THE BIG DRY Margaret Simons on the State of the Country
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Vol. 4 No. 8 October 1994 $5.00 THE BIG DRY Margaret Simons on the state of the country New Australian poetry: Kevin Hart, Jack Hibberd, Les Murray, Dorothy Porter, Peter Porter, Peter Rose and Peter Steele Serious travel: Chris McGillion watches the fading of Cuba's revolution, Peter Pierce follows Robert Louis Stevenson into New Caledonia and Shane Maloney finds evidence of miracles in the Wild West From the Publisher Dear Readers, For several years I have been approached by different organisations-church groups, aid agencies, publishers and the like-wanting to let you know about their products or appeals through direct mail advertising. Until recently, I have resisted these requests. However, I can now see a value in them. Publishing is expensive and your subscriptions and advertising are our only sources of income. The ever increasing costs of production end up being passed on to subscribers, unless the cost is offset either by increased advertising in the magazine or through renting our mailing list. I can assure you that anyone seeking to rent the list of subscribers to Eureka Street will be assessed by Jesuit Publications for their suitability. You will not be deluged with mail, nor approached by unsuitable advertisers. A large part of the material you receive will be from groups who already advertise with us. Ultimately, it will be your decision whether you participate in this or not. If you wish to have your name and address withheld from this activity, you are free to do so, and we will respect your decision. Please write and let me know if this is what you want. Thank you for your subscription to Eureka Street. I hope it continues to stimulate and inform you about our changing world and church. Yours sincerely Fr Michael Kelly SJ Publisher The Publishing Event of the Year! UNIVERSITY OF NSW PRESS THE OXFORD COMPANION TO Waterloo Creek AUSTRALIAN LITERATURE The Australia Day Massacre of 1838, George SECOND EDITION Gipps and the British Conquest of NSW Written by William H . Wilde, Joy H ooton and BaiT)' Andrews Roger Mil/iss + Includes entries on the key Meticulously researched, yet as gripping plays, no vels, poems, journa ls, newspape rs, antho logi es a nJ and intense as any novel, Roger Milliss' organisations influentia l in Banjo-Award-winning book tells the shaping our literary culture + Presents the major movements shocking true story of a massacre of and milestones in Australian hundreds of Aborigines and the fi cti on, poetry, drama, biography, and autobi ography extraordinary + Updates the careers of events which innumerable contemporary writen; such as Helen G arner, Pete r followed . Care y, and Eliza be th Jolley + Reflects the con siderable increase in wo men's and "An awesome multicultural writing and + O ffers major ne w essay RRP $69 .95 length articles fr om Aboriginal courageous Available fr om all good writing, ro crime fi ction , a nc..l [he work" Sydney boo kstores immigrant experience Morning Herald. In cax- of dLffLcul!y omr:~o + Fully revised and ex panded OxfurJ Un1vcrs1ty Press Phone: 646 4100 Frt'c Fax: 008 81J 602 containing over 500 new entries Now in OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS paperback! AUSTRALIA 992pp $49.95pb & AR I IN007/5101 1 1~ Volume 4 Number 8 EURI:-KA srm:-a October 1994 A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology CoNTENTS 4 30 COMMENT TRAVEL Chris McGillion watches the fading of the 8 revolution in Cuba; Shane Maloney rides LETTERS into the Wild West with the Laredo nuns (p.36); Peter Pierce pursues Robert Louis 11 Stevenson into New Caledonia (p.38). CAPITAL LETTER 34 12 QUIXOTE REPORTS Nguyen Viet Huy SJ on Asian youth in 41 Cabran'latta; Catriona Jackson on the UN BOOKS Population Conference in Cairo (pl3); Jon Michael McGirr explores Brian Castro's Greenaway on Australia's immigration Drift and Rodney Hall's The Yandilli policies (p22). Trilogy; Max Teichmann reviews Robert Manne's The Shadow of 1917 (p.42). 14 THE BIG DRY 44 Margaret Simons on Australia's farmers, FESTIVALS the drought and government policy. Graham Little anticipates an encounter with Edna O 'Brien at the M elbourne Serious travel 20 Writers' Festival. with Chris McGillion, Shane Maloney BEWARE THOSE RADICALS, and Peter Pierce, see pp30-42 KEN NETT &. CO. 46 Moira Rayner on the radical right and the THEATRE Cuba waiting: photographs, above, remaking of Victoria. Geoffrey Milne assesses the influence of by Catherine O'Leary American drama in Australia. 21 ARCHIMEDES 48 FLASH IN THE PAN 23 Reviews of the films W olf, The Lion King, Cover Photograph: Drough t country ISOLATION Clear and Present Danger, Spider and by Bi ll T homas. Craig Minogue reflects on life in isola Rose and Fellini Satyricon. Photographs pp14,18, 19, 44 by Bi ll Thomas. tion at Pen tridge. Graphic pp13, 17, 22, 24-25, 36 by Tim Metherall. 50 Graphics pp7, 17, 36 by Siobhan jackson. 24 ON SPEC Cartoons pp9, 20 by Peter Fraser. MY CHILDHOOD DOOR Graphics p23 by Tohm Hajncl. Cynthia Rowan retraces her Murri Photographs pp30-33 by Tania Jovanovic, 51 M33 Agency. fa mily life. SPECIFIC LEVITY Eureka Street magazine 26-29, 35 Jes uit Publications POETRY PO Box 553 Richmond VIC 3121 Poem s by Kevin Hart, Jack Hibberd, Les Tel (03)427 731 1 Murray, Dorothy Porter, Pet er Porter, Fax (03)428 4450 Peter Rose and Peter Steele. COMMENT EURI:-KA SJRI:-B MoRAe FRASER A magazine of public affairs, the arts and theology Publisher Michael Kelly SJ Editor Morag Fraser Work in progress Production editor Ray Cassin Consulting editor Michael McGirr SJ INST MAe ,, s CAT""'"" '" S "'"" th e<e ate uchcs which terminate in blocks of uncarvcd stone. Other bases arc fully Editorial assistant: Jon Greenaway worked with whatever fantasy or satire the stonemason Production assistants: J. Ben Boon en C FC, chose, and you could spend a happy day headhunting bish John Doyle SJ, Juliette Hughes, ops or bookies among them. But the blank stone is more Siobhan Jackson, Chris Jenkins SJ. intriguing. In A Place In The City, his fine new evocation of the Co ntributing editors teeming life of Sydney's cathedral church and its symbolic Adelaide: Greg O'Kelly SJ place in Australian and Catholic culture, Edmund Campion Brisbane: lan Howell s SJ Perth: Dean Moore gives that blank stone a double significance. It is a poignant Sydney: Edmund Ca mpion, Andrew Riemer, reminder of the imperatives of daily business: even in a nine Gerard Windsor. teenth century cathedral time could overtake good inten European correspondent: Damien Simonis tions the way lava overtook the kitchen dishes of Pompeii. US co rrespondent: Thomas H. Stahel SJ StMary's had to be opened, the tardy sculptors were paid off and they never came back. But what they left, as Campion Editorial board observes, was potential, something to go on with- unin Peter L'Estrange SJ (chair), scribed stone, ready for a new sculptor's hand. Margaret Coady, Margaret Coffey , There is a lot to be said for historians, particularly at Madeline Duckett RSM, Trevor Hales, this moment in the life of the church. In A Pla ce In The Marie Joyce, Kevin McDonald, City Campion's anecdotal grip on Australian and Catholic Jan e Kelly IBVM , history is a broad, inclusive one, and his cathedral is hospi Ruth Pendavingh, table even if Cardinal Gilroy, with whom Campion lived for Peter Steele SJ, Bill Uren SJ six years, kept a table that offered only stodge and austerity. Business manage r: Mary Foster The great and the despised pass through Campion's Advertising representative: Tim Stoney place. He eulogises some, others he digs out of flowerbeds or gutters, others he names as knaves, but still gives them Patrons their clay. Some, like Julian Tcnison Woods, he visits in their Eurel<a Street gratefully acknowledges the support of C.L. Adami; the trustees of the graves, as familiar as a friend sharing a m eal or a trust. The estate of Miss M. Condon; A.J. Costello; orthodox and the downright heretical have their place. This D.M. Cullity; R.J. and H.M. Gehrig; is a history that makes its theological point indirectly but W.P. & M.W. Gurry; nonetheless firmly. the Roche family. It is also a work that recovers, with a symbolic econo my, so much of the richness and idiosyncracy of Australian Eurei<o Street magazine, ISSN I 036- 1758, and Catholic life. The focus is always double: the church is Australia Post Print Post approved in the world, not set against it, and the traffic is two way. pp34918 1/003 14 The saints arc more likely to be someonc's uncle, sister, fa is published ten times a year ther or warrant officer than remote fi gures of adulation. And by Eureka Street Magazine Pty Ltd, the power brokers, the men and woman who have shaped 300 Victoria Street, Richmond, Victoria 3 121. the politics, theology and institutional structures we now Responsibility for editorial content is accepted by Mi chael Kelly, 300 Victoria Street, Ri chmond. live with in Australia, are given as the flawed and fallible Printed by Doran Printing, people they were. Yet the effect is not one of diminishment. 4() Industrial Drive, Braeside VIC 3 195. Humanised, they are incorporated and even lovable. © jesuit Publications 1993 It is a rare skill to be able to open out a city, a culture, Unsoli cited manuscripts, including poetry and to a foreigner or a visitor, to make a gift of experience. fiction, will be returned only if accompanied by a Campion is one of those writers who has the gift.