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Absolutely Revolting

January-February 2019, no. 408

Welcome to the January-February 2019 issue of ABR.

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Danielle Clode reviews Tales from the Inner City by Shaun Tan
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Contents Category: Fiction
Custom Article Title: Danielle Clode reviews 'Tales from the Inner City' by Shaun Tan
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It is hard to think of a more distinctive and idiosyncratic author than Western Australian Shaun Tan. Winner of the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children’s literature, Tan’s work has also been recognised by numerous awards in speculative fiction, illustration, and children’s book ...
Book 1 Title: Tales from the Inner City
Book Author: Shaun Tan
Book 1 Biblio: Allen and Unwin, $32.99 pb, 209 pp, 9781760523534
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It is hard to think of a more distinctive and idiosyncratic author than Western Australian Shaun Tan. Winner of the prestigious Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for children’s literature, Tan’s work has also been recognised by numerous awards in speculative fiction, illustration, and children’s books, including an Academy Award in 2011 (for the animated short adaptation of The Lost Thing). By sheer force of imagination and talent, Tan seems to have carved out a unique niche for himself, one that hovers between the worlds of images and words, children and adults, extravagant fantasy and the most visceral realism. In his latest book, Tales from the Inner City, Tan brings his focus to the fissure between the natural and human worlds.

Many of Tan’s previous books feature an overpowering and oppressively industrial landscape, where organic life often takes an alien, uncontrolled, and distinctly unfamiliar form. The Lost Thing (2000) hybridises an octopus/hermit crab and a teapot/steam boiler, The Red Tree (2001) grows unexpectedly from a bedroom floor, while origami birds and fish flourish in The Arrival (2006).

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Simon Caterson reviews Chromatopia: An illustrated history of colour by David Coles
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Contents Category: Art
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The story of art could be framed as a narrative of tension between the boundless creative imagination of artists and the practical limitations – including instability, scarcity, even toxicity – of their materials. As master paint-maker David Coles explains in this wonderful book ...
Book 1 Title: Chromatopia: An illustrated history of colour
Book Author: David Coles
Book 1 Biblio: Thames & Hudson, $49.99 hb, 224 pp, 9781760760021
Book 1 Author Type: Author

The story of art could be framed as a narrative of tension between the boundless creative imagination of artists and the practical limitations – including instability, scarcity, even toxicity – of their materials. As master paint-maker David Coles explains in this wonderful book, the vividness and permanence of artists’ colours have never been assured.

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Brian McFarlane reviews Performing Hamlet: Actors in the modern age by Jonathan Croall
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Contents Category: Theatre
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'It is arguably the most famous play on the planet’, writes Jonathan Croall in his introduction to this absorbing study of how the play and its eponym have gripped the imagination across the ages – and, as far as this book is concerned, particularly across the last seventy years. Whether for actor or director, Hamlet has always been ‘a supreme challenge’, making huge demands on those bringing it to theatrical life.
Book 1 Title: Performing Hamlet: Actors in the modern age
Book Author: Jonathan Croall
Book 1 Biblio: Bloomsbury $47.99 pb, 208 pp, 9781350030763
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‘It is arguably the most famous play on the planet’, writes Jonathan Croall in his introduction to this absorbing study of how the play and its eponym have gripped the imagination across the ages – and, as far as this book is concerned, particularly across the last seventy years. Whether for actor or director, Hamlet has always been ‘a supreme challenge’, making huge demands on those bringing it to theatrical life.

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Ron Radford reviews Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening our eyes by Joanna Mendelssohn et al.
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Contents Category: Art
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This well-illustrated volume documents through its analysis of art exhibitions the massive rise of Australia’s art gallery attendances over a period of more than forty years. Before the late 1960s, only a few hundred thousand people visited Australian galleries each year ...
Book 1 Title: Australian Art Exhibitions: Opening our eyes
Book Author: Joanna Mendelssohn et al.
Book 1 Biblio: Thames & Hudson, $100 hb, 415 pp, 9780500501214
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This well-illustrated volume documents through its analysis of art exhibitions the massive rise of Australia’s art gallery attendances over a period of more than forty years. Before the late 1960s, only a few hundred thousand people visited Australian galleries each year; now many millions flock to them. The popularity is largely attributable to well-promoted special exhibitions. This book concentrates on exhibitions of Australian art and demonstrates how curators and directors helped to rewrite Australia’s venerable art history.

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Tim Byrne reviews The World Only Spins Forward: The ascent of angels in America edited by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois
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Contents Category: Theatre
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Custom Highlight Text: Most of the time, plays are just entertainments; they can be witty and insightful, even powerful and contemporary, and still function as merely satisfying divertissements. Rarely, so rarely entire decades can pass without one, a play functions in an entirely different capacity ...
Book 1 Title: The World Only Spins Forward: The ascent of angels in America
Book Author: Isaac Butler and Dan Kois
Book 1 Biblio: Bloomsbury, $42.99 hb, 437 pp, 9781635571769
Book 1 Author Type: Editor

Most of the time, plays are just entertainments; they can be witty and insightful, even powerful and contemporary, and still function as merely satisfying divertissements. Rarely, so rarely entire decades can pass without one, a play functions in an entirely different capacity: these are works so galvanising they seem to presage, if not actually bring about, socio-political change. Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House (1879) was one; Arthur Miller’s The Crucible (1953) is undeniably another; and Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A gay fantasia on national themes is probably the greatest of the modern era. A new book, The World Only Spins Forward (2018), edited by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois, aims to contextualise, honour, and perhaps even lionise this monumental masterpiece. It paints an overarching portrait – in a gathered testimony by the people who worked on, wrote about, and/or witnessed it – of the play’s cultural roots and its progression into the American theatrical canon.

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