Australian Cultural History, Volume 11: Books, Readers, Reading edited by David Walker, Julia Hornen and Martyn Lyons

It is refreshing to find an approach to literature that largely avoids traditional methods of discourse. Books, Readers, Reading is a compilation of essays from an Australian Cultural History Conference held in June 1991 and it encompasses subjects as diverse as Bible reading, a history of Australia’s first paper&shy;backs and circulating libraries. The emphasis falls on ‘reading’. The editor notes in the Foreword that the focus is on how ‘Australians approached and used books, newspapers and journals’ and what can be ascertained ‘about the circumstance in which people read and the ways in which they explain their reading to themselves and others’. It is recognised here that authocentrism has been partially dis&shy;placed by a growing awareness of how a reading public can determine what any given literature is, simply through participation in a reading process. Reader/ response theory has become a useful tool for revealing readership patterns and the part that demography plays in selecting material. These writers probe the problem of how, given the paucity of avail able data, a past readership can be gauged. The essays vary in interest and quality, but all contribute to the making of a cultural history. Taking a historiographical stance, Martin Lyons studies ‘the multiplicity of ways in which books have been used and consumed in the past’, proposing that ‘reading is a cultural practice in which the reader plays an active, critical, resisting role’. He posits a sociological analysis whereby a book is not to be regarded merely as a text that embodies values to be debated across centuries. There must be due reference to its ‘reception and usage’ at any given time. He speaks for all the contributors when he suggests that ‘the book must be seen as a commercial and industrial product, as an object of consumption as well as a conveyor of messages’. He outlines patterns of reading from the earliest verbalisation of the text to the point where silent reading individualised reading and its subsequent repercus&shy;sions. One of the more enlightening discussions stems from Patrick O’Farrell’s observations of the divergent interpretations of the function of Bible readings and the tendency to a polarisation between those who find ‘all answers to all questions about everything important in life and death’ and others who read it as ‘a great work of religious literature’. The pervasiveness of biblical imagery in gen&shy;eral reading, though, is O’Farrell’s central concern. On a practical level, the traces readership through ownership and points to a difference in usage between Catholics and Protestants. For the former, the Bible was not generally necessary in households, it being considered by the church to be a product of heresy and, therefore, needing the intervention of a doctrinal inter&shy;pretation. For the latter, it was a necessary guide to an upright Christian existence. John Arnold and Kevin Reid draw attention to the era of the commercial lending libraries which I remember with fondness as providing fuel for an insatiable reading appe&shy;tite. At a time when Public Libraries were understocked and inconveniently located, the suburban circulating libraries were indispensable. I used to jump off the tram at East Kew after work and rush to collect my ‘new’ books which the proprietor had already selected for me. I trusted her judgement implicitly but, in hindsight, realise it was her business to maintain the status quo rather than to encourage experimentation. Kevin Reid’s personal account as a proprietor is invaluable. It is pleasing to know that the volumes that made up the Lane Cove Book Club are preserved in the Fisher Library. In his informed study of these subscription libraries in Melbourne, John Arnold manages both a discursive review of the kinds of people who were likely to earn a living in this way and a comprehensive account of the general readership and their reading habits. By including data on what was read by whom, when and at what cost, he uncovers a pattern of life in suburbia that has, to date, eluded social historians. His scholarly survey concludes nicely with an analysis of why these libraries ceased operation: the introduction of television, the improved public library services and the ‘paperback revolution’ ensured their demise by 1960. He concludes, however, that the concept is alive and well and living in local video libraries. Social historians might take the opportunity to collect data on these before the introduction of cable television changes, again, the suburban lifestyle. Any collection such as this is likely to be a mixed bag. The essay on reviewing is dull, lacking direction and rigour. That on reading Victoria’s newspapers, following Ken Inglis’s informative piece on the uniqueness of Australia’s country weekly newspapers, is too long and bears a slightly hectoring tone which is in marked contrast to the spare, witty style of Inglis. Nevertheless, the variety of topics in Books, Readers, Reading documents a consciousness that Australian ‘literature’ and ‘culture’ are products of a complex interweaving of multiple ‘readings’.

Sue Murray

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