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Absolutely Revolting

February–March 1998, no. 198

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Contents Category: Journalism
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Article Title: Lisa Kerrigan reviews five magazines
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I have to admit that I’m a magazine junkie. With the possible exceptions of golfing and bridal magazines I’ll read any magazine – from the trashy tabloid to high-brow literary – anywhere; anytime; dentists’ waiting rooms, doctors’ waiting rooms, hairdressers’ salons and, most of all, public transport. In fact, magazines are made for public transport. Unlike reading novels you can finish an article, story, or review in the space of a P.T. trip without the narrative being interrupted by annoying practical details like getting off. Buying a magazine and making it last over a week of P.T. transport is an art, as is choosing the right magazine for the right journey. It’s not an exact science but there are compelling reasons for giving this matter serious consideration.
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I have to admit that I’m a magazine junkie. With the possible exceptions of golfing and bridal magazines I’ll read any magazine – from the trashy tabloid to high-brow literary – anywhere; anytime; dentists’ waiting rooms, doctors’ waiting rooms, hairdressers’ salons and, most of all, public transport. In fact, magazines are made for public transport. Unlike reading novels you can finish an article, story, or review in the space of a P.T. trip without the narrative being interrupted by annoying practical details like getting off. Buying a magazine and making it last over a week of P.T. transport is an art, as is choosing the right magazine for the right journey. It’s not an exact science but there are compelling reasons for giving this matter serious consideration.

Read more: Lisa Kerrigan reviews HEAT #6, Quadrant #342, Blast #35, Nocturnal Submissions #5, and Siglo #9

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Tess Brady reviews Refuge by Libby Gleeson
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Contents Category: Children's and Young Adult Fiction
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Article Title: Coming Out of Hiding
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Gleeson is an award-winning novelist for young readers, winning the 1991 Australian Children’s Literature Peace Prize for Dodger and the 1997 Children’s Book Council Book of the Year for Younger Readers with Hannah Plus One. Her other novels include I am Susannah and Skating on Sand, and her picture books include The Princess and the Perfect Dish and Where’s Mum. She is an accomplished writer, which is reflected in her latest novel for older readers, Refuge.
Book 1 Title: Refuge
Book Author: Libby Gleeson
Book 1 Biblio: Viking, $12.95, 150 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Readings Link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/5bDgKj
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Gleeson is an award-winning novelist for young readers, winning the 1991 Australian Children’s Literature Peace Prize for Dodger and the 1997 Children’s Book Council Book of the Year for Younger Readers with Hannah Plus One. Her other novels include I am Susannah and Skating on Sand, and her picture books include The Princess and the Perfect Dish and Where’s Mum. She is an accomplished writer, which is reflected in her latest novel for older readers, Refuge.

Read more: Tess Brady reviews 'Refuge' by Libby Gleeson

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Custom Article Title: Editorial
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Last month’s editorial on reviewing and its ailments in Australia seems to have touched a few raw nerves. Various reviewers have enquired nervously about whether I was referring to them, for instance. On the other hand, as a result of the editorial, I have held a number of valuable conversations about the state of reviewing in Australia. Alas this is not reflected in the Letters pages of this issue. It seems with such a long break between the December/January issue and the February/March issue, the letter writers think of other things. Letters in this issue are few, fewer than any issue for several years.
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Last month’s editorial on reviewing and its ailments in Australia seems to have touched a few raw nerves. Various reviewers have enquired nervously about whether I was referring to them, for instance. On the other hand, as a result of the editorial, I have held a number of valuable conversations about the state of reviewing in Australia. Alas this is not reflected in the Letters pages of this issue. It seems with such a long break between the December/January issue and the February/March issue, the letter writers think of other things. Letters in this issue are few, fewer than any issue for several years.

Read more: 'Editorial' by Helen Daniel

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Peter Haynes reviews Lying About the Landscape edited by Geoff Levitus
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Contents Category: Art
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Article Title: Myth and Landscape
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The landscape has been seen (and continues to be seen) as a potent ingredient (the most potent?) in the construction of a national myth, in the determination of an identity which we can call ‘Australian’. The question of identity is a difficult area in which to delve but it is one which has elicited much critical debate and as many views as there are voices. Lying About the Landscape is exemplary of this.
Book 1 Title: Lying About the Landscape
Book Author: Geoff Levitus
Book 1 Biblio: Craftsman House $25 pb, 112 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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The landscape has been seen (and continues to be seen) as a potent ingredient (the most potent?) in the construction of a national myth, in the determination of an identity which we can call ‘Australian’. The question of identity is a difficult area in which to delve but it is one which has elicited much critical debate and as many views as there are voices. Lying About the Landscape is exemplary of this.

In a selection of eight essays introduced and edited by Geoff Levitus (artist, writer and founding editor of Periphery), we are presented with a range of ways of dealing with the myth of the landscape in a contemporary context and of ‘new’ approaches to the assessment of the role of the landscape in the formulation of an/the Australian identity. These essays are variously challenging, informative, aggressive, and stimulating.

Read more: Peter Haynes reviews 'Lying About the Landscape' edited by Geoff Levitus

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Peter Craven reviews the film of Oscar and Lucinda
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Contents Category: Film
Custom Article Title: Oscar and Lucinda
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Oscar and Lucinda is the next best thing we have to that gleaming oxymoron a contemporary Australian literary classic. It won a swag of prizes (not least the Booker); it is a long vibrant narrative, including history full of the rustle of Victorian costumes, but with a whisper of the horrors on which this country was founded with a brief ghastly moment representing the murder of Aborigines.
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Oscar and Lucinda is the next best thing we have to that gleaming oxymoron a contemporary Australian literary classic. It won a swag of prizes (not least the Booker); it is a long vibrant narrative, including history full of the rustle of Victorian costumes, but with a whisper of the horrors on which this country was founded with a brief ghastly moment representing the murder of Aborigines.

Peter Carey’s 1988 novel is also the book a lot of people would turn to if they wanted to show how Australian writing could take it up to the Marquezes and Rushdies, the fabulist tradition where you get realism and fancy with the lot. Oscar and Lucinda has, after all, its glass church on water, its central conceits of gambling, its Plymouth Brethren and megalomaniac clerks and parish hypocrites and Chinese gaming dens, its random happenstance and its dea ex machina.

Read more: Peter Craven reviews the film of Oscar and Lucinda

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