Editorial

Last month’s editorial on reviewing and its ailments in Australia seems to have touched a few raw nerves. Various reviewers have enquired nervously about whether I was referring to them, for instance. On the other hand, as a result of the editorial, I have held a number of valuable conversations about the state of reviewing in Australia. Alas this is not reflected in the Letters pages of this issue. It seems with such a long break between the December/January issue and the February/March issue, the letter writers think of other things. Letters in this issue are few, fewer than any issue for several years. Nevertheless, one letter writer suggested light-heartedly a competition for the ‘Pearls before Swine Award’ and ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes Award’ for reviewers. Both awards alert us to further ailments of reviewing generally – not only in Australia. The first is for the most insensitive bull-in-a-china-shop review; the second is for the most sycophantic, particularly in relation to young writers. The possibilities for such categories of award are manifold. With properly devised titles, such awards could include the most ignorant, the most fallacious, the most vacuous, the most pedestrian. Possibly all found in a single review. However, the responses to that editorial have also lead me to reflect upon other literary ailments and offences. High on my list is theory-ridden writing, the kind of writing that is like speaking in tongues. A few years ago a professor of English at one of our leading universities referred to literary journalists who do not use the language of theory as ‘literary derros’ – presumably poor ragged wretched creatures wandering the literary streets with no visible means of support, dreaming pathetically of the luxuries on the rich theorists’ tables. I recognised myself immediately as a ‘literary derro’, but I construed it as a term of, if not quite praise, at least recognition that there are other ways than High Theory to communicate with people outside the academies. Fortunately there are a number of academics who also recognise the value of the ‘literary derro’ and they know to modify their language according to the likely reader. Which is another ailment of reviewing in Australia – a tendency to disregard the nature of the reader in the particular venue in which one is writing. Put more simply, I would write in a different style for The Sydney Morning Herald from that which I would use for an article in an academic journal or even, for that matter, in a magazine like Meanjin. Which brings me to David Williamson’s article in this issue of ABR. Williamson is a self-described ‘Culture War Villain’, a role he sees as foisted on him largely because of his play, Dead White Males. Triggered by the appearance of his photo in the last issue of ABR, the article explores the uses and abuses of theory. (The photo incidentally was included, not because Williamson is an offender in the culture wars, but because he was one of the public intellectuals included in Robert Dessaix’s series on the Public Intellectual for radio national last year.) An even-handed article in my view, it also includes this: In this sense the intellectual work arising out of post-structuralist thought is valuable. A more just world is made possible. I think that the irritation that many feel with ‘theory’ springs not from deep conservatism, but from the fact that ‘theory’ itself can be seen as a grab after power and prestige within the academy and the wider community, by those who espouse it. The Williamson article is not be missed because of its fair-minded approach to the whole tendentious issue of ‘theory’. I am not sure Williamson would welcome the term ‘literary derro’ as I do, but certainly his views are sympathetic to the needs of the general public rather than those who sit at academic High Tables, richly laden with theory luxuries. And yes, I welcome letters to the editor on these or any other matters that should arise in the present literary climate. In my view, the letters are a vital forum for debate, and I remind you of that in this, the first issue for 1998.

Helen Daniel

From the New Issue

Frank Moorhouse: Strange paths by Matthew Lamb

The New World Disorder: How the West is destroying itself by Peter R. Neumann, translated by David Shaw

No Church in the Wild by Murray Middleton

Saving Lieutenant Kennedy: The heroic story of the Australian who helped rescue JFK by Brett Mason

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