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By permission of the author.
Xavier Pons Xavier Pons i(A28177 works by)
Born: Established: 1948 Rodez,
c
France,
c
Western Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 "On the Threshold of Change" : Liminality and Marginality in Steven Carroll's Fiction Xavier Pons , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Commonwealth Essays and Studies , vol. 37 no. 1 2014; (p. 11-23)

'Abstract: The paper deals with Steven Carroll's quartet of novels about a Melbourne suburb. Carroll's original brand of realism is an attempt to capture "life in motion" and focuses on the way individuals and communities evolve. Hence his predilection for describing liminal moments in his narratives - moments when people and places are on the cusp of change. His novels are in this sense the expression of a philosophy of change as well as examples of narrative methods meant to give concrete form to that philosophy. Liminality sometimes gives way to marginality: instead of evolving with their social context, some characters retain features that make them out of place in their brave new world. They are stranded on the wrong side of liminality, a notion whose promises of resolution do not always come true.' (Publication abstract)

1 The Pain of Belonging Xavier Pons , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Aboriginal Australians and Other 'Others' 2014; (p. 189-202)

'The title of this chapter is of course a not-so-subtle take on Germaine Greer's phrase "the pain of unbelonging," which gives its title to the collection of essays edited by Sheila Collingwood-Whittick,' to which our co-editor Sue Ryan contributed. It refers to the sense of alienation, dislocation and bewilderment experienced by the European colonists of Australia - what Sheila Collingwood-Whittick called "the colonizer's absolute unfamiliarity with the alien space of the colony [...] their overwhelming sense of estrangement." It is an experience that has often been highlighted by writers and critics - two examples that come to mind are John Carroll's collection of essays Intruders in the Bush (a title that epitomizes the book's argument) and Les Murray's assertion, in his poem "Noonday Axeman," that "It will be centuries / Before many men are truly at home in this country." The non-Indigenous population of Australia is as it were doomed to grope its way, sometimes in a most painful manner, towards a sense of belonging, achieving what is rightly regarded as "a consummation devoutly to be wished," though it may be permanently out of reach if Greer is correct in saying that "for a gubba [white] in Australia there can be no belonging."' (Introduction)
 

1 Realigning the Spiritual Compass : Representations of Terrorism in Some Recent Australian Fiction Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies on Australia , vol. 1 no. 2009; (p. 23-24)
'This article examines how terrorism is represented in three Australian novels, Janette Turner Hospital's Due Preparations for the Plague (2003) and Orpheus Lost (2007), and Richard Flanagan's The Unknown Terrorist (2006). It argues that, despite their ostensible topic, the novels tend to ignore or distort the reality of terrorism and its causes. Flanagan is more interested in the way some individuals and groups exploit the fear of terrorism to achieve their own ends, while Turner Hospital creates a paranoid world which does not allow any real understanding of what terrorism is about. The social preoccupations in the three novels, insightful as they are, remain largely disconnected from terrorism.' Source: Xavier Pons.
1 [Review] Panorama Du Roman Australien Xavier Pons , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Anglophonia / Caliban , no. 25 2009; (p. 515-517)

— Review of Panorama du Roman Australien Jean-François Vernay , 2009 single work criticism
1 Exotic Pleasures Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 293-315)
1 Homoeroticism in David Malouf's Fiction Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 271-292)

'David Malouf is hardly a gay icon. Although he has never kept his homosexuality a secret, neither has he flaunted it, either in his life or in his writings. Where the latter are concerned, there is no doubt that Malouf doesn't want to be pigeonholed, that he rejects restrictive levels that would do an injustice to his wide-ranging preoccupations and his considerable appeal to all manner of readers.' (p. 271)

1 The Angels Are Not Coming Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 245-269)
1 'The Great Dirty Joke Black Velvet' Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 157-178)

'The issue of sexual contact across the racial divide-that is, for the most part, of white men having sex with black women-has long agitated Australia's culture and society. The unintended result of such contact, the appearance of a growing 'half-cast' population, was seen as a grave threat to the racist dream of a white Australia, and led to the policy of systematically removing mixed-race children from their mothers in order to 'breed out their colour,' thereby creating the 'Stolen Generations'. The policy so earnestly promoted the likes of A.O. Neville and Cecil Cook found widespread approval throughout Australia: hardly any voices were raised in dissent, and several decades later many still regarded it as entirely justified.' (p. 157)

1 The Joys of Irresponsible Sex Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 139-155)

'...[Norman] Lindsay's novel Redheap, first published in Britain in 1930, was promptly banned in Australia for some three decades. This made Lindsay a hero in the eyes of some younger writers...

With the advantage of hindsight, some critics have wondered what the fuss had been all about, arguing that Lindsay's writings were little more than a kind of adolescent caper, and have now outlived whatever subversive quality they might once have possessed.' (p. 139)

1 Dance of the Emotional Void Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 119-138)

'In the literature of the last few decades depiction of sex have become commonplace. The old taboos which made any allusion to these matters something daring or transgressive have disappeared, to the extent that the reader is surprised, and perhaps a little disappointed, when he or she fails to find any sexual descriptions in the novel. It would appear that the characters have as few inhibitions when it comes to having sex as the writers when it comes to describing it.' (p. 119)

1 Australian Masculinities Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 97-117)
This criticism looks at the forms of maleness celebrated by Australian writers and how that 'maleness' is not just constructed by men. Women, Pons argues, contribute to this construction.
1 Australian Fantasies Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 81-95)

'Australian culture is frequently described as materialistic, hedonistic and fun-loving, and no doubt it is, in some respects, all those things. The 'land of the long week-end', its 'great stupor' perhaps, even the 'lucky country' - all these more or less flattering tags suggest, sometimes in the face of what their authors intended, that nothing can go seriously wrong in Australia, where life cannot be but easy-going and enjoyable. And so it would appear that, as Craig McGregor observed, 'the Australian race is engaged in a whole-hearted pursuit of happiness without guilt. The beach, in particular, has been for several decades one of the major symbols of the Australian way of life, the locus of Australian hedonism, where people worship the sun, display their near-naked bodies, and ogle other people's...' (p. 81)

1 Sex and Literature Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 61-80)

'In the arts generally and in literature in particular, depictions of sex are never a mere representation of life-they are more like a substitute for it, an alternative to it. They often express desires which cannot find fulfilment in reality, and thus are entrusted to the imagination by which, for all their 'baser' nature, they are turned, or sublimated, into something more acceptable to society, something that can appear on a canvas or a sheet of paper and relieve the artist's, as well as the viewer's frustration.' (p. 61)

1 Transgressions Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 39-59)

'All serious art breaks the rules-there can be no innovation without some form of transgression. Yet the breaking of rules is not enough to produce serious art, and while the very focus of erotic writing seems to invite transgressions, these are not necessarily liberating or creative. When transgressions lie for the most part in the subject-matter, their translation into literary break-throughs is problematic, and they can in fact be undermined by writing that is bland, conventional and predictable. Literature, it bears perhaps repeating, is not the thing itself but a representation and thus a re-creation of it. Modes of representations are always ideologically loaded and, while the contemporary period has invented very little in terms of sexual practices, it has been able to innovate significantly in terms of representational practices. It remains to be seen what kind of articulation can be found between the two.' (p 39)

1 Reserviors of Desire Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 11-37)
1 Introduction Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 1-9)
This book makes no attempt to be comprehensive - it is no encyclopaedia. Its aim is to shine a light on some perhaps neglected corners of that vast construction site that is Australian literature rather than explore its full extent. (p7)
1 God of Sex Xavier Pons , 2009 single work correspondence
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December 2009 - January 2010 no. 317 2009; (p. 5)
1 Strutting One's Stuff Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antithesis , vol. 19 no. 2009; (p. 14-29)
The article highlights the ways in which sexual identity is performed, represented and exhibited in Australian writing and suggests connections between issues of individual identity and the larger question of Australian national identity. Focussing on a spectrum of Australian writing, Pons analyses the literary strategies of this large and growing corpus and its gender-specific variations.
1 7 y separately published work icon Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing Xavier Pons , Newcastle upon Tyne : Cambridge Scholars Press , 2009 Z1572958 2009 single work criticism

'After decades of strict, puritanical censorship, Australian writers are free to address sexual issues. But sex remains a controversial and disturbing topic - its representation in poetry or fiction can never be free of ambiguities and still requires a variety of literary strategies to be made acceptable.

Messengers of Eros examines those strategies and offers close readings of many Australian literary texts. It revisits classics such as Coonardoo, Capricornia or Such Is Life as well as major modern writers such as Patrick White, Peter Carey, David Malouf or Richard Flanagan, and engages with contemporary works whose status is still a matter for debate. It takes into account the postcolonial context of Australia's culture, especially where Indigenous and multicultural writers are concerned.

This original and compelling book draws on the lessons of French theory and, though its approach is sympathetic to postmodernism, it never falls into academic jargon, remaining easily accessible to the general reader.' (Publisher's blurb)

1 Seeing Double : Visions of Australia in Two French Crime Novels Xavier Pons , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: France and Australia Face to Face 2008; (p. 81-94)
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