ABR for Doran 253 August
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ADVANCES Vale Glen Tomasetti Good Works Glen Tomasetti (born in 1929) — author, poet and folksinger Australian author–illustrator Bob Graham has won this year’s — died on June 25. Tomasetti’s 1976 novel, Thoroughly Kate Greenaway Medal for his illustrations in the picture book Decent People, was the first book published by McPhee Jethro Bryde, Fairy Child. This is the UK’s leading award for Gribble (the second was Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip). Her illustrators. Laudably, Graham has donated his prize money novel Man of Letters was adapted for the ABC by (£5000) to groups assisting asylum seekers and refugees in Alma de Groen. Tomasetti continued to write poetry into Australia and the UK. her last months. Her uncompleted biography of Hepzibah Menuhin was almost twenty years in the making. Off to Shep Readers in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales will be interested in the 2003 Country Festival of … and Clem Christesen Writing, which will be held at the Goulbourn-Ovens Institute C.B. (‘Clem’) Christesen — founding Editor of Meanjin — of TAFE, Shepparton, from September 5 to 7. Presenters will died on June 28, aged ninety-two. Christesen established the include Morag Fraser, Michael McGirr and Aileen Kelly. journal in Brisbane at the end of 1940, and relocated it to Contact Pat or Bev Crudden on (03) 5821 8217 or write to Melbourne in 1945. Ever since, it has been based at the PO Box 2155, Shepparton 3632. University of Melbourne. Bimonthly at first, it has been quarterly since 1943. National Australian Maritime Museum Oceans of Stories: Illustrations from Australian Children’s … and Oriel Gray Books is a new exhibition assembled by the National Aust- Oriel Gray, a pioneer and stalwart of Australian theatre, died ralian Maritime Museum and the Children’s Book Council. on June 30, aged eighty-three. In 1955 Gray’s The Torrents The theme, Oceans of Stories, will apply to Children’s Book was voted the best play by the Playwrights’ Advisory Board, Week in August this year. The exhibition, featuring more sharing this award with Ray Lawler’s Summer of the Seven- than 100 works by nineteen leading Australian children’s teenth Doll. Gray also wrote for radio and television, and book illustrators, runs until November 2. published a memoir, Exit Left: Memoirs of a Scarlet Woman (1985), and a novel, The Animal Shop (1990). My Life As a Celebrity Author Andreas Gaile reviews Peter Carey’s new novel on page 10. The author will discuss My Life As a Fake at the Seymour A Second Salt-lick Centre on August 18, at 7 p.m. On August 25, at the same time, The second issue (‘Winter 2003’) of this bright new poetry but this time at its bookshop, Gleebooks will also feature quarterly looks every bit as impressive as the first, with Annie Proulx, back in Australia to take part in the Melbourne poems by Thomas Shapcott, Anthony Lawrence, Jill Jones Writers’ Festival. and Judith Beveridge (one of our two featured poets this month), among many others. Now all Salt-lick needs to do is This issue has been produced at a time of some difficulty. I am to clear that notorious third-issue hurdle. Help it over indebted to Anne-Marie Thomas (working on her first issue by subscribing: 104 Rennie Street, East Coburg, or e-mail: as Assistant Editor) and Dianne Schallmeiner for all their [email protected]. support in recent weeks. Ed. Archived at Flinders University: dspace.flinders.edu.au AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW AUGUST 2003 1 Contents ADVANCES 1 LETTERS Chris Goddard, John Thompson, Peta Tait, Liezl Shnookal, Kevin Gillam 4 CONTRIBUTORS 8 COMMENTARY Sir William Deane 9 FICTION Peter Carey: My Life As a Fake Andreas Gaile 10 Tom Keneally: The Tyrant’s Novel Peter Pierce 12 Penelope Sell: The Secret Burial Danielle Wood: The Alphabet of Light and Dark Christina Hill 47 Antigone Kefala: Summer Visit: Three Novellas Antigone Kefala: The Island Stathis Gauntlett 48 Janette Turner Hospital: North of Nowhere, South of Loss Bronwyn Rivers 50 Jane Downing: The Trickster Michael McGirr 51 POEMS Peter Porter 13 Judith Beveridge 31 Judith Beveridge 39 POLITICS Margaret Simons: The Meeting of the Waters Kerryn Goldsworthy 14 Marilyn Dodkin: Bob Carr Neal Blewett 16 Rawdon Dalrymple: Continental Drift Allan Gyngell and Michael Wesley: Making Australian Foreign Policy Allan Patience 17 HISTORY Hsu-Ming Teo and Richard White (eds): Cultural History in Australia Stuart Macintyre 19 Bain Attwood: Rights for Aborigines Tony Barta 20 Colin Brown: A Short History of Indonesia John Monfries 22 Stuart Macintyre and R.J.W. Selleck: A Short History of the University of Melbourne R.J.W. Selleck: The Shop: The University of Melbourne Ian Morrison 24 Ross Fitzgerald: The Pope’s Battalions Heather Nash 26 Denis Murphy et al.: The Premiers of Queensland Martin Crotty 27 Richard Woldendorp, Roger McDonald and Amanda Burdon: Wool: The Australian Story Libby Robin 28 Robert Holden: The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Gillian Dooley 29 DIARY Patrick McCaughey 30 BIOGRAPHY Anne Whitehead: Bluestocking in Patagonia Jennifer Strauss 32 John Little: The Man Who Saw Too Much Bridget Griffen-Foley 34 Michael Duffy: Man of Honour Alan Atkinson 35 2 AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW AUGUST 2003 Archived at Flinders University: dspace.flinders.edu.au CONTENTS AUTOBIOGRAPHY Dennis Lillee: Lillee Warwick Hadfield 37 GALLERY NOTES Chris Wallace-Crabbe 38 ART Gillian Forwood: Lina Bryans Sarah Thomas 40 Charlotte Benton, Tim Benton and Ghislaine Wood (eds) Art Deco: 1910–1939 Chong Weng-ho 41 REFERENCE Susanna de Vries: The Complete Book of Great Australian Women Clare Wright 42 LAW G.D. Woods: A History of Criminal Law in New South Wales Hugh Dillon 44 MEDIA Jock Given: Turning Off the Television Hugh Mackay: Media Mania Prue Torney-Parlicki 45 CRIME FICTION Peter Corris: Master’s Mates Garry Disher: Kittyhawk Down Shane Maloney: Something Fishy Don Anderson 52 CULTURAL Mark Wakely: Dream Home Alice Spigelman 54 STUDIES Paul Salzman: Literary Culture in Jacobean England Marion J. Campbell 55 POETRY Jordie Albiston: The Fall Lisa Gorton 56 PHILOSOPHY M.R. Bennett and P.M.S. Hacker: OF SCIENCE Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience Damian Grace 57 NATURAL David Owen: Thylacine HISTORY Robert Paddle: The Last Tasmanian Tiger Christopher Bantick 58 Archived at Flinders University: dspace.flinders.edu.au AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW AUGUST 2003 3 Letters ABR welcomes letters from our readers. Correspondents should note that letters may be edited. Letters and e-mails must reach us by the middle of the current month, and must include a telephone number for verification. Ali Ismail Abbas I wonder if you felt free to use his photograph, as others Dear Editor, have done, because he is twelve years old and because he is There is a terrible irony in the title of Raimond Gaita’s an Iraqi. After all, that is how he came to lose his arms, skin, La Trobe University Essay, ‘Only As a Last Resort’ (ABR, parents, family and home. I wonder if anyone anywhere has May 2003). His title should surely have been the phrase that thought to ask his permission to use him in this way. Perhaps guided the choice of accompanying stills. Gaita’s admirable we use his photograph rather than that of a wounded adult piece contained much to ponder and praise. The Reuters because we do not have to ask a child. Perhaps some of us photograph (by Faleh Kheiber) of Ali Ismail Abbas dimin- believe that, after all he has lost, he will not miss his dignity ished those reflections. and privacy. We will all retain images of the invasion of Iraq. There is I also reflect upon our sensitivities to photographs of the shot of a dead child, taken by Akram Saleh (also of ‘our’ soldiers, wounded or as prisoners. Perhaps that is why Reuters), his or her face like porcelain, completely intact and you chose the other shot, Frank Hurley’s image of the morn- apparently at peace, but the rest of the head and body bound ing after Passchendaele, our wounded viewed at a suitable, together, as if to stop all the bits falling out. There is the blood respectful distance. appearing on a BBC cameraman’s lens. The cruelty and catas- Raimond Gaita wrote of the distinction between respect trophe of war has become something we cannot avoid. We are for human life and contempt for it, of crimes against humanity, assaulted by the images even when we try to avoid them. and of ‘the unalienable preciousness of every human being’. Susan Moeller describes us all as ‘passive receivers of Your choice of photograph (I trust it was not Gaita’s) images’, which is akin to blaming the victim. The images home diminished his reflections and demeaned us all. in on us, no matter how much we duck and weave. They are wrapped around our newspapers, inserted into our television Chris Goddard, Clayton, Vic. programmes and placed in the middle of Gaita’s essay. Ali Ismail Abbas was at home when a US rocket arrived ABR, as it always does, selected the images that accompa- and destroyed his house, his father, his pregnant mother and nied our La Trobe University Essay, not our essayist. We several other relatives. After the terrible explosion, Ali awoke, did so mindful of the international controversy over the use soaked in blood, his sheets on fire. The Times of London of images of Ali Ismail Abbas, and conscious, we trust, of reported that Jon Lee Anderson, the New Yorker correspond- our moral responsibilities. No one here enjoyed reproduc- ent who saw him in hospital, was shown a photograph of Ali ing that image, just as it would be impossible for anyone to before his treatment, his body blackened, one of his hands look at that page without horror or unease.