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Everyday tragedy

by
July–August 2010, no. 323

Beautiful Malice by Rebecca James

Allen & Unwin, $24.99 pb, 296 pp

Everyday tragedy

by
July–August 2010, no. 323

Our response to tragedy strangely mingles pain and pleasure,’ notes Terry Eagleton in Sweet Violence (2003). ‘The feelings being released are painful in themselves but the act of easing them is pleasurable.’ While reading Rebecca James’s Beautiful Malice, I was reminded of this passage, and of Eagleton’s suggestion that the ambivalent combination of fear, pity and relief in our reaction to works of tragedy is what makes them so enthralling.

Beautiful Malice

Beautiful Malice

by Rebecca James

Allen & Unwin, $24.99 pb, 296 pp

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