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Absolutely Revolting

April 2025, no. 474

This April, ABR eyes the fragile state of Australian democracy and institutions. In a special election survey, senior ABR contributors brace for a federal election at a time when democracy around the world is under threat. We ask leading voices in the arts about the future of Opera Australia, a major cultural institution now under review by Creative Australia. ABR reports from Georgia’s capital, Tbilisi, on cancel culture and the Pope’s memoir, and reviews work by Geraldine Brooks, Santilla Chingaipe, Laila Lalami, Martha C. Nussbaum, Caro Llewellyn, Kevin Brophy and more.

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Michael Shmith reviews ‘Nellie Melba: The legend lives – a biography’ by Richard Davis
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Article Title: The empress of pickpockets
Article Subtitle: A worthy addition to the diva's literature
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Product placement, admittedly not a term in vogue in Madame Melba’s time (1861-1931), was lucratively and occasionally indiscriminately deployed in her name. Since that name was itself an invention (one decided upon in late 1886, by Mrs Armstrong, née Mitchell, at the behest of her teacher, Madame Marchesi), it was officially or blatantly unofficially applied to everything from throat lozenges and mouthwash to cigarettes, motorcycles, and a sewing machine. Then, of course, there are Escoffier’s tasty tributes: Pêches Melba and Melba Toast – and let’s not forget that small town in Idaho, Melba (pop. 600). This was named not directly after Nellie, but a Melba once removed: the daughter of the man who founded the town in 1912. At the time, Melba was as fashionable a name for newborn girls in the United States as it was in Britain.
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Book 1 Title: Nellie Melba
Book 1 Subtitle: The legend lives – a biography
Book Author: Richard Davis
Book 1 Biblio: Wakefield Press, $49.95 pb, 641 pp
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Product placement, admittedly not a term in vogue in Madame Melba’s time (1861-1931), was lucratively and occasionally indiscriminately deployed in her name. Since that name was itself an invention (one decided upon in late 1886, by Mrs Armstrong, née Mitchell, at the behest of her teacher, Madame Marchesi), it was officially or blatantly unofficially applied to everything from throat lozenges and mouthwash to cigarettes, motorcycles, and a sewing machine. Then, of course, there are Escoffier’s tasty tributes: Pêches Melba and Melba Toast – and let’s not forget that small town in Idaho, Melba (pop. 600). This was named not directly after Nellie, but a Melba once removed: the daughter of the man who founded the town in 1912. At the time, Melba was as fashionable a name for newborn girls in the United States as it was in Britain.

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Contents Category: Interview
Custom Article Title: Publisher of the Month with Edwin Frank
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Edwin Frank is the founder and editor of the NYRB Classics series and the editorial director of New York Review Books. He is also the author of Snake Train: Poems 1984-2013 and Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel. He co-edited At the Louvre: Poems by 100 contemporary world poets, reviewed on page 55.
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Edwin Frank NEW 2025Edwin Frank is the founder and editor of the NYRB Classics series and the editorial director of New York Review Books. He is also the author of Snake Train: Poems 1984-2013 and Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth-Century Novel. He co-edited At the Louvre: Poems by 100 contemporary world poets, reviewed on page 55.

 

 

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David Garrioch reviews ‘An Environmental History of France: Making the landscape, 1770-2020’ by Peter McPhee
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Article Title: 2,800 oaks per warship
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In a mountain area of south-eastern France that I know well, the locals will often respond to a comment on the beauty of the valleys by remarking glumly that they are not what they were: the forest is expanding, they say. We might see reforestation as a good thing, restoring hillsides devegetated and exposed to erosion by goats and sheep, but to them it marks the loss of a beloved familiar landscape. This bears out a point that Peter McPhee makes throughout his engaging new book, An Environmental History of France: that people have an idealised image of French landscapes, perceiving them as beautiful and timeless. In fact, he shows, they are the product of human activity, most markedly over the past 150 years. In that time, the bay around Mont-Saint-Michel has been largely reclaimed for farming, the hedgerows of Normandy have been destroyed, and freeways and fast train lines have sliced through the countryside.
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Book 1 Title: An Environmental History of France
Book 1 Subtitle: Making the landscape, 1770-2020
Book Author: Peter McPhee
Book 1 Biblio: Bloomsbury, $35.99 pb, 224 pp
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Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781350523852/an-environmental-history-of-france--emeritus-professor-peter-mcphee--2024--9781350523852#rac:jokjjzr6ly9m
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In a mountain area of south-eastern France that I know well, the locals will often respond to a comment on the beauty of the valleys by remarking glumly that they are not what they were: the forest is expanding, they say. We might see reforestation as a good thing, restoring hillsides devegetated and exposed to erosion by goats and sheep, but to them it marks the loss of a beloved familiar landscape. This bears out a point that Peter McPhee makes throughout his engaging new book, An Environmental History of France: that people have an idealised image of French landscapes, perceiving them as beautiful and timeless. In fact, he shows, they are the product of human activity, most markedly over the past 150 years. In that time, the bay around Mont-Saint-Michel has been largely reclaimed for farming, the hedgerows of Normandy have been destroyed, and freeways and fast train lines have sliced through the countryside.

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Gregory Day reviews ‘Enchantment by Birds: A history of birdwatching in 22 species’ by Russell McGregor
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Article Title: Spotting Yellow Chat
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Early on in Russell McGregor’s new book on the history of birdwatching in Australia, he highlights the importance of the initial epiphany most birdwatchers experience when their interest first sparks. This moment of what Julian Huxley called ‘sudden glory’ can happen anywhere and at any time, city or country, day or night, and often fans out into an obsession, sometimes a profession, that endures through a lifetime.
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Book 1 Title: Enchantment by Birds
Book 1 Subtitle: A history of birdwatching in 22 species
Book Author: Russell McGregor
Book 1 Biblio: Scribe, $39.99 pb, 309 pp
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Early on in Russell McGregor’s new book on the history of birdwatching in Australia, he highlights the importance of the initial epiphany most birdwatchers experience when their interest first sparks. This moment of what Julian Huxley called ‘sudden glory’ can happen anywhere and at any time, city or country, day or night, and often fans out into an obsession, sometimes a profession, that endures through a lifetime.

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Paul Kildea reviews ‘The Tenderness of Silent Minds: Benjamin Britten and his War Requiem’ by Martha C. Nussbaum
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Article Title: Behind the masterpiece
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Of  Gustav Mahler’s numerous military sorties, ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’, a miniature from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, is surely the most affecting. It is the eve of battle, and a young woman is visited by her lover, distant trumpet fanfares and dull drumbeats in the air. But perhaps the lover is already dead and it is his spirit she encounters – or it is a premonition of what the morrow will bring. Regardless, Mahler evokes a mixture of tenderness and gloomy foreboding as the young soldier tells his lover that he is going to the green heath far away. ‘There where the splendid trumpets sound / There is my home of green turf.’
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Book 1 Title: The Tenderness of Silent Minds
Book 1 Subtitle: Benjamin Britten and his War Requiem
Book Author: Martha C. Nussbaum
Book 1 Biblio: Oxford University Press, £19.99 hb, 295 pp
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Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780197568538/the-tenderness-of-silent-minds--martha-c-nussbaum--2024--9780197568538#rac:jokjjzr6ly9m
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Of Gustav Mahler’s numerous military sorties, ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’, a miniature from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, is surely the most affecting. It is the eve of battle, and a young woman is visited by her lover, distant trumpet fanfares and dull drumbeats in the air. But perhaps the lover is already dead and it is his spirit she encounters – or it is a premonition of what the morrow will bring. Regardless, Mahler evokes a mixture of tenderness and gloomy foreboding as the young soldier tells his lover that he is going to the green heath far away. ‘There where the splendid trumpets sound / There is my home of green turf.’

Read more: Paul Kildea reviews ‘The Tenderness of Silent Minds: Benjamin Britten and his War Requiem’ by...

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