Archive
Rosemary Creswell reviews 'The Transit of Venus' by Shirley Hazzard
The Transit of Venus has been widely acclaimed, and justly so: it is a great novel of passion and ambition, success and failure, written with elegance and wit, and magnificently structured. Still, despite the critical superlatives, few critics have attempted to come to grips with the power of Hazzard’s writing. There have been the inevitable comparisons with Jane Austen, and some attention has been paid to the symbolic connotations of the title, but little more. The prose and structure of the novel are worth examining in some detail because, seven years in the making, it is a most crafted and sculpted work of literary art.
... (read more)Is there life after fifty? David Williamson’s newest play wittily affirms that love, adventure, and increasing self-knowledge are not the exclusive preserves of the young. Frank, seventy-five, retired engineer and ex-communist, is no spring chicken but neither is he ‘defunct in the physical area’.
... (read more)John McLaren reviews 'Barbara Baynton (Portable Australian Authors)' edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson
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.
... (read more)
It is five years since Rowbotham’s Selected Poems, one of that extraordinary number of summing-up volumes that has been, perhaps, last decade’s most telling and characteristic factor. The need to gauge one’s own work (and focus) from some working perspective has always been the basis of a living poet’s Selected Poems. But this decade’s perspective makers have, almost without exception, shared an additional, if implied, purpose: their selections point to a stocktaking rather than a summarising intention.
... (read more)Harry H. Jackman reviews 'Papua New Guinea: A political history' by James Griffin, Hank Nelson, and Firth Stewart
Brett Hilder reviews 'Australian Coastal Shipping' by Barry Pemberton
Until recently I had found that the most useful book on the history of shipping in the Australian area was the two-volume work Pageant of the Pacific by Captain F. Rhodes, published in 1936. During the last few years we have had several books devoted to single companies, such as the E. & A. Line, the AUSN, Adelaide Steamship, and smaller companies, each of which showed the difficulty of condensing a lot of ships histories into one volume. To deal with all the coastal companies, some of which extended overseas, in one volume, requires ruthless editing and carries the danger of the story being stripped of its flesh, to leave us with the dry bare bones. Two years ago there appeared the very complete work by Dr John Bach, A Maritime History of Australia in nearly 500 pages. The work under review is briefer and easier to read, being about 330 pages with 115 photographs and line drawings. A strange omission in both these books is that their bibliographies give no mention to Rhodes’ great work.
... (read more)T. Counihan reviews 'The Sources of Hope' edited by Ross Fitzgerald
In his introduction to this collection of essays the editor, Ross Fitzgerald, remarks: ‘Our age is not exactly brimming over with positive affirmation and joyful anticipation.’ One wonders whether or not there has ever been a period of human history which such an assertion would accurately describe, let alone whether this would be a particular occasion for celebration. After all what gives an aggressive advocate of military solutions to current political problems a certain degree of hope may well cause the pacificist the deepest despair. There is no unity and certainly no necessary common goal to what gives diverse groups and individuals their respective sources of hope and pessimism.
... (read more)Craig Munro reviews 'Walking the Line' by Rae Desmond Jones and 'Summer Ends Now' by John Emery
Rae Desmond Jones has joined the growing band of poets now working in the more expansive medium of prose diction (thereby possibly expanding their readership as well). Others that come to mind are David Malouf, Roger McDonald, and Rodney Hall.
At just 74 pages, Rae Desmond Jones’s first story collection gives the impression of being a slim volume. The contents page lists only ten stories. Yet this impression is deceptive. There are actually twelve stories (inexplicably, two aren’t listed in the contents), and the usual typography concentrates the prose, emphasizing its density and the sense of menace underlying the narratives.
... (read more)Dear Mr McLaren
Thank you for your letter. We shall certainly reciprocate in the matter of complimentary copies and we’re also interested in exchange advertising. I look forward to seeing your next issue and would appreciate receiving a copy by air mail if your circulation mechanism is as slow as ours tends to be.
... (read more)