outside world reflected that of the inner self, and when nature cared for humans and provided for them [3d] The image I see when I hear these terms is my grandpa’s garden—this was my Garden of Eden. He has a front and backyard—both big enough to roam with my grandma at my side—filled with a variety of fruit trees to the point where there was always a freshly plucked fruit on our dining table [3e]. Looking back on this now as an adult living in an inflated, capitalist society, it was a privilege to reach up to a branch and always have a fruit waiting for me to pluck.
4. Before Prussia invaded France, Monet fled to England to avoid the Franco-Prussian war [4a]. There’s a term for people who flee from war: deserters. This act was punishable by confinement, loss of wages, staining of a person’s honour, or death. Can you imagine? A government wanting so badly for someone to fight for their country that they’re willing to go to great lengths to ensure they have an army? After witnessing all that Monet has contributed to the art world, are we not glad he fled the war? The leader of Impressionism; the epitome of resilience in the face of all odds, Monet had his own battles to fight. He faced continuous impoverishment, and harsh criticism, and even went blind near the end of his life [4b]. Despite his blindness, his command of colour was second to none [4c].
5. In Terry Gifford’s Pastoral, he states that pastoral texts must involve a form of retreat and return [5a]. While I was at the National Gallery of Victoria attuning to Monet’s Vétheuil [5b] and Rough weather at Étretat [5c], it was evident that Vétheuil was the standout piece. Spectators stopped more frequently to soak in the piece and stepped closer to analyse Monet’s hand. I wondered what people were thinking as they viewed this piece. Did they see the pastoral as I did? Or did they think of a time on the beach watching the sun descend beyond the horizon, only to glance away from the painting and remember that they were in a gallery in the heart of the city? Did they have a flicker of memory flash before their eyes of beautiful spring days? Did they yearn for a lost time as I did, for a time that doesn’t exist? Did they understand what I did—that we can never return to an idyllic life [5d], like what is captured in Monet’s art? When I look at this piece and reflect on my adventures in Victoria's countryside, I understand that the historical pastoral is nothing more than a memory ingrained in literature. Our country life today has merged with urbanisation and industrialisation—farmers are using machinery, antenna lines are hanging from their roofs, and I am bringing my technology into a country landscape [5e]. We may be able to recreate pastoral literature by being in its environment, but will it be the same as the pastoral literature that existed over two millennia ago [5f]?
6. Pan is the Ancient Greek god of goatherds and shepherds. Some mythology claims that his homeland was Arcadia [6a]. The landscape of Arcadia was seen as an idyllic pastoral landscape celebrated for its unspoiled, harmonious wilderness. Can you imagine a place so serene, so lush, so majestic—stolen from you? Can you imagine the devastation left in the bandit’s wake [6b]? Can you imagine the rage? Can you hear it?
7. Monet cheated on his first wife, Camille [7a].
References
Bartolena, Simona. 2011. Monet. Prestel.
Bragg, Melvyn. 2006. In Our Time. ‘Pastoral Literature’. BBC Sounds. 41 min., 51 sec. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p003c1cs.
Giesecke, Annette. 2020. Classical Mythology A to Z: An Encyclopedia of Gods & Goddesses, Heroes & Heroines, Nymphs, Spirits, Monsters, and Places. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers.
Gifford, Terry. 1999. Pastoral. Routledge.
Williams, Raymond. 1975. The Country and the City. Paladin.
Bianca Nedin (she/her) is an Australian writer based in Naarm. She is currently undertaking her Bachelor of Creative Writing at RMIT. She dabbles in poetry that discusses family and life and is currently working on her debut fantasy novel. You can read more of her work on her Substack: https://substack.com/@biancanedin