Non Fiction

Xavier Herbert is probably the most enigmatic of Australian writers, but there is nothing enigmatic about Laurie Clancy’s treatment of the man and his works in Twayne’s World Authors Series. This is the best assessment of Herbert since Vincent Buckley’s article ‘Capricornia’ (Meanjin, 19, 1960) forced critics to take Herbert seriously as a writer of stature and an experimentalist with the form of the novel, and since Harry Heseltine’s Xavier Herbert (OUP, 1973) drew attention to what Heseltine saw as the ‘deep motive’ of Herbert’s writing in the works that preceded Poor Fellow My Country.

In the Australian administrative tradition, Dr H.C. Coombs is a remarkable survivor, a maximalist and an innovator, not least in his· preparedness to write in public. The key figure in the Post-War Reconstruction brains trust which flourished under Curtin, Chifley and Dedman in the 1940s, he became Governor of the Commonwealth and then the Reserve Bank for twenty years and then entered a new creative phase in the post-Menzies and the Whitlam years.

This is the story of one woman’s crusade to achieve social justice for a handicapped child. It is one person’s elevation of the ineptitude, the hypocrisy and the dishonesty that became associated with a particular group of handicapped children. It concerns an institution that attempted to tum a pretext into reality rather than declare that a terrible mistake had occurred. Rosemary Crossley found Annie in St Nicholas Hospital in 1976. The hospital was originally a children’s hospital built in the 1890s. In 1964 The Mental Health Authority took possession of the buildings and after demolishing some and refurbishing others opened again in order to cater for the needs of severely and profoundly handicapped children, those whose purported I.Q.s were believed to be below thirty. Although it was originally designed to cater for individuals on a temporary basis most of those who came never left. It is perhaps Indicative of our attitudes towards the handicapped that the ‘high brick walls topped with barbed wire and broken glass’ were left untouched. One wonders whether the author of the slogan ‘Break Down the Barriers’ had this in mind when he took up his pen.

Don’t judge Donald Horne’s books by their titles.

Rites of Passage qualifies for a notice in ABR because, although it is written and published in Britain, it is among other things an account of the adventures of one Edmund Talbot who has taken a passage to Australia sometime during a lull in the wars with France, towards the end of the eighteenth century.

Jim Shepherd’s Encyclopedia of Australian Sport proceeds from ‘ABC Sportsman of the Year’ and ‘Abonyi, Attila (1945 – )’ on page 1 to ’Young Jack (1925 – )’ and ‘Young, Robert “Nat” (1950 )’ on page 468. In between are some 850 entries alphabetically arranged, most of them on participants (brief biography, achievements, the ‘whole picture of their star quality’) but some devoted to administrators, barrackers, etc. and to the sports themselves. Lavishly-illustrated, it’s a steal at S 10.95; brightly written, it’s precisely the sort of good read for a present to Uncle/ Cousin/Brother/Father Norm. As he argues over the underarm dismissal and the result of the 1980 Escort Cup Grand Final, that Norm will enjoy the style as well as the fact that this version of the Australian sporting experience presents most of the legends intact (e.g. see the Les Darcy and Hugh McIntosh entries).

At a time when Australia’s involvement with Europe and Asia is coming under increasing academic scrutiny, an area which has continued to be neglected has been Australia’s relations with the Pacific Islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia situated so closely north and east of its coast. While others have touched on this subject briefly, Roger Thompson’s Australian Imperialism in the Pacific presents for the first time a detailed, meticulously researched and scholarly investigation which covers the period from the early days of the colony of New South Wales to the end of the First World War. It is, then, a timely study, filling a gap in our knowledge, and it is sure to be welcomed by scholars of both Australian and Pacific history.

A colleague questioned my choice of these two books for this page, wondering whether they are too localised for a national journal. This reminded me of a Victorian friend who once aired a theory that the poetry of Kenneth Slessor. That man of Sydney, is not highly regarded in Victoria while ‘Furnley Maurice’ (Frank Wilmot) is little appreciated north of the Murray. What rubbish. Admittedly a writer’s presence on his own soil can be important both for his work and, in some ways, for his audience. It was only when Patrick White and Christina Stead returned to Australia after long absences overseas that they gained proper honour here. But universality also cuts across boundaries and there are universal qualities, or at least for ‘new world’ countries, in each of these books.

Beatrice Faust manages to write so persuasively, that even when you have your reservations with some details, she manages to sway you. All her years of dedication to feminist and civil liberties campaigns, to the craft of good polemical writing, and to extensive research have resulted in a powerful work that has every chance of making its mark felt in England and America as well as in Australia. The book is helped along considerably by photographs of Hindu erotic art, some notable Beardsleys and genitalia from varying cultures.