Thea
Astley
Drylands,
pb. $19.95
Thea Astley
is one of Australia’s most frequent winner of literary awards.
Her protagonists are so often women who are searching for partners,
for peace, for a way to live. At the same time Australia is presented
as a dry place, a landscape which offers little scope for comfort or
retreat. Drylands is a new novel that presents a picture of Australia
that is quite contrary to the glitz which the official P.R. promotions
characteristically attempt to convey.
Murray
Bail
Eucalyptus,
pb. $22.00
Homesickness,
pb. $21.00
A much
talked about, much raved about, recent novel which, something between
Salman Rushdie and perhaps Randolph Stow, tells the story of a courtship
through a discussion of Australian eucalptus trees. All suitors are
obliged to name botanically each of several hundred trees on an Australian
estate before the father will allow his daughter to be won in marriage.
Strictly speaking, on the basis of this plot, it is a novel which shouldn’t
work, and yet it has a strange readability and in 1999 won the prestigious
literary Commonwealth Prize. Homesickness is a very funny novel
which satirises the phenomenon of package tour travel, following the
itinerary of a group of Australian tourists as they go through the motions
of seeing the world sights.
Jean
Bedford
Sister
Kate, pb $19.65
The fourth
novel of a talented Australian author. This is a remarkable retelling
of the Ned Kelly story (famous Australian highwayman) as told by Kelly's
sister Kate Kelly. Corrects the popular Kelly myth and tells a heart-rending
story of the effect of the brutal killing of the Kelly gang on this
young woman, eventually turning her mind and leading to her suicide.
Peter
Carey
Bliss,
pb $19.95
The
Tax Inspector, pb $19.95
True
History of the Kelly Gang, pb. $18.95
Carey's
Bliss was turned into a successful Australian film, unusual in
that the film was equally as good as the book. Carey's writing often
goes beyond straight realism into a surreal or heightened world, this
novel dealing with a group of 1960s drop-out hippies in northern Queensland.
Bliss has almost become a modern classic in Australian literature.
The Tax Inspector is a recent novel, gripping, dealing with the
grimmer aspects of modern society and family life. His surrealism almost
has a science fiction feel about it. And most recently, his True
History of the Kelly Gang, probably the most talked about fictional
work in Australia in recent times, won the 2001 Booker Prize. It is
a novel destined to become an Australian classic and, incidentally,
makes a most interesting comparison with that other first-rate novel
about the Kelly gang, Jean Bedford’s Sister Kate.
Brian
Castro
Birds
of Passage, pb $18.95
This is
regarded as an Australian multicultural novel by a Mecanese author since
the story is based on Chinese migrants in Australia in the 19th and
20th centuries. Used on many Australian university English courses.
Bruce
Chatwin
Songlines,
pb. $21.90
Bruce
Chatwin who died 10 years ago is already something of a recent legend
(somewhat akin to TE Lawrence), and Songlines is an indication
of its author’s idiosyncracies, perhaps even obsessions. Yet for
all its peculiarities, this is an interesting account of aspects of
Aboriginal culture from a man, an adventurer (like his friend Paul Theroux),
who is not even Australian. Songlines is a detailed account of
the author’s experiences among Australian Aborigines, containing
cultural explanations which are always interesting (and for me quite
new) and which raise fundamental questions about Aboriginal life but
also about life in general.
Marcus
Clarke
For
the Term of His Natural Life, pb $19.95
Written
late last century this is an Australian classic about the cruelty and
inhumanity of Australia's convict regime. Written in the manner of the
large 19th century English novels (e.g. Dickens, Thackeray) the story
follows the fortunes, mainly misfortunes, of Rufus Dawes who is wrongly
transported to Australia for a crime he didn't commit. This is a piece
of dark Australian history in dramatic form.
Robert
Drewe
A
Cry in the Jungle Bar, pb $23.00
Bodysurfers,
pb $22.00
Savage
Crows, pb. $23.00
Drewe
is one of the most readable of current Australian male novelists. Jungle
Bar is about a typical Aussie male’s struggle to make out in
Asia. The novel is outstanding in its juxtaposition of the Australian
and Asian psyche., illustrating how little Australia really understands
of its close neighbours. Bodysurfers is a book of short stories
set on Perth beaches some half century ago, interesting in that very
little exists in Australian literature about beach life even though
this is such a popular Australian past-time. Savage Crows centres
around one man’s attempt to research the subject of what happened
to Tasmania’s Aborigines, the story juxtaposing events in his own
modern-day life with the lives of Tasmanian Aborigines in the previous
century.
Albert
Facey
A
Fortunate Life, pb $22.00
All the
talk some years ago when this book was published. It is an interesting
autobiography of a past life, including service in the Great War, written
by an elderly Perth man (since deceased) who was a complete non-entity,
was publicly unknown, had never written a thing, until this book.
Miles
Franklin
My
Brilliant Career, pb $19.95
An amazing
first book (an autobiographical novel) written by Sarah Franklin under
a mandatory masculine pseudonym at the age of 16 around the turn of
this century. This is an Australian classic used extensively in schools
and universities. It's a first-person account of outback life, full
of brilliant description of landscape, day by day work, but also of
a young person's rebellion against conformity, drabness, poverty. The
book so incensed Sarah's family that it was withdrawn from publication
shortly after its initial appearance and remained under wraps for about
fifty years! Written almost a century ago the voice carries all the
intimate emotion and turbulence of a contemporary speaker--which is
a most eerie sensation. A brilliant piece of work in every respect.
Helen
Garner
Monkey
Grip, pb $19.95
The
Children's Bach, pb $21.00
Cosmo
Cosmolino, pb $22.00
Garner
is perhaps the longest established of the crop of recent women writers.
Her subject is the modern family and the struggle in modern relationships
and she is brilliant at it. Monkey Grip about a woman's struggling
relationship with a drug addict partner (the novel became an important
Australian movie), The Children's Bach about the new style of
modern sexual relationships compared with the older more conventional
style and Cosmo Cosmolino doing similar things but even more
adventurously in a ghost story.
Peter
Goldsworthy
Maestro,
pb $20.95
Maestro
is ideal for years 11 and 12 plus. Maestro is about a boy growing
up in Darwin and his curiosity about his piano teacher who is a Holocaust
survivor.
Kate
Grenville
Lilian's
Story, pb $19.95
Dreamhouse,
pb $21.95
Joan
Makes History, pb $21.95
The
Idea of Perfection, Pb $21.00
Kate Grenville
is another of the crop of brilliant Australian women authors. Lilian's
Story is the moving story of a fat girl whose brutal exploitative
father and whose growing social ostracism eventually turns her mind.
Joan Makes History is Grenville's comment on the patriarchal
nature of historiography and sets out to remind the reader of the women
who have quietly 'made history' behind the scenes. Her most recent The
Idea of Perfection is arguably her best novel so far, capturing
the raw flavour of an Australian country town.
Shirley
Hazzard
The
Transit of Venus, pb $21.00
Hazzard
has written other novels but none as gripping and as beautiful as this
one. This is pure artistry, pure language, pure brilliance. One of the
world's great modern novels! But definitely for sophisticated adults
and nothing in it for younger readers or those looking for entertainment.
Thomas
Keaneally
The
Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, pb $20.85
Schindler's
List, pb $18.58
Keneally
is a prolific contemporary author but Jimmie Blacksmith was until
recently probably his best known novel, a gripping story dealing with
the injustices dealt out to an Aboriginal Australian last century (based
on a true story) and this Aborigine's quest for savage revenge. A modern
Australian classic, used in universities and high schools (the kind
of Australian equivalent to Lord of the Flies in Australian education).
Schindler's Ark is the original novel on which the movie Schindler's
List was based and probably requires no additional comment.
Chris
Koch
Highways
to a War, pb $19.70
The
Doubleman, pb $19.70
Chris
Koch is the author of The Year of Living Dangerously (pb $18.60)
which was made into a well-known Australian movie. Highways to a
War is also a novel about a journalist caught up in volatile Asian
politics, this time it is Vietnam and the story is loosely based on
war photographer Neil Davis who disappeared during the war. Koch is
a 'blokey' writer of the popular rather than academic school, but he
knows how to write a highly gripping story which recently won a major
Australian literary award. But The Doubleman is something entirely
different in that it deals with the relationships among a small group
of Tasmanians, delving into the mysterious hidden forces which often
drive personal human behaviour.
David
Malouf
An
Imaginary Life, pb $20.80
Antipodes,
pb $20.80
Fly
Away Peter, pb $20.80
Johnno,
pb $19.95
Malouf
is regarded as one of Australia's most important contemporary writers.
Novels like Fly Away Peter and Johnno are to be found
on many high school syllabi. Malouf is an author whose writing runs
the gamut between modernism and postmodernism, while Antipodes
is a collection of short which, in a highly engaging and well-crafted
way, attempt to 'define' some qualities of Australian character. Malouf
is a sophisticated writer whose works are as important for their narrative
technique as for the ‘story’.
David
Marr
Patrick
White: A Life, pb 25.20
Patrick
White: Selected Letters, pb.25.20
Patrick
White: A Life is the recent definitive voluminous and acclaimed
biography of Patrick White. Excellent reading.
Olga
Masters
Collected
Stories, $24.00
Loving
Daughters, pb $21.85
Has been
called one of the best writers of fiction in Australia. Comedies of
manners written with sensitivity, wit, and exuberance. Novels about
mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. A very special novelist who
only began writing novels and short stories in her fifties after raising
a large family.
Miller,
Alex
The
Ancestor Game, pb $19.95
Some regard
this as the best Australian (multicultural) novel written in recent
years. Carefully crafted, a story which examines the nuances of the
meaning of a 'cultural identity' in relation to art. But a ‘difficult’
novel. Used on literature courses at the University of Western Australia.
Sally
Morgan
My
Place, pb $21.95
Published
to great acclaim. Sally Morgan is an Aboriginal artist and author who
has written her autobiography about the struggles her family faced growing
up.
Ruth
Park
Swords
and Crowns and Rings, pb $22.00
The
Harp in the South, pb $21.00
A
Fence Around the Cuckoo, pb $23.00
Fishing
in the Styx, pb $23.00
Swords
and Crowns and Rings is an unusual novel set in the time of the
Depression in that its central character is a dwarf. It is a mark of
this author's greatness that she is able to handle such a potentially
"sensational" storyline with restraint and controlled passion. A novel
which dismantles stereotypes, tells a story with great power and descriptive
beauty, and vividly reconstructs a harsh period in Australia's past.
The Harp in the South was for many years on Australian school
syllabi and is regarded as an Australian classic. The other two titles
constitute the two parts of the author's autobiography recently released
to great acclaim.
Katharine
Susanah Prichard
Brumby
Innes, pb $21.95
Coonardoo,
pb $18.95
Katharine
Susanah's work also ranks as classics from the recent Western Australian
past. Brumby Innes is a play about the problems between cattle station
owners and Aborigines, drawing out the contrasts between 'good' whites
and 'bad' whites, while Coonardoo is a novella based on the same
theme.
Henry
Handel Richardson
The
Getting of Wisdom, pb $14.95
The
Fortunes of Richard Mahoney, pb $19.95
More Australian
classics from a woman forced in her time to publish under a male pseudonym.
The Getting of Wisdom is about a girl's painful education in
a Catholic girls' boarding school. A very accomplished novel based on
author's own experiences (and made into a successful Australian film).
Richard Mahoney can only be spoken of in reverential tones since
it is a tour de force in literary brilliance. It comes as one extra
long novel in three parts or else as three separate books where each
separate book is still of considerable length. Based on the life of
the author's medical father the novel traces his fortunes during the
19th century as he attempts to set up his own practice in a number of
Australian outback towns. This is a remarkable study of a temperamental
man, his long-suffering wife, and his eventual decline into senility
(some critics guess exacerbated by syphilis). Exquisitely detailed,
exquisitely beautiful in the telling, and exquisitely painful in final
stages. Ranks among the world's literary masterpieces.
Kim
Scott
Benang,
pb. $22.95
Arguably
the first really important novel by and aboriginal author dealing with
the official mishandling and multi-faceted exploitation of Australian
Aboriginals over the course of a century of Aboriginal history. A demanding
novel in its presentation of a large cast of characters of various degrees
of aboriginality and whiteness.
Randolph
Stow
The
Merry Go Round in the Sea, pb $21.00
Stow was
an established Australian author, one of the first to bring the experience
of the Australian bush to graphic light--as in To the Islands about
Aboriginality and the outback. A book used for decades in Australian
schools. The Merry Go Round in the Sea based on Stow's experience
of growing up in Geraldton (north of Perth) and his realisation of homosexuality.
Patrick
White
The
Tree of Man, pb $24.35
Voss,
pb $19.70
A
Fringe of Leaves, pb $19.70
White
is internationally known as the Australian novelist. But he has
a reputation of being a difficult novelist, based on novels like Riders
in the Chariot and The Vivesector. The above three novels
however are relatively straightforward and powerful reading. They have
all been used in the Australian school English curriculum. Of the three
A Fringe of Leaves is most gripping possibly because it is an
adventure story based on a real-life shipwreck. Voss is based on the
life of an Australian explorer who leads an expedition in search of
the mythical central Australian sea, but who meets a sticky end. And
The Tree of Man is about the pioneering spirit in the settlement
of the Australian bush. These three are already of Australian "classic"
status.
Tim
Winton
Cloudstreet,
pb $23.00
Shallows,
pb $22.00
An
Open Swimmer, pb $21.00
Minimum
of Two, pb $19.95
In
the Winter Dark, pb $19.95
Winton
is a Western Australian novelist whose novels show his fascination with
the sea and river in his re-creations of the Western Australian landscape.
But his real focus and metier is his study of family, its inner stresses
and complexities; but Winton is generally optimistic compared with,
say, Peter Carey or Kate Grenville whose families are torturous affairs.
Cloudstreet is an altogether brilliant novel demonstrating Winton's
great maturity and control; it has taken everyone by surprise and has
gone straight on to university English courses. But seriousness aside,
Winton can also write a hair-raising thriller, as in In the Winter
Dark. A novelist of great versatility and talent, perhaps best known
beyond Australia for Riders which was made into a recent movie.
