“The essence of pleasure is spontaneity”

Germaine Greer needs no advertisement. Writer, commentator and public intellectual, Greer has something to say on everything from race relations to animal testing, from Shakespeare to Spray ‘n’ Wipe. She has become something of a staple on Australian stages and screens of late, appearing on ABC TV’s Q&A, headlining of the F-Word Feminist Forum in Sydney in March earlier this year, and visiting our friends over at the Perth Writers Festival in February. This August, she’s coming to the Melbourne Writers Festival to talk about, among other things, the Australian language, and what our speech tells us about our place in the world.

Something of a Melbourne Writers Festival veteran, this is Greer’s third stint on our festival’s stages. She’s given the opening keynote twice before, and – yes, it bears repeating, and I will keep repeating it because this is actually important – she is the only woman to have done so. She’s a force to be reckoned with, no doubt, although despite her habit of being almost reflexively contrarian, I would like to think even one of the most strident and forthright feminists of the twentieth century would see something problematic about her being the only woman to have stood in this particular spotlight. Then again, Greer has been known to surprise us before. Indeed, part of what makes her so fascinating is her willingness to say the ‘dangerous’ thing, no matter what that dangerous thing might be. The result is that it’s very difficult to get a handle on her actual agenda, but it’s also part of her continued appeal. One is never quite sure what she’s going to say next, the only constant being that there is no constant, and thus she holds our curiosity.

Perhaps her unpredictability is part of the reason there are just as many people who find her frustrating as there are those who love her, and in many ways the vitriol directed towards her is just as interesting as her own work. Still, she isn’t afraid to take a dig at revered institutions, she is relentless in an argument and she has an undeniably entertaining habit of dropping caustic one liners that burn into the brain of target and audience alike. Louis Nowra’s infamous ‘demented grandmother’ quip pales remarkably against the long line of shut-downs she’s delivered to various opponents over the years, and I look forward to seeing her display that firecracker-wit (although hopefully more in camaraderie than conflict!) in our lovely, wintry city a couple of weeks’ time.

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There are many opportunities to catch Greer at MWF 2012. She is giving the Queen Victoria Women’s Centre Keynote Address on Speaking Australian at the Athenaeum Theatre on Thursday 30 August. She will be In Conversation with the inimitable Benjamin Law on Friday 31 August and a guest on Friday Night Live the same evening. You final chance to see her is the following afternoon, Saturday 1 September, when she’ll be talking about poetry with Martha Nussbaum, Omar Musa, Melissa Cranenburgh, John Wolseley and Ellen Koshland.