In that earlier post, I mentioned Kim Forrester's Reading Matters blog and her efforts to promote Australian literature, as well as a broader appreciation of contemporary novels.
So I'm glad to see that she is going to have a 2nd Australian literature month in April.
To get people started she has put forward a pretty strong list of sources on Australian novels:
Currently being broadcast on ABC TV and available on iview, Shakespeare Uncovered is a fantastic series.
This week's episode is on Macbeth, one of the greatest pieces of literature in the English language, and is presented by Ethan Hawke.
Hawke approaches the topic by going through a process of working out how he would play Macbeth by viewing previous productions, consulting Shakespearean (including Stephen Greenblatt) and historical experts and actors who have played major parts in significant productions of the play. It is a great insight into acting methods, as well as Macbeth.
Hawke focuses on the psychology of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and the workings of their relationship. He also does a great job on the witches and the role of the supernatural in Macbeth.
Key question: do the witches lead Macbeth to evil, or do they simply spark a seed that was always there?
Interesting observation: the Macbeths marriage was the strongest such relationship in Shakespeare's work!!
One of my favourite observations was by an actor (forget his name unfortunately) who said that Shakespeare's great gift was that he didn't hold his characters at arm's length, as if Macbeth was someone else instead Shakespeare is saying 'look he is me and you, he is us'. Uncomfortable, but makes for powerful drama.
The first episode last week was on Twelfth Night and As You Like It and was hosted by Joely Richardson, Shakespearean actor with an impeccable pedigree - she interviews her mother Vanessa Redgrave extensively, especially about her performance of the role of Rosalind in As You Like It early in her career.
Books are more plentiful and cheaper than ever before.
The rise of online bookshops, notably Amazon and the Book Depository, have helped Australian readers avoid costs associated with the outrageous protection of Australian publishers (one of the Rudd Government's sillier decisions); the main exception being new and recent Australian titles which are still very expensive. The advent of ebooks and ebook readers has not only seen book prices fall further, but now I can also read a book review in the NY Times, for instance, and then download and start reading it straight away.
I used to be a more frequent habitue of bookshops around Australia, particularly Readings, Gleebooks and Berkelouws - but many others besides.
I still visit these places, but where they were once exciting now they are more often a little sad and disappointing (not too mention expensive). The range is limited by comparison with the huge online databases that I regularly trawl through and the serendipidity I used to relish on dusty shelves I now find from a myriad of online sources.
Online sources for finding out about books have also proliferated from social networking sites like goodreads to highly successful blogs like Reading Matters, run by London based Australian journalist, Kim Forrester.
The world's best literary review magazines can now be read on a Tablet for about the cost of a couple of newspapers, see for instance the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, the Asian Literary Review and the Boston Review. Many of my favourite magazines are also moving to make the most of the new tablet / mobile environment. For instance, the New Yorker and the newly re-launched New Republic. There are many more. Not only are these magazines good for finding out about books, they also contain some of the best long-form journalism available anywhere.
As well as these old favourites from a pre-existing paper-only world there are also some emerging online only titles. Notably, the remarkably succcessful Los Angeles Review of Books and back home a new entrant in the form of the Sydney Review of Books.
Australians now have cheap and ready access to a global literary culture, which seems to be expanding rapidly.
Overall the Internet has been a boon but it is not without its regrets. Walking down Pitt Street south of Town Hall in Sydney the other day I felt a little sad remembering the great little second hand bookshops that used to be located around here. These were the places I went to get a cheap copy of my next Orwell, Waugh, Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, Greene, Kerouac etc. But this is just nostalgia.
With our easier access to global culture from far away Australia, do we risk losing a national literature?
Sybil Nolan and Matthew Ricketson seem to suggest the answer is probably yes in a recent article in the Sydney Review of Books. They seem to think that the future of a vibrant Australian literary culture depends a lot on the fate of the Fairfax newspapers and the space they devote to book reviews.
I would like to see a follow-up analysis to that of Nolan and Ricketson which looks at the extent to which the Internet might be providing new ways of creating a national literary culture in Australia.
But at the end of the day, I admit I don't care much. The access to cheap books and places to find out about them online is just too exciting.
I picked this little gem up from the bargain table at Gleebooks. Bargain tables give you the chance to try a book
you might have passed over at the full cover price.
Bitter tears: Ballads of the American Indian was a controversial album (radio stations refused to play it, magazines refused to review it) made by Johnny Cash and released in 1964 after he became a star and had already had major hits with iconic tracks like "I walk the line" and "Ring of Fire".
The focus of the controversy was a track called "Ballad of Ira Hayes", written by folk singer Peter La Farge. The track has also been recorded by Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Kinky Friedman.
Cash's recording of Ballad of Ira Hayes finally made it into the charts after a concerted advertising and direct marketing campaign by Cash and some supporters.
The life and fate of Ira Hayes was an indictment of complacent post-war America.
Hayes was a Pima indian from Arizona who returned from WW2 to a hero's welcome because he was one of the marines that featured in the famous Iwo Jima photo. After battles with prejudice, despair and alcohol he died in a ditch about a decade after he came to national attention.
This is a captivating tale that embraces the struggles of Native peoples in America, the 1960s New York folk scene, the birth of country music, Johnny Cash, Peter La Farge, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger and much more all set in the dramatic context of social and political upheaval in America in the 1950s and 1960s.
I've read about the relationship between Cash and Dylan before - but it still impresses and amazes me. Neither man wanted to have their art pigeon-holded by fans or corporate profit seekers. Unlike many in the popular music field, they took their art seriously. Cash went into bat for Dylan when Columbia were sceptical after lacklustre sales for Bob's debut album.
Cash also took his politics seriously. It took him many years to get his prison album idea accepted by record company executives - who thought it a mad idea. They weren't too impressed with the Bitter Tears album either. Cash apparently once gave up a $10k gig to do a free concert at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota (site of the Wounded Knee massacre of Sioux women and children by the US Army).
It's an important story in many different ways, it's well-told and readable - look out for it.
This is one of the most talked about books (and TV series) in Australia in recent years.
I initially didn't read it because I thought it was going to be yet another worthy indictment of the evils of child abuse, I got this impression from a radio interview at the time of its release. The problem of taking reviews too seriously. I decided to read the book because I enjoyed the TV series so much.
Of course, it is not about child abuse. And it is well balanced in terms of the way it presents views on appropriate child discipline and punishment.
Moreover, the slap is only the focal point that brings together what can be read as 8 brief novellas about 8 very different characters. The characters act as sort of representative types for a diverse Australia. This is a very clever structure and makes for a very readable novel.
The novel is, overall, about how people struggle to establish identities (and realities) for themselves in a world that is increasingly complex. It follows them as they fight for those realities in the face of the oppositional realities put forward by other characters.
Sadly, these struggles are almost always disappointing for the characters concerned and often involve compromises.
Also a little disappointing is that the characters sometimes seem like cut-outs, they don't quite make it to the level of great characters - people that could live outside the text (as Harold Bloom argued). Sometimes the scenes and dialogue are a little too obvious and cliched.
But for all that it is a very enjoyable novel with much of value to say about contemporary Australia.
Although the quality of the stories is a little variable, I enjoyed the collection very much. I was attracted to it, I guess, because I've always had an interest in Tasmania having lived, worked and traveled there for a year or two in the mid 1970s.
Although we like to see Australia as fairly homogeneous, as compared to the USA for instance, there are significant differences.
Climate is different, and that affects lifestyle and attitudes to life.
Two things struck me living in Tasmania which also come through in these stories.
First, in Tasmania you can feel somehow closer to Australia's convict past and the conflict with indigenous people. Perhaps, this is because Tasmania was less successful in terms of economic development during the 20th century, so the past is more present in terms of buildings and streetscapes is more present. Partly, it might be due to a smaller, more resolutely British population, less affected by the postwar influx of southern european migrants.
Second, Tasmania feels (felt?) itself separate from the mainland. Tasmania can feel like a closed world, less affected by the forces and trends shaping other parts of Australia. When I worked in the Huon valley picking apples, some locals were concerned about mainlanders taking their earnings away from Tasmania. Many young people left Tasmania as soon as they could in search of work, or to study in Melbourne or Sydney. Often they returned to the better quality of lifestyle in Tasmania when they got married.
Many of the better stories (or perhaps those more interesting to me) in this collection draw upon these two themes.
I have worked in politics, public policy and strategic communications for over 30 years. I was recently awarded a doctorate in Australian politics at the University of Sydney. My thesis was on the (changing) relationship between the ALP and unions. I have been blogging since November 2003 and over the past decade I have written many articles on politics, public relations and social media for newspapers, magazines and websites. I love literature particularly John McGahern and James Joyce.
The header photo is of the Clarence River taken before dawn at Ulmarra in 2012.
