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Notes
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Dedication: For Nancy
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Epigraph: 'Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?' -- T.S. Eliot: Choruses from the Rock.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Literary Destruction of Canberra : Utopia, Apocalypse and the National Capital
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 24 no. 1 2009; (p. 78-94) The article examines the contradictory responses to the national capital in the Australian imagination: planned along utopian lines, Canberra has been seen as a failed utopia, a city 'widely unloved and often derided as the most un-Australian of Australian cities' (78). In seeking to understand this tension, the article examines the literary representation of the capital in some fictional narratives in which 'Canberra is literally or symbolically destroyed', above all in works by McGahan and Halligan. -
Ecopoetics of the Limestone Plains
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007; (p. 153-175)The Limestone Plains is the name given by British explorers in the 1820s to the area in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, where the city of Canberra would later be built. Watered by the Molonglo, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee, and ringed by wooded hills, this area was a significant meeting place of several Aboriginal tribes, whose fire-stick farming practices had shaped its flora and fauna over the millennia. In the nineteenth century, the Canberra area provided a living for pastoralists and selectors, whose activities altered the local ecology and had a devastating impact on Indigenous people. The city that was founded on the Limestone Plains in 1913 in turn displaced this rural way of life, although remnants of pastoralism persisted beyond the urban fringe into the twenty-first century. Canberra's 'bush capital' was conceived as a city in and of the landscape, and it remains a place where town and country interpenetrate to a remarkable degree. As well as providing something of a haven for wildlife, Canberra and its surrounds have also nurtured numerous writers. In this essay, I will investigate the ways in which explorers and settlers construed the Limestone Plains as a locus of pastoral dwelling, before proceeding to consider how some more recent writers have responded to this place in literary form by attending to the more-than-human world that persists both within and beyond the city. (from The Littoral Zone)
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'A Language We All Speak' : Food in Marion Halligan's Writing
2006
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Kunapipi , vol. 28 no. 2 2006; (p. 162-171)'Marion Halligan describes her memoir, A Taste of Memory, as a set of stories of her life in food, travel and especially gardens, those 'nourishing spaces'; but it also commemorates her husband, Graham, and their thirty-five year marriage. Food and gardens often appear as related themes in Halligan's fiction, where gardens symbolise suburban domestic space and food may be used to express both desire and social connection. This essay explores how, in A Taste of Memory and the two novels immediately preceding it, The Fog Garden and The Point, food and gardens are linked to themes of bereavement and loss.' - Kunapipi (p. 183).
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An Interview with Marion Halligan
Gillian Dooley
(interviewer),
2003
single work
interview
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 18 no. 1 2004; (p. 5-7) Dooley questions Halligan about connections to the writing of Iris Murdoch in Halligan's work. Also discussed is Halligan's representation of Canberra, and particularly of Lake Burley Griffin, in The Point. -
Booking the Best
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 6 September 2003; (p. 1-2)
— Review of The Hamilton Case 2003 single work novel ; Pushing Time Away : My Grandfather and the Tragedy of Jewish Vienna 2003 single work biography ; Black Mirror 2002 single work novel ; Wings of the Kite-Hawk 2003 single work autobiography ; The Point 2003 single work novel
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Rich Romantic Denial
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1-2 March 2003; (p. 12)
— Review of The Point 2003 single work novel ; The French Tutor 2003 single work novel -
Halligan's Capital Ideas
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 15 March 2003; (p. 4)
— Review of The Point 2003 single work novel -
Appetite for Murder
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Brisbane News , 19 - 25 March no. 435 2003; (p. 9)
— Review of The Point 2003 single work novel -
Fine Dining in an Age of Fragile Order
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22-23 March 2003; (p. 11)
— Review of The Point 2003 single work novel -
Feeding on Lifestyles
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 29 March 2003; (p. 11)
— Review of The Point 2003 single work novel -
Sustaining Sense and Spirit
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 1 March 2003; (p. 1-2a) -
Cravings of a Hungry Heart
2003
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 8-9 March 2003; (p. 13) -
Getting to the Point with Marion Halligan
2003
single work
interview
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 8 March 2003; (p. 6) -
An Interview with Marion Halligan
Gillian Dooley
(interviewer),
2003
single work
interview
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 18 no. 1 2004; (p. 5-7) Dooley questions Halligan about connections to the writing of Iris Murdoch in Halligan's work. Also discussed is Halligan's representation of Canberra, and particularly of Lake Burley Griffin, in The Point. -
Ecopoetics of the Limestone Plains
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007; (p. 153-175)The Limestone Plains is the name given by British explorers in the 1820s to the area in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, where the city of Canberra would later be built. Watered by the Molonglo, a tributary of the Murrumbidgee, and ringed by wooded hills, this area was a significant meeting place of several Aboriginal tribes, whose fire-stick farming practices had shaped its flora and fauna over the millennia. In the nineteenth century, the Canberra area provided a living for pastoralists and selectors, whose activities altered the local ecology and had a devastating impact on Indigenous people. The city that was founded on the Limestone Plains in 1913 in turn displaced this rural way of life, although remnants of pastoralism persisted beyond the urban fringe into the twenty-first century. Canberra's 'bush capital' was conceived as a city in and of the landscape, and it remains a place where town and country interpenetrate to a remarkable degree. As well as providing something of a haven for wildlife, Canberra and its surrounds have also nurtured numerous writers. In this essay, I will investigate the ways in which explorers and settlers construed the Limestone Plains as a locus of pastoral dwelling, before proceeding to consider how some more recent writers have responded to this place in literary form by attending to the more-than-human world that persists both within and beyond the city. (from The Littoral Zone)
Awards
- 2004 winner Australian Capital Territory Book of the Year Award
- 2004 shortlisted Commonwealth Writers Prize — South East Asia and South Pacific Region — Best Book
- Canberra, Australian Capital Territory,
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cFrance,cWestern Europe, Europe,