Opening Eyes

I was given these books for review just as I was finishing W.G. Sebald’s novel Austerlitz. Its combination of fictional characters, information about language, architecture and war, and visual images reminded me that reading has so many functions. We read in order to imagine, to learn, to make discoveries. My admiration for Austerlitz also put me in mind of national differences. On the cover is a photograph of a child dressed as a pageboy and holding a feathered hat. His serious gaze and self-conscious posture mark him as a product of a culture where the intellect has precedence over the physical. Pale hair and a gently rounded face indicate his European origins, but otherwise it is almost impossible to relate him to any Australian child.

The children on the covers of these How to Play handbooks also have European features, are dressed in costumes, and have the same intensity in their postures, but there the similarities end. The fictional Jacques Austerlitz learnt numbers almost as soon as he could speak. In the catalogue of first things an Australian child learns, throwing a ball rates highly, as does the wish to be a miniature Shane Warne, Liz Ellis or Nathan Buckley (footy, here, is strictly Australian Rules). The diagrams and photographs of perfect styles and heroes will help young readers to understand more about these sports. Token mention is made that boys can play netball and girls cricket and football, but there is no reference to the successes, say, of the Australian women’s cricket team or of female football umpires.