AustLit

'At the Edge of the Solid World (2020) by Daniel Davis Wood is a novel about grief. This in and of itself is not remarkable, literary fiction deals with grief quite frequently, drawing us into sympathetic alignment with grieving characters and narrators, encouraging us to experience their losses as our own. The commonality of grief provides a seemingly easy point of connection. What makes us laugh, the things that spark joy, satisfaction, and contentment, are often highly individual. The things that make us weep appear more universal, they cut across backgrounds and boundaries. Tragedy provides a worthier, more serious subject. We suffer with fictional characters, and – at least according to the old, dubious Aristotelian principle – somehow improve ourselves through the vicarious experience of their suffering. We become more thoughtful, sympathetic, or empathetic. We learn something, even if it is only to know or be reminded of what it is to suffer. At the Edge of the Solid World is a novel about grief that defies these expectations. It focuses on the solipsism of grief, the limits of our capacity to truly understand the traumas of others, and the problematic and exploitative elements of our attempts to do so.' (Introduction)

'When addressing the rise of mass media, literary authors of the late twentieth century often expressed an ‘anxiety of obsolescence’ (Fitzpatrick 2006) in their work: an acute awareness of being potentially displaced. This often led them to adopt an attitude of defiance in the face of technological change.

'Many contemporary literary authors adopt a similar oppositional attitude towards the rise and encroachment of networked technology, but retreating to the increasingly peripheral territory of ‘pure’ print-based literature is no longer easy. Digital technology presents not only the possibility of displacement but also that of transformation, with its spread threatening to fundamentally alter the practice of reading and writing.

'Possibly in response to the radical upheavals faced by Australian literary culture due to the rise of electronic publishing since 2012, recent works by three established Australian authors – Amnesia by Peter Carey (2014), the Wisdom Tree novella sequence by Nick Earls (2016), and The Life to Come by Michelle de Kretser (2017) – examine the ways in which networked technologies challenge or complicate the role, identity and practice of the contemporary print-oriented writer. The telling connection is that they present the relationship between print-based writers and networked technology as being transformative rather than simply oppositional, demonstrating the emergence of complex and nuanced responses to the rise of networked technology in Australian literature.' (Publication abstract)

'Though often contested and difficult to define, the novella has become more visible in Australian literature in recent years. This increased interest in the novella has often been connected to developments in digital technology and reading culture. Some commentators suggest that the increased distractibility and time poverty of contemporary audiences may make shorter literary works more appealing (Dale 2012), while others claim that the reduced costs of digital publishing may make novellas more commercially viable (Tan 2016). This paper will examine and assess these claims in the context of past and current debate around the status of the novella, using Nick Earls’ Wisdom Tree (2016) sequence of novellas as a case study so as to consider whether the current rise of digital publishing platforms has shifted the ways in which the form is approached and understood. This discussion has direct implications for fiction writers considering the advantages and affordances of the novella. Writers will need to assess both the possibilities presented by the resurgence of interest in the novella, its long-term sustainability, and future possible directions for the form in a digitally saturated culture.'  (Publication abstract)