1996 (36)
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February–March 1996, no. 178 (1)
Welcome to the February–March 1996 issue of Australian Book Review.
Thérèse Radic reviews 'Playing the Past', edited by Kerry Kilner and Sue Tweg, 'The Gap' by Anna Broinowski, and 'The History of Water' by Noëlle Janaczewska
Written by Thérèse RadicKatherine Brisbane’s Currency Press is the major play-publishing house in the country and no stranger to the snap-freeze process of producing program play texts by women as well as men. The women have a fair representation in Currency’s general range, but they proliferate in the Current Theatre Series, those pre-first production texts so impossible to follow up with the writer’s post-natal reconsiderations.
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- Article Title Five plays by women
- Contents Category Theatre
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Katherine Brisbane’s Currency Press is the major play-publishing house in the country and no stranger to the snap-freeze process of producing program play texts by women as well as men. The women have a fair representation in Currency’s general range, but they proliferate in the Current Theatre Series, those pre-first production texts so impossible to follow up with the writer’s post-natal reconsiderations.
- Book Title Playing the Past
- Biblio Currency, $10 pb, 54 pp
- Author Type Editor
- Book Title 2 The History of Water
- Book Author 2 Noëlle Janaczewska
- Biblio 2 Currency, $14.95 pb, 56 pp
- Book Cover 2 Small
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'Editorial' by Helen Daniel
Written by Helen DanielIn this issue, Hugh Mackay replies to Richard Hall’s essay in last month’s issue and his reply is printed here in full, unedited, at his insistence – which was communicated to me by his lawyers. As a matter of principle, of course, ABR offers right of reply, which is indeed a regular feature of the magazine, most commonly through the letters to the editor. On this occasion, given Hugh Mackay’s insistence, ABR includes his 3,300-word reply as a special feature.
In his reply, which he calls a ‘rebuttal’, Hugh Mackay points out that The Mackay Reports are not ‘books’ and therefore wonders ‘why they got a run in ABR’. I am interested that Hugh Mackay appears puzzled that matters not in ‘book’ form should come into the domain of ABR.
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In this issue, Hugh Mackay replies to Richard Hall’s essay in last month’s issue and his reply is printed here in full, unedited, at his insistence – which was communicated to me by his lawyers. As a matter of principle, of course, ABR offers right of reply, which is indeed a regular feature of the magazine, most commonly through the letters to the editor. On this occasion, given Hugh Mackay’s insistence, ABR includes his 3,300-word reply as a special feature.
In his reply, which he calls a ‘rebuttal’, Hugh Mackay points out that The Mackay Reports are not ‘books’ and therefore wonders ‘why they got a run in ABR’. I am interested that Hugh Mackay appears puzzled that matters not in ‘book’ form should come into the domain of ABR.
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There are two reasons for celebrating this chastely elegant slim volume. One is the arrival of a publisher prepared, when major firms are retreating from the field, to declare that poetry is central to a flourishing literary culture, and to match that declaration by commitment to a new series, Brandl & Schlesinger Poetry. The other is the appearance of a new and striking collection from that fine poet Rhyll McMaster.
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- Article Title Married to Matter, Inexorably
- Contents Category Poetry
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There are two reasons for celebrating this chastely elegant slim volume. One is the arrival of a publisher prepared, when major firms are retreating from the field, to declare that poetry is central to a flourishing literary culture, and to match that declaration by commitment to a new series, Brandl & Schlesinger Poetry. The other is the appearance of a new and striking collection from that fine poet Rhyll McMaster.
- Book Title Chemical Bodies
- Biblio Brandl & Schlesinger, $16.95pb, 75pp
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Not another novel about heroin, you might ask. You might as well say, not another novel about addiction to anything, including love or death. Luke Davies’ novel risks being seen to jump on the bandwagon of relevance, or grunge, or whatever turns you off. But this a good book, a true book, which left me feeling sad for some days, not a bad thing in these times of numbing busyness in which many of us seem to be trapped.
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- Article Title Addictive Genre
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Not another novel about heroin, you might ask. You might as well say, not another novel about addiction to anything, including love or death. Luke Davies’ novel risks being seen to jump on the bandwagon of relevance, or grunge, or whatever turns you off. But this a good book, a true book, which left me feeling sad for some days, not a bad thing in these times of numbing busyness in which many of us seem to be trapped.
- Book Title Candy
- Biblio Allen & Unwin $16.95 pb, 286 pp
- Author Type Author
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Hayden: An autobiography is a fine book – one of the best political memoirs written by an Australian. It’s also a valuable historical work by a former politician who, thank God, doesn’t take himself too seriously.
Bill Hayden clearly made good use of his time as governor–general (1989–96) to undertake extensive research. In the acknowledgments section, the author gives generous thanks to librarians and archivists who assisted his endeavours. But it is clear that much of the detailed work was undertaken by Hayden himself.
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- Article Title Hayden’s Memoirs
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Hayden: An autobiography is a fine book – one of the best political memoirs written by an Australian. It’s also a valuable historical work by a former politician who, thank God, doesn’t take himself too seriously.
Bill Hayden clearly made good use of his time as governor–general (1989–96) to undertake extensive research. In the acknowledgments section, the author gives generous thanks to librarians and archivists who assisted his endeavours. But it is clear that much of the detailed work was undertaken by Hayden himself.
- Book Title Hayden
- Book Subtitle An autobiography
- Biblio HarperCollins $39.95 hb, 610 pp
- Author Type Author
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Almost at the end of his very long biography, Tom Roberts, Humphrey McQueen wonders why – if Australian landscape painting had so much need of a father – ‘no-one thought to install Margaret Preston as the mother’ of the genre? He has a suggestive answer to a question which needed to be posed:
That landscape art should seek a father when our culture describes nature and the earth as mothers is not a contradiction. We distinguish the given as feminine from the created as masculine. Nurturing is perceived as a passive bearing whereas men transform nature by their activities, whether ringbarking or painting.
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Almost at the end of his very long biography, Tom Roberts, Humphrey McQueen wonders why – if Australian landscape painting had so much need of a father – ‘no-one thought to install Margaret Preston as the mother’ of the genre? He has a suggestive answer to a question which needed to be posed:
- Book Title Tom Roberts
- Biblio Macmillan, $60.00 hb, 784 pp
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Garry Disher: The Sunken Road is a so-called literary novel. I find that I’m a bit typecast, Garry Disher the crime writer or Garry Disher the children’s writer. A lot of the fiction I’ve written is so-called more literary in nature. This is my big book, up to date, if you like. It’s a novel set in the wheat and wool country in the mid-north of South Australia where I grew up. It’s a story of the region and of a family and of a main character called Anna Tolley. I tell this story in a series of biographical fragments around a theme like Christmas, or love, or hate, or birthdays. And each fragment takes a character from childhood to old age. And I repeat this pattern right through the book and certain secrets are revealed or come to the surface through this repetition. So at that level I suppose it’s a linear story, but the structure’s not all that linear. In terms of structure it’s an advance for me, or an experiment.
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- Article Title Extract from an interview with Garry Disher
- Subheading Extract from an interview with Garry Disher
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Garry Disher: The Sunken Road is a so-called literary novel. I find that I’m a bit typecast, Garry Disher the crime writer or Garry Disher the children’s writer. A lot of the fiction I’ve written is so-called more literary in nature. This is my big book, up to date, if you like. It’s a novel set in the wheat and wool country in the mid-north of South Australia where I grew up. It’s a story of the region and of a family and of a main character called Anna Tolley. I tell this story in a series of biographical fragments around a theme like Christmas, or love, or hate, or birthdays. And each fragment takes a character from childhood to old age. And I repeat this pattern right through the book and certain secrets are revealed or come to the surface through this repetition. So at that level I suppose it’s a linear story, but the structure’s not all that linear. In terms of structure it’s an advance for me, or an experiment.
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The Truth Teller is a novel about a man hiding from himself. Told with pith and passion by Margaret Simons, it chronicles the career of journalist, Simon Spence. Spence lives in an exterior world. He hides behind facts and what he understands to be the truth. But Spence’s truth is a public one, not private. His private truth lurks far beneath the surface, suppressed by the very nature of the journalist’s ‘truth telling’ work. Simons writes about a world she knows, as a former journalist on The Australian. Her crisp writing style is ideal for the ambiguity of the subject. With razor-sharp words Simons sends messages that are as soft and blurred as clouds. She conveys the subterranean urges of the soul (‘the earthworm heart of a man’) as concisely as the fast-paced media world that buries it.
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The Truth Teller is a novel about a man hiding from himself. Told with pith and passion by Margaret Simons, it chronicles the career of journalist, Simon Spence. Spence lives in an exterior world. He hides behind facts and what he understands to be the truth. But Spence’s truth is a public one, not private. His private truth lurks far beneath the surface, suppressed by the very nature of the journalist’s ‘truth telling’ work. Simons writes about a world she knows, as a former journalist on The Australian. Her crisp writing style is ideal for the ambiguity of the subject. With razor-sharp words Simons sends messages that are as soft and blurred as clouds. She conveys the subterranean urges of the soul (‘the earthworm heart of a man’) as concisely as the fast-paced media world that buries it.
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Geoffrey Bolton reviews 'Hunters and Collectors: The antiquarian imagination in Australia' by Tom Griffiths
Written by Geoffrey BoltonSix weeks after the First Fleet sailed for New South Wales Edward Gibbon completed The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Probably the finest example of the Western tradition of history as chronological and sequential, Gibbon’s work provided the Europe of his time with a panoramic background against which the achievements of modern civilization could be measured.
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- Article Title Trafficking in the Past
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Six weeks after the First Fleet sailed for New South Wales Edward Gibbon completed The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Probably the finest example of the Western tradition of history as chronological and sequential, Gibbon’s work provided the Europe of his time with a panoramic background against which the achievements of modern civilization could be measured.
- Book Title Hunters and Collectors
- Book Subtitle The antiquarian imagination in Australia
- Biblio Cambridge University Press, $34.95 pb, 416 pp
- Author Type Author
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Ramona Koval talks to Helen Garner about True Stories, a collection of her non-fiction work over twenty-five years.
Ramona Koval: I would like to begin by talking about the differences between writing fiction and non-fiction. You write about birth and youth, sex, illness, death, sisters ... the big things in life. How does that differ for writing fiction and non-fiction, if at all?
Helen Garner: I find that the subjects for non-fiction that I write about seem to present themselves from outside myself, whereas the fictional ones are much more some little thing that’s been worming away at me that I’ve become conscious of. The fiction kind of worms its way out and the non-fiction worms its way in, I suppose you could say it that way.
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Ramona Koval: I would like to begin by talking about the differences between writing fiction and non-fiction. You write about birth and youth, sex, illness, death, sisters ... the big things in life. How does that differ for writing fiction and non-fiction, if at all?
Helen Garner: I find that the subjects for non-fiction that I write about seem to present themselves from outside myself, whereas the fictional ones are much more some little thing that’s been worming away at me that I’ve become conscious of. The fiction kind of worms its way out and the non-fiction worms its way in, I suppose you could say it that way.
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Adam Shoemaker reviews 'In the Age of Mabo: History, Aborigines and Australia' edited by Bain Attwood
Written by Adam ShoemakerSome of Australia’s most cogent historical analyses grow out of particular social moments: the close of World War II, the accession (and dismissal) of the Whitlam government, the bicentennial celebrations and protests of 1988. The High Court’s Mabo decision of June 1992 is just such a moment and it is no surprise to find another book which focuses on the aftermath of that landmark decision. Interestingly, In the Age of Mabo is also just as strongly the product of a certain time and political space: the 1991–96 prime ministership of Paul Keating. It is this framework which gives this varied collection of essays its sense of historical occasion; it is also this political underpinning which renders at least one of the contributions nearly obsolete.
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Some of Australia’s most cogent historical analyses grow out of particular social moments: the close of World War II, the accession (and dismissal) of the Whitlam government, the bicentennial celebrations and protests of 1988. The High Court’s Mabo decision of June 1992 is just such a moment and it is no surprise to find another book which focuses on the aftermath of that landmark decision. Interestingly, In the Age of Mabo is also just as strongly the product of a certain time and political space: the 1991–96 prime ministership of Paul Keating. It is this framework which gives this varied collection of essays its sense of historical occasion; it is also this political underpinning which renders at least one of the contributions nearly obsolete.
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This is not another ‘slim volume’ of poetry; no way would it fit in a coat pocket. Ten years in the writing, weighing in at 740 pages, it is a brick of a book – well-bound paperback, heavy covers, designed to last. The poet had full say over not only the content, but the design, typesetting and production, resulting in a book unlike any produced under the nervous economic dictates of mainstream publishers. Six turned this manuscript down. Unsurprised, p.O. published it himself.
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- Contents Category Poetry
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This is not another ‘slim volume’ of poetry; no way would it fit in a coat pocket. Ten years in the writing, weighing in at 740 pages, it is a brick of a book – well-bound paperback, heavy covers, designed to last. The poet had full say over not only the content, but the design, typesetting and production, resulting in a book unlike any produced under the nervous economic dictates of mainstream publishers. Six turned this manuscript down. Unsurprised, p.O. published it himself.
- Book Title 24 Hours
- Biblio Collective Effort Press, $45 pb, 740 pp
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Ivor Indyk reviews 'Whisper Dark' by Karen Attard, 'Zoetrope' by M.T.C. Cronin, 'Hair & Skin & Teeth' by Lisa Jacobson, 'Rhythm in a dorsal fin' by Peter Minter, 'Ultimately female' by Sue L. Nicholls, and 'Bitter Suite' by Mark Reid
Written by Ivor IndykThese six poetry titles represent the third series of New Poets to be published by Five Islands Press. Each title runs to exactly thirty two pages – no more, no less. It is, in a sense, a mini-collection, or a semi-collection, midway between a reading and a book. The series as a whole is therefore like a showcase of new talent – you applaud some of the poems, and get impatient with others, much as you do with the poets themselves. This is a good thing – it presents poetry as the provisional affair it really is, most of the time, for poet and reader alike.
This provisional air should not be allowed to detract from the fact that there are real and sophisticated talents to be found in these series. The poets are ‘new’ only in the sense that they haven’t had a collection before: it’s not as if they all started writing last week. Peter Boyle’s Coming Home from the World, published in the second series, shared the NBC Banjo Award for poetry, and won the NSW Premier’s Literary Award. There are assured and experienced voices in this series too; and to give the idea of ‘new poets’ its due, there are also poems so full of energy and intensity, that they threaten to burst off the page.
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- Article Title Ivor Indyk reviews poetry by Karen Attard, M.T.C. Cronin, Lisa Jacobson, Peter Minter, Sue L. Nicholls, and Mark Reid
- Custom Article Title Ivor Indyk reviews poetry by Karen Attard, M.T.C. Cronin, Lisa Jacobson, Peter Minter, Sue L. Nicholls, and Mark Reid
- Contents Category Poetry
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These six poetry titles represent the third series of New Poets to be published by Five Islands Press. Each title runs to exactly thirty two pages – no more, no less. It is, in a sense, a mini-collection, or a semi-collection, midway between a reading and a book. The series as a whole is therefore like a showcase of new talent – you applaud some of the poems, and get impatient with others, much as you do with the poets themselves. This is a good thing – it presents poetry as the provisional affair it really is, most of the time, for poet and reader alike.
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Near the end of a candid 1966 documentary portrait of Pier Paolo Pasolini shot in 1966 (and shown last year on SBS), the French critic Jean-André Fieschi casually asks the Italian director whether art is for his a ‘matter of life and death’. Pasolini – who up to this point has been discoursing urbanely on class, culture, cinema and language like a true public intellectual – is floored by the question. ‘This changes the whole basis of our discussion,’ he declares, and goes on to confess that everything he has previously said is a mere mask hiding his actual, primal, angst-ridden feelings about life, death and survival. Unmasked as a trembling existentialist, Pasolini announces that the interview is over. And there Fieschi’s film abruptly ends.
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- Contents Category Film
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Near the end of a candid 1966 documentary portrait of Pier Paolo Pasolini shot in 1966 (and shown last year on SBS), the French critic Jean-André Fieschi casually asks the Italian director whether art is for his a ‘matter of life and death’. Pasolini – who up to this point has been discoursing urbanely on class, culture, cinema and language like a true public intellectual – is floored by the question. ‘This changes the whole basis of our discussion,’ he declares, and goes on to confess that everything he has previously said is a mere mask hiding his actual, primal, angst-ridden feelings about life, death and survival. Unmasked as a trembling existentialist, Pasolini announces that the interview is over. And there Fieschi’s film abruptly ends.
- Book Title The Passion of Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Biblio British Film Institute & Indiana, £14.99, 230 pp
- Author Type Author
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