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Absolutely Revolting

September 2002, no. 244

Welcome to the September 2002 issue of Australian Book Review.

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Welcome to our many new subscribers who have joined us in the past couple of months, including a large number in NSW and the ACT, further evidence (if we needed it) of the value of our new partnership with the National Library of Australia. We hope you enjoy the September issue.
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Welcome to our many new subscribers who have joined us in the past couple of months, including a large number in NSW and the ACT, further evidence (if we needed it) of the value of our new partnership with the National Library of Australia. We hope you enjoy the September issue.

ABR subscribers receive, among other things, advance notice of ABR Forums and events. (If you haven’t already given us your e-mail address, please do so.) Those in Sydney and elsewhere in NSW may like to join us at 7.30 p.m. on Friday, 13 September when Neal Blewett will launch the September issue. The launch is part of Songlines, the Blue Mountains World Heritage Arts and Environment Festival, based in the Wentworth Falls School of Arts, and held over the first three weekends in September (enquiries to (02) 4782 7664 or www.songlinesfestival.com.au). The festival will include a series of conversations co-organised by Peter Bishop (a regular contributor to the ‘Author! Author!’ column, and ABR’s newest editorial adviser). The ABR launch will be followed by a conversation with historian Anna Haebich.

Read more: Advances – September 2002

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Contents Category: Commentary
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Article Title: Diary
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I have resigned from my dream job. When I leave in October, I will have worked on the ‘new’ Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) for all of its five years, a lustrum in which I have met some extraordinary people and forged many fruitful relationships. I truly doubt that, despite the odd scandal and beat-up, many industries are as friendly and collaborative (not in THAT way, Allan Fels) as the book industry. We are all a little evangelical in our desire to share our favourite writers and books and thoughts with others, and our belief that reading brings enlightenment.
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I have resigned from my dream job. When I leave in October, I will have worked on the ‘new’ Sydney Writers’ Festival (SWF) for all of its five years, a lustrum in which I have met some extraordinary people and forged many fruitful relationships. I truly doubt that, despite the odd scandal and beat-up, many industries are as friendly and collaborative (not in THAT way, Allan Fels) as the book industry. We are all a little evangelical in our desire to share our favourite writers and books and thoughts with others, and our belief that reading brings enlightenment.

Read more: 'Diary' by Meredith Curnow

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Richard King reviews three poetry collections
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Contents Category: Poetry
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Article Title: School of Hard Knocks
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John Foulcher’s The Learning Curve is a sequence of poems set in a fictional school called Saint Joseph’s. The ancient chestnut in which a mother’s attempts to get her son off to school are met with a lot of sulking about the pointlessness of the work and the nastiness of the children – to which she responds that as the school’s headmaster he really has to go – feels peculiarly appropriate: neither the students nor the teachers particularly want to be there. Using mainly dramatic monologues, Foulcher paints a depressing picture of a school where professional disappointments, an inept and religion-infested staff, and a general air of mutual loathing combine to produce what amounts to a psychological tragedy (with some physical tragedies thrown in for good measure). Sometimes it’s as if Joyce Grenfell’s scripts tenderly mocking English schoolmistresses have been violently revised by a Writer in Residence at the proverbial School of Hard Knocks.
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John Foulcher’s The Learning Curve (Brandl & Schlesinger, $22.95 pb, 82 pp) is a sequence of poems set in a fictional school called Saint Joseph’s. The ancient chestnut in which a mother’s attempts to get her son off to school are met with a lot of sulking about the pointlessness of the work and the nastiness of the children – to which she responds that as the school’s headmaster he really has to go – feels peculiarly appropriate: neither the students nor the teachers particularly want to be there. Using mainly dramatic monologues, Foulcher paints a depressing picture of a school where professional disappointments, an inept and religion-infested staff, and a general air of mutual loathing combine to produce what amounts to a psychological tragedy (with some physical tragedies thrown in for good measure). Sometimes it’s as if Joyce Grenfell’s scripts tenderly mocking English schoolmistresses have been violently revised by a Writer in Residence at the proverbial School of Hard Knocks.

Read more: Richard King reviews three poetry collections

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David McCooey reviews four poetry collections
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Contents Category: Poetry
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Article Title: Salty Pleasures
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When people complain about ‘postmodernism’ in poetry, they are usually, for all their talk of form and technique, strangely indifferent to its intense aestheticism. The disruptions of syntax, use of indeterminacy, tonal disjunctions, obtruse formalism, and intertextuality are types of decorativeness, instruments of ornamentation. For all that Language poets and others press their political case, pleasure is the guilty secret of postmodern poetry.
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When people complain about ‘postmodernism’ in poetry, they are usually, for all their talk of form and technique, strangely indifferent to its intense aestheticism. The disruptions of syntax, use of indeterminacy, tonal disjunctions, obtruse formalism, and intertextuality are types of decorativeness, instruments of ornamentation. For all that Language poets and others press their political case, pleasure is the guilty secret of postmodern poetry.

Read more: David McCooey reviews four poetry collections

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Felicity Bloc reviews ‘Yenni: A Life Between Worlds’ by Eugenia Jenny Williams
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Contents Category: Fiction
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Article Title: Suffering in a Golden Age
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Eugenia Williams’s appealing memoir of a Czech–Hungarian family spans many defining moments of twentieth-century European history. In the final days of World War II, the author and her family were part of the civilian population trapped between retreating and advancing armies. The memoir concludes more than two decades later. In 1969, one year after the Czechoslovakian democracy movement was crushed by the Russians, the family joined a refugee exodus to Austria, and eventually received immigrant permits to Australia. Williams appears to have been cushioned from trauma by her nurturing family and community. The bright surface of the narrative also reflects her buoyant temperament.
Book 1 Title: Yenni
Book 1 Subtitle: A Life Between Worlds
Book Author: Eugenia Jenny Williams
Book 1 Biblio: Pluto Press, $29.95 pb, 342 pp
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Eugenia Williams’s appealing memoir of a Czech–Hungarian family spans many defining moments of twentieth-century European history. In the final days of World War II, the author and her family were part of the civilian population trapped between retreating and advancing armies. The memoir concludes more than two decades later. In 1969, one year after the Czechoslovakian democracy movement was crushed by the Russians, the family joined a refugee exodus to Austria, and eventually received immigrant permits to Australia. Williams appears to have been cushioned from trauma by her nurturing family and community. The bright surface of the narrative also reflects her buoyant temperament.

Read more: Felicity Bloc reviews ‘Yenni: A Life Between Worlds’ by Eugenia Jenny Williams

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