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Absolutely Revolting

June 1985, no. 71

Welcome to the June 1985 issue of Australian Book Review!

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Margaret John reviews The Doubleman by C.J Koch
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C.J. Koch in this powerful and evocative novel, The Double Man, has applied a psychoanalytic model of human personality to fairytales and the fantastical world of myth: the pursuit of illusion as reality. Its ingenious double life is that of a modern-day fairy tale coupled with the face of 1960s man, paralysed with the despair of his era: its inability to cope with the breakdown of shared values and beliefs. Richard Miller is both the prince of the archetypal fairytale and the prototype of modern man trying to create a private reality out of ancestral beliefs. The Double Man recalls W.B. Yeats’s dread of the ‘rough beast…its hour come round at last’, and the warnings of Goethe who foresaw a time of such chaos: when odd spiritual leaders would emerge and man would turn full circle to find popular truth in ancient myths and legends.
Book 1 Title: The Doubleman
Book Author: C.J Koch
Book 1 Biblio: Chatto & Windus, 326 p, 48.95 0 7011 2945 X
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C.J. Koch in this powerful and evocative novel, The Double Man, has applied a psychoanalytic model of human personality to fairytales and the fantastical world of myth: the pursuit of illusion as reality. Its ingenious double life is that of a modern-day fairy tale coupled with the face of 1960s man, paralysed with the despair of his era: its inability to cope with the breakdown of shared values and beliefs. Richard Miller is both the prince of the archetypal fairytale and the prototype of modern man trying to create a private reality out of ancestral beliefs. The Double Man recalls W.B. Yeats’s dread of the ‘rough beast…its hour come round at last’, and the warnings of Goethe who foresaw a time of such chaos: when odd spiritual leaders would emerge and man would turn full circle to find popular truth in ancient myths and legends.

Richard Miller, crippled as a child with polio, his cousin Brian Brady and friend Darcy Burr, are boys reared in the isolationism of Tasmania in the 1950s. Widely differing intellectually and spiritually, the three become inseparably linked by their mutual passion for the teachings of an eccentric guitar teacher and gnostic guru, Broderick. He becomes, particularly for Miller and Darcy, their co-walker; the double man who mesmerises their lives until Brady walks away from it all and Miller comes face to face with the nature of his illusion.

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Read more: Margaret John reviews 'The Doubleman' by C.J Koch

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Veronica Brady reviews ‘A History of Australian Literature’ by H.M. Green
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Contents Category: Literary Studies
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Article Title: A classic renewed
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A classic, a cynic might say, is a work which is much admired but seldom read. But the reappearance of H. M. Green’s A History of Australian Literature, long admired but also long out of print, is likely to change that definition. To read this work again is to realise just how good it is, how apposite to many of our current concerns. Its title suggests why this is so, A History of Australian Literature, Pure and Applied. This is a history which is systematic as well as serious, aware not only of the problematic nature of the terms "history”, “Australian” and “literature” but also of the interplay between texts and contexts and of the multiple nature of these contexts – geographical (in a sense Foucault would understand, concerned with space as a psychic as well as a physical fact), historical, ideological. But it is also written by someone who knows how to read literature, who is concerned to restore the integrity of language and is able to combine an appreciation of the precise and univocal with a sense of the fulness and complexity of the symbol. Green’s account of a writer is always judicious and perceptive and usually generous. More importantly he is always prepared to honour the terms which a writer sets for him or herself or has posed by the environment – his essay on Brennan, for example, is-still perhaps the most balanced written about that problematic writer.
Book 1 Title: A History of Australian Literature
Book Author: H.M. Green (revised by Dorothy Green)
Book 1 Biblio: Angus & Robertson, two volumes, index, 1544 pp.
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A classic, a cynic might say, is a work which is much admired but seldom read. But the reappearance of H. M. Green’s A History of Australian Literature, long admired but also long out of print, is likely to change that definition. To read this work again is to realise just how good it is, how apposite to many of our current concerns. Its title suggests why this is so, A History of Australian Literature, Pure and Applied. This is a history which is systematic as well as serious, aware not only of the problematic nature of the terms "history”, “Australian” and “literature” but also of the interplay between texts and contexts and of the multiple nature of these contexts – geographical (in a sense Foucault would understand, concerned with space as a psychic as well as a physical fact), historical, ideological.

Read more: Veronica Brady reviews ‘A History of Australian Literature’ by H.M. Green

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Judith Armstrong reviews ‘The Novels of Vladmir Nabokov’ by Laurie Clancy
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There is nowadays the new criticism and the old, and among the practitioners of both methodologies there are good and bad critics. Lauric Clancy makes no attempt or claim to ‘re-read’ (shorthand for applying various post-structural approaches to canonical works) Nabokov’s oeuvre and hence falls four-square (puns arc de rigueur when dealing with Nabokov) amongst the Bayleys rather than the Eagletons. While this position must inevitably indicate where Clancy stands in the wider debate, there may also be historical reasons for this stance in relation to a writer like Nabokov, whose work has received comparatively little attention despite – or perhaps because of– his globally provocative reputation.
Book 1 Title: The Novels of Vladmir Nabokov
Book Author: Laurie Clancy
Book 1 Biblio: Macmillan, 178pp., biblio., index, $42.00
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There is nowadays the new criticism and the old, and among the practitioners of both methodologies there are good and bad critics. Laurie Clancy makes no attempt or claim to ‘re-read’ (shorthand for applying various post-structural approaches to canonical works) Nabokov’s oeuvre and hence falls four-square (puns arc de rigueur when dealing with Nabokov) amongst the Bayleys rather than the Eagletons. While this position must inevitably indicate where Clancy stands in the wider debate, there may also be historical reasons for this stance in relation to a writer like Nabokov, whose work has received comparatively little attention despite – or perhaps because of– his globally provocative reputation.

Read more: Judith Armstrong reviews ‘The Novels of Vladmir Nabokov’ by Laurie Clancy

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Adrian Rawlins reviews ‘The Oxford Anthology of Australian Literature’ by Leonie Kramer and Adrian Mitchell
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Article Title: An anthology for the thick of nose and dull of ear
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“ ‘ It was a land of flowers’ said my grandmother,” writes Mary Gilmore [in the passage from Old Days, Old Ways here included],

At sea [in 1836] we noticed the perfume long before we came to [the land] … Australia smelt like the Spice Islands. “We are near Australia,” said the seaman, "Can’t you smell the flowers?” And people raised their heads and breathed in perfumes as it were out 'of heaven, for the land was still invisible…. 

In the same essay, Dame Mary continues: “The thick-nosed and dull-eared derided her… They called her a land of songless birds and scentless flowers. The world believed them; and for a century we followed in the train of the world, even though on our breath her perfumes hung high.”
Book 1 Title: The Oxford Anthology of Australian Literature
Book Author: Leonie Kramer and Adrian Mitchell
Book 1 Biblio: OUP, 589pp., index, $25.00 pb
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“ ‘It was a land of flowers’ said my grandmother,” writes Mary Gilmore [in the passage from Old Days, Old Ways here included],

At sea [in 1836] we noticed the perfume long before we came to [the land]… Australia smelt like the Spice Islands. “We are near Australia,” said the seaman, “Can’t you smell the flowers?” And people raised their heads and breathed in perfumes as it were out 'of heaven, for the land was still invisible….

In the same essay, Dame Mary continues: “The thick-nosed and dull-eared derided her… They called her a land of songless birds and scentless flowers. The world believed them; and for a century we followed in the train of the world, even though on our breath her perfumes hung high.”

Read more: Adrian Rawlins reviews ‘The Oxford Anthology of Australian Literature’ by Leonie Kramer and Adrian...

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Susan McKernan reviews ‘Scission’ by Tim Winton and ‘Midwinter Spring’ by John Webb
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Contents Category: Short Story
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Tim Winton writes on the dedication page of Scission, “this one is for Gonzo”, and his youth and astonishing rate of publication suggest that he may produce one for each of his friends and relatives. After bursting on the Australian literary world with An Open Swimmer Winton has published another novel, Shallows and this new collection of short stories.
Book 1 Title: Scission
Book Author: Tim Winton
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, 156pp., $6.95pb
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Book 2 Title: Midwinter Spring
Book 2 Author: John Webb
Book 2 Biblio: Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 142pp., $12.00pb
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Tim Winton writes on the dedication page of Scission, “this one is for Gonzo”, and his youth and astonishing rate of publication suggest that he may produce one for each of his friends and relatives. After bursting on the Australian literary world with An Open Swimmer Winton has published another novel, Shallows and this new collection of short stories.

The short stories reveal that Winton is not so precocious as he may seem. Several of them show the writer testing his abilities and playing with possibilities. The title story, in particular, tries almost every trick in the prose writer’s repertoire; others try out conventional approaches such as the diary of ‘Wake’ or the simple tale of ‘Neighbours’. Short story writing can be a flashy business and even good writers like Winton find it hard to resist playing for cheap thrills.

Read more: Susan McKernan reviews ‘Scission’ by Tim Winton and ‘Midwinter Spring’ by John Webb

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Jack Jones reviews ‘Eagles Hawks and Falcons of Australia’ by David Hollands
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Contents Category: Nature Writing
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Article Title: Essays on birds of prey
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Much motoring, walking, climbing, sitting, waiting, staring, wondering, deciding, writing, reading, persisting, and thus much time with much patience, much enthusiasm, were required for the determination behind this book – an announcement leaflet states it in part with “… twelve years of field work, two land-Rovers, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of bush roads, nine cameras and countless rolls of film”. All done while also country doctoring in general practice.
Book 1 Title: Eagles Hawks and Falcons of Australia
Book Author: David Hollands
Book 1 Biblio: Thomas Nelson, 212pp., illus., index, $49.95
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Much motoring, walking, climbing, sitting, waiting, staring, wondering, deciding, writing, reading, persisting, and thus much time with much patience, much enthusiasm, were required for the determination behind this book – an announcement leaflet states it in part with “… twelve years of field work, two land-Rovers, hundreds of thousands of kilometres of bush roads, nine cameras and countless rolls of film”. All done while also country doctoring in general practice.

David Hollands’ determination was to have personal field experience of all the twenty-four endemic species of diurnal raptores in Australia, including photography, particularly of nesting behaviour, usually observed from a tower hide, and of flight.

Read more: Jack Jones reviews ‘Eagles Hawks and Falcons of Australia’ by David Hollands

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Contents Category: Journal
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Article Title: Getting words together
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There’s something very special about the pozzie occupied by small magazines in the immensely complex structure of any modern society. From the surreptitious and dangerous distribution of broadsheets in countries less fortunate than our own, to the high-gloss high-chic and/or High Culture mags that emanate from the ‘top end’ of more comfortable societies, they keep groups of likeminded folks in touch, involved and informed. In a world where all but the merest handful of us live in a state of mental or physical bombardment, where we have given over more and more of our lives to that handful of manipulators and brainwashers, browbeating us to consume or conform, the small mags are unique in that their content is largely derived, in a chicken and egg sort of way, directly from readership. They stimulate creativity and involvement. A drop in the bucket perhaps, a few desperate strokes against the tide, the merest pinch of leaven in an awfully large loaf. But where there is the stirring of response there is hope.
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There’s something very special about the pozzie occupied by small magazines in the immensely complex structure of any modern society. From the surreptitious and dangerous distribution of broadsheets in countries less fortunate than our own, to the high-gloss high-chic and/or High Culture mags that emanate from the ‘top end’ of more comfortable societies, they keep groups of likeminded folks in touch, involved and informed. In a world where all but the merest handful of us live in a state of mental or physical bombardment, where we have given over more and more of our lives to that handful of manipulators and brainwashers, browbeating us to consume or conform, the small mags are unique in that their content is largely derived, in a chicken and egg sort of way, directly from readership. They stimulate creativity and involvement. A drop in the bucket perhaps, a few desperate strokes against the tide, the merest pinch of leaven in an awfully large loaf. But where there is the stirring of response there is hope.

Read more: 'Getting words together' by Kate Ahearne

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Contents Category: Non-fiction
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Article Title: Hypocrisy in Australia
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Edwin Wilson’s first novel, Liberty, Egality, Fraternity! is described by its dust jacket as being about

work, life, love; friendship, sex, marriage, birth, death, religion, and the nature of freedom ’ and ‘individual liberty’, set against Australian society in the fifties and sixties.

None of which I can quibble with, nor as the jacket goes on to say, the predictability of this theme for a first novel. For alas, Liberty, Egality, Fraternity! is yawningly predictable, far too long and strives after a symbolic significance which is never achieved.
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Edwin Wilson’s first novel, Liberty, Egality, Fraternity! is described by its dust jacket as being about

work, life, love; friendship, sex, marriage, birth, death, religion, and the nature of freedom ’ and ‘individual liberty’, set against Australian society in the fifties and sixties.

None of which I can quibble with, nor as the jacket goes on to say, the predictability of this theme for a first novel. For alas, Liberty, Egality, Fraternity! is yawningly predictable, far too long and strives after a symbolic significance which is never achieved.

Read more: Frances McInherny reviews ‘Liberty, Egality, Fraternity!’ by Edwin Wilson

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Edmund Campion reviews ‘A Gap in the Records’ by Jan McKemmish
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Article Title: Jade and bullets
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Inside Jan McKemmish there is a good short story writer trying to get out. A Gap in the Records is a novel about an international female intelligence apparatus. At its heart is the story of an assassination of a crook, Crane, by an agent of the apparatus, Mary Stevens.

McKemmish wastes no space – not a line, not an adverb – in getting Mary Stevens to Hong Kong and into the confidence of Crane. She is at the races, at the ballet, swimming in his pool, dancing at his club. Her life is ascetic (minimum alcohol, yoga, no sex) and dedicated.

In a marvellous spider’s-web conversation she lures Crane to accompany her on a shopping expedition. So she tricks the criminal into Graeme Wong’s hidden shop at the back of Mud Lane. A gun is waiting for her there in one of the jade cases. Her accomplice is there too, playing the part of shop assistant!
Book 1 Title: A Gap in the Records
Book Author: Jan McKemmish
Book 1 Biblio: Sybylla Press, 114pp., $9.95pb
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Inside Jan McKemmish there is a good short story writer trying to get out. A Gap in the Records is a novel about an international female intelligence apparatus. At its heart is the story of an assassination of a crook, Crane, by an agent of the apparatus, Mary Stevens.

McKemmish wastes no space – not a line, not an adverb – in getting Mary Stevens to Hong Kong and into the confidence of Crane. She is at the races, at the ballet, swimming in his pool, dancing at his club. Her life is ascetic (minimum alcohol, yoga, no sex) and dedicated.

Read more: Edmund Campion reviews ‘A Gap in the Records’ by Jan McKemmish

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Shirley Walker reviews ‘Exit Left’ by Oriel Gray
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Article Title: Memoir of a scarlet woman
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How do we explain our fascination with autobiography? Is it simply the pleasure of vicarious experience, or is it perhaps the self-indulgence of nostalgia, or even the addiction to gossip, the wish to know the hidden weaknesses of the famous or infamous? Oriel Gray’s Exit Left satisfies all these expectations, worthy and unworthy, as it takes us back to an earlier Australia which would appear to most of us remote, simplistic and naive.
Book 1 Title: Exit Left
Book Author: Oriel Gray
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, 230pp., $7.95pb
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How do we explain our fascination with autobiography? Is it simply the pleasure of vicarious experience, or is it perhaps the self-indulgence of nostalgia, or even the addiction to gossip, the wish to know the hidden weaknesses of the famous or infamous? Oriel Gray’s Exit Left satisfies all these expectations, worthy and unworthy, as it takes us back to an earlier Australia which would appear to most of us remote, simplistic and naive.

Read more: Shirley Walker reviews ‘Exit Left’ by Oriel Gray

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Nancy Keesing reviews ‘Doherty’s Corner’ by Marie E.J. Pitt
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Contents Category: Poetry
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Article Title: Neglected poet
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Thoroughly researched, well ordered, factual biography like Doherty’s Corner appeals to me. If, as is usual with a life-history, there is occasion for reading between the lines, I’m left alone to do it unhampered by authorial speculation. It often happens that when subjects of biographies live into the era of the writer of the book, facts emerge during research that might offend the feelings or sensibilities of still-living people. Burke has excluded anything of this order. In other words the book is very interesting and a model of usefulness and good taste.
Book 1 Title: Doherty’s Corner: the life and work of poet
Book Author: Marie E.J. Pitt
Book 1 Biblio: Angus and Robertson, 154pp., illus., index, $9.95
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Thoroughly researched, well ordered, factual biography like Doherty’s Corner appeals to me. If, as is usual with a life-history, there is occasion for reading between the lines, I’m left alone to do it unhampered by authorial speculation. It often happens that when subjects of biographies live into the era of the writer of the book, facts emerge during research that might offend the feelings or sensibilities of still-living people. Burke has excluded anything of this order. In other words the book is very interesting and a model of usefulness and good taste.

I say “usefulness” deliberately because Colleen Burke’s background framework includes valuable social and political history that, as her source notes and acknowledgements show, is not easily accessible to any ‘ordinary reader’. And how well those notes are arranged: good design enhances the whole book.

Read more: Nancy Keesing reviews ‘Doherty’s Corner’ by Marie E.J. Pitt

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Contents Category: Art
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Article Title: New Ventures and an Overview of the Art
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Just over a year ago a group of Melbourne poets who all had manuscripts ready for publication discovered the urgent need for a press devoted entirely to poetry.

The major publishers were booked out several years ahead just dealing with their regular authors, and as their poetry lists were limited to a handful of volumes each year the chances of acceptance were minimal. Moreover, these publishing houses are commercial ventures, and the need to show a return prevents them from taking too many risks.
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Just over a year ago a group of Melbourne poets who all had manuscripts ready for publication discovered the urgent need for a press devoted entirely to poetry.

The major publishers were booked out several years ahead just dealing with their regular authors, and as their poetry lists were limited to a handful of volumes each year the chances of acceptance were minimal. Moreover, these publishing houses are commercial ventures, and the need to show a return prevents them from taking too many risks.

The small presses which offer an alternative tend to be run on shoestring budgets which don’t allow them to publish all the worthwhile manuscripts available. They are usually restricted to a particular small group who work together on a more or less co-operative basis.

Read more: Cornelis Vleeskens reviews ‘Neither Nuked Nor Crucified and Other Poems’ by Christopher Pollnitz...

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Contents Category: History
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War has been the grand theme for so many human lives. It is, perhaps, one of the greatest ironies of human life that deprivation of one kind or another, like the loss of peace to war, is needed to give meaning, excitement and purpose to our lives. War has been such a catalyst in the lives of many Australians. It has been for so many the peak experience of a whole lifetime. War is so often dull, boring and monotonous but in an instant it becomes exciting, exhilarating and the very core of life. This terrible, wasteful and destructive human form of arbitration provides each individual with a unique set of experiences that can only be fully shared with ‘those who were there’.
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The Myth of the Digger
Jane Ross
Hale & Iremonger, 262pp., index, biblio., $29.95 $14.95pb

War Diary 1942
George Johnston
Collins, 164pp., illus., $18.95

Gallipolli Correspondent: the frontline diary of C.E.W. Bean
George Allen & Unwin, 218pp., illus., biblio., index, $12.95pb

Nothing Over Us
David Hay
Australian War Memorial, 604pp., illus., $29.95

Amateur Soldier
John Bellair
Spectrum Publications, 168pp., $9.95pb

Six-Bob-a-Day Tourist
Janet Morice
Penguin, 96pp., illus., biblio., index, $7.95pb

Last Stop Nagasaki!
Hugh V. Clarke
George Allen & Unwin, 136pp., illus., $9.95pb

P.O.W.: a digger in Hitler’s prison camps 1941-45
Macmillan, 204pp., $17.95pb

A Turkish View of Gallipolli
Kevin Fewster, Vecihi Basarin, Hatice Hurmuz Basasrin
Hodja Educational, 140pp., illus., biblio., index, $19.95

War has been the grand theme for so many human lives. It is, perhaps, one of the greatest ironies of human life that deprivation of one kind or another, like the loss of peace to war, is needed to give meaning, excitement and purpose to our lives. War has been such a catalyst in the lives of many Australians. It has been for so many the peak experience of a whole lifetime. War is so often dull, boring and monotonous but in an instant it becomes exciting, exhilarating and the very core of life. This terrible, wasteful and destructive human form of arbitration provides each individual with a unique set of experiences that can only be fully shared with ‘those who were there’.

Read more: Malcolm Kennedy reviews 9 books

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Contents Category: Politics
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Article Title: Power over parliament
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It is a wise author who states clearly what his book is about and what it hopes to achieve. Some do this at the beginning of a book, some do it at the end. In either case it avoids the possibility of a reviewer or reader blaming the book for not being what it was never intended to be.

The author of this book gets over this difficulty by setting out clearly in the last chapter, headed ‘Is there a job description?’ that “the comparative approach adopted in this book has thrown into relief the strengths and weaknesses, formal and informal, of prime ministers in four countries. Factors often taken for granted in single-country studies have become more apparent when compared to others. For instance, Australian and New Zealand prime ministers are more vulnerable than the British, and far more than the Canadians.”
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It is a wise author who states clearly what his book is about and what it hopes to achieve. Some do this at the beginning of a book, some do it at the end. In either case it avoids the possibility of a reviewer or reader blaming the book for not being what it was never intended to be.

The author of this book gets over this difficulty by setting out clearly in the last chapter, headed ‘Is there a job description?’ that “the comparative approach adopted in this book has thrown into relief the strengths and weaknesses, formal and informal, of prime ministers in four countries. Factors often taken for granted in single-country studies have become more apparent when compared to others. For instance, Australian and New Zealand prime ministers are more vulnerable than the British, and far more than the Canadians.”

Read more: A.W. Sheppard reviews ‘First Among Equals’ by Patrick Weller

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Mark Braham reviews ‘The Merchants of Melbourne’ by Alfred Zion
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Article Title: Prejudice abroad
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Judaism teaches that antisemitism is ultimately rooted in hatred of God, and that hatred of the Rabbis by ignorant Jews exceeds that of heathens, hence the worst antisemites (e.g. Karl Marx) are often renegade Jews.

Alfred Zion reveals his misunderstandings of Judaism even before his novel, The Merchants of Melbourne, begins. His Hebrew/Yiddish-English glossary translates Torah as “Pentateuch, the five books of Moses”, and Yiddishkeit as “Yiddish culture”. In fact, Torah means the whole body of Jewish teaching of which the Pentateuch consists of “mere notes”. Yiddishkeit means Jewish religious teaching and observance. Such misleading translations are matched by malicious caricatures of Rabbis. Saul, a learned Jew of rabbinic status, believed “everything was pre-ordained, even the good and evil that befell you. Struggling against one’s fate was therefore a wasted effort, if not a contradiction of God’s will” (p.97). This is the opposite of the Jewish doctrine of free will and personal responsibility.
Book 1 Title: The Merchants of Melbourne
Book Author: Alfred Zion
Book 1 Biblio: Arioso Pty Ltd, 114 Bulleen Rd, North Balwyn 3103, 204pp., $6.95
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Judaism teaches that antisemitism is ultimately rooted in hatred of God, and that hatred of the Rabbis by ignorant Jews exceeds that of heathens, hence the worst antisemites (e.g. Karl Marx) are often renegade Jews.

Alfred Zion reveals his misunderstandings of Judaism even before his novel, The Merchants of Melbourne, begins. His Hebrew/Yiddish-English glossary translates Torah as “Pentateuch, the five books of Moses”, and Yiddishkeit as “Yiddish culture”. In fact, Torah means the whole body of Jewish teaching of which the Pentateuch consists of “mere notes”. Yiddishkeit means Jewish religious teaching and observance. Such misleading translations are matched by malicious caricatures of Rabbis. Saul, a learned Jew of rabbinic status, believed “everything was pre-ordained, even the good and evil that befell you. Struggling against one’s fate was therefore a wasted effort, if not a contradiction of God’s will” (p.97). This is the opposite of the Jewish doctrine of free will and personal responsibility.

Read more: Mark Braham reviews ‘The Merchants of Melbourne’ by Alfred Zion

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Kallithea Belou reviews ‘The Book of Epigrams’ by Dimitris Tsaloumas
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Contents Category: Poetry
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Tsaloumas is not a poet of the migrant experience. He does not evoke nostalgia for a homeland out of some experience of anguish as a stranger in a foreign culture. He defies such narrow limits. If some of his poetry refers to his homeland it is within the broader framework of nostalgia, of a feeling of loss or rejection, of Mneme.

His poetry in this collection encompasses a multiplicity of subject matter and style. He looks at the past through what remains of it in time present, yet time present in its own right cannot retrieve the past (‘Morning Start’). He avoids prophesying about the future, which he says is the domain of the representatives of the people with their brassy voices – politicians. He precludes the possibility of a vision of the future being created conclusively by looking through the “lookouts” of today or the past. He might well say, leave that to the enigmatic oracles and the exhortations of the politicians – to Messianism.
Book 1 Title: The Book of Epigrams
Book Author: Dimitris Tsaloumas
Book 1 Biblio: UQP, 207pp., $14.95
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Tsaloumas is not a poet of the migrant experience. He does not evoke nostalgia for a homeland out of some experience of anguish as a stranger in a foreign culture. He defies such narrow limits. If some of his poetry refers to his homeland it is within the broader framework of nostalgia, of a feeling of loss or rejection, of Mneme.

His poetry in this collection encompasses a multiplicity of subject matter and style. He looks at the past through what remains of it in time present, yet time present in its own right cannot retrieve the past (‘Morning Start’). He avoids prophesying about the future, which he says is the domain of the representatives of the people with their brassy voices – politicians. He precludes the possibility of a vision of the future being created conclusively by looking through the “lookouts” of today or the past. He might well say, leave that to the enigmatic oracles and the exhortations of the politicians – to Messianism.

Read more: Kallithea Belou reviews ‘The Book of Epigrams’ by Dimitris Tsaloumas

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Not so long ago some Australians living in the States were talking about the ethnic compositions of the two countries. When Jews were mentioned, one quite innocently said, “But there are no Jews in Australia, are there?”

By comparison with America, this might seem to be the case. These days Italians and Greeks have the most visible ethnic presence (other than the established Anglo-Celtic ethnics, that is) and it is not until recent years that ethnic identity has become a popular subject of discussion. With the exception of visible and viable communities such as that of the German immigrants to the Barossa Valley in South Australia, non-British settlement up to the end of World War Two has been relatively dispersed and rigorously assimilated into a secular, British-oriented society.
Book 1 Title: Jewish Writing from Down Under
Book 1 Subtitle: Australia and New Zealand
Book Author: Robert and Roberta Kalechofsky
Book 1 Biblio: Micah Publications, 255 Humprey St., Marblehead, Massachusetts, 01945, USA. 290pp.,
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Not so long ago some Australians living in the States were talking about the ethnic compositions of the two countries. When Jews were mentioned, one quite innocently said, “But there are no Jews in Australia, are there?”

By comparison with America, this might seem to be the case. These days Italians and Greeks have the most visible ethnic presence (other than the established Anglo-Celtic ethnics, that is) and it is not until recent years that ethnic identity has become a popular subject of discussion. With the exception of visible and viable communities such as that of the German immigrants to the Barossa Valley in South Australia, non-British settlement up to the end of World War Two has been relatively dispersed and rigorously assimilated into a secular, British-oriented society.

Read more: Paul Sharrad reviews ‘Jewish Writing from Down Under’ by Robert and Roberta Kalechofsky

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‘What am I?’ murmured the Bunyip, ‘What am I? What am I?’* setting off on a search for personal identity that has become a recurrent theme in Australian literature for young people, particularly in novels for older readers on their own adolescent journey of self-discovery.

Nadia Wheatley’s Evie is sixteen, but “a very young sixteen”, in her own and others’ opinion. She supervises her young half-sisters with practised competence and accepts responsibility for much of the housekeeping, but in the manner of a sleepwalker. ‘‘Evie hated being asked what she thought of things, because everything seemed as grey and floppy as everything else…(she) thought less of herself too, because other people thought she was boring and because it was very frustrating for Evie herself never knowing what she liked or wanted”. Life in suburban Campbelltown had been pleasant but unremarkable, despite the low-keyed hostility between Evie and her stepfather and her inability to find a job since leaving school. Then the family shifted to old, inner-city Newtown with its rich and crowded past, and unimaginative Evie became caught up in a violent drama that shifts between past and present which jolts her into a new awareness of herself and her surroundings. The plot of The House That Was Eureka is woven around an absorbing and wholly convincing recreation of the Depression of the 1930s, with the traumatic experiences of the Cruise family, destitute and threatened with eviction, running parallel to the problems of today. The theme, however, is self-discovery, as Evie identifies with the vanished Lizzie Cruise and draws from her growing understanding of Lizzie’s dreams and ambitions the insight to understand her own.
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The House That Was Eureka
Nadia Wheatley
Viking/Kestrel, 197pp., $12.95

The True Story of Lilli Stubeck
James Aldridge
Hyland House, 182pp., $14.95

Catch the Sun
Erica Hale
Penguin, 126pp., $4.95pb

Holiday of the Ikon
Thomas Shapcott
Penguin/Puffin, $4.50pb

A Little Fear
Patricia Wrightson
Penguin/Puffin, $3.95pb

‘What am I?’ murmured the Bunyip, ‘What am I? What am I?’* setting off on a search for personal identity that has become a recurrent theme in Australian literature for young people, particularly in novels for older readers on their own adolescent journey of self-discovery.

Read more: Margaret Dunkle reviews 6 books

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Peter Dennis reviews ‘Yanks Down Under 1941-45’ by E. Daniel Potts, Annette Potts and ‘Australia 1942’ by Brian McKinlay
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Yanks Down Under purports to examine the “American impact on Australia” during the second world war. After some 400 pages of text I was no wiser as to the nature of this impact. I could not decide whether the authors thought that the wartime American presence here had a permanent effect or whether it was significant but strictly temporary. In their final sentence the authors claim that the American presence led to the “development, years before the creation of any formal diplomatic and military agreements, of a lasting alliance”, but it is difficult to discover any basis for this assertion in the evidence that the authors provide. The bulk of the book is devoted to a mountain of almost entirely trivial detail which is not without interest, nostalgic or otherwise, but which falls far short of sustaining the argument that the authors apparently seek to advance.
Book 1 Title: Yanks Down Under 1941-45
Book Author: E. Daniel Potts, Annette Potts
Book 1 Biblio: OUP, 456pp., illus., biblio., index, $37.50
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Book 2 Title: Australia 1942: End of Innocence
Book 2 Author: Brian McKinlay
Book 2 Biblio: Collins, 208pp., illus., index, $24.95
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Yanks Down Under purports to examine the “American impact on Australia” during the second world war. After some 400 pages of text I was no wiser as to the nature of this impact. I could not decide whether the authors thought that the wartime American presence here had a permanent effect or whether it was significant but strictly temporary. In their final sentence the authors claim that the American presence led to the “development, years before the creation of any formal diplomatic and military agreements, of a lasting alliance”, but it is difficult to discover any basis for this assertion in the evidence that the authors provide. The bulk of the book is devoted to a mountain of almost entirely trivial detail which is not without interest, nostalgic or otherwise, but which falls far short of sustaining the argument that the authors apparently seek to advance.

Read more: Peter Dennis reviews ‘Yanks Down Under 1941-45’ by E. Daniel Potts, Annette Potts and ‘Australia...

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Richard Reisner reviews ‘Selected Poems 1971-1982’ by Pamela Brown, ‘Manners of an Astronaut’ by Gig Ryan and ‘She Moves Mountains’ by Colleen Burke
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All three poets use a personal voice to summon forth their immediate universe. Ryan and Brown are very much entrenched in their respective sub-cultures whilst Burke is essentially the polemicist, the observer of life in her native Newtown.

Ryan’s collection is permeated with the language of a very bold imagination: “As a brain leaks out from its tiny emotional field”; “Smile like a white ladder. That’s their famous trick”; “His straight and yellow skin steers his parents’ car”.
Book 1 Title: Selected Poems 1971-1982
Book Author: Pamela Brown
Book 1 Biblio: Redress Press, 147pp., $9.95pb
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Book 2 Title: Manners of an Astronaut
Book 2 Author: Gig Ryan
Book 2 Biblio: Hale & Iremonger, 80pp., $7.95pb
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Book 3 Title: She Moves Mountains
Book 3 Author: Colleen Burke
Book 3 Biblio: Redress Press, 96pp., $5.95pb
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All three poets use a personal voice to summon forth their immediate universe. Ryan and Brown are very much entrenched in their respective sub-cultures whilst Burke is essentially the polemicist, the observer of life in her native Newtown.

Ryan’s collection is permeated with the language of a very bold imagination: “As a brain leaks out from its tiny emotional field”; “Smile like a white ladder. That’s their famous trick”; “His straight and yellow skin steers his parents’ car”.

Manners of an Astronaut is essentially a world of emotional hallucination. As typified by the poems ‘In Blue Craft and Two Minds’ and ‘When You Feel’, Gig Ryan’s collection is to one degree or another a constant repetition of the author’s delirium. In fact this ceaseless outpouring of angst becomes a major weakness as the reader will inevitably tire of wading through knee-deep neuroses.

Read more: Richard Reisner reviews ‘Selected Poems 1971-1982’ by Pamela Brown, ‘Manners of an Astronaut’ by...

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In the USA recently a group of booksellers brought an action against the publisher Dell. They alleged discriminatory trade practices in that Dell supplied chain store booksellers and supermarkets at discounts greater than those granted to independent retailers. In its defence Dell argued that the massive cost of representation to the many scattered independents precluded the allocation of increased discounts.
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In the USA recently a group of booksellers brought an action against the publisher Dell. They alleged discriminatory trade practices in that Dell supplied chain store booksellers and supermarkets at discounts greater than those granted to independent retailers. In its defence Dell argued that the massive cost of representation to the many scattered independents precluded the allocation of increased discounts.

Representation – the man or woman, car samples, jackets, knowledge, persuasion, trust and chutzpah which in Dell’s calculations added up to an expensive but essential function.

Read more: 'Trading Posts' by Michael Johnson

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John Manifold died in Brisbane on 19 April 1985. At his funeral a few days later the Eureka Flag covered his coffin, some of his own ballads were sung, and three fiddlers played. His death removes us from one of the great idiosyncratic talents of Australian letters. Colonial aristocrat, English middle-class intellectual, Australian nationalist and international socialist, his poetry at its best looms as large as any written in his time.

Scion of one of the first Western District families, John Streeter Manifold was born in Melbourne in 1915 and, after early education by governesses on the family properties of Purrumbete and Milangil, was sent to Geelong Grammar, where at the age of seventeen he wrote a translation of a lyric by Catallus which his Classics master, Chauncy Masterman, thought the finest he had seen. In 1934 he was sent for a year to the University of Tours, and subsequently studied at Cambridge. Here he joined the Communist Party, to which he remained affiliated until his death.

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John Whiter reviews ‘Vanities’ by Garry Langford
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The dust jacket puff tells us that Gary Langford’s new novel is “in the richly bizarre vein of John Irvine”. For some this will be a less than enticing recommendation. But Vanities is a less sentimental book than Irvine could have written. Irvine’s humour is the measure of his characters’ uuntrammeled imaginativeness in an otherwise pedestrian world, a measure this reader finds fatuous. While Langford does have a tendency towards Irvine’s brand of brittle whimsy, his characters’ wit is a dissembling, defensive style, an indication of their vulnerability. He is determined to indulge neither his characters nor his readers with whimsicality.
Book 1 Title: Vanities
Book Author: Garry Langford
Book 1 Biblio: Macmillan, 212p., $14.95
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The dust jacket puff tells us that Gary Langford’s new novel is “in the richly bizarre vein of John Irvine”. For some this will be a less than enticing recommendation. But Vanities is a less sentimental book than Irvine could have written. Irvine’s humour is the measure of his characters’ untrammeled imaginativeness in an otherwise pedestrian world, a measure this reader finds fatuous. While Langford does have a tendency towards Irvine’s brand of brittle whimsy, his characters’ wit is a dissembling, defensive style, an indication of their vulnerability. He is determined to indulge neither his characters nor his readers with whimsicality.

Vanities, though, suffers from a different kind of sentimentality. It canvasses a wide range of topical social issues as representative of the spirit of the age. Langford believes, in a vague, unspecific way, that these determine individual and family life, a belief that encourages, on the one hand, a facile cynicism, and on the other, a sentimental faith in the therapeutic value of truth-telling:

Read more: John Whiter reviews ‘Vanities’ by Garry Langford

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Ludmilla Forsyth reviews ‘Tunnel Vision’ by Dorothy Johnston
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After listening to Dorothy Johnston being interviewed on radio on her experiences in a massage parlour one would have expected a different kind of novel from Tunnel Vision. No doubt part of Johnston’s appeal as an interviewee came from the publicity blurb which announced that “she worked for a time in a massage parlour in the late 70s, and became involved in a conflict in St Kilda over whether prostitution should be legalized. She helped form a Prostitutes’ Action Group. Though Tunnel Vision isn’t autobiographical, the inspiration for it came partly from this experience.”
Book 1 Title: Tunnel Vision
Book Author: Dorothy Johnston
Book 1 Biblio: Hale & Iremonger, 98pp., $7.95pb
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After listening to Dorothy Johnston being interviewed on radio on her experiences in a massage parlour one would have expected a different kind of novel from Tunnel Vision. No doubt part of Johnston’s appeal as an interviewee came from the publicity blurb which announced that “she worked for a time in a massage parlour in the late 70s, and became involved in a conflict in St Kilda over whether prostitution should be legalized. She helped form a Prostitutes’ Action Group. Though Tunnel Vision isn’t autobiographical, the inspiration for it came partly from this experience.”

For those who wish for a realistic representation of the massage parlour business Johnston’s novel will be a disappointment: for those who desire titillation, try The Delta of Venus. But those longing for a lyrical, nostalgic circling through a world of prostitutes with healing thighs will be taken in by Johnston. She has created a fantasy world in which the warehouse is a whorehouse selling not only relieving massages but also the message that tunnel vision may be as liberating as it is narrowing. It is a novel of paradox.

Read more: Ludmilla Forsyth reviews ‘Tunnel Vision’ by Dorothy Johnston

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Over the past three years I have become aware that my interest in literature is enhanced according to the degree of connection which I can make from personal experience. There is nothing new in that, except that no one had ever really pointed it out to me. I realise that E.M. Forster did his best, but 1 never understood that he was speaking directly to me!
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Over the past three years I have become aware that my interest in literature is enhanced according to the degree of connection which I can make from personal experience. There is nothing new in that, except that no one had ever really pointed it out to me. I realise that E.M. Forster did his best, but 1 never understood that he was speaking directly to me!

On January 26th in 1982 my sister-in-law had Australian citizenship conferred upon her in a ceremony at the Tamworth (northern New South Wales) City Council Chambers. The ceremony was intriguing to me on a number of levels (including the Oath of Allegiance), but apart from the exhortation that she should switch Rugby loyalties from France to Australia she was given a symbol of her new status which I found rather appropriate. It was a potted wattle seedling.

Read more: Jim Kable reviews ‘The Male Model and other stories’ by Joe Albiuso, ‘Tales of Doctor Amber’ by...

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