Rightly or wrongly, I try to keep my reviews to a reasonable length. When they start creeping up to 1200 words, I worry that readers will be discouraged from reading. There's so much to read out there - so many books, so many blogs, so many articles. And so, when my review of The luminaries … Continue reading Delicious descriptions: More on Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries
Literary style
Thoughts on Christina Stead’s writing in For love alone
I can't resist writing another post on Christina Stead's For love alone, which I reviewed recently. Usually in my reviews I make some comments about the writing, but that review was getting so long that I decided to leave that discussion for another day. I'm embarrassed to admit that For love alone is my first … Continue reading Thoughts on Christina Stead’s writing in For love alone
What is literary fiction? A personal manifesto!
I was pottering around the Internet last night, as you do, and found myself on a State Library of Victoria page titled Novels: Finding Literary Reviews and Criticism - and there I saw this definition of Literary Novel: Literary fiction focuses on the subjects of the narrative to create introspective, in-depth studies of complex characters. … Continue reading What is literary fiction? A personal manifesto!
Poor novellas?
Having just reviewed two novellas in succession - Nigel Featherstone's I'm ready now and Gerald Murnane's The plains - I was intrigued to receive an email this week from AbeBooks titled "The best novellas: Literature's middle child". It linked to an article which starts: Poor novellas. They are the middle-child, the Jan Brady of the … Continue reading Poor novellas?
Monday musings on Australian literature: Favourite first (Australian) lines
This is a bit of a copout, I know, but I'm travelling this week and don't have a lot of time to write a seriously considered post. So, I've decided to simply do a list - of some of my favourite first lines from Australian literature. Like most readers I think, I do love a … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Favourite first (Australian) lines
On the titling of books
Forget about judging books by their covers, what about titles? How important are they to you? Do you ever decide to read a book based on the title alone? Do you always (never, sometimes) consider the title when thinking about the meaning of a book? It seems to be a fraught issue, this book titling … Continue reading On the titling of books
Nettie Palmer on short stories
In a recent Monday Musings I mentioned Nettie Palmer who was part of one of Australia's famous literary couples. Her husband, Vance Palmer, wrote, in the late 1930s to early 1940s, a regular column for the ABC Weekly published by the then Australian Broadcasting Commission. Nettie Palmer also contributed to this paper, albeit less regularly. One of these contributions is a discussion, in … Continue reading Nettie Palmer on short stories
Marion Halligan on fact, fiction and character
More on playing with that line between fact and fiction... One of my favourite writers - though I have nowhere near read all her works - is Marion Halligan, who also happens to be local to my town. Halligan has been shortlisted for and/or won several signifcant Australian literary awards but I'd be surprised if many readers overseas … Continue reading Marion Halligan on fact, fiction and character
On pathologising fictional characters
Was Mr Darcy autistic? Phyllis Ferguson Bottomer, a Canadian speech pathologist, suggests that he was in her book So odd a mixture. Her theory has not been taken seriously, but it throws up an issue I've confronted before, the pathologising of fictional characters. Take M.J. Hyland for example. I have read two of her novels … Continue reading On pathologising fictional characters
Monday musings on Australian literature: Helen Garner on writing about self
I have mentioned Helen Garner several times in this blog, and the word I tend to use about her is "honest". Her fiction is very much about "self". And in her non-fiction that I've read - Joe Cinque's consolation and The first stone - her "self" is an integral part. She is not what you'd … Continue reading Monday musings on Australian literature: Helen Garner on writing about self
Whispering Gums 