Welcome to the December 2003–January 2004 issue of Australian Book Review!
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Contents Category: Fiction
Custom Article Title: James Ley reviews 'Vernon God Little' by D.B.C. Pierre
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‘The fucken oozing nakedness, the despair of being such a vulnerable egg-sac of a critter, like, a so-called human being, just sickens me sometimes, especially right now. The Human Condition Mom calls it. Watch out for that fucker.’
The speaker of these lines, fifteen-year-old Vernon Little, is a literary descendant of Huckleberry Finn.
Book 1 Title: Vernon God Little
Book Author: D.B.C. Pierre
Book 1 Biblio: Faber, $29.95 pb, 279 pp, 0571216420
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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‘The fucken oozing nakedness, the despair of being such a vulnerable egg-sac of a critter, like, a so-called human being, just sickens me sometimes, especially right now. The Human Condition Mom calls it. Watch out for that fucker.’
The speaker of these lines, fifteen-year-old Vernon Little, is a literary descendant of Huckleberry Finn. Like Huck, Vernon narrates his story in his own idiosyncratic vernacular, complete with dodgy grammar and malapropisms. As a comic monologue, Vernon God Little is not quite in the same league as Twain’s masterpiece, but much of its appeal springs from the quality of Vernon’s voice, his flashes of insightful cynicism, his erratic flair for metaphor, his crude puns, and the energetic discontent with which he interprets the world. Vernon has a foul mouth and one of the most flagrant cases of anal-fixation in all of literature, but he remains likeable, primarily because he manages to reveal – to the reader, if no one else – that beneath his prickly exterior he is insecure and vulnerable.
He sang of old coins buried beneath the dunes, to the north of the island, near the old artillery battery. For forty years he rowed for mullet north, and south, where the war epic motion picture was shot recently.
To the north of the island, near the old artillery battery we played hide and seek as kids in acres of bladey-grass. Where the war epic motion picture was shot recently no one was allowed within a thousand metres.
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He sang of old coins buried beneath the dunes, to the north of the island, near the old artillery battery. For forty years he rowed for mullet north, and south, where the war epic motion picture was shot recently.
Richard Freadman’s first work intended for a non-academic readership is, in his own words, ‘the Son’s Book of the Father’ and thus belongs to a venerable genre. Freadman, whose contribution to our understanding of autobiography has been acute, is well qualified to draw on this tradition in portraying his own father and analysing their relationship. Along the way, he discusses memoirists such as John Stuart Mill, Edmund Gosse and Henry James.
Shadow of Doubt: My Father and Myself can’t have been an easy book to write. Few family memoirs are, if their authors are honest about their families and themselves. Freadman knows that autobiography is a ‘chancy recollective escapade’. ‘My father,’ he writes, ‘was an extremely, an impressively complex man, and there is no single “key” to a life like this.’
Book 1 Title: Shadow of Doubt
Book 1 Subtitle: My Father and Myself
Book Author: Richard Freadman
Book 1 Biblio: Bystander Press, $24.95 pb, 208 pp
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Richard Freadman’s first work intended for a non-academic readership is, in his own words, ‘the Son’s Book of the Father’ and thus belongs to a venerable genre. Freadman, whose contribution to our understanding of autobiography has been acute, is well qualified to draw on this tradition in portraying his own father and analysing their relationship. Along the way, he discusses memoirists such as John Stuart Mill, Edmund Gosse and Henry James.
Shadow of Doubt: My Father and Myself can’t have been an easy book to write. Few family memoirs are, if their authors are honest about their families and themselves. Freadman knows that autobiography is a ‘chancy recollective escapade’. ‘My father,’ he writes, ‘was an extremely, an impressively complex man, and there is no single “key” to a life like this.’
In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language. In the preface, he laments the chaotic state of the language: ‘When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetic without rules; wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled and confusion to be regulated.’ He despaired at the scope and futility of his task:
Book 1 Title: Death Sentence
Book 1 Subtitle: The decay of public language
Book Author: Don Watson
Book 1 Biblio: Knopf, $29.95 hb, 198 pp
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In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language. In the preface, he laments the chaotic state of the language: ‘When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetic without rules; wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled and confusion to be regulated.’ He despaired at the scope and futility of his task:
George Orwell, born in 1903, was the child of a British Empire civil service family with long Burmese connections, which belonged, as he put it with characteristic precision and drollery, to the lower upper middle class. By the time he went to fight against fascism in Spain in 1936, he had already quit his job in the Burmese colonial police, attempted to drop out of the English class system, and become a writer and a socialist of a notably independent, indeed idiosyncratic, kind.
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George Orwell, born in 1903, was the child of a British Empire civil service family with long Burmese connections, which belonged, as he put it with characteristic precision and drollery, to the lower upper middle class. By the time he went to fight against fascism in Spain in 1936, he had already quit his job in the Burmese colonial police, attempted to drop out of the English class system, and become a writer and a socialist of a notably independent, indeed idiosyncratic, kind.
I have not read Elliot Perlman’s new novel, but I was startled by the bilious tone of Peter Craven’s review (ABR, November 2003). It seems to me that whatever critical flaws the book may have could have been elaborated without applying the blowtorch as intensely and personally as Craven did. If Seven Types of Ambiguity was a polemic, Craven’s rodomontade might have been perfectly appropriate, but I thought that he was unfairly harsh. From my impressions, the book is ambitious and no doubt cost Perlman many buckets of sweat and blood to write. Is it not better to encourage literary ambition than to crush it, even when it, in Craven’s estimation, does not succeed?
Hugh Dillon, Drummoyne, NSW
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Unambiguous rodomontade
Dear Editor,
I have not read Elliot Perlman’s new novel, but I was startled by the bilious tone of Peter Craven’s review (ABR, November 2003). It seems to me that whatever critical flaws the book may have could have been elaborated without applying the blowtorch as intensely and personally as Craven did. If Seven Types of Ambiguity was a polemic, Craven’s rodomontade might have been perfectly appropriate, but I thought that he was unfairly harsh. From my impressions, the book is ambitious and no doubt cost Perlman many buckets of sweat and blood to write. Is it not better to encourage literary ambition than to crush it, even when it, in Craven’s estimation, does not succeed?
George Orwell must be spinning in his grave. Aghast at the use of his name to inspire any political crusade or bandwagon, the ardent advocate against the use of language to spin an alternative reality is forever being used to bolster the armory of political activists around the world.
Should Orwell be allowed to rest? Simon Crean’s speechwriter, the cerebral Dennis Glover, evidently thinks not. One hundred years after Orwell’s birth, Glover has recruited the socialist contrarian, novelist and essayist to his cause. In Orwell’s Australia: From Cold War to Culture Wars, Glover invokes Orwell’s legacy to rail not against the decline of the English language and the use of words to say one thing while meaning another, as is often the case, but rather to lament the state of modern Australia and the lost dream of a ‘social democracy without ideology’. Just like Orwell in the first half of the twentieth century, Glover sees a bleak future characterised by ‘the disappearance, under the pressure of coming wars, of a whole way of life, and its replacement with something shallower, nastier, prefabricated, more ideological and more politically and socially divided’ – in other words, John Howard and conservative hegemony enveloping the Australian way of life.
Book 1 Title: Orwell's Australia
Book 1 Subtitle: From cold war to culture wars
Book Author: Dennis Glover
Book 1 Biblio: Scribe, $19.95 pb, 145 pp
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George Orwell must be spinning in his grave. Aghast at the use of his name to inspire any political crusade or bandwagon, the ardent advocate against the use of language to spin an alternative reality is forever being used to bolster the armory of political activists around the world.
Should Orwell be allowed to rest? Simon Crean’s speechwriter, the cerebral Dennis Glover, evidently thinks not. One hundred years after Orwell’s birth, Glover has recruited the socialist contrarian, novelist and essayist to his cause. In Orwell’s Australia: From Cold War to Culture Wars, Glover invokes Orwell’s legacy to rail not against the decline of the English language and the use of words to say one thing while meaning another, as is often the case, but rather to lament the state of modern Australia and the lost dream of a ‘social democracy without ideology’. Just like Orwell in the first half of the twentieth century, Glover sees a bleak future characterised by ‘the disappearance, under the pressure of coming wars, of a whole way of life, and its replacement with something shallower, nastier, prefabricated, more ideological and more politically and socially divided’ – in other words, John Howard and conservative hegemony enveloping the Australian way of life.
Born in Perth, I came as a boy to think of myself as a Yorkist: my summer holidays were often spent in that glittering town, and the first sound I can remember is the intransigent call of crows over the road there from the city. For entirely good reasons, the place is almost a myth to me.
In deeper and more complex ways, that territory is mythic to John Kinsella. His Peripheral Light would look very different, and much the poorer, if it were possible to subtract the mythic dimension from this book. Reading his ‘Wheatbelt Gothic or Discovering a Wyeth’, I am reminded of an essay of Guy Davenport’s in The Geography of the Imagination, in which he details how indebted Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’ is to mythological motifs, and how thoroughly Wood has subsumed them. Kinsella, at his best, seems to me equally adept at living with imaginative indebtedness and at parlaying it into an asset.
Book 1 Title: Peripheral Light
Book 1 Subtitle: Selected and New Poems
Book Author: John Kinsella
Book 1 Biblio: FACP, $24.95 pb, 224 pp
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Born in Perth, I came as a boy to think of myself as a Yorkist: my summer holidays were often spent in that glittering town, and the first sound I can remember is the intransigent call of crows over the road there from the city. For entirely good reasons, the place is almost a myth to me.
In deeper and more complex ways, that territory is mythic to John Kinsella. His Peripheral Light would look very different, and much the poorer, if it were possible to subtract the mythic dimension from this book. Reading his ‘Wheatbelt Gothic or Discovering a Wyeth’, I am reminded of an essay of Guy Davenport’s in The Geography of the Imagination, in which he details how indebted Grant Wood’s ‘American Gothic’ is to mythological motifs, and how thoroughly Wood has subsumed them. Kinsella, at his best, seems to me equally adept at living with imaginative indebtedness and at parlaying it into an asset.
Clare Wright’s Beyond the Ladies Lounge, a history of Australia’s female publicans, has been engulfed in a haze of marketing. Rarely has a thesis-turned-book attracted so much publicity. This book has been brilliantly promoted and has excited media attention.
Female publicans: it’s a great subject. Wright turns the spotlight on Australian pub culture and discovers women not just serving behind the bars but running the hotels. Apparently, this has always been the case. Her research reveals that as many as thirty per cent of Melbourne’s city and suburban hotels were licensed to women by 1889, and more than half a few decades later. Her work, therefore, upends both the view of the pub as a male stronghold and the contention that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries women had almost no self-employment opportunities. It also complicates the notion of separate spheres deployed by many gender historians as an analytical tool, where women are confined to the private sphere while men venture into the public domain.
Book 1 Title: Beyond the Ladies Lounge
Book 1 Subtitle: Australia's female publicans
Book Author: Clare Wright
Book 1 Biblio: MUP, $34.95 pb, 240 pp
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Clare Wright’s Beyond the Ladies Lounge, a history of Australia’s female publicans, has been engulfed in a haze of marketing. Rarely has a thesis-turned-book attracted so much publicity. This book has been brilliantly promoted and has excited media attention.
Female publicans: it’s a great subject. Wright turns the spotlight on Australian pub culture and discovers women not just serving behind the bars but running the hotels. Apparently, this has always been the case. Her research reveals that as many as thirty per cent of Melbourne’s city and suburban hotels were licensed to women by 1889, and more than half a few decades later. Her work, therefore, upends both the view of the pub as a male stronghold and the contention that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries women had almost no self-employment opportunities. It also complicates the notion of separate spheres deployed by many gender historians as an analytical tool, where women are confined to the private sphere while men venture into the public domain.
In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language. In the preface, he laments the chaotic state of the language: ‘When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules; wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled and confusion to be regulated.’ He despaired at the scope and futility of his task:
Among these happy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths, through which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.
Book 1 Title: Death Sentence
Book 1 Subtitle: The decay of public language
Book Author: Don Watson
Book 1 Biblio: Knopf, $29.95 hb, 198 pp
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In 1755 Samuel Johnson published his Dictionary of the English Language. In the preface, he laments the chaotic state of the language: ‘When I took the first survey of my undertaking, I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules; wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled and confusion to be regulated.’ He despaired at the scope and futility of his task:
Among these happy mortals is the writer of dictionaries; whom mankind have considered, not as the pupil but the slave of science, the pioneer of literature, doomed only to remove rubbish and clear obstructions from the paths, through which Learning and Genius press forward to conquest and glory, without bestowing a smile on the humble drudge that facilitates their progress. Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.
Greg Barns shares with Pauline Hanson the distinction of having been disendorsed as a candidate by the Liberal Party. Hanson was deselected in 1996 on the grounds of racist remarks; Barns was removed in 2002 for protesting against the ruthless policies of the Liberal government towards sea-going asylum seekers. This is perhaps a measure of the trajectory of the Liberal Party under John Howard, which provides the central theme of Barns’s study, What’s Wrong with the Liberal Party?
Book 1 Title: What’s Wrong With The Liberal Party?
Book Author: Greg Barns
Book 1 Biblio: CUP, $29.95 pb, 168 pp
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Greg Barns shares with Pauline Hanson the distinction of having been disendorsed as a candidate by the Liberal Party. Hanson was deselected in 1996 on the grounds of racist remarks; Barns was removed in 2002 for protesting against the ruthless policies of the Liberal government towards sea-going asylum seekers. This is perhaps a measure of the trajectory of the Liberal Party under John Howard, which provides the central theme of Barns’s study, What’s Wrong with the Liberal Party?
Taboo – or not taboo? That is the question you soon start asking yourself if you bother with the text of this book and its purported revelations on the subject of ‘male beauty’. It is a stimulating question, but you end up wondering if the publishers, at least, mean you to go to such bother when they’ve hardly gone to any themselves, in the way of editing, to ensure some cogency in their celebrity author’s arguments. There’s little here, in fact, that you could call argument, in the sense of a coherent succession of reasoned propositions: nothing so solid or stable to argue against; nothing so stolid or boring. When not beguiled by the next image of upwardly nubile flesh, sumptuously reproduced from the work of the world’s great visual artists, you’re more at risk of being left stupefied by the next authorial assertion. Oh, yes, it will be provocative, but the provocation often lies in its brazen countering of the assertions that have preceded it. Silly you for craving consistency.
Book 1 Title: The Boy
Book Author: Germaine Greer
Book 1 Biblio: Thames & Hudson, $90hb, 256pp
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Taboo – or not taboo? That is the question you soon start asking yourself if you bother with the text of this book and its purported revelations on the subject of ‘male beauty’. It is a stimulating question, but you end up wondering if the publishers, at least, mean you to go to such bother when they’ve hardly gone to any themselves, in the way of editing, to ensure some cogency in their celebrity author’s arguments. There’s little here, in fact, that you could call argument, in the sense of a coherent succession of reasoned propositions: nothing so solid or stable to argue against; nothing so stolid or boring. When not beguiled by the next image of upwardly nubile flesh, sumptuously reproduced from the work of the world’s great visual artists, you’re more at risk of being left stupefied by the next authorial assertion. Oh, yes, it will be provocative, but the provocation often lies in its brazen countering of the assertions that have preceded it. Silly you for craving consistency.
The nexus between ABR and La Trobe University has always been strong, and our summer issue is a good example of this, with a long essay on George Orwell’s enduring influence by Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at La Trobe University (pictured in the next column with Professor Michael Osborne, Vice-Chancellor (centre), and Peter Rose, Editor of ABR). Two years ago, La Trobe University became ABR’s chief sponsor, an arrangement that has had immense intellectual and other benefits for the magazine. The partnership grows stronger all the time, and we were delighted when the university renewed its sponsorship last month. Full de-tails of the 2004 La Trobe University/Australian Book Review Annual Lecture, and other collaborative events, will follow in due course.
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The nexus between ABR and La Trobe University has always been strong, and our summer issue is a good example of this, with a long essay on George Orwell’s enduring influence by Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at La Trobe University (pictured in the next column with Professor Michael Osborne, Vice-Chancellor (centre), and Peter Rose, Editor of ABR). Two years ago, La Trobe University became ABR’s chief sponsor, an arrangement that has had immense intellectual and other benefits for the magazine. The partnership grows stronger all the time, and we were delighted when the university renewed its sponsorship last month. Full de-tails of the 2004 La Trobe University/Australian Book Review Annual Lecture, and other collaborative events, will follow in due course.
Patrick Lindsay’s Back from the Dead, one of the first books published on the Bali bombing, is primarily an evocation of the inferno and its aftermath, through the eyes of those who survived it. There is ‘Peter’s story’ (the author’s central focus), ‘Nashie’s story’, ‘Col’s story’ and so on, all interpolated with extensive quotes, mostly from the victims of the blast. Despite the painfully vernacular tone of the early chapters, this book is a good primer on the terrorist attack and its consequences.
Book 1 Title: Back from the Dead
Book 1 Subtitle: Peter Hughes’ story of survival and hope after Bali
Book Author: Patrick Lindsay
Book 1 Biblio: Random House, $29.95 pb, 259 pp
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Patrick Lindsay’s Back from the Dead, one of the first books published on the Bali bombing, is primarily an evocation of the inferno and its aftermath, through the eyes of those who survived it. There is ‘Peter’s story’ (the author’s central focus), ‘Nashie’s story’, ‘Col’s story’ and so on, all interpolated with extensive quotes, mostly from the victims of the blast. Despite the painfully vernacular tone of the early chapters, this book is a good primer on the terrorist attack and its consequences.
Was there ever an uglier duckling than Australian republicanism? It’s a movement whose end is vital to anyone who believes that a people should attempt to extend the control over their own destiny, but which, of itself, fails to inspire the slightest excitement in anyone for whom politics is a living, breathing thing. Even more suspicious are those for whom republicanism is an exciting cause. They’re a strange mob, often decent and committed people, but able to subsist on a fairly thin diet. Because so many of them are lawyers, they are always on the ball when it comes to saying how the Constitution should be changed and what new mechanism should be put in place. Because so many of them are lawyers, the movement is efficient and well run. And because so many of them are lawyers, no one else trusts them or feels comfortable working with them.
Book 1 Title: Australian Republicanism
Book 1 Subtitle: A reader
Book Author: Mark McKenna and Wayne Hudson
Book 1 Biblio: MUP, $39.95 pb, 301 pp
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Was there ever an uglier duckling than Australian republicanism? It’s a movement whose end is vital to anyone who believes that a people should attempt to extend the control over their own destiny, but which, of itself, fails to inspire the slightest excitement in anyone for whom politics is a living, breathing thing. Even more suspicious are those for whom republicanism is an exciting cause. They’re a strange mob, often decent and committed people, but able to subsist on a fairly thin diet. Because so many of them are lawyers, they are always on the ball when it comes to saying how the Constitution should be changed and what new mechanism should be put in place. Because so many of them are lawyers, the movement is efficient and well run. And because so many of them are lawyers, no one else trusts them or feels comfortable working with them.
An appreciation of Goya, contends Robert Hughes, has become essential for Europeans wishing to make themselves literate in their own culture. Goya’s significance is heightened because his works are arguments for humanity, to be balanced against the horrors he depicted. Goya (1746–1828) indeed remains our contemporary. His life, his imagery and his dilemmas resonate at a time when countries are being invaded for their own good, as Europe was by Napoleon, provoking the first guerillas.
Book 1 Title: Goya
Book Author: Robert Hughes
Book 1 Biblio: Harvill Press, $69.95 hb, 439 pp
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An appreciation of Goya, contends Robert Hughes, has become essential for Europeans wishing to make themselves literate in their own culture. Goya’s significance is heightened because his works are arguments for humanity, to be balanced against the horrors he depicted. Goya (1746–1828) indeed remains our contemporary. His life, his imagery and his dilemmas resonate at a time when countries are being invaded for their own good, as Europe was by Napoleon, provoking the first guerillas.
In 1972, at the start of my career as a science journalist, I was asked to produce the Commonwealth Day documentary, a portrait of the spectacular Anglo Australian Telescope being built on Siding Spring Mountain. Together with the Australian National University, an independent board was driving the telescope project. I set off to Canberra to interview the infamous Olin Eggen, then director of Mount Stromlo.
Book 1 Title: Stromlo
Book 1 Subtitle: An Australian observatory
Book Author: Tom Frame and Don Faulkner
Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin, $35 pb, 378 pp
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In 1972, at the start of my career as a science journalist, I was asked to produce the Commonwealth Day documentary, a portrait of the spectacular Anglo Australian Telescope being built on Siding Spring Mountain. Together with the Australian National University, an independent board was driving the telescope project. I set off to Canberra to interview the infamous Olin Eggen, then director of Mount Stromlo.
The heroine of Julian Davies’s fifth novel, The Boy, which is set in New York in 1956, is a nightclub singer originally from Australia. The boy of the title, almost half her age, is Zimzam Taylor. They are both outsiders. Marian’s life in New York is a kind of exile, in which she is closest to those she has left behind, such as her painter-husband André and her insistent, disapproving aunt Flavia, whom she left behind on the estate outside Canberra in order to sing in wartime London. Zimzam, as she learns when she picks him up and takes him back to her hotel, is an orphan whose family died in a fire. Now he is a creature of the city:
Book 1 Title: The Boy
Book Author: Julian Davies
Book 1 Biblio: Text, $24.95hb, 222pp
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The heroine of Julian Davies’s fifth novel, The Boy, which is set in New York in 1956, is a nightclub singer originally from Australia. The boy of the title, almost half her age, is Zimzam Taylor. They are both outsiders. Marian’s life in New York is a kind of exile, in which she is closest to those she has left behind, such as her painter-husband André and her insistent, disapproving aunt Flavia, whom she left behind on the estate outside Canberra in order to sing in wartime London. Zimzam, as she learns when she picks him up and takes him back to her hotel, is an orphan whose family died in a fire. Now he is a creature of the city:
Cresciani’s very readable revised edition of The Italians is particularly informative on the early history of Italo-Australia. First published in 1985 with ABC Enterprises, based on the excellent television series of the same name, this new edition promises to provide ‘the definitive account’ of Italian life in Australia ‘into the twenty-first century’. Cresciani’s treatment of certain aspects of Italian migration to Australia is worthy of such a bold claim. He is especially good at weaving together the histories of both countries to provide an instructive account of how the vicissitudes of one indelibly affected the other. His treatment of contemporary immigrant life, however, is rather dated.
Book 1 Title: The Italians in Australia
Book Author: Gianfranco Cresciani
Book 1 Biblio: CUP, $37.95 pb, 208 pp
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Cresciani’s very readable revised edition of The Italians is particularly informative on the early history of Italo-Australia. First published in 1985 with ABC Enterprises, based on the excellent television series of the same name, this new edition promises to provide ‘the definitive account’ of Italian life in Australia ‘into the twenty-first century’. Cresciani’s treatment of certain aspects of Italian migration to Australia is worthy of such a bold claim. He is especially good at weaving together the histories of both countries to provide an instructive account of how the vicissitudes of one indelibly affected the other. His treatment of contemporary immigrant life, however, is rather dated.
Peter Craven calls up an echo of W.B. Yeats’s ‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’ at the conclusion of his introduction to Germaine Greer’s highly charged and instantly controversial essay Whitefella Jump Up. ‘It is an essay about sitting down and thinking where all the politics start,’ he writes.
Book 1 Title: Whitefella Jump Up
Book 1 Subtitle: The shortest way to nationhood (Quarterly Essay 11)
Book Author: Germaine Greer
Book 1 Biblio: Black Inc., $12.95pb, 120pp
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Book 2 Title: Made In England
Book 2 Subtitle: Australia’s British inheritance (Quarterly Essay 12)
Book 2 Author: David Malouf
Book 2 Biblio: Black Inc., $12.95pb, 100pp
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Peter Craven calls up an echo of W.B. Yeats’s ‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’ at the conclusion of his introduction to Germaine Greer’s highly charged and instantly controversial essay Whitefella Jump Up. ‘It is an essay about sitting down and thinking where all the politics start,’ he writes.
Clever, because with that, suddenly, there we all are, caught in one of twentieth-century poetry’s most powerful injunctions, to sit – or lie – down, in Yeats’s foul rag and bone shop of the heart, in the place where all ladders start. This is not a place for disputes about footnotes, or for finessing modes of reconciliation. This is the place where we start again, from the ground up, start to rethink the way blacks and whites in Australia imagine their connection and their future together. The ladder? Built out of wits and a radical change of mind and heart.
At Adelaide Writer’s Week in 2002, Drusilla Modjeska spoke about the prevalence in contemporary Australian fiction of historical subjects and distant eras; she exhorted Australian writers to consider instead the importance of addressing our own times. Much of this speech subsequently found its way into the essay ‘The Present in Fiction’, published in Modjeska’s Timepieces later the same year.
Then, last March, David Marr took up this baton and ran with it in his address to the Australian Society of Authors, ‘The Role of the Writer in John Howard’s Australia’. Contemporary Australian writers, he argued, are in the same predicament as Patrick White was in the 1950s,
As the old philistine culture of Australian politics reasserts itself. And the same way out is available to those of us who want to take it – to explore this new old Australia through writing [and] start focusing on what is happening in this country, looking Australia in the face, not flinching ... So few Australian novels – now I take my life in my hands – address in worldly, adult ways the country and the times in which we live.
Book 1 Title: The Best Australian Stories 2003
Book Author: Peter Craven
Book 1 Biblio: Black Inc., $24.95 pb, 460 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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Book 2 Title: Secret Lives
Book 2 Subtitle: 34 modern Australian short stories
Book 2 Author: Barry Oakley
Book 2 Biblio: Five Mile Press, $24.9 5pb, 383 pp
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At Adelaide Writer’s Week in 2002, Drusilla Modjeska spoke about the prevalence in contemporary Australian fiction of historical subjects and distant eras; she exhorted Australian writers to consider instead the importance of addressing our own times. Much of this speech subsequently found its way into the essay ‘The Present in Fiction’, published in Modjeska’s Timepieces later the same year.
Then, last March, David Marr took up this baton and ran with it in his address to the Australian Society of Authors, ‘The Role of the Writer in John Howard’s Australia’. Contemporary Australian writers, he argued, are in the same predicament as Patrick White was in the 1950s,
As the old philistine culture of Australian politics reasserts itself. And the same way out is available to those of us who want to take it – to explore this new old Australia through writing [and] start focusing on what is happening in this country, looking Australia in the face, not flinching ... So few Australian novels – now I take my life in my hands – address in worldly, adult ways the country and the times in which we live.
Two anthologies of fiction published late in 2003 might have been expected to provide, between them, some kind of overview of the directions that Australian fiction has been taking at the turn of the century, and to indicate some response, or resistance, to the claims of Modjeska and Marr. But it’s hard to see any pattern in this respect, across the fifty-one writers these two books represent between them. (The list of writers whose work appears in both books is heterogeneous and surprisingly short: Carmel Bird, Frank Moorhouse, Janette Turner Hospital, and the Peters Goldsworthy and Corris.) If there’s little direct engagement on a literal level with the current conditions and prevailing values of life in Australia, there is also perhaps a discernible lessening of interest in historical topics, except insofar as they bear directly on our times.
Arrival in Savannah, Georgia, a town that seems to have at least seven syllables to its name. The heat is grey and sullen: the famous Spanish moss on the trees crackles at a touch. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is everywhere; the place gives a general impression of being quite pleased with itself, though both wealth and poverty are sharply obvious. An odd place, perhaps, to look for the pianist and social reformer Hephzibah Menuhin, whose biography I’m in the northern hemisphere to research, especially since she never came here. But Savannah is only a step away from Beaufort, South Carolina, and this is where Hephzibah’s daughter Clara Menuhin Hauser lives. Clara is very important indeed
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September 18
Arrival in Savannah, Georgia, a town that seems to have at least seven syllables to its name. The heat is grey and sullen: the famous Spanish moss on the trees crackles at a touch. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil is everywhere; the place gives a general impression of being quite pleased with itself, though both wealth and poverty are sharply obvious. An odd place, perhaps, to look for the pianist and social reformer Hephzibah Menuhin, whose biography I’m in the northern hemisphere to research, especially since she never came here. But Savannah is only a step away from Beaufort, South Carolina, and this is where Hephzibah’s daughter Clara Menuhin Hauser lives. Clara is very important indeed.
September 19
Beaufort is the heartland of the Gullah people, descended from African slaves. But you never see them. ‘God bless our troops’ signs, white antebellum mansions and American flags – not those of the Confederacy – are everywhere. Clara, who is married with two young children, runs a local family counselling service and tells me that the black teenage pregnancy rate is one of the highest in the South. Clara has been defensive about a biography of her mother, and part of my mission is to reassure her that I’m not one of ‘the leeches’ (see below). She holds an enormous amount of vital material, including letters between her parents (Hephzibah married twice, her second husband being the social planner Richard Hauser, Clara’s father), and an extraordinary quantity of other correspondence, and wants to be sure that everything will be used properly. What can I tell her? After a week’s talking and sorting out of letters, I leave feeling that there is goodwill on both sides, as well as shared perceptions of Hephzibah and her life and work. We also like each other very much. So far so good, though I know how fragile such trust can be.
The title, cover and blurb of this collection of essays, articles and interviews promote it as a sequel to editor Paul Adams’s literary biography of Frank Hardy, The Stranger from Melbourne (2000). The invocation of the iconic writer, communist and media personality’s formidable reputation should ensure reasonable sales, but it is to the detriment of the book’s internal logic and thrust that Adams and his co-editor, Christopher Lee, underplay the contribution of other communist writers of his era. Several chapters in the book do focus on the work of Jean Devanny, Dorothy Hewett, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Ruth Park, but (in a manner similar to how their works were dismissed in their own time) the prioritisation of Hardy as the definitive communist writer ensures that they play second fiddle.
Book 1 Title: Frank Hardy and the Literature of Commitment
Book Author: Paul Adams and Christopher Lee
Book 1 Biblio: Vulgar Press, $39.95 pb, 296 pp
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The title, cover and blurb of this collection of essays, articles and interviews promote it as a sequel to editor Paul Adams’s literary biography of Frank Hardy, The Stranger from Melbourne (2000). The invocation of the iconic writer, communist and media personality’s formidable reputation should ensure reasonable sales, but it is to the detriment of the book’s internal logic and thrust that Adams and his co-editor, Christopher Lee, underplay the contribution of other communist writers of his era. Several chapters in the book do focus on the work of Jean Devanny, Dorothy Hewett, Katharine Susannah Prichard and Ruth Park, but (in a manner similar to how their works were dismissed in their own time) the prioritisation of Hardy as the definitive communist writer ensures that they play second fiddle.
Beginning with a transcript of Tony Morphett’s interview with Hardy in a 1967 edition of ABC’s Spectrum, this bias is clearly evident. Interesting though this interview is, it does little to prepare the reader for the sudden swing into the more demanding arena of politico-literary theory with Allan Gardiner’s dense chapter, ‘Frank Hardy and Communist Cultural Institutions’. The contrast is extreme and almost seems calculated to put off the mildly interested reader.
When he died in 1989, the artist Donald Friend left a double legacy. The first was his artistic output, as various, dazzling and charming as it was vigorously contested in terms of its ultimate quality. The second was an accumulation of forty-nine diaries commenced precociously at the age of fourteen, kept briefly for a year or two and then, from the war years on, written lovingly and obsessively for much of the rest of his life. Friend’s art as draughtsman and painter is widely held in public and private collections; the bulk of the surviving diaries were eventually acquired by the National Library of Australia. Profusely illustrated, these intimate personal records document a remarkable life while providing a detailed insight into one man’s struggle with the processes of making art. In their span, the diaries constitute an extraordinary individual record of twentieth-century Australian experience in war and peace.
Book 1 Title: The Diaries of Donald Friend
Book 1 Subtitle: Volume 2
Book Author: Paul Hetherington
Book 1 Biblio: National Library of Australia, $59.95 hb, 752pp, 0 642 10765 3
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When he died in 1989, the artist Donald Friend left a double legacy. The first was his artistic output, as various, dazzling and charming as it was vigorously contested in terms of its ultimate quality. The second was an accumulation of forty-nine diaries commenced precociously at the age of fourteen, kept briefly for a year or two and then, from the war years on, written lovingly and obsessively for much of the rest of his life. Friend’s art as draughtsman and painter is widely held in public and private collections; the bulk of the surviving diaries were eventually acquired by the National Library of Australia. Profusely illustrated, these intimate personal records document a remarkable life while providing a detailed insight into one man’s struggle with the processes of making art. In their span, the diaries constitute an extraordinary individual record of twentieth-century Australian experience in war and peace.
Despite his sublime mastery of line and form – especially in his preoccupation with the male nude – Friend has always had a tough time of it in the reputation stakes. Others such as Russell Drysdale, his contemporary and for a time one of his most admired friends, tower above him. As curator and critic Barry Pearce has observed, one of the problems with judging Friend’s oeuvre is his absence of singularity. By this, he meant the lack of a compelling masterpiece, the absence of anything a modern gallery director might define as a destination painting. But while others have damned with faint praise, Pearce knows where the treasure is buried. Friend shone as a draughtsman, one of Australia’s finest: ‘[W]ith Donald you have to peruse the pages of books, storage racks, request the solander box from the print room, visit the manuscript library, accumulate the parts and put them together in your mind.’
In a year when I did not look at much fiction, both the best and worst of my reading dealt with Australian culture and history. The bad writing I will leave aside. Mark Peel’s The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty (CUP) is an ethical and passionate account of the realities of living poor in Australia. Colin Tatz’s With Intent to Destroy: Reflecting on Genocide (Verso) is an intelligent and mature engagement with a discussion that must be had in this country. Don Watson’s Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language (Knopf) provides a timely warning that the issues of concern to Peel and Tatz will not be enhanced by using the word ‘enhancement’ (among others).
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Tony Birch
In a year when I did not look at much fiction, both the best and worst of my reading dealt with Australian culture and history. The bad writing I will leave aside. Mark Peel’s The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty (CUP) is an ethical and passionate account of the realities of living poor in Australia. Colin Tatz’s With Intent to Destroy: Reflecting on Genocide (Verso) is an intelligent and mature engagement with a discussion that must be had in this country. Don Watson’s Death Sentence: The Decay of Public Language (Knopf) provides a timely warning that the issues of concern to Peel and Tatz will not be enhanced by using the word ‘enhancement’ (among others).
Neal Blewett
Two works of contemporary history – continents apart – left the most lasting impressions from my reading this year. Dark Victory (Allen & Unwin), by David Marr and Marian Wilkinson, is a sombre, dispassionate, yet compassionate account of the Tampa and its consequences. Wide-ranging and meticulous in its research, this authoritative narrative of this shameful and shaming affair leaves few of the major participants with much credit, apart from that admirable Norwegian, Arne Rinnan, captain of the Tampa. Writing on a wider canvas, Paul Ginsborg, in Italy and Its Discontents, 1980–2001 (Penguin), provides, through a wealth of detail lightly born and lucidly presented, a compelling account of Italy in the last decades of the last century. In it he analyses a corrupt and tainted political order, the social and cultural elements that sustained it, and the forces that swept it all away – leaders, parties and electoral system – between 1992 and 1994. The one disappointment is his failure to explain in the depth we had come to expect how the promise of the early 1990s was frittered away in the sands or, as he wryly captures it in the title of his last chapter, ‘From Berlusconi to Berlusconi’. I look forward to reading his study of the Berlusconi phenomenon.
My favourite books this year have all been tales of self-discovery. I loved the teenage characters emerging from their crude, protective, school-induced carapaces into engaging, tender individuality that Melina Marchetta draws with such affection and humour in Saving Francesca (Viking). I was riveted by the magical adventures, beautifully told, of a nameless Chinese slave girl as she grows into her prestigious and responsible dragon-tending role in Carole Wilkinson’s memorable Dragonkeeper (black dog books); and by the lyrical language and clever interweaving of themes (the horrors of Hiroshima with the power of story and the blessings of friendship) in Kierin Meehan’s Night Singing (Puffin).
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Katharine England
My favourite books this year have all been tales of self-discovery. I loved the teenage characters emerging from their crude, protective, school-induced carapaces into engaging, tender individuality that Melina Marchetta draws with such affection and humour in Saving Francesca (Viking). I was riveted by the magical adventures, beautifully told, of a nameless Chinese slave girl as she grows into her prestigious and responsible dragon-tending role in Carole Wilkinson’s memorable Dragonkeeper (black dog books); and by the lyrical language and clever interweaving of themes (the horrors of Hiroshima with the power of story and the blessings of friendship) in Kierin Meehan’s Night Singing (Puffin).
The Melbourne Cricket Ground was established on its present site in 1853. The first cricket match was played there the following year. It was a busy time in the early life of Melbourne: the University of Melbourne, the State Library of Victoria, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society and The Age newspaper were all founded at this time. At a recent social gathering in Melbourne, someone asked which of these institutions was the most important and influential. Nobody hesitated in reply: it was the MCG, of course.
Book 1 Title: The Temple Down the Road
Book Author: Brian Matthews
Book 1 Biblio: Viking, $39.95 hb, 322 pp
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The Melbourne Cricket Ground was established on its present site in 1853. The first cricket match was played there the following year. It was a busy time in the early life of Melbourne: the University of Melbourne, the State Library of Victoria, the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Society and The Age newspaper were all founded at this time. At a recent social gathering in Melbourne, someone asked which of these institutions was the most important and influential. Nobody hesitated in reply: it was the MCG, of course.
For the uninitiated, the MCG may be dismissed as a big ugly concrete bowl where uncouth things happen. Yet, for generations of Victorians (if not Australians), it is a place of wonders, one that, as Brian Matthews puts it, has ‘an atmosphere so undeniable, so heady and so exhilarating that even a corpse would be stirred’. The Temple Down the Road is a book of considerable enjoyment for those who have at some time or other succumbed to the boisterous charms of the MCG. It is a meander through the history of the site and the stadium, a personal memoir of events and experiences, and a reflection on the role of the MCG in the sporting, spiritual and cultural landscape of its city, and beyond.
I must confess I picked up this celebrity autobiography, complete with embossed cover and a price suggestive of a huge print run, without anticipation. I could not have been more wrong. Mike Munro’s excoriating and frank account of his abused childhood and early years in journalism chronicles a survival story that is Dickensian in scope and impact. Like Dickens, Munro managed to overcome poverty, cruelty and emotional deprivation to reach the top of a demanding profession. Remarkably, considering his scarifying experiences as a child and adolescent, he fell in love and married a partner with whom he has created the kind of loving family life that he never knew as a child. But I am jumping ahead.
Book 1 Title: A Pasty-faced Nothing
Book Author: Mike Munro
Book 1 Biblio: Random House, $39.95 hb, 373 pp
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I must confess I picked up this celebrity autobiography, complete with embossed cover and a price suggestive of a huge print run, without anticipation. I could not have been more wrong. Mike Munro’s excoriating and frank account of his abused childhood and early years in journalism chronicles a survival story that is Dickensian in scope and impact. Like Dickens, Munro managed to overcome poverty, cruelty and emotional deprivation to reach the top of a demanding profession. Remarkably, considering his scarifying experiences as a child and adolescent, he fell in love and married a partner with whom he has created the kind of loving family life that he never knew as a child. But I am jumping ahead.
Australian writer Peter Robb has once again written a whole, complex, foreign society into our comprehension. This time it is Brazil, its myriad worlds of experience, its cruelly stolid immobility and exhilarating changefulness, its very incoherence, somehow made accessible to our understanding. In 1996 Robb’s Midnight in Sicily was published to international acclaim. He had set himself the task like the one the mythical, doomed Cola Pesce had been commanded to achieve: to dive into the sea of the past; ‘to explore things once half glimpsed and half imagined’; and to discover ‘what was holding up Sicily’. And he succeeded magnificently.
Book 1 Title: A Death in Brazil
Book 1 Subtitle: A book of omissions
Book Author: Peter Robb
Book 1 Biblio: Duffy & Snellgrove, $45 hb, 372 pp
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Australian writer Peter Robb has once again written a whole, complex, foreign society into our comprehension. This time it is Brazil, its myriad worlds of experience, its cruelly stolid immobility and exhilarating changefulness, its very incoherence, somehow made accessible to our understanding. In 1996 Robb’s Midnight in Sicily was published to international acclaim. He had set himself the task like the one the mythical, doomed Cola Pesce had been commanded to achieve: to dive into the sea of the past; ‘to explore things once half glimpsed and half imagined’; and to discover ‘what was holding up Sicily’. And he succeeded magnificently.
This book is as beguilingly English as a Fortnum & Mason picnic hamper. Peter Stothard (a former editor of The Times and current editor of the Times Literary Supplement) spent a month inside 10 Downing Street reporting in intimate detail the comings and goings there during the critical days before and after the Coalition of the Willing began its assault on Iraq on March 20 this year. He evokes a life-size doll’s house from which a war is being waged by perplexed adults in suits and jeans, who pick spasmodically at substandard food, fantasise about fitness régimes and support spectacularly unsuccessful soccer teams. The man in charge lives in a flat above this strange enterprise with the rest of his family.
Book 1 Title: 30 Days
Book 1 Subtitle: A month at the heart of Blair’s war
Book Author: Peter Stothard
Book 1 Biblio: HarperCollins, $24.95 pb, 244 pp
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This book is as beguilingly English as a Fortnum & Mason picnic hamper. Peter Stothard (a former editor of The Times and current editor of the Times Literary Supplement) spent a month inside 10 Downing Street reporting in intimate detail the comings and goings there during the critical days before and after the Coalition of the Willing began its assault on Iraq on March 20 this year. He evokes a life-size doll’s house from which a war is being waged by perplexed adults in suits and jeans, who pick spasmodically at substandard food, fantasise about fitness régimes and support spectacularly unsuccessful soccer teams. The man in charge lives in a flat above this strange enterprise with the rest of his family.
In the first part of his new collection, Graeme Hetherington returns to the cultural territory he presented, differently registered, in In the Shadow of Van Diemen’s Land (1999). This is the west coast of Tasmania, reconstructed this time, in ‘West Coast Garden of Eden’, as the provocative place of his childhood, an Eden after the Fall in which innocence has long before succumbed to temptation. The twenty-seven parts of ‘For Boyd’ present Boyd as the narrator’s schoolmate, a son of working-class parents who has Paul Newman looks, a careless disregard for all forms of authority, an impressive and precocious sexual appetite, and a rebel’s capacity for mischief.
Book 1 Title: A Tasmanian Paradise Lost
Book Author: Graeme Hetherington
Book 1 Biblio: Walleah Press, $15 pb, 92 pp
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Book 2 Title: Other Gravities
Book 2 Author: Kevin Gillam
Book 2 Biblio: Sunline Press, $25 hb, 108 pp
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In the first part of his new collection, Graeme Hetherington returns to the cultural territory he presented, differently registered, in In the Shadow of Van Diemen’s Land (1999). This is the west coast of Tasmania, reconstructed this time, in ‘West Coast Garden of Eden’, as the provocative place of his childhood, an Eden after the Fall in which innocence has long before succumbed to temptation. The twenty-seven parts of ‘For Boyd’ present Boyd as the narrator’s schoolmate, a son of working-class parents who has Paul Newman looks, a careless disregard for all forms of authority, an impressive and precocious sexual appetite, and a rebel’s capacity for mischief.
Since the beginning of 2003, nine writers and journalists have been murdered worldwide, adding to International PEN’s list of 400 who have been killed over the last ten years. In the same period, 769 other writers and journalists have been imprisoned, tortured, attacked, threatened, harassed and deported, or have disappeared, gone into hiding or fled in fear of their lives – simply for practising their profession.
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Since the beginning of 2003, nine writers and journalists have been murdered worldwide, adding to International PEN’s list of 400 who have been killed over the last ten years. In the same period, 769 other writers and journalists have been imprisoned, tortured, attacked, threatened, harassed and deported, or have disappeared, gone into hiding or fled in fear of their lives – simply for practising their profession.
International PEN is a worldwide organisation of writers, consisting of 130 centres in ninety-one countries. PEN was founded in 1921 to promote friendship and cooperation among writers everywhere, regardless of their political positions. It fights for freedom of expression and opposes political censorship. Above all, it vigorously defends those writers who suffer under oppressive régimes.
Geckos and Moths is a time capsule. A note by the author, Patricia Johnson, indicates that the first draft of the book was written thirty years ago, after her partner had drowned in the Trobriand Islands. In many cases, a book begun so long ago and in such circumstances might best have been left in the bottom drawer.
Book 1 Title: Geckos and Moths
Book Author: Patricia Johnson
Book 1 Biblio: Pandanus, $29.95 pb, 288 pp
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Book 2 Title: Forever in Paradise
Book 2 Author: Apelu Tielu
Book 2 Biblio: Pandanus, $29.95 pb, 455 pp
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Geckos and Moths is a time capsule. A note by the author, Patricia Johnson, indicates that the first draft of the book was written thirty years ago, after her partner had drowned in the Trobriand Islands. In many cases, a book begun so long ago and in such circumstances might best have been left in the bottom drawer.
But Geckos and Moths has much to offer. One of the main reasons for this is that, in reworking the book, Johnson has not made the mistake of trying to bring it up to date. Its language and manners belong to the high period of Australian colonial involvement in Papua New Guinea. Women wear dresses in sizes such as SW and XOS. The phrase ‘go ahead’ is used as an adjective, as in Sandy Stone’s memorable dismissal of a new clergyman as a ‘go ahead young chappie’. The book does not have to labour to recall the expat culture of the period. It is drenched in that culture. It knows, for example, the layout of Burns Philp department store, one of the few places in Port Moresby where Australians could revert to consumerism.
Writing this on the first Tuesday in November, I am struck by how different contemporary Australian poetry is from the Melbourne Cup. There is no money in poetry, of course, and in horse racing everyone, even the horses, are much better dressed. What’s more, despite complaints to the contrary, the returns are usually better when it comes to reading poetry than spending your days at the TAB. Martin Duwell’s The Best Australian Poetry 2003 and Peter Craven’s The Best Australian Poems 2003 are dead certs, compared to the boundless unreliability of horses.
Book 1 Title: The Best Australian Poems 2003
Book Author: Peter Craven
Book 1 Biblio: Black Inc., $29.95 pb, 383 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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Book 2 Title: The Best Australian Poetry 2003
Book 2 Author: Martin Duwell
Book 2 Biblio: University of Queensland Press, $22 pb, 141 pp
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Writing this on the first Tuesday in November, I am struck by how different contemporary Australian poetry is from the Melbourne Cup. There is no money in poetry, of course, and in horse racing everyone, even the horses, are much better dressed. What’s more, despite complaints to the contrary, the returns are usually better when it comes to reading poetry than spending your days at the TAB. Martin Duwell’s The Best Australian Poetry 2003 and Peter Craven’s The Best Australian Poems 2003 are dead certs, compared to the boundless unreliability of horses.
In Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty, among his various pronouncements to Alice, pontificates on the meanings of names. After describing the name Alice’ as ‘a stupid name enough’, Humpty Dumpty asks her what the name Alice means. Alice is doubtful: ‘Must a name mean something?’ And Humpty Dumpty retorts: ‘Of course it must ... My name means the shape I am – and a good handsome shape it is, too.’ The question of the meaning of Alice’s name is left unanswered in Lewis Carroll’s text, but it is answered in William Noble’s Names from Here and Far: The New Holland Dictionary of Names. Alice, we are told, is an English form of the name Adelaide, which in turn is a compound from the Germanic words athel, meaning ‘noble’, and Hilda, meaning ‘heroine’, or heid, meaning ‘kind’. Thus Alice means something like ‘nobly born’.
Book 1 Title: The Uncyclopedia
Book Author: Gideon Haigh
Book 1 Biblio: Text, $26 hb, 154 pp
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Book 2 Title: Names From Here and Far
Book 2 Subtitle: The New Holland Dictionary of Names
Book 2 Author: William T. S. Noble
Book 2 Biblio: New Holland, $29.95 pb, 567 pp
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In Through the Looking Glass, Humpty Dumpty, among his various pronouncements to Alice, pontificates on the meanings of names. After describing the name Alice’ as ‘a stupid name enough’, Humpty Dumpty asks her what the name Alice means. Alice is doubtful: ‘Must a name mean something?’ And Humpty Dumpty retorts: ‘Of course it must ... My name means the shape I am – and a good handsome shape it is, too.’ The question of the meaning of Alice’s name is left unanswered in Lewis Carroll’s text, but it is answered in William Noble’s Names from Here and Far: The New Holland Dictionary of Names. Alice, we are told, is an English form of the name Adelaide, which in turn is a compound from the Germanic words athel, meaning ‘noble’, and Hilda, meaning ‘heroine’, or heid, meaning ‘kind’. Thus Alice means something like ‘nobly born’.
One might assume, then, that William Noble also comes from a long line of aristocrats. But not on your nelly! Is the nelly in this idiom a diminutive of Helen or Eleanor in the original rhyming slang not on your Nelly Duff: i.e. ‘not on your puff (of life)’? And does Duff keep us in England as a shortened form of the Derbyshire name Duffield, or does it takes us to Ireland, where the common surname Duffy derives from a Gaelic word meaning ‘dark’? You can find all of this information by chasing through the links in Names from Here and Far. As to noble, William Noble nobly points out that no aristocrat would be so vulgar as to take on a word of this kind as a family name. No, the nickname noble was applied to someone ‘who dressed and acted above his class’.
Custom Article Title: Sherryl Clark reviews Six Children's Picture Books
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Tackling a ‘worthy’ theme and making a poem or story readable and entertaining is a challenge. There is a fine line between subtlety and didacticism. My Gran’s Different manages, just barely, to stay on the right side. The narrator’s grandmother is different: she has Alzheimer’s, though this is never spelt out. Instead, there is a dual story: one part is the journey of a boy on his way to see Gran; the other is his friends’ grandmothers, who each have their own speciality – footy fan, florist, art gallery owner and so on. At last we discover why Gran is different and understand the special relationship the boy has with her. Children will inevitably ask why Gran ‘can’t remember who she is’. There is an expectation that the adult reading the book will be able to answer this question, because no information is given. Anyone intending to use this as a way to explain an elderly relative’s condition will probably find that it’s only the first step.
Book 1 Title: Hyram and B.
Book Author: Brian Caswell, illustrated by Matt Ottley
Book 1 Biblio: Hodder, $27.95hb, [32]pp
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Book 2 Title: Two Summers
Book 2 Author: John Heffernan, illustrated by Freya Blackwood
Book 2 Biblio: Scholastic, $27.95hb, [32]pp
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Book 3 Title: Roos in Shoes
Book 3 Author: Tom Keneally, illustrated by Gillian Johnson
Book 3 Biblio: Random House, $26.95hb, [32]pp
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Tackling a ‘worthy’ theme and making a poem or story readable and entertaining is a challenge. There is a fine line between subtlety and didacticism. My Gran’s Different manages, just barely, to stay on the right side. The narrator’s grandmother is different: she has Alzheimer’s, though this is never spelt out. Instead, there is a dual story: one part is the journey of a boy on his way to see Gran; the other is his friends’ grandmothers, who each have their own speciality – footy fan, florist, art gallery owner and so on. At last we discover why Gran is different and understand the special relationship the boy has with her. Children will inevitably ask why Gran ‘can’t remember who she is’. There is an expectation that the adult reading the book will be able to answer this question, because no information is given. Anyone intending to use this as a way to explain an elderly relative’s condition will probably find that it’s only the first step.
On 25 April 1984, 300 people attended the dawn service at Gallipoli. In 2000 there were 15,000, many of them young Australians. In recognition of his renewed interest, Patrick Carlyon (who was at the 2000 service) has written The Gallipoli Story. Looking beyond the well-known Anzac heroes and stories, Carlyon takes us into the trenches and introduces us to individuals: young men with names and hometowns, with sisters and girlfriends; young men who are afraid and confused. The shocking waste of life, as soldiers from both sides charge to their deaths, can make for uncomfortable reading, but Carlyon has refrained from gratuitous violence. It is one thing to have hundreds of dry facts and statistics at hand, quite another to weave these facts into an engaging story. Carlyon has managed it superbly.
Book 1 Title: The Gallipoli Story
Book Author: Patrick Carlyon
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, $16.95pb, 204pp
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Book 2 Title: Lasseter, the Man, the Legend, the Gold
Book 2 Author: Kathryn England
Book 2 Biblio: Scholastic, $18.95pb, 44pp
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Book 3 Title: 101 Great Australian Inventions
Book 3 Author: Paul Holper and Simon Torok
Book 3 Biblio: ABC Books, $12.95pb, 96pp
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On 25 April 1984, 300 people attended the dawn service at Gallipoli. In 2000 there were 15,000, many of them young Australians. In recognition of his renewed interest, Patrick Carlyon (who was at the 2000 service) has written The Gallipoli Story. Looking beyond the well-known Anzac heroes and stories, Carlyon takes us into the trenches and introduces us to individuals: young men with names and hometowns, with sisters and girlfriends; young men who are afraid and confused. The shocking waste of life, as soldiers from both sides charge to their deaths, can make for uncomfortable reading, but Carlyon has refrained from gratuitous violence. It is one thing to have hundreds of dry facts and statistics at hand, quite another to weave these facts into an engaging story. Carlyon has managed it superbly.
Contents Category: Children's and Young Adult Fiction
Custom Article Title: Robyn Sheahan-Bright reviews Eight Young Adult Novels
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Article Title: Not Quite Normal
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Much young adult fiction is about not fitting in. How that topic is covered distinguishes the hack from the frustrated pedant and the gifted writer. This review covers eight YA novels by skilful writers whose diverse works are peopled by those who refuse to fit the norm.
Book 1 Title: Julia My Sister
Book Author: Bronwyn Blake
Book 1 Biblio: Lothian, $16.95pb, 256pp
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Book 2 Title: Thambaroo
Book 2 Author: Jane Carroll
Book 2 Biblio: Scholastic, $16.95pb, 196pp
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Book 3 Title: Return Ticket
Book 3 Author: Warren Flynn
Book 3 Biblio: FACP, $14.95pb, 256pp
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Much young adult fiction is about not fitting in. How that topic is covered distinguishes the hack from the frustrated pedant and the gifted writer. This review covers eight YA novels by skilful writers whose diverse works are peopled by those who refuse to fit the norm.
Martine Murray’s second novel, How to Make a Bird, is as impressive as her first, The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley. Manon, on a day-long journey to Melbourne, experiences painful collisions with reality, interspersed with flashbacks to events that have brought her there, determined to find several people. Murray’s word pictures are striking in their vivid simplicity:
