BOOK REVIEW: PETER KOHN
Rocky And Gawenda: The Story Of A Man And His Mutt
By Michael Gawenda, Victory Books, Melbourne University Publishing, $24.99

WITH his trusty canine Rocky as his muse, esteemed Australian journalist Michael Gawenda has kept Crikey readers entertained from February to November this year through his blog, Rocky and Gawenda.

It has been a baby-boomer’s project -– even the title seems an allusion to that classic 1960s TV cartoon, Rocky and Bullwinkle.

The veteran former Age and Time editor now lectures in journalism and finally has enough hours on his hands for the introspective writing many journos yearn to create.

Gawenda’s blogs usually begin with his daily pre-dawn ritual of walking with Rocky along the St Kilda foreshore to watch the sunrise.

That stroll has been his gateway to mulling over, then blogging on matters small and great. His writing tugs with equal mischief at beachgoers’ G-strings and Kevin Rudd’s 2020 Summit.

Drawn together in a 287-page compilation by Victory Books/Melbourne University Publishing (MUP), at the suggestion of MUP CEO and Gawenda’s mate, Louise Adler, the blogs make a compelling read, or re-read, for anyone who loves Melbourne, or is fascinated by the Australian Condition at the end of the noughties.

Gawenda’s style is whimsical -– and tinged with a dose of boomer’s lament; there’s excitement at finally having time just to write, as distinct from reporting, editing and, as he says, taking endless meetings.

But lurking beneath the words, mixed with all this liberation, is a sense of frustration that middle age, in all its fertile productivity, is fading and it’s noteworthy that Rocky and Gawenda take in a few twilights too.

For those not familiar with his blog, don’t let his whimsy fool you -– this is more than stream-of-thought writing and, cathartic though it may be for the author, it’s just as satisfying for his readers.

Gawenda meanders seamlessly from impressions on his daily stroll -– like a small group of immigrant fishermen on St Kilda Pier -– to memories of arriving in this country from a displaced persons camp in Austria, to treasured family anecdotes of life in prewar Poland, to yarns about his parents’ inner-suburban store, and the neighbourhood he grew up in.

He traces his own and his family’s history through a succession of dogs he and they have owned, and with a good dollop of anthropomorphism tossed in, Rocky becomes both mate and muse: the dog he says will grow to old age with him.

Gawenda’s writing recipe sometimes churns out Polish dill pickled cucumbers, a personal favourite of his, or eggs smothered in tomato sauce, a staple of the Anglo conformism he craved in his youth.

He lives in both these worlds, and also within the fabric of his family -– with both his children and some colleagues -– adding commentaries along the way.

They advise actors not to appear with animals and children, but apparently it doesn’t impede writers.

If you’re into reading for the simple pleasure of the writing, make this one of your summer selections.