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The Australian Year: The chronicle of our seasons and celebrations by Les A. Murray

by
July 1986, no. 82

The Australian Year: The chronicle of our seasons and celebrations by Les A. Murray

Angus and Robertson, 296 pp, $29.95 hb

The Australian Year: The chronicle of our seasons and celebrations by Les A. Murray

by
July 1986, no. 82

The Australian Year looks like the dreaded coffee table book, yet another gloss on the national ‘identity’, backed by Esso, and fit for export only. Certainly, the cover picture of parroty water gives that impression, as do many familiar ones inside, though the main photographer, Peter Solness, does turn in some good homely details as well. Generally, the photographs stand like an avenue of plane trees, their density and hues changing with the seasons of Les Murray’s fully ripened, free-ranging text – which meets the high expectations we might be forgiven for holding when a major Australian poet, a well-versed country boy and populist by persuasion, an erudite and vernacular singer of the old and new, writes a book on a phenomenon as democratically inclusive and resonant as the seasons.

Barry Hill reviews 'The Australian Year: The chronicle of our seasons and celebrations' by Les A. Murray

The Australian Year: The chronicle of our seasons and celebrations

by Les A. Murray

Angus and Robertson, 296 pp, $29.95 hb

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