Archive

Running hot on the national Austlit Discussion Group email waves recently was the question of speaking position and voice for men in contemporary critical discourse. What had occasioned the discussion was ASAL’s annual conference in Canberra, part of which had been a very successful morning at the Australian War Memorial focussing on writing and war (e.g. Alan Gould and Don Charlwood).

Tourism is, I suppose, the quintessential postmodern activity – I’ve been to Bali too. This particular tourist, Gaile McGregor, described as a ‘Canadian itinerant scholar’, offers us EcCentric Visions as part of a trilogy; the previous two titles featured Canada and the United States. The link is, she says, that all three are ‘post-frontier societies’. It’s a definition that depends on whether or not you’ve got past the post.

For some time now literary criticism has been fascinated by the role of naming, and the inscription of the name, in relation to the identity of the self. There are rich pickings to be had from examining autobiography for the way the writer reveals and hides behind the words with which a life is described. And in this era of autobiographical and biographical tumescence, it is most important that the analysis of such writing is done by those with the ability to do so. Think of the recent debates over biographies and autobiographies in Australia and you will quickly recognise how unsophisticated is our general understanding of what is going on when a life is inscribed, and yet how different the living is from the writing.

Sometimes I long for beauty – in a book I want beautiful writing and even some beauty illuminated in everyday experience. Fiona McGregor’s short story collection does little to ease my longing.

Bryce Fraser takes a break from his inner city flat and moves to the ideal writer’s retreat: a waterfront cottage amongst the trees – and only twenty minutes from the centre of Sydney. He goes fishing and spears, in a most unsportsmanlike fashion, what turns out to be Lennie, the neighbours’ pet leatherjacket who lived beneath the jetty. Oddly enough, these same neighbours entrust him with the job of becoming minder to Rummy, the dingo.

When reviewing Matthew Rubinstein,
One is tempted to revert to rhyme.
This opus he has undertaken
Has left me somewhat pale and shaken
At the audacity of his task.
What possessed him, one well may ask
To undertake this mammoth effort?
To play with all that he’s been taught
From Seth, Shakespeare and Tolkien too
It’s really quite a thing to do.
But does it work? Now there’s the rub …
What future for this gifted cub?

Youness, a Bedouin from the Ananza tribe, comes in from the desert with his slaves and a thousand she-camels. His wish is to buy an olive valley on the outskirts of Gaza, the place where his mother is buried. Youness buys the olive valley and marries Fatima, daughter of the chief of Tuffa (a district of Gaza).

Cowrie makes a pilgrimage from New Zealand to Punalu’u, a Hawai’ian island where her grandfather once lived. She is welcomed by her extended family who live very simply and well on this bountiful island. Cowrie, who is a lesbian, revels in her family’s harmonious way of life, and begins to fall in love with Koana, a heterosexual woman.