Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts by Clive James My rating: 3 of 5 stars Is it possible to ask, without sounding like a morbid troublemaker, why the death of Clive James last November was not greeted with the outpouring of vituperation that marked Harold Bloom's demise the month before? Granted, Bloom … Continue reading Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts
Tag: australian literature
The Vernacular Republic by Les Murray My rating: 4 of 5 stars I started reading Les Murray almost by accident five years ago. I was in my adjunct peregrinations asked to teach a poetry-writing class at the last minute—though fiction is my preferred form—and self-consciously started to read more verse. Murray, meanwhile, was a favorite … Continue reading Les Murray, The Vernacular Republic
The Plains by Gerald Murnane My rating: 3 of 5 stars Gerald Murnane is in vogue. Every few years, it seems, a new writer or handful of writers is coronated in the book reviews, little magazines, and literary coteries of the English-speaking world as a monarch of world literature. So far this century, we've had W. … Continue reading Gerald Murnane, The Plains
Dog Fox Field by Les Murray My rating: 5 of 5 stars Prose is Protestant-agnostic, story, discussion, significance, but poetry is Catholic: poetry is presence.Give this man a Nobel Prize! Why not?—are we not long overdo for an Australian? for an Anglophone poet? It would be an interesting political gesture too, given that Murray's nuanced … Continue reading Les Murray, Dog Fox Field
Dog Fox Field by Les Murray My rating: 5 of 5 stars Prose is Protestant-agnostic, story, discussion, significance, but poetry is Catholic: poetry is presence. Give this man a Nobel Prize! Why not?—are we not long overdo for an Australian? for an Anglophone poet? It would be an interesting political gesture too, given that Murray's … Continue reading Les Murray, Dog Fox Field
