Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%
Skip to main content
Absolutely Revolting

September 1991, no. 134

Catherine Kenneally reviews Millennium: Time-pieces by Australian writers by Helen Daniel
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Anthology
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Custom Highlight Text:

You can’t write a review of millenarian ‘time-pieces’ without showing your hand. I hereby declare that the first thing I do on looking into such a collection is a simple calculation, to which the answer in this case is 16:25.
Book 1 Title: Millennium
Book 1 Subtitle: Time-pieces by Australian writers
Book Author: Helen Daniel
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, $14.95 pb, 342 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Display Review Rating: No

You can’t write a review of millenarian ‘time-pieces’ without showing your hand. I hereby declare that the first thing I do on looking into such a collection is a simple calculation, to which the answer in this case is 16:25.

Not bad, certainly, if you compare it to a similar notional collection prepared just before 1000 CE. Not great, either. In the spirit of these times, rather than those long gone, how about proportional representation? In a straight statistical sense, that would of course mean weighting the ratio in favour of women. I contend it would also be legitimate to give women more space according to the talents of the writers working in Australia. To name some who don’t appear in this line-up, and who would certainly not have let the side down if they’d been used to bring the numbers up to 50/50: Gabrielle Lord, our best futuristic fabulist; Jean Bedford; Janet Shaw; Barbara Hanrahan; Helen Hodgman; Rosie Scott; Judy Duffy; any of a number of younger writers such as Stephanie Johnson; some of the better crime writers such as Marele Day.

Read more: Catherine Kenneally reviews 'Millennium: Time-pieces by Australian writers' by Helen Daniel

Write comment (0 Comments)
Tim Rowse reviews Hidden Histories: Black stories from the Victoria River Downs, Humbert River and Wave Hill stations by Deborah Bird Rose
Free Article: No
Contents Category: History
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Custom Highlight Text:

In the 1880s, these feuding speakers of Ngarinman, Mudbura, Bilinara, Ngaliwurru, Kangpurri, Wardaman, Gurindji, and Malngin found themselves confronted by a scourge of a different kind: Europeans with cattle, some en route from Queensland to the Kimberleys, others taking up ‘pasture’ in the Victoria River region itself.
Book 1 Title: Hidden Histories
Book 1 Subtitle: Black stories from the Victoria River Downs, Humbert River and Wave Hill stations
Book Author: Deborah Bird Rose
Book 1 Biblio: Aboriginal Studies Press, $22.95, 266pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Display Review Rating: No

If the stories brought together in this book had been arranged according to a chronological narrative, it would go something like this:

Around the middle of the nineteenth century, Aboriginal people in what would later be called the Victoria River country (Northern Territory) were affected by a new disease, smallpox, which came from the north; many succumbed to its hideous embrace. Possibly, the decimation of some families intensified endemic skirmishing among neighbouring peoples, and deaths created opportunities for territorial expansion and problems of orderly succession to country.

Read more: Tim Rowse reviews 'Hidden Histories: Black stories from the Victoria River Downs, Humbert River...

Write comment (0 Comments)
Richard Broinowski reviews Vietnam Days: Australia and the impact of Vietnam, edited by Peter Pierce, Jeffrey Grey, and Jeff Doyle
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Australian History
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:

In their introduction to this collection of essays, the editors state that Australia’s war experiences in Vietnam left some lasting legacies, but ones that were either unexpected or unintended: a loss of moral authority on the part of Australian conservative governments, a breakdown in the defence and foreign policy consensus about the ‘threat’ to Australia, the revival of populist politics and resistance to conscription, and increasing resistance to orthodox political views on other issues.
Book 1 Title: Vietnam Days
Book 1 Subtitle: Australia and the impact of Vietnam
Book Author: Peter Pierce, Jeffrey Grey, and Jeff Doyle
Book 1 Biblio: Penguin, $19.95 pb, 323 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Display Review Rating: No

In their introduction to this collection of essays, the editors state that Australia’s war experiences in Vietnam left some lasting legacies, but ones that were either unexpected or unintended: a loss of moral authority on the part of Australian conservative governments, a breakdown in the defence and foreign policy consensus about the ‘threat’ to Australia, the revival of populist politics and resistance to conscription, and increasing resistance to orthodox political views on other issues.

The authors also see the war experience as having done lasting damage to the United States’ image in Australia and, instead of reinforcing and sustaining the political will of Washington to maintain a strong military presence to our near north, as having resulted in the partial disengagement formalised in President Nixon’s Guam Doctrine. Nor, despite the later efforts by Labor governments and elements of the Australian press, did the war really reinforce Anzac mythology in the minds of many Australians.

Read more: Richard Broinowski reviews 'Vietnam Days: Australia and the impact of Vietnam', edited by Peter...

Write comment (0 Comments)
Coming Out From Behind: The unprinted stories behind the published books by Tom Thompson
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Commentary
Subheading: The unprinted stories behind the published books
Custom Article Title: Coming out from behind
Review Article: No
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:

Publishers are like invisible ink. Their imprint is in the mysterious appearance of books on shelves. This explains their obsession with crime novels.

To some authors they appear as good fairies, to others the Brothers Grimm. Publishers can be blamed for pages that fall out (Look ma, a self-exploding paperback!), for a book’s non-appearance at a country town called Ulmere. For appearing too early or too late for review. For a book being reviewed badly, and thus its non-appearance – in shops, newspapers and prized shortlistings.

As an author, it’s good therapy to blame someone and there’s nothing more cleansing than to blame a publisher. I know, because I’ve done it myself. A literary absolution feels good the whole day through.
Display Review Rating: No

Publishers are like invisible ink. Their imprint is in the mysterious appearance of books on shelves. This explains their obsession with crime novels.

To some authors they appear as good fairies, to others the Brothers Grimm. Publishers can be blamed for pages that fall out (Look ma, a self-exploding paperback!), for a book’s non-appearance at a country town called Ulmere. For appearing too early or too late for review. For a book being reviewed badly, and thus its non-appearance – in shops, newspapers and prized shortlistings.

As an author, it’s good therapy to blame someone and there’s nothing more cleansing than to blame a publisher. I know, because I’ve done it myself. A literary absolution feels good the whole day through.

Read more: 'Coming Out From Behind: The unprinted stories behind the published books' by Tom Thompson

Write comment (0 Comments)
Marian Eldridge reviews Usher by Matthew Condon
Free Article: No
Contents Category: Fiction
Review Article: Yes
Show Author Link: Yes
Show Byline: Yes
Online Only: No
Custom Highlight Text:

The usher of the book’s title is T. Nelson Downs, long-time resident of Burleigh Heads. (The T. Doesn’t stand for anything; it was a parental whim.) He’s one of those wonderful, original, exasperating people full of impossible ideas (such as marketing gigantic ice sculptures for public occasions using skilled tradesmen brought out especially from Florence).
Book 1 Title: Usher
Book Author: Matthew Condon
Book 1 Biblio: University of Queensland Press, 260 pp, $19.95 pb
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Display Review Rating: No

The usher of the book’s title is T. Nelson Downs, long-time resident of Burleigh Heads. (The T. Doesn’t stand for anything; it was a parental whim.) He’s one of those wonderful, original, exasperating people full of impossible ideas (such as marketing gigantic ice sculptures for public occasions using skilled tradesmen brought out especially from Florence).

Amateur magician, collector of antiquities, botanist, visionary, T. Nelson is owner and head usher of a cinema he calls the Universe-Cine-by-the Sea. He has installed a galaxy of lightbulbs in the roof, and, to better understand the world, is showing progressively earlier films, even if this means screening Cutting Out Diseased Potatoes from the Warrnambool Herd on Christmas Eve.

Read more: Marian Eldridge reviews 'Usher' by Matthew Condon

Write comment (0 Comments)

More Articles ...