No 252 - June / July 2003

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https://hdl.handle.net/2328/1100
Dennis Altman on Superstition and Idolatry Greg Dening reviews Edward Duyker's Citizen Labillardiere
Kim Mahood reviews Irris Makler's Our Woman in Kabul
Tony Blackshield reviews Philip Ayres' Owen Dixon
John Rickard reviews Iain McCalman's The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro
Amanda Smith reviews Nova by Nova Peris with Ian Heads

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Browsing No 252 - June / July 2003 by Issue Date

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    In Search of a Statistic. "Pushing Time Away: My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna" by Peter Singer. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Beecham, Rodney
    Many of us, as we get older, become curious about relatives we hardly or never knew. Perhaps, if we have children of our own, we become more aware of the biological ties that bind us to those relatives and seek self-illumination through the lighting of the shadowy places in our ancestry. This process is beautifully implied by Peter Singer’s title, "Pushing Time Away", a phrase taken from a letter written by his maternal grandfather, David Ernst Oppenheim, to his maternal grandmother, Amalie Pollak, in which Oppenheim declares: 'what binds us pushes time away.'
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    Drumming for Peter Garrett. "Willie's Bar and Grill: A Rock 'N' Roll Tour of North America in the Age of Terror" by Rob Hirst. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Nichols, David
    For a quarter of a century, Hirst has been drummer and songwriter for Midnight Oil, seemingly content to play a backseat role to the arresting and exotic lead singer/frontman Peter Garrett. From the late 1970s to early this year, when they broke up, the Sydney group broke new ground in politically aware, dynamic rock. "Willie’s Bar and Grill" is two books enmeshed: a post-September 11 tour diary and an auto-biographical memoir. Rambling and unchecked, it captures band dynamics and the mechanics of a rock show better than it does the so-called ‘age of terror’ experience or even group history.
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    Toxic Ways. "Resilience" by Anne Deveson. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Stewart, Lolla
    What is resilience? And why is it an important subject for research? Anne Deveson - former royal commissioner, noted documentary maker and social justice activist - explores these questions in her latest book.
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    It takes Two. "About Face: Asian Accounts of Australia" by Alison Broinowski. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Bulbeck, Chilla
    This is an ambitious and provocative book. While Bulbeck suspects that there has been a certain levelling of the Asian images of Australia to achieve coherence in the argument, this detracts only in a small way from a book that throws down the gauntlet to Australians and our leaders. If we had developed and pursued intelligent, independent, and well-resourced foreign policy and cultural relations with our Asian neighbours, would the Bali bombings have been avoided?
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    The Crook with a Great Soul. "The Seven Ordeals of Count Cagliostro: The Greatest Enchanter of the Eighteenth Century" by Iain McCalman. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Rickard, John
    You haven't heard of Count Cagliostro? Well, chances are, if HarperCollins has anything to do with it, you will. This book is likely to ensure that the enchanter casts his spell on a new audience. For it is an extraordinary tale.
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    Strict Logic and High Technique. "Owen Dixon" by Philip Ayres. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Blackshield, Tony
    Australian judicial biographies are rare. Mostly they deal with men whose judicial work was only one phase in a controversial political career. Biographers without legal training have sometimes uncomfortably skirted the edges of the judicial material; but, for Dixon, no such skirting is possible. In this splendid biography, Philip Ayres has risen to the challenge.
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    A Quintet of Bestiaries. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Robinson, Moira
    This article is a review of various children’s picture books, including: Connah Brecon, "Sherlock Bones"; Gary Crew and Mark Wilson, "I Saw Nothing: The Extinction of the Thylacine", Libby Gleeson, illus. Ann James, "Shutting the Chooks In"; Elise Hurst, "The Elephants’ Big Day Out"; and Valanga Khoza, illus. Sally Rippin, "Gezani and the Tricky Baboon".
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    An Arabesque Yes. "ode ode" by Michael Farrell. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Edwards, Chris
    It's easy to see why Michael Farrell already has something of a reputation as a stylist, though this is his first collection. Inventive, sharp-witted, entertaining and meticulously made, the poems in "ode ode" offer a lower-case, unpunctuated take on style in which style is energised, orchestrated substance.
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    Fear of Difference. "Unpacking Queer Politics" by Sheila Jeffreys. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Reynolds, Robert
    The book is a continuation of Jeffreys’s project to unmask and address the oppressive institutions and practices of a heteropatriachal world. Hers is a polemical voice, and one that gets considerable attention. Jeffreys’s analysis stems from the glory days of British revolutionary lesbian feminism and American lesbian feminist separatism. These two movements peaked sometime in the late 1970s, and there are plenty of citations in "Unpacking Queer Politics" from this softly lit era of lesbian feminist praxis.
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    Too Many Captain Cooks. "Citizen Labillardière: A Naturalist's Life in Revolution and Exploration (1755-1834)" by Edward Duyker. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Dening, Greg
    Duyker’s latest contribution to our knowledge of the French in Australia is a biography of Labillardière, the natural historian on board Bruny d’Entrecasteaux’s 1791–93 expedition. "Citizen Labillardière" is a gentle read. Duyker is an historian’s historian. Where there is no direct documentation, he is always in lateral pursuit. So the book is full of wonderful word images of culture and nature.
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    The Modern Order. "Full Fathom Five" by Kate Humphrey and "The Rose Leopard" by Richard Yaxley. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) de Wever, Johanna
    Richard Yaxley examines the nature of relationships, family and grief in his first novel, "The Rose Leopard". Father, writer, self-confessed 'groin-driven' lover, Vincent is the dreamer; Kaz his muse and the preserver of their family. After meeting at university, they have forged a powerful partnership against those who don’t understand their shared bond of a love for stories and words. "Full Fathom Five" is a surprising combination of family drama, murder mystery and love story. Lyrical and exhilarating, Humphrey excels in descriptions of both Gus’s and Sara’s paintings, evoking their art with such detail that it is startling to realise it is fictional. Sara’s journey is striking as she faces her fears and moves on; she is a heroine of the modern order.
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    A Bruised Universe. "Conquerers' Road: An Eyewitness Report of Germany 1945" by Osmar White. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Byrne, Madeleine
    Whether objectivity is possible (or desirable) in journalism is debatable, but "Conquerors’ Road" demonstrates the importance of bearing witness. If the fight against totalitarianism is one of memory against forgetting, we should be grateful for journalists like White and his modern-day counterparts, who daily risk their lives in danger zones, dodging fire - friendly, or otherwise.
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    Lactating Moms. "Fresh Milk: The Secret Life of Breasts" by Fiona Giles. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Spark, Ceridwen
    Giles’s book is concerned with what might be described as a cleavage in knowledge. Throughout, the author argues that breasts tend either to be sacralised - and therefore desexualised - or drooled over salaciously. Never sentimental, "Fresh Milk" is open-hearted, open-minded and affecting. It creates a resonant impression of the strange and sometimes dull experience of breastfeeding.
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    Unexpected Finds. "Heat 4: Burnt Ground" and "Meanjin Reads Their Lips". [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Walker, Nicola
    This article is a review of recent issues of "Heat" and "Meanjin", with a summary of highlights, articles, reviews and creative works.
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    In 'the Ukraine'. [poem]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Harry, J S
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    Irony Upon Irony. "Our Woman in Kabul" by Irris Makler. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Mahood, Kim
    "Our Woman in Kabul" documents the US invasion of Afghanistan, the routing of the Taliban and the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Makler’s story covers the circumstances of daily life as a female correspondent in a country where women are virtually invisible, the discomforts and challenges of being part of a media feeding frenzy in a place without the infrastructure to support it, and the larger drama of a civil war suddenly escalating into an international conflict. This is a book for the times, an extremely readable account that clarifies the circumstances of the Afghan war, reveals the dreadful price paid by ordinary people and leaves Mahood convinced that we truly live in a global culture where the displacement and suffering of apparently forgotten people is something for which we must all take responsibility, whether reluctantly or willingly.
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    Defying the Uncivil. "Lines of My Life: Journal of a Year" by Edmund Campion. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Pierce, Peter
    Edmund Campion's latest book, "Lines of My Life", is an elegant hybrid, part meditation, part gossip (of edifying kinds), part political testament. Its genial tone is suggested by the source of the title, which comes from Psalm 16: ‘the lines of my life have run in pleasant places’. Urbane and affable, Campion is still alert to how institutional cruelties and prejudices can deform those who practise them, and of how that practice damages the chances of civilised life. Such a life he has found in Australia - and in the US.
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    Silver and Gold. "Raelene: Sometimes Beaten, Never Conquered" by Raelene Boyle and Garry Linnell and "Nova: My Story" by Nova Peris with Ian Heads. [review]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Smith, Amanda
    Although "Nova" and "Raelene" read at times like transcripts from "This Is Your Life", both are heartfelt stories from admirable women. Each has gone on to become an advocate for causes beyond sport that have meaning for them. For Nova, it’s indigenous issues and a Treaty; for Raelene, it’s cancer awareness (since her running days, she’s copped both breast and ovarian cancer). They pursue these causes with the same sincerity with which they approached their sport, and write about them with the same passion.
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    The Future of an Illusion: Superstition and Idolatry. [essay]
    (Australian Book Review, 2003-06) Altman, Dennis
    This essay explores the role of institutionalised religion in modern society, and particularly its role in justifying political or social action. It concludes that, given the dangerous conflicts in the world today, 'ultimately, religion does more harm than it does good.'
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