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Absolutely Revolting

February–March 1994, no. 158

Welcome to the February-March 1994 issue of Australian Book Review!

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Margaret Smith reviews The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
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Contents Category: Fiction
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Ever since the publication of Margaret Atwood’s first novels, The Edible Woman and Surfacing, she has been seized upon as a writer who articulated the predicament of being female in contemporary western societies. Her Canadian origins were no barrier for many Australian women, who read her as though she spoke with their voice. Atwood was like a ‘sister’ who didn’t fail them – someone who’d been there and could help light the way.
Book 1 Title: The Robber Bride
Book Author: Margaret Atwood
Book 1 Biblio: Bloomsbury, $34.95 hb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Readings Link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/5WPAD
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Ever since the publication of Margaret Atwood’s first novels, The Edible Woman and Surfacing, she has been seized upon as a writer who articulated the predicament of being female in contemporary western societies. Her Canadian origins were no barrier for many Australian women, who read her as though she spoke with their voice. Atwood was like a ‘sister’ who didn’t fail them – someone who’d been there and could help light the way.

Her latest novel has not one, but three, female personae. There’s Tony, the small birdlike academic who specialises in wars, and whose parents died in gruesome circumstances. There’s Roz, the over-inflated businesswoman who can barely keep up with her own office staff, and her strange almost grown-up family at home. And there’s Charis, who dabbles in crystals and the occult, and was Karen in an earlier life when she was abandoned by her mother, and sexually abused as a child. All three women try to be embodiments of the ‘female principle’, even though they are haunted by their own pasts, men’s duplicity, middle-age, and the fate that awaits them.

Read more: Margaret Smith reviews 'The Robber Bride' by Margaret Atwood

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Clare O’Farrell reviews Coda by Thea Astley
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Each of the three parts that make up Thea Astley’s new novel, Coda, is prefaced by a newspaper report, real or imaginary, detailing cases of ‘granny-dumping’, the ruthless abandonment of old, frail, and disoriented people by their unidentified children. This sets the scene for a reflection on old age and the rejection of those whose physical and mental capacities no longer meet the stringent requirements of the standard economically viable unit of modem civilisation. The manifest duty of such objects is to be as discreet as possible, providing minimal inconvenience to others (especially their adult children) until they can fade into oblivion.
Book 1 Title: Coda
Book Author: Thea Astley
Book 1 Biblio: W.H. Allen, $24.95 hb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Readings Link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/VJ34R
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Each of the three parts that make up Thea Astley’s new novel, Coda, is prefaced by a newspaper report, real or imaginary, detailing cases of ‘granny-dumping’, the ruthless abandonment of old, frail, and disoriented people by their unidentified children. This sets the scene for a reflection on old age and the rejection of those whose physical and mental capacities no longer meet the stringent requirements of the standard economically viable unit of modem civilisation. The manifest duty of such objects is to be as discreet as possible, providing minimal inconvenience to others (especially their adult children) until they can fade into oblivion.

Of course, these unwanted burdens are sometimes irritatingly reluctant to play along and to withdraw gracefully from the scene with calm dignity. One such is Kathleen, who is old and sometimes very confused. Strangers’ faces resemble those of long-dead friends and the anonymous surroundings of a shopping mall dissolve into an endless train of reminiscence, occasionally shared aloud with indifferent or, at best, embarrassed passers-by.

Read more: Clare O’Farrell reviews 'Coda' by Thea Astley

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Alan Wearne reviews The Elephant Vanishes by Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Jay Rubin
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Contents Category: Short Stories
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Every adventurous reader of fiction ought to have a private hoard of novelists, preferably from a non-English writing background, who have escaped the appalling nonsense of Booker-style PR hype. Luckily, publishers like Collins Harvill set about promoting such writers; unluckily for Australia, though, our major literary pages often neglect to review the bulk of such output. You will have your favourites in such a category, but let this reviewer recommend the following: Jose Donoso, Etienne Leroux, Jose Saramago, Eduardo Mendoza, Saiichi Maruya, and Haruki Murakami.
Book 1 Title: The Elephant Vanishes
Book Author: Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum and Jay Rubin
Book 1 Biblio: Hamish Hamilton, S24.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 1 Readings Link: booktopia.kh4ffx.net/4e5dzZ
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Every adventurous reader of fiction ought to have a private hoard of novelists, preferably from a non-English writing background, who have escaped the appalling nonsense of Booker-style PR hype. Luckily, publishers like Collins Harvill set about promoting such writers; unluckily for Australia, though, our major literary pages often neglect to review the bulk of such output. You will have your favourites in such a category, but let this reviewer recommend the following: Jose Donoso, Etienne Leroux, Jose Saramago, Eduardo Mendoza, Saiichi Maruya, and Haruki Murakami.

If I see a bookshelf containing a Murakami I feel assured that its owner is probably a person of vigorous taste and intellect. The writer is male, Japanese, by now in his mid-forties. His two novels published in English are A Wild Sheep Chase and The Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World with Dance Dance appearing on the horizon. Australians have bought his work, though not in the quantities of an Atwood or a García Márquez.

Read more: Alan Wearne reviews 'The Elephant Vanishes' by Haruki Murakami, translated by Alfred Birnbaum and...

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Contents Category: Commentary
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In October 1993 I picked up a copy of Window, the ‘Weekly Hong Kong Newsmagazine with Exclusive Coverage of China’ and found in the Business and Finance section a Profile, ‘Bob Hawke’s Eagle Eye in Asia’. There was a photograph of the Eagle, who described himself as a ‘business commentator and facilitator of increased enmeshment in Asia’. This was certainly a confident label. Reading on I discovered that Hawke saw himself as ‘overwhelmingly responsible for the vision of Australia as part of Asia’. He told the reporter than in his first days as Prime Minister he had used the phrase, ‘our future lies in enmeshment with Asia’, a sentiment that was at first greeted sceptically, but now, Hawke claimed, ‘no one questions the wisdom and correctness of Hawke’s vision. No one.’ Emphatic stuff, claiming sole credit for long term shifts in opinion and cultural practice, while dismissing the doubters. If that was all there was to my theme, this would be a very brief history indeed.
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In October 1993 I picked up a copy of Window, the ‘Weekly Hong Kong Newsmagazine with Exclusive Coverage of China’ and found in the Business and Finance section a Profile, ‘Bob Hawke’s Eagle Eye in Asia’. There was a photograph of the Eagle, who described himself as a ‘business commentator and facilitator of increased enmeshment in Asia’. This was certainly a confident label. Reading on I discovered that Hawke saw himself as ‘overwhelmingly responsible for the vision of Australia as part of Asia’. He told the reporter than in his first days as Prime Minister he had used the phrase, ‘our future lies in enmeshment with Asia’, a sentiment that was at first greeted sceptically, but now, Hawke claimed, ‘no one questions the wisdom and correctness of Hawke’s vision. No one.’ Emphatic stuff, claiming sole credit for long term shifts in opinion and cultural practice, while dismissing the doubters. If that was all there was to my theme, this would be a very brief history indeed.

Read more: ‘A brief history of the future’ by David Walker

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