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Absolutely Revolting

June 1979, no. 11

D.E Tribe reviews Sheep Management and Wool Technology by J.B. DArcy and Raising Your Own Sheep by Geoff Nash
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Contents Category: Non-fiction
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Article Title: Confused Advice
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You will never guess from reading these two books that Australia is generally regarded by the rest of the world as the best place to seek information on scientific sheep management and efficient wool production.

For more than thirty years Australian scientists have successfully led the search for a better understanding of the biological workings of a sheep, the structure and growth of wool fibres and of the ecological intricacies of pasture management. During the same period wool technologists have made tremendous strides in the preparation, handling and measurement of wool, while economists have made their own important contributions to the more efficient management of sheep and the more efficient marketing of wool.
Book 1 Title: Sheep Management and Wool Technology
Book Author: By J.B. D’Arcy
Book 1 Biblio: NSW University Press, 324 pp., illus., $12.95, 0989465169
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You will never guess from reading these two books that Australia is generally regarded by the rest of the world as the best place to seek information on scientific sheep management and efficient wool production.

Read more: D.E Tribe reviews 'Sheep Management and Wool Technology' by J.B. D'Arcy and 'Raising Your Own...

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David English reviews Passenger by Thomas Keneally
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Article Title: Another Prodigal Returns
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Peter Ward’s stunningly inadequate review of Passenger in the Weekend Australian has at least the virtue that it compels a reply. The first came from Keneally himself, who finished his account of the novel’s favourable reception in other English-speaking countries by saying ‘I just don’t want people to avoid Passenger because of any antipodean twitches. So don’t miss it. Believe me.’
Book 1 Title: Passenger
Book Author: Thomas Keneally
Book 1 Biblio: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, $??.?? 241 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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Peter Ward’s stunningly inadequate review of Passenger in the Weekend Australian has at least the virtue that it compels a reply. The first came from Keneally himself, who finished his account of the novel’s favourable reception in other English-speaking countries by saying ‘I just don’t want people to avoid Passenger because of any antipodean twitches. So don’t miss it. Believe me.’

To respond to the author’s impious self-confidence with any kind of literal-minded censure would be to miss the point. Keneally is a literary larrikin. Like Halloran in Bring Larks and Heroes, Jimmy Blacksmith, and ‘I’, the foetus-narrator in Passenger, he will hammer away at the indifferent world until finally it reacts. (‘Once a Catholic …’ is a motto Keneally might well consider for his coat of arms.)

Read more: David English reviews 'Passenger by Thomas Keneally

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Bookshapes - June 1979
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Contents Category: Publishing
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Article Title: Bookshapes - June 1979
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The dustjacket designer Christopher McVinish has given the title of this novel an unforgettable identity, with the figure of a soldier superimposed in red on the second one of 1915, which is in black. It is a powerful image that immediately announces the subject of the novel. Most of what follows is disappointing, and apparently not due to McVinish. 
Book 1 Title: 1915
Book Author: Roger McDonald
Book 1 Biblio: University of Queensland Press
Book 1 Author Type: Author
Book 2 Title: A Question of Polish
Book 2 Subtitle: The antique market in Australia
Book 2 Author: Terry Ingram
Book 2 Biblio: Collins, designed by Robin James
Book 2 Cover Small (400 x 600):
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1915

By Roger McDonald.

University of Queensland Press

The dustjacket designer Christopher McVinish has given the title of this novel an unforgettable identity, with the figure of a soldier superimposed in red on the second one of 1915, which is in black. It is a powerful image that immediately announces the subject of the novel. Most of what follows is disappointing, and apparently not due to McVinish. The muscular Plantin Bold Condensed of the jacket is replaced by a pouting, effeminate display face (I couldn’t identify it) on the title page, and for the chapter titles. With a twenty-one-pica measure, a yawning five-and-a-half-pica back margin and a six-pica fore-edge, the text has been teased out to 426 pages – a big book. It may be good publishing, but it is not good design. The book is sewn in thirty-two page sections, which gives it an air of awkwardness and unease. Apart from the jacket, it is in many ways like an Australian novel of thirty years ago. Nevertheless, and because of the jacket, two picas.

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Kay White reviews Champions of the Impossible: A history of the National Council of Women of Victoria 1902–1977 by Ada Norris
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Contents Category: Australian History
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Article Title: Impossible or inevitable?
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One might question the appropriateness of this book’s title. Were women’s groups in the first half of this century championing impossible causes, or were they champions of the inevitable? In other words, to what extent did the organised women’s movement, or first-wave feminists, actively bring about legislative change to improve the position of Australian women, or might these changes have occurred anyway, the inevitable consequences of improved technology enabling women to plan their working lives?
Book 1 Title: Champions of the Impossible
Book 1 Subtitle: A history of the National Council of Women of Victoria 1902–1977
Book Author: Ada Norris
Book 1 Biblio: Hawthorn Press, $12.50, 221 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Author
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One might question the appropriateness of this book’s title. Were women’s groups in the first half of this century championing impossible causes, or were they champions of the inevitable? In other words, to what extent did the organised women’s movement, or first-wave feminists, actively bring about legislative change to improve the position of Australian women, or might these changes have occurred anyway, the inevitable consequences of improved technology enabling women to plan their working lives?

Read more: Kay White reviews 'Champions of the Impossible: A history of the National Council of Women of...

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Geoff Muirdon reviews Labour in Conflict: the 1949 coal strike, edited by Phillip Deery
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Contents Category: Australian History
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Article Title: Striking grievances
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One of the great merits of Phillip Deery’s presentation is the way in which he shows the immediacy of the coal strike: its great significance in changing the lives of the miners and in transforming the political situation in New South Wales. It was a time of great bitterness, in which those who expected the interests of the Labor movement and the Labor Party to converge, considered themselves betrayed. Nor did the swiftness of the Chifley government in moving to crush the miners’ strike garner them any favour in the public’s eyes. The public considered the hardships brought about by the coal strike to be merely the latest in a series of events that seem destined to threaten their comfort and standard of living. The communists were blamed for the strike, probably unjustly, for although there were communists among the miners, the vast majority were non-communists with legitimate grievances against the mining companies.
Book 1 Title: Labour in Conflict
Book 1 Subtitle: The 1949 coal strike
Book Author: Phillip Deery
Book 1 Biblio: Hale & Iremonger, $11.50, $5.50 pb, 106 pp
Book 1 Author Type: Editor
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One of the great merits of Phillip Deery’s presentation is the way in which he shows the immediacy of the coal strike: its great significance in changing the lives of the miners and in transforming the political situation in New South Wales. It was a time of great bitterness, in which those who expected the interests of the Labor movement and the Labor Party to converge, considered themselves betrayed. Nor did the swiftness of the Chifley government in moving to crush the miners’ strike garner them any favour in the public’s eyes. The public considered the hardships brought about by the coal strike to be merely the latest in a series of events that seem destined to threaten their comfort and standard of living. The communists were blamed for the strike, probably unjustly, for although there were communists among the miners, the vast majority were non-communists with legitimate grievances against the mining companies.

Read more: Geoff Muirdon reviews 'Labour in Conflict: the 1949 coal strike', edited by Phillip Deery

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