Monthly Archives: November 2009
News
Ripples in the pond: A funny old week in Australian publishing
Martin Shaw reports from the Melbourne Prize ceremony and muses on the after-effects of this year’s fiery parallel importation debates. It’s been a funny old week in the usually placid pond that is the Australian literary landscape. On Wednesday morning, the Rudd government – after the mobilisation … Read more
News
A Walk to Remember
About a week ago, I was sitting at my desk at home when I had a rather horrifying realisation. It had been a long day – I had worked steadily at my computer from seven-thirty in the morning until six at night, without stopping for lunch. … Read more
Interviews
Interview with Eleanor Catton (Part 2)
In Part 2 of this excerpt from my recent chat with Eleanor Cattton (author of The Rehearsal – recently shortlisted for The Guardian First Book Award 2009), the young New Zealand novelist talks writing routines, the value of reading your writing aloud, and the way appearance or … Read more
Interviews
Interview with Eleanor Catton (Part 1)
The Rehearsal is a finely layered novel of ideas; highly stylised in the telling, but simultaneously populated with an arresting cast of characters who are gifted with razor-sharp dialogue. (‘Sleeping with a minor isn’t exciting because you get to boss them around,’ argues one character, refuting a school counsellor. ‘It’s exciting because you’re risking so much.’) Read more
News
Claude Levi-Strauss dies at 100
French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, whose work deeply influenced Western thinking about civilisation, has died at the age of 100. Levi-Strauss was one of the dominating postwar influences in French intellectual life. His work inspired a school of academic followers in the 1960s and 1970s, in disciplines ranging … Read more
News
‘Wuthering Heights’
Did you watch Wuthering Heights on the ABC last night? Naively, I was excited about the new two-part BBC adaption. I blame those well-edited promos – they deceptively intimated that the series would be a dark, affecting retelling. Alas, like most of the recent filmic adaptations, … Read more
