Novella Review: THEORY AND PRACTICE

Theory and Practice by Michelle de Kretser won the 2025 Stella Prize, the Prime Minister's Literary Award for Australia, and a finalist on the Victorian Premier's Prize for fiction. Not being Australian I had to look up all these awards to see if I could figure out an American or UK equivalent for these prizes. The Stella Prize goes to Australian women (or non-binary writers) for an original, engaging book in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. The equivalent would be The Women's Prize (UK) or the Carol Shields Prize (Canada or US). I'm not sure there is an equivalent for the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards. It goes to excellent writers from or permanently living in Australia. Victoria is one of six states in Australia but the award doesn't seem to go to only residents of that state. And the Prime Minister's Literary Award sounds like it is similar to the Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award in the US. That said, Theory and Practice cleaned up in the prize category this year in Australia. And for good reason. It is a brilliantly literary book.

So literary, in fact, I'm afraid my daughter would hate it. She told me once she didn't usually like the books I pick to read because they are so literary (said with disdain.) I asked her what she meant and she said these books seem like to try too hard to write cleverly, using fancy techniques. Hmm. Not sure about the fancy techniques in this book unless one uses the title as a big gigantic hint as to the main theme of the book: theory and practice.

The narrator of the book is a first-generation immigrant from Sri Lanka. She is living in Melbourne and is attending Grad School in English Lit. Her thesis relates to Virginia Woolf, specifically analyzing three of the author's works on feminism and the "generated self." The narrator (Does she have a name? I can't remember!) says that Woolf single-handedly saved her during her teen years. But theory is one thing especially when it comes up against real-life experiences. Calling yourself a feminist is one thing but attending a school where the professors in the department are predominantly male is a whole other thing. As the narrator reads more about Woolf she realizes if she, a Sri Lankan female with golden-brown skin and from a humble background, was to meet the author today, Woolf would dismiss her on either a racial or a classist basis, or both. Theory is one thing. But the practice of that theory is whole other thing.

I didn't especially like this novella. The narrator spent a lot of time focused on her relationship/not relationship with a man named Kit and she got all "stalker-ish" in her behavior...very unfeminist behavior, by the way. But since I finished the book a week ago I keep thinking about how brilliant the writer was sticking to her theme of theory vs practice. In fact, I keep coming up with examples from my own life. Simple stuff like believing that plastics are wrecking our environment yet I keep buying things in plastic containers. It is fine to believe a thing but so hard to practice that theory in reality.

I rated the book 3.5 stars but let's just say, with a round up, it is a 4 stars title.

Theory and Practice is 192 pages long.

 

-Anne