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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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What I’m Reading
2020
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020; -
A Piano Made in Australia : Reinventing an Emblem of Cultural Wealth in Murray Bail's The Voyage
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 31 no. 2 2017; (p. 361-373)'[...]it is a conversation about Australia that exposes the sense of cultural superiority of the "ridiculously over-confident" (53) "Bertolt Brecht lookalike" (48; see also 94) and opposes it to Delage's own lack of self-confidence (exemplified, in the first place, by "his surprise" at being asked about his native countr y; 92). [...]the critic is more interested in Australia's natural stereotypes than in its architectural icons, which implies that, in his view, nature easily outweighs culture on the antipodean continent: "he only wanted to know about the dangerous spiders and sharks that infested Australia, and the snakes, how lethal were they really" (92); for him, the Sydney Opera House, which Delage's personal complex of secondarity leads him to consider "provincial" (70), is simply "typical of the New World['s]" preference for "appearance over substance" (92), while Delage is, for his part, tempted to think that it is precisely his piano's "appearance . . . [that] had shifted attention from the technical improvements hidden beneath the lid" (148). According to Eileen Battersby, Bail's "concise in scale" but "vastly thought-provoking novel" contains "some inspired nods to the great Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard's final [sic] novel, Woodcutters" (1984), which offers an über-critical portrayal of a "cannibalistic city" seemingly graced with a propensity for dragging the higher reaches of its "ap- palling society" (Bernhard 34) into what Bernhard describes as an insufferable "social hell" (4)-thereby subverting the values of this cultural elite from within since he8 was, up to a certain point, part of the same "artistic coterie" (Bernhard 84). [...]the Australian creator's own ongoing subservience to Western standards (despite Europe's enduringly paternalistic and misplaced assumptions of cultural superiority) is presented as his or her predicament.' (Publication abstract)
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The Provincial and the Princess
2013-
single work
review
— Appears in: Sydney Review of Books , March 2013;
— Review of The Voyage 2012 single work novel -
The Act of Writing and the Act of Attention
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 20 2013;'Is writing, including creative writing and its teaching, inevitably on the other side of the natural environment and ecological systems? Is writing, by definition, an action of a mindfulness and inventiveness which implicitly creates a cognitive separation between the world of the text and the world of ecological systems? A number of critics have recently been trying to propose modes and structures which merge this divide, or minimise it borrowing from biology, cognitive theory and probability theory. The paper considers a variety of such formal structures but argues especially for a particular mode of attentiveness in our concept of language and proposes its centrality in the teaching of a contemporary ecologically mindful writing. ' (Author's abstract)
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Review : The Voyage
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 27 no. 1 2013; (p. 111-112)
— Review of The Voyage 2012 single work novel
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Between Worlds
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Saturday Age , 22 September 2012; (p. 28-29)
— Review of The Voyage 2012 single work novel -
The Grand Scheme
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22-23 September 2012; (p. 34-35) The Canberra Times , 22 September 2012; (p. 23)
— Review of The Voyage 2012 single work novel -
Well Read
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 29 September 2012; (p. 30)
— Review of The Voyage 2012 single work novel ; Happy Valley : A Novel 1939 single work novel -
Delage Abroad
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 345 2012; (p. 15-16)
— Review of The Voyage 2012 single work novel -
Bringing it Home
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Monthly , October no. 83 2012; (p. 67-69)
— Review of The Voyage 2012 single work novel -
Designers Get Creative as Budgets Shrink in Tough Market
2013
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 25-26 May 2013; (p. 6) The Canberra Times , 25 May 2013; (p. 6) -
List Confirms Writing Vigour
2013
single work
column
— Appears in: The West Australian , 2 July 2013; (p. 6-7) -
Literary Guide to Australia
2013
single work
column
— Appears in: The Telegraph , 10 July 2013; 'We asked some of the world's most eminent writers to offer literary tours of the places they know best.' -
A Year of Experimentation: Australian Fiction Moving On
2013
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , June vol. 58 no. 1 2013; (p. 92-108) -
The Act of Writing and the Act of Attention
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: TEXT Special Issue Website Series , October no. 20 2013;'Is writing, including creative writing and its teaching, inevitably on the other side of the natural environment and ecological systems? Is writing, by definition, an action of a mindfulness and inventiveness which implicitly creates a cognitive separation between the world of the text and the world of ecological systems? A number of critics have recently been trying to propose modes and structures which merge this divide, or minimise it borrowing from biology, cognitive theory and probability theory. The paper considers a variety of such formal structures but argues especially for a particular mode of attentiveness in our concept of language and proposes its centrality in the teaching of a contemporary ecologically mindful writing. ' (Author's abstract)
Awards
- 2014 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2013 shortlisted Queensland Literary Awards — Fiction Book Award
- 2013 shortlisted Western Australian Premier's Book Awards — Fiction
- 2013 winner APA Book Design Awards — Designers’ Choice Cover of the Year designed by W.H. Chong.
- 2013 winner APA Book Design Awards — Best Designed Literary Fiction Book designed by W.H. Chong.
- Sydney, New South Wales,
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Vienna,
cAustria,cWestern Europe, Europe,
- At sea,