Ann Moyal
Letters - July-August 2009
The bar is set high
It was a great pleasure to read this year’s Calibre winning and commended essays in ABR. The essays written by Jane Goodall, Kevin Brophy and Rosa-leen Love continue the impressive tradition inaugurated by Elisabeth Holdsworth with her memorable work that won the first Calibre Prize. The bar is set high.
... (read more)'Knowledge', asserts Peter Doherty, quoting Francis Bacon, 'is power'. Since 1996, having demonstrated his outstanding Nobel Prize contribution to the discovery of the nature of cellular immune defence and continuing research on viruses and immunity, this famous medical veterinarian has produced four books to enlighten a general audience on such matters as pandemics ...
Susan Magarey reviews 'A Woman of Influence: Science, men and history' by Ann Moyal
Ann Moyal was born in 1926, so now she is heading towards her ninetieth birthday. She has already launched a work of autobiography into the world, written in her mid-sixties. But her life did not, then, ‘take a quieter turn’. On the contrary, she tells us, ‘I’d continued to spend my ageing life with passion, involvement, and intensity.’
... (read more)When the first specimen of the Platypus reached Europe in 1798, it was received with incredulity by zoologists. With anatomical and morphological characteristics seemingly belonging to reptiles, birds, and mammals, it simply did not fit into the existing classifications. Further, it appeared to lack mammary glands and therefore could not be classed as a mammal, yet it had obvious mammalian characteristics such as fur and a single bone comprising the lower jaw. It was also noted that there was only one external body opening, the cloaca, into which the uteri, the gut, and the kidneys empty. Hence the name Monotreme (having one hole) applied by English anatomist Sir Everard Home in 1802. Put simply, the Platypus created more than its share of headaches for taxonomists.
... (read more)There is a timeless quality about some Australian authors that causes one to applaud when discerning publishers revive their work for new generations of readers. Wakefield Press’s reissue of Alan Moorehead’s The Villa Diana, first published in 1951, presents this fecund author’s book of essays, now subtitled ‘Travels in Post-war Italy’ ($24.95 pb, 224 pp, 9781862548459). It provides a neat introduction to Moorehead’s famous camera-like eye and his beguiling prose, which, as one commentator put it, offers ‘a long conversation that you wish would never end’.
... (read more)Peter Menkhorst reviews ‘Koala: Origins of an icon’ by Stephen Jackson and ‘Koala: A historical biography’ by Ann Moyal
The koala is one of the most recognised animals in the world. Its beguiling, teddy-bear appearance, inoffensive nature and seeming indifference to the world around it have endeared it to adults and children worldwide. In Australia it is considered a national icon, due in no small part to two characters from popular children’s books: Bunyip Bluegum in Norman Lindsay’s evergreen The Magic Pudding, published in 1918 and never out of print since, and Blinky Bill from Dorothy Wall’s series of the same name, the first of which was published in 1933.
... (read more)Ann Moyal reviews ‘J.A. Lyons – The Tame Tasmanian’ by David S. Bird and ‘Enid Lyons: Leading lady to a nation’ by Anne Henderson
Literature is full of unexpected coincidences. After a long silence, two books appear within a matter of months that present both a detailed, personal and a deeply investigative account of those unique political partners, Joseph and Enid Lyons.
... (read more)Gillian Dooley reviews 'Alan Moorehead: A Rediscovery' by Ann Moyal
The leading early geologist in Australia was Reverend William Branwhite Clarke (1798–1878). His father was a blind schoolmaster in a Suffolk village, and the family was not well off. Still, they managed to send William to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he studied to enter the church. During his time as a student, he came under the influence of the redoubtable professor of geology Adam Sedgwick and took up geology seriously. Nevertheless, he became a clergyman and held a series of minor ecclesiastical positions, besides teaching at his father’s old school for a period. He also undertook geological studies, was elected a Fellow of the Geological Society and published a number of (fairly minor) papers in Britain.
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