Though I’d been looking forward to this book I had doubts about reviewing it. By definition it must touch on personal loyalties and friendships, and then, too, I had preconceptions about Bulletin history.
Book 1 Title: The Journalistic Javelin
Book 1 Subtitle: an illustrated history of the Bulletin
Book Author: Patricia Rolfe
Book 1 Biblio: Wildcat Press, $23.95, 315 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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The Bulletin, The Bulletin,
The journalistic Javelin,
The paper all the humor’s in
The paper every rumor’s in
The paper to inspire a grin
The Bulletin. The Bulletin.
(The Bulletin, 28 May 1887)
Though I’d been looking forward to this book I had doubts about reviewing it. By definition it must touch on personal loyalties and friendships, and then, too, I had preconceptions about Bulletin history.
The federal government’s proposal for a multicultural television network has sparked off once more a row about the nature of the Australian national identity.
The opponents of the network seem to fear that it will cause all kinds of divisions in our community by emphasising the different places and cultures to which we owe our origins. They would like to restore the myth of a single nation, bounded and defended by a single shoreline (plus, of course, Tasmania), giving allegiance to a single flag and monarch and united by a single tongue. The myth is glorious in its simplicity, and marred only by the fact that it corresponds to no historical truth.
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The federal government’s proposal for a multicultural television network has sparked off once more a row about the nature of the Australian national identity.
The opponents of the network seem to fear that it will cause all kinds of divisions in our community by emphasising the different places and cultures to which we owe our origins. They would like to restore the myth of a single nation, bounded and defended by a single shoreline (plus, of course, Tasmania), giving allegiance to a single flag and monarch and united by a single tongue. The myth is glorious in its simplicity, and marred only by the fact that it corresponds to no historical truth.
This sixth work of fiction by Frank Moorhouse consists of four groups of related stories. The first and by far the best group, ‘Pacific City’, contains six stories centred around the figure of Irving Bow, proprietor of a cinema located near an unbuilt town named Pacific City during the late nineteen-twenties (not the nineteen-thirties as the back cover claims).
Book 1 Title: The Everlasting Secret Family
Book Author: Frank Moorhouse
Book 1 Biblio: Angus & Robertson, $3.50 pb, 288 pp
Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.booktopia.com.au/the-everlasting-secret-family-frank-moorhouse/book/9781740511360.html
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This sixth work of fiction by Frank Moorhouse consists of four groups of related stories. The first and by far the best group, ‘Pacific City’, contains six stories centred around the figure of Irving Bow, proprietor of a cinema located near an unbuilt town named Pacific City during the late nineteen-twenties (not the nineteen-thirties as the back cover claims).
When I was in London working on a book that Nicholas Whitlam and I wrote on the Petrov Affair, I became friendly with Dr Michael Bialagouski. Bialagouski and I went out several times with our wives to places selected by Michael; a gambling club that had once been run by George Raft, a Chinese restaurant that had a reputation in intelligence circles, that sort of thing.
Book 1 Title: Truth Will Out
Book 1 Subtitle: ASIO and the Petrovs
Book Author: Michael Thwaites
Book 1 Biblio: Collins, 214 pp, $14.95
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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When I was in London working on a book that Nicholas Whitlam and I wrote on the Petrov Affair, I became friendly with Dr Michael Bialagouski. Bialagouski and I went out several times with our wives to places selected by Michael; a gambling club that had once been run by George Raft, a Chinese restaurant that had a reputation in intelligence circles, that sort of thing.
For many years there has been little study of politics and elections at the state level in Australia. It seems to have been assumed that only national politics is really important, and that voters made very little distinction between state and federal politics. Thus, the conventional wisdom on electoral behavior had it that voters reacted fairly predictably on the basis of their early political socialization and in response to a set of vague images of the parties which was generated largely at the national level and changed only slowly.
Book 1 Title: Anatomy of an Election
Book Author: P.R. Hay, I. Ward, and John Warhurst
Book 1 Biblio: Hill of Content, $8.95, 268 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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For many years there has been little study of politics and elections at the state level in Australia. It seems to have been assumed that only national politics is really important, and that voters made very little distinction between state and federal politics. Thus, the conventional wisdom on electoral behavior had it that voters reacted fairly predictably on the basis of their early political socialization and in response to a set of vague images of the parties which was generated largely at the national level and changed only slowly.
This book, researched, written, and published in the United States, fulfils an immediate Australian need. Sweat on that you local academics, publishers, and timid promoters of the Oz product. It is called ‘A guide to information sources’, which makes it sound very ‘Australian Literary Studies’, but in fact it is an eminently readable, browsable volume.
Book 1 Title: Modern Australian Poetry 1920-1970
Book 1 Subtitle: A guide to information sources
Book Author: Herbert C. Jaffa
Book 1 Biblio: Gale Research Company, 241 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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This book, researched, written, and published in the United States, fulfils an immediate Australian need. Sweat on that you local academics, publishers, and timid promoters of the Oz product. It is called ‘A guide to information sources’, which makes it sound very ‘Australian Literary Studies’, but in fact it is an eminently readable, browsable volume.
One of the most interesting developments in recent Australian historiography has been a pushing back of the frontiers, a recovery of times or phases which seemed quite beyond recall, even when remembered. Such history-writing bears something of the character of sounding in archaeology.
Book 1 Title: Port Phillip Gentlemen
Book 1 Subtitle: Good society in Melbourne before the gold rushes
Book Author: Paul de Serville
Book 1 Biblio: Oxford University Press, $27.50, 256 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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One of the most interesting developments in recent Australian historiography has been a pushing back of the frontiers, a recovery of times or phases which seemed quite beyond recall, even when remembered. Such history-writing bears something of the character of sounding in archaeology.
Sir Samuel Griffith was chief justice of the High Court of Australia for sixteen years, from October 1903 to October 1919; but he had effectively retired in July 1919. Sir John Latham was chief justice for sixteen and a half years, from October 1935 to April 1952; but he had effectively retired in May 1951. Thus, Sir Garfield Barwick, who last month completed his sixteenth year as chief justice, has already established a record for active service in the position; if he remains in office until 24 October this year, he will have broken even Lathams formal record.
The holder of such a record term of office as chief justice would, on that ground alone, be assured of a unique place in Australian legal history; but in Barwick’s case, the years as chief justice are only a climax – perhaps even an anti-climax – to an extraordinary career.
Book 1 Title: Barwick
Book Author: David Marr
Book 1 Biblio: Allen & Unwin, $16.95 pb, 330 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Sir Samuel Griffith was chief justice of the High Court of Australia for sixteen years, from October 1903 to October 1919; but he had effectively retired in July 1919. Sir John Latham was chief justice for sixteen and a half years, from October 1935 to April 1952; but he had effectively retired in May 1951. Thus, Sir Garfield Barwick, who last month completed his sixteenth year as chief justice, has already established a record for active service in the position; if he remains in office until 24 October this year, he will have broken even Lathams formal record.
The holder of such a record term of office as chief justice would, on that ground alone, be assured of a unique place in Australian legal history; but in Barwick’s case, the years as chief justice are only a climax – perhaps even an anti-climax – to an extraordinary career.
Custom Highlight Text: In 1606, Prado abducted fourteen Mailu children to Madrid, where they were baptized. The islanders, we read in Papua New Guinea: A Political History:
Book 1 Title: Papua New Guinea: A Political History
Book Author: James Griffin, Hank Nelson, and Firth Stewart
Book 1 Biblio: Heinemann $17.50 hb, $8.95 pb, 280 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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In 1606, Prado abducted fourteen Mailu children to Madrid, where they were baptized. The islanders, we read in Papua New Guinea: A Political History:
fought the Spaniards without any desire to convert them to Mailu beliefs. The Spaniards, by contrast, were early representatives of a European proselytism which continues to this day and which aims to save Papua New Guineans from the error of their traditional ways.
Culture contact, with its interaction of differing and often diametrically opposed values, continues to color the weft in the tapestry of events in the new nation to our north. Even so, it is appropriate that this book has politics as its fulcrum, because, as Seeley has observed, history is past politics, and politics is present history.
In a talk she gave recently at Writers’ Week in Adelaide, Dorothy Hewett praised Gwen Harwood as:
Working in isolation as the woman hero, charring like a cartographer the uneasy, shifting, violent, broken world of Australian women and finally, in the teeth of all opposition. proclaiming the right to love and be a hero.
Dorothy Hewett identified several other roles or figures for women writers of poetry in Australia, most particularly:
The woman as loser, lover, bleeder, the victim figure, at once perverse and self-exacting, who refuses to be second-best.
But it’s clearly Harwood’s heroic proclamation of ‘the right to love’ that Hewett admires.
Book 1 Title: Green House
Book Author: Dorothy Hewett
Book 1 Biblio: Big Smoke Books, $8.50pb, 104 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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In a talk she gave recently at Writers’ Week in Adelaide, Dorothy Hewett praised Gwen Harwood as:
Working in isolation as the woman hero, charring like a cartographer the uneasy, shifting, violent, broken world of Australian women and finally, in the teeth of all opposition. proclaiming the right to love and be a hero.
Australia has a tradition of brilliant female writers. With this book, her first novel, Sally Morrison has joined them.
It’s a knockout.
If she had used a simple narrative form, I’m sure she’d have made as much money as the lady who wrote The Thorn Birds. Luckily for us, she didn’t. She fashioned a work of art instead.
The characters are marvellous, they are so real, you can smell them, I’d say that if you don’t find yourself, or at least part of yourself, among them, you don’t exist. The story, told in a series of mental flashes from the characters (and some of them are flashes indeed) is of the last three days of the last term in a country high school.
Book 1 Title: Who’s taking you to the dance?
Book Author: Sally Morrison
Book 1 Biblio: Champion Publications, $5, 226 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Australia has a tradition of brilliant female writers. With this book, her first novel, Sally Morrison has joined them.
It’s a knockout.
If she had used a simple narrative form, I’m sure she’d have made as much money as the lady who wrote The Thorn Birds. Luckily for us, she didn’t. She fashioned a work of art instead.
Until recently I had found that the most useful book on the history of shipping in the Australian area was the two-volume work Pageant of the Pacific by Captain F. Rhodes, published in 1936. During the last few years we have had several books devoted to single companies, such as the E. & A. Line, the AUSN, Adelaide Steamship, and smaller companies, each of which showed the difficulty of condensing a lot of ships histories into one volume. To deal with all the coastal companies, some of which extended overseas, in one volume, requires ruthless editing and carries the danger of the story being stripped of its flesh, to leave us with the dry bare bones. Two years ago there appeared the very complete work by Dr John Bach, A Maritime History of Australia in nearly 500 pages. The work under review is briefer and easier to read, being about 330 pages with 115 photographs and line drawings. A strange omission in both these books is that their bibliographies give no mention to Rhodes’ great work.
Book 1 Title: Australian Coastal Shipping
Book Author: Barry Pemberton
Book 1 Biblio: MUP $28.80, 327 pp
Book 1 Cover Small (400 x 600):
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Until recently I had found that the most useful book on the history of shipping in the Australian area was the two-volume work Pageant of the Pacific by Captain F. Rhodes, published in 1936. During the last few years we have had several books devoted to single companies, such as the E. & A. Line, the AUSN, Adelaide Steamship, and smaller companies, each of which showed the difficulty of condensing a lot of ships histories into one volume. To deal with all the coastal companies, some of which extended overseas, in one volume, requires ruthless editing and carries the danger of the story being stripped of its flesh, to leave us with the dry bare bones. Two years ago there appeared the very complete work by Dr John Bach, A Maritime History of Australia in nearly 500 pages. The work under review is briefer and easier to read, being about 330 pages with 115 photographs and line drawings. A strange omission in both these books is that their bibliographies give no mention to Rhodes’ great work.
Australian Coastal Shipping begins with excellent introductions to the subject before dealing with the subject state by state, and trade by trade, including the overseas extensions of the present day. These chapters are followed by an appendix of trades in different areas arranged in chronological order, and another appendix of all steam and motor vessels in alphabetical order, which gives earlier or later names carried by a ship, and brief details of her type, tonnage, length, builders and date, employment, and owners, which occupies fifty pages. This is the most valuable reference in the book, as the index is very brief, only needing sixteen pages.
In his introduction to this collection of essays the editor, Ross Fitzgerald, remarks: ‘Our age is not exactly brimming over with positive affirmation and joyful anticipation.’ One wonders whether or not there has ever been a period of human history which such an assertion would accurately describe, let alone whether this would be a particular occasion for celebration. After all what gives an aggressive advocate of military solutions to current political problems a certain degree of hope may well cause the pacificist the deepest despair. There is no unity and certainly no necessary common goal to what gives diverse groups and individuals their respective sources of hope and pessimism.
Book 1 Title: The Sources of Hope
Book Author: Ross Fizgerald
Book 1 Biblio: Pergamon, $9.95 pb, 264 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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In his introduction to this collection of essays the editor, Ross Fitzgerald, remarks: ‘Our age is not exactly brimming over with positive affirmation and joyful anticipation.’ One wonders whether or not there has ever been a period of human history which such an assertion would accurately describe, let alone whether this would be a particular occasion for celebration. After all what gives an aggressive advocate of military solutions to current political problems a certain degree of hope may well cause the pacificist the deepest despair. There is no unity and certainly no necessary common goal to what gives diverse groups and individuals their respective sources of hope and pessimism.
Rae Desmond Jones has joined the growing band of poets now working in the more expansive medium of prose diction (thereby possibly expanding their readership as well). Others that come to mind are David Malouf, Roger McDonald, and Rodney Hall.
At just 74 pages, Rae Desmond Jones’s first story collection gives the impression of being a slim volume. The contents page lists only ten stories. Yet this impression is deceptive. There are actually twelve stories (inexplicably, two aren’t listed in the contents), and the usual typography concentrates the prose, emphasizing its density and the sense of menace underlying the narratives.
Book 1 Title: Walking the Line
Book Author: Rae Desmond Jones
Book 1 Biblio: Red Press, 47 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Book 2 Title: Summer Ends Now
Book 2 Author: John Emery
Book 2 Biblio: University of Queensland Press, 164 pp
Book 2 Author Type: Author
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Rae Desmond Jones has joined the growing band of poets now working in the more expansive medium of prose diction (thereby possibly expanding their readership as well). Others that come to mind are David Malouf, Roger McDonald, and Rodney Hall.
At just 74 pages, Rae Desmond Jones’s first story collection gives the impression of being a slim volume. The contents page lists only ten stories. Yet this impression is deceptive. There are actually twelve stories (inexplicably, two aren’t listed in the contents), and the usual typography concentrates the prose, emphasizing its density and the sense of menace underlying the narratives.
Thank you for your letter. We shall certainly reciprocate in the matter of complimentary copies and we’re also interested in exchange advertising. I look forward to seeing your next issue and would appreciate receiving a copy by air mail if your circulation mechanism is as slow as ours tends to be.
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Dear Mr McLaren
Thank you for your letter. We shall certainly reciprocate in the matter of complimentary copies and we’re also interested in exchange advertising. I look forward to seeing your next issue and would appreciate receiving a copy by air mail if your circulation mechanism is as slow as ours tends to be.
I notice that you are an official publication of the National Book Council. I’m not quite sure whether that council is an industry body or a government one. In either case, however, I feel this is one area where we differ. When we founded ourselves nine years ago, we decided it was crucial to remain completely independent – free to develop our own editorial policy and take as tough a critical stance as we thought necessary. While government granting agencies provide about one third of our operating funds – $75,000 of $210,000 – that money is in no way conditional and we like to think that in a pinch we would be able to survive (just) without it. Even that arm’s-length connection with government has caused us some embarrassment, since outraged authors frequently choose to see us as a semi-official publication.
Culture is doubly related to education. Firstly, education is itself a part of culture. Secondly, the function of education is usually seen, at least in part, as being to pass the cultural tradition on to succeeding generations, or, more patronisingly, to give the students some culture.
In these times of education for utility, the cultural function is unfashionable. Our politicians are more concerned to blame schools for failing to prepare students for jobs than they are to criticise their own teachers for having failed to produce a generation of caring adults. Yet unemployment is more a symptom of cultural collapse than it is a product of education failure.
Book 1 Title: Matthew Arnold
Book 1 Subtitle: Culture, society and education
Book Author: Imelda Palmer
Book 1 Biblio: Macmillan Australia $9.95, 110 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Book 2 Title: The Cultural Critics
Book 2 Subtitle: From Matthew Arnold to Raymond Williams
Book 2 Author: Lesley Johnson
Book 2 Biblio: Routledge and Kegan Paul $30, 235 pp
Book 2 Author Type: Author
Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600):
Book 2 Cover (800 x 1200):
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Culture is doubly related to education. Firstly, education is itself a part of culture. Secondly, the function of education is usually seen, at least in part, as being to pass the cultural tradition on to succeeding generations, or, more patronisingly, to give the students some culture.
In these times of education for utility, the cultural function is unfashionable. Our politicians are more concerned to blame schools for failing to prepare students for jobs than they are to criticise their own teachers for having failed to produce a generation of caring adults. Yet unemployment is more a symptom of cultural collapse than it is a product of education failure.
Frank Moorhouse recently sued Angus and Robertson for failing to return four of his manuscripts. The publishers found The Electrical Experience before the case came to trial; the author won his claim on Conference-ville and Tales of Mystery and Romance but lost on The Americans, Baby.
This judgment added a new word to authors’ conversations – ‘abandonment’, meaning that an author’s rough drafts and other papers cease to belong to him if he has ignored them for a number of years, as Moorhouse had ignored The Americans, Baby. Shipwrecks left too long at the bottom of the sea do not belong to their owners, and buried animal carcasses no longer belong to the farmer who buried them – those, believe it or not, are the legal precedents cited in the Moorhouse case for the author’s abandonment of his manuscripts in the bowels of his publisher’s files.
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Frank Moorhouse recently sued Angus and Robertson for failing to return four of his manuscripts. The publishers found The Electrical Experience before the case came to trial; the author won his claim on Conference-ville and Tales of Mystery and Romance but lost on The Americans, Baby.
This judgment added a new word to authors’ conversations – ‘abandonment’, meaning that an author’s rough drafts and other papers cease to belong to him if he has ignored them for a number of years, as Moorhouse had ignored The Americans, Baby. Shipwrecks left too long at the bottom of the sea do not belong to their owners, and buried animal carcasses no longer belong to the farmer who buried them – those, believe it or not, are the legal precedents cited in the Moorhouse case for the author’s abandonment of his manuscripts in the bowels of his publisher’s files.
