These counter-arguments stress the importance of economic development through more mainstream employment and education than appears to be the preference of most authors in this volume. While natural resource management work on country offers significant opportunities for remote living Aboriginal people and others, it also entails a dilemma, insofar as it may reduce the range of genuine choices available to people, tying them to a particular vision of the future that deserves robust analysis. Whether this is what Professor Jon Altman calls ‘market utopianism’ (Letters, March 2013) is a matter of debate, which my review seeks to encourage.

Richard J. Martin, St Lucia, Qld

Artistic antipodes

Dear Editor,

Against all advice to authors never to respond to reviews, may I respond briefly to Patrick McCaughey’s review of Cézanne: A Life (March 2013)?

I appreciate the thoughtful treatment, but some of the judgements are puzzling. It is very curious that McCaughey believes the mysteries of Cézanne’s Bathers can be solved by recourse to a passage in Zola’s novel L’Oeuvre, and even curiouser that he has missed the discussion of that very passage in the book (p. 80), where it is juxtaposed with a further flight of fancy by Joachim Gasquet. What Cézanne made of bathers, bodies, dreams, and visions – and the way all that has been fictionalised and pathologised – is one of the central themes of the work. Likewise his fabled inquiétude, another aspect of the Cézanne we think we know. ‘Danchev skilfully holds in balance what Cézanne was, what he pretended to be, and what others made of him’, as Julian Barnes put it in his review in the Times Literary Supplement (19 December 2012). May I recommend Barnes as an antidote (or perhaps an antipode) to your readers?

Alex Danchev, Nottingham, UK

Patrick McCaughey replies:

Professor Danchev is quite right: he did quote the passage from Zola in his Cézanne: A Life,and I was in error. I apologise unreservedly to him for my carelessness. In turn, he overstates my belief that ‘the mysteries of Cézanne’s Bathers can be solved by recourse’ to that celebrated passage from Zola. It is simply immensely suggestive. My admiration for much of Danchev’s Cézanne remains undimmed, and I stand by my overall judgement of the work.

No one’s perfect

Dear Editor,

When I opened the March edition of ABR I turned straight to Ruth Starke’s article on Don Dunstan and settled in to a riveting read (‘Media Don’).

I was surprised by the description of Don’s Table, which he ran after leaving politics, as a restaurant where the chef did not know what he was doing. The meal I had there was excellent, but what really sticks in my mind is the vision of Don Dunstan serving dinner rolls to his guests and lingering at each table to talk. It seemed such a humble thing to do for such a proud, visionary premier at the end of his career.

One night a couple of years ago, passing the place where the restaurant used to be, I began to write this poem, which first appeared in the Adelaide Review in 2012:

‘Meeting The Ghost Of Don Dunstan On Norwood Parade’

He slipped out of the median-strip trees,
carrying a humble bread roll
on a white china plate –
‘Here,’ he said, ‘A gift from the Shades.
You’re still dining out at my table.’

Heads turned at the sidewalk cafés,
all the fine-looking women of Norwood
sensing a presence, but still unfazed.
‘You’ve all gone back to sleep!’ Don said,
‘I wanted a renaissance, not a dormitory with malls.

I liked Pliny, Parsee eggs, and young men –
and I made a few mistakes.
No one’s perfect.
It’s necessary to break open some tombs
if you intend to raise a dead state.’

Then parrots shrieked past
flying over the red galvo roof of the grandstand.
Still holding his serving tongs, the ghost began to fade –
disappearing into the listless night
of shop signs and car lights blinking along The Parade.

Mike Ladd, Prospect, SA