John McLaren
John McLaren was founding editor of the second series of ABR (1978–1986).
While the reading of a book has become a solitary matter, its interpretation remains a convivial task which must be performed anew for each new reader, new age, and new country. The business of criticism is to help us in this task, and from a multitude of judgements to further our understanding of an author’s words for our time. The critic is therefore involved not only with books, but through t ... (read more)
It may seem callous at a time when so much human life is being wasted to spare any concern for the destruction and dissipation of the archaeological collection in the National Museum at Kabul. Yet the loss in both cases is irreplaceable, and it may even be that the loss of the artefacts is, in the long run, qualitatively more important than the loss of individual human lives.
This is a claim that ... (read more)
Kenneth Cook’s latest book is a parable for adults. At the end of the second millennium A.D., God remembers the duty he has overlooked at the end of the first, destroys life on earth. However, no doubt due to his advanced age, he is a little careless, and in a valley in the in the middle of the United States, two mice survive. They and their rapidly multiplying descendants inherit man’s civili ... (read more)
Marxists have always been concerned about the relationships of intellectuals to the rest of society, and particularly to change in society. The intellectual, being able to stand aside from immediate social pressures, is able to see the truth of what is happening, and so to correct the false consciousness of those who are involved in the everyday business of production.
... (read more)
None of the writers who emerged from the Australian bush has dealt as powerfully with its horror as Barbara Baynton, yet she is probably mainly known only for the two anthologised short stories, ‘Scrammy ’And’ and ‘Squeaker’s Mate’, the latter of which has been made into an excellent short film by David Baker.
The six tales in Bush Studies were reissued in paperback by Angus and Rober ... (read more)
During next month – October – we celebrate Australian Book Week, and during this week the winners of the National Book Council 1978 Australian Literature Awards will be announced. As one of the judges, I have been forced by this contest to think not only about the value of competitions in the arts, but also about what we might mean by giving any book an award for ‘best of its kind’. Certai ... (read more)
The most imaginative, although in all probability the least politically effective, of the campaign badges produced for the current Australian elections is the ALP Badge, ‘the light on the hill’. The badge, a simple cloisonne in blue and red with gold wire, symbolises the hopes of that great Australian, J.B. Chifley. It is accompanied by a card with his words:
We do say that it is the duty a ... (read more)
In a world which has lost its faith and its standards, the situation of the creative artist is both central and precarious. As WallaceCrabbe sees it, he must stand inside and outside society at once, be both totally involved with himself and totally responsive to his society. While doing this, he must create not only his own audience but even his own language.
In this series of essays, Walla ... (read more)
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, bou ... (read more)