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Absolutely Revolting

October 2007, no. 295

Welcome to the October 2007 issue of Australian Book Review.

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Contents Category: Children's and Young Adult Fiction
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Article Title: All things nice and puppy dogs’ tails
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Girls like books about friends and relationships. Boys like books about explosions and sport. Right? Like any generalisation based solely on gender, the answers are, invariably, ‘yes’; ‘sometimes’; ‘up to a point’ and ‘of course not’. This latest grab bag of junior fiction contains its fair share of ‘girlie’ books about friendship and ‘boyish’ books about sport. Thankfully, there are also some books to cater for other sections of the spectrum, including sensitive explorations of boys’ friendships and robust girls who trek up mountains.

Meg McKinlay’s Annabel Again (Walker, $14.95 pb, 143 pp, 9781921150104) lands us squarely in girlie territory. When Livvy’s best friend moves away, her world folds. With the best of intentions, her New Age mother hatches a plan to help Livvy forget about Annabel, as quickly as possible. But one year later, Annabel returns and Livvy believes things will be just the same again. But Annabel is distant and hostile, and nothing is the same. Can their friendship be resurrected? This book covers familiar ground, but the treatment of the girls’ friendships is refreshingly angst-free. This is a quick, humorous read that highlights both the strength and delicacy of friendship, and offers some sound advice about when not to listen to your mother.
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Girls like books about friends and relationships. Boys like books about explosions and sport. Right? Like any generalisation based solely on gender, the answers are, invariably, ‘yes’; ‘sometimes’; ‘up to a point’ and ‘of course not’. This latest grab bag of junior fiction contains its fair share of ‘girlie’ books about friendship and ‘boyish’ books about sport. Thankfully, there are also some books to cater for other sections of the spectrum, including sensitive explorations of boys’ friendships and robust girls who trek up mountains.

Annabel.JPGAnnabel Again by Meg McKinlay

Walker, $14.95 pb, 143 pp

 

Meg McKinlay’s Annabel Again (Walker, $14.95 pb, 143 pp, 9781921150104) lands us squarely in girlie territory. When Livvy’s best friend moves away, her world folds. With the best of intentions, her New Age mother hatches a plan to help Livvy forget about Annabel, as quickly as possible. But one year later, Annabel returns and Livvy believes things will be just the same again. But Annabel is distant and hostile, and nothing is the same. Can their friendship be resurrected? This book covers familiar ground, but the treatment of the girls’ friendships is refreshingly angst-free. This is a quick, humorous read that highlights both the strength and delicacy of friendship, and offers some sound advice about when not to listen to your mother.

Read more: Anna Ryan-Punch surveys children's and young adult fiction

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Contents Category: Advances
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Article Title: Advances
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The Fortunes of HHR

Last month, in his critique of Bruce Beresford’s memoir (whose title is far too long to reproduce here), Peter Craven, in addition to expressing surprise at film producers’ unwillingness to finance Beresford’s proposed film of Henry Handel Richardson’s The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, deplored the fact that the great trilogy (1917–29) was out of print. Well, abracadabra! Australian Scholarly Publishing has come to the rescue with a three-volume edition of Fortunes. (Penguin informs us that it will publish a new Penguins Classics edition in 2008.)

The Australian Scholarly Publishing edition marks the culmination of Clive Probyn and Bruce Steele’s scholarly edition of the works of HHR: six novels, a novel translated from the Danish, her music and her complete correspondence. Professor Probyn, of Monash University, writes about the trilogy and the vicissitudes of HHR’s career in this month’s Profile in World Literature and Ideas (beginning on p. 30).

Scholarly editions of this kind are the rara avis of Australian literature. What this country badly needs is an equivalent of the Library of America, that redoubtable, non-profit enterprise which brings readers – in handsome, relatively inexpensive, hardback editions – novels, stories, poetry, plays, essays, journalism, historical writing, speeches and more. The Library – long dreamt of by Edmund Wilson, inspired by La Pléiade in France – was founded in 1979 and now runs to more than 150 volumes. The authors range from Edgar Allan Poe and Edith Wharton to James Baldwin and Philip Roth. The aim is a simple one: to keep classics in print in order to preserve the country’s literary heritage.

Now there is an ambitious project for a visionary Australian philanthropist or philanthropic trust.
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The Fortunes of HHR

Last month, in his critique of Bruce Beresford’s memoir (whose title is far too long to reproduce here), Peter Craven, in addition to expressing surprise at film producers’ unwillingness to finance Beresford’s proposed film of Henry Handel Richardson’s The Fortunes of Richard Mahony, deplored the fact that the great trilogy (1917–29) was out of print. Well, abracadabra! Australian Scholarly Publishing has come to the rescue with a three-volume edition of Fortunes. (Penguin informs us that it will publish a new Penguins Classics edition in 2008.)

Read more: Advances: Literary News - October 2007

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Robert Gibson reviews The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC music-making by Martin Buzacott
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Contents Category: Music
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Article Title: Sinfonia da Requiem
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In the course of its seventy-five years, the ABC has maintained a variety of in-house live music ensembles, including symphony orchestras, radio choruses, dance bands, a show band, military band and string quartet. In its capacity as a concert agency, the national broadcaster has been responsible for touring an astonishing array of artists. Claudio Arrau, John Barbirolli, Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer, Rafael Kubelík, Yehudi Menuhin, Birgit Nilsson, Eugene Ormandy, Artur Schnabel, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Isaac Stern, and Igor Stravinsky all made at least one visit to our shores, thanks to the concert-giving activities of the ABC. High-end classical music traffic in and out of the country has been so intense over the years that, at one point, piano legend Arthur Rubinstein crossed paths with violin virtuoso Bronislaw Huberman in remote Daly Waters in the Northern Territory (their inbound and outbound planes were refuelling at the time). To the Polish-born classical music celebrities, outback Australia in 1937 must have seemed as strange and unlikely a meeting place as deepest, darkest Congo. Rubinstein couldn’t resist exclaiming to his startled friend, ‘Dr Huberman, I presume!
Book 1 Title: The Rite of Spring
Book 1 Subtitle: 75 Years of ABC music-making
Book Author: Martin Buzacott
Book 1 Biblio: ABC Books, $49.95 hb, 496 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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In the course of its seventy-five years, the ABC has maintained a variety of in-house live music ensembles, including symphony orchestras, radio choruses, dance bands, a show band, military band and string quartet. In its capacity as a concert agency, the national broadcaster has been responsible for touring an astonishing array of artists. Claudio Arrau, John Barbirolli, Thomas Beecham, Otto Klemperer, Rafael Kubelík, Yehudi Menuhin, Birgit Nilsson, Eugene Ormandy, Artur Schnabel, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Isaac Stern, and Igor Stravinsky all made at least one visit to our shores, thanks to the concert-giving activities of the ABC. High-end classical music traffic in and out of the country has been so intense over the years that, at one point, piano legend Arthur Rubinstein crossed paths with violin virtuoso Bronislaw Huberman in remote Daly Waters in the Northern Territory (their inbound and outbound planes were refuelling at the time). To the Polish-born classical music celebrities, outback Australia in 1937 must have seemed as strange and unlikely a meeting place as deepest, darkest Congo. Rubinstein couldn’t resist exclaiming to his startled friend, ‘Dr Huberman, I presume!

Read more: Robert Gibson reviews 'The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC music-making' by Martin Buzacott

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Philip Selth reviews The Conviction of the Innocent: How the law can let us down by Chester Porter
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Contents Category: Law
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Article Title: Throw away the keys
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Chester Porter QC retired as a barrister in June 2000. Several weeks previous, the Bar Council appointed Porter a life member of the New South Wales Bar Association ‘for his exceptional service to the Bar Association and the profession of law’. The Council’s decision was unanimous (I know this because I wrote the minutes of that meeting). There was, and is, no dispute that Porter was one of Australia’s foremost advocates. Porter retired from the Bar, but not from passionately advocating justice for those caught up in our criminal justice system, including those members of society many of the community would be happy to have rot behind bars.
Book 1 Title: The Conviction of the Innocent
Book 1 Subtitle: How the law can let us down
Book Author: Chester Porter
Book 1 Biblio: Random House, $32.95 hb, 277 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Chester Porter QC retired as a barrister in June 2000. Several weeks previous, the Bar Council appointed Porter a life member of the New South Wales Bar Association ‘for his exceptional service to the Bar Association and the profession of law’. The Council’s decision was unanimous (I know this because I wrote the minutes of that meeting). There was, and is, no dispute that Porter was one of Australia’s foremost advocates. Porter retired from the Bar, but not from passionately advocating justice for those caught up in our criminal justice system, including those members of society many of the community would be happy to have rot behind bars.

Read more: Philip Selth reviews 'The Conviction of the Innocent: How the law can let us down' by Chester Porter

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Christina Hill reviews The Night Has a Thousand Eyes by Mandy Sayer
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Contents Category: Fiction
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Article Title: As I lay wondering why
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This novella is crammed with incident. It includes domestic violence, a decomposing corpse, incest, child abuse, alcoholism, murder, attempted murder, an unnamed and oddly passive baby, guns and a hair-raising cross-country chase. Roy Stamp, a one-legged alcoholic in a car (he can drive), pursues his fourteen-year old daughter, Ruby, and his twelve-year-old son, Mark, because the boy has seen, through the window of a locked shed, the body of their mother. Realising that their father has killed her, the children flee in a van. Despite being bashed over the head (with his wooden leg), being shot in the eye with an air rifle, and being run off the road at high speed, like a cartoon character, Roy seems indestructible and keeps popping up, whatever the children do to get rid of him. Unable to drive, Mark’s contribution is to hold the uncomplaining baby, to shoplift food and disposable nappies, and to steal petrol.
Book 1 Title: The Night Has a Thousand Eyes
Book Author: Mandy Sayer
Book 1 Biblio: Fourth Estate, $29.95 hb, 139 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Readings Link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/qnvxNb
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This novella is crammed with incident. It includes domestic violence, a decomposing corpse, incest, child abuse, alcoholism, murder, attempted murder, an unnamed and oddly passive baby, guns and a hair-raising cross-country chase. Roy Stamp, a one-legged alcoholic in a car (he can drive), pursues his fourteen-year old daughter, Ruby, and his twelve-year-old son, Mark, because the boy has seen, through the window of a locked shed, the body of their mother. Realising that their father has killed her, the children flee in a van. Despite being bashed over the head (with his wooden leg), being shot in the eye with an air rifle, and being run off the road at high speed, like a cartoon character, Roy seems indestructible and keeps popping up, whatever the children do to get rid of him. Unable to drive, Mark’s contribution is to hold the uncomplaining baby, to shoplift food and disposable nappies, and to steal petrol.

Read more: Christina Hill reviews 'The Night Has a Thousand Eyes' by Mandy Sayer

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