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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
Athena and Dexter lead an enclosed family life, innocent of fashion and bound towards a disturbed child. Their comfortable rut is disrupted by the arrival of Elizabeth, a tough nut from Dexter's past. With her three charming, chaotic hangers-on, she draws the couple out into a world whose casual egotism they had barely dreamed of. How can they get home again? (Source: publisher's website)
Reading Australia
This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.
Unit Suitable For
AC: Year 11 (Literature Unit 2). Year 11 has been chosen as the focus for this unit because it deals with significant themes demanding some maturity with a strong focus on literary technique and analysis appropriate to Year 11.
Themes
aspirations, autism, disability, domesticity, family, infidelity, isolation, marriage, music, relationships
General Capabilities
Critical and creative thinking, Ethical understanding, Intercultural understanding, Literacy
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
- Large print.
- Braille.
Works about this Work
-
The Children's Bach Reconsidered
2020
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Institute Review , July no. 14 2020;
— Review of The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella -
y
Live Recording : Helen Garner on Her Early Career
Chloe Hooper
(interviewer),
Melbourne
:
Readings
,
2019
23469032
2019
single work
podcast
interview
'Helen Garner talks with Chloe Hooper about her early career and the impact of Monkey Grip and The Children’s Bach on her writing life. This is a live recording from our event.' (Production summary)
-
On the Dizzy Edge
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: London Review of Books , 21 March vol. 41 no. 6 2019; (p. 33-34)
— Review of Monkey Grip 1977 single work novel ; The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella'To read a novel by Helen Garner is to intrude on characters living their lives with no regard for your presence. You wander into their stories with the same sense of abandon with which they wander into Melbourne flophouses, drug dens, the homes of old and new lovers. ‘In the old brown house on the corner, a mile from the middle of the city, we ate bacon for breakfast every morning of our lives,’ begins Garner’s first novel, Monkey Grip (1977), whose narrator, Nora, ushers you to the kitchen table then leaves you to pick your way through the raucous crowd gathered there in the summer of 1975. Here is Martin, her faithful lover, ‘teetering as many were that summer on the dizzy edge of smack’. Here is Javo, ‘just back from getting off dope in Hobart’, Lou, Selena, Georgie, Clive, Eve, Gracie – and a little boy called ‘the Roaster’ who seems to belong to no one and everyone. There are no introductions, just intimacies that rise sharply above the clatter only to sink back into it.' (Introduction)
-
February in Fiction
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , February 2019;
— Review of The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella ; Reading the Landscape : A Celebration of Australian Writing 2018 anthology poetry short story prose ; Just Give Me the Pills 2018 single work novel ; Exploded View 2019 single work novel -
Ekphrastic Effects in Helen Garner’s The Children’s Bach
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 77 no. 3 2017; (p. 66-82)'Helen Garner's 1984 novella, The Children's Bach opens with a description and commentary on the famous photograph of Alfred Lord Tennyson and his family taken en pleine air at their house on the Isle of Wight in 1862:
'Dexter found, in a magazine. a photograph of the poet Tennyson, his wife and their two sons walking in the garden of their house on the Isle of Wight. To the modern eye it is a shocking picture: they are all, with the exception of the great man himself, bundled up in such enormous, incapacitating garments. Eye-line: Tennyson looks into the middle distance. His wife, holding his arm and standing very close to his side, gazes up into his face. One boy holds his father's hand and looks up at him. The other boy holds his mother's and looks into the camera with a weak, rueful expression. Behind them, out of focus, twinkles the windy foliage of a great garden. Their shadows fall across the lawn: they have just taken a step. Tennyson's hands are large square paws, held up awkwardly at stomach level. His wife's face is gaunt and her eyes are set in deep sockets. It is a photo of a family. The wind puffs out the huge stiff curved sleeve of the woman's dress, and brushes back off his forehead the long hair of the father's boy who is turned towards the drama of his parents' faces; though he is holding his father's hand, he is separate from the group, and light shows between his tightly buttoned torso and his father's leg.' (Introduction)
-
[Review] The Children's Bach
1985
single work
review
— Appears in: Fremantle Arts Centre Broadsheet , May - June vol. 4 no. 3 1985; (p. 2)
— Review of The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella -
Garner's New Dimensions
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 8-9 December 1984; (p. 16)
— Review of The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella -
Sound Advice From Helen Garner
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 1 December 1984; (p. 18)
— Review of The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella -
Two Australian Novels... Bach , Like Life is Never Simple
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 8 December 1984; (p. 9)
— Review of The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella ; Shallows 1984 single work novel -
[Review] The Children's Bach
1984
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 13 December 1984; (p. 14)
— Review of The Children's Bach 1984 single work novella -
Helen's Consolation
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sun-Herald , 15 June 2008; (p. 12) -
Bach to the Future
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 15 June 2008; (p. 19) -
A Novel Approach to Modern Opera
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 17 June 2008; (p. 14) -
Habe Dank!
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Well in the Shadow : A Writer's Journey through Australian Literature 2010; (p. 30-43) A survey of Helen Garner's 'first phase'. -
Greek Olives and Italian Prosciutto on Crusty French Bread : Food in Contemporary Fiction by Australian Women
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Studies , vol. 2 no. 2010; 'Women have often had a troubled relationship with food, but in recent decades there has been a bit of a turn around - at least in fictional terms. In some earlier Australian feminist fiction from the 1970s and 1980s, women were often portrayed as oppressed by, or resistant to, food and eating. Here I explore food in Kate Grenville's Lilian's Story, Andrea Goldsmith's Gracious Living, and two works by Helen Garner - The Children's Bach and Cosmo Cosmolino. In these stories women refrain from eating, or over indulge, as forms of resistance to oppression. But times have changed. This essay examines the changing nature of how food is represented in fiction by Australian women. The later novels explored here - Drusilla Modjeska's The Orchard, Marion Halligan's The Fog Garden, Stephanie Dowrick Tasting Salt and Amanda Lohrey's Camille's Bread (1995) - significantly reframe food preparation and consumption as positive experiences that promote women's independence, and contribute to their creative lives and personal relationships. These later texts transcend the earlier view of domesticated women as anxious or resistant consumers of food. Instead, food is aesthetically rich and sensually rewarding; a controllable and pleasurable experience promoting health, wellbeing, and positive loving relationships. (Author's abstract)