Tony Hughes-d'Aeth

Tony Hughes-d’Aeth reviews 'The Seasons: Philosophical, literary, and environmental perspectives' edited by Luke Fischer and David Macauley

October 2021, no. 436 • 23 September 2021

There is something quaint about seasons. They do not seem to trigger the same dread that we now experience when we hear the word ‘climate’. I think this is because seasons remain connected to that time in human history during which the annual variations of climatic conditions were evidence of an underlying stability in the world and of nature’s constancy. The Seasons, a collection of essays ... (read more)

'Thinking in a regional accent: New ways of contemplating Australian writers' by Tony Hughes-d’Aeth

November 2020, no. 426 • 22 October 2020

Who would have guessed that a rejuvenation of regional difference might be triggered by a plague? Cosmopolitan Melbourne became the epicentre of what Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called the ‘Victorian wave’. Borders, the leitmotif of Australian politics since Tampa, suddenly became internal. My own state of Western Australia was sued for breach of the Australian Constitution for maintaini ... (read more)

Tony Hughes-d’Aeth reviews 'Displaced: A rural life' by John Kinsella

September 2020, no. 424 • 24 August 2020

John Kinsella tends to be a polarising figure, but his work has won many admirers both in Australia and across the world, and I find myself among these. The main knocks on Kinsella are that he writes too much, that what he does write is sprawling and ungainly, and that he tends to editorialise and evangelise. One might concede all of these criticisms, but then still be faced with what by any estim ... (read more)

Tony Hughes-d’Aeth reviews 'Taboo' by Kim Scott

August 2017, no. 393 • 25 July 2017

When a new novel from Kim Scott appears, one feels compelled to talk not only about it as a work of fiction by a leading Australian writer, but also about its cultural significance. In this sense a Kim Scott novel is an event, and Taboo does not disappoint. Scott’s novels Benang: From the heart (1999) and That Deadman Dance (2010) each won the Miles Franklin Literary Award and each dealt with a ... (read more)

Tony Hughes-d’Aeth reviews 'The Fiction of Tim Winton: Earthed and sacred' by Lyn McCredden

June-July 2017, no. 392 • 30 May 2017

Tim Winton is embarrassing to Australian literary critics. It is not that it is impossible to form adequate literary judgements about the nature of his work. It is simply that any judgements one might form seem so totally irrelevant. Winton’s work makes plain a certain disconnect between the interests and imperatives of Australian literary criticism and those of the reading public who buy each o ... (read more)