Laurie Hergenhan

Enjoyable read, albeit a summarised and outdated one.

1988 was Australia's bicentenary, and it's therefore unsurprising that Penguin saw fit to commission this volume, which responds to - and progresses from - the competing literary histories published in the 1960s. This was a boom period for Australian arts and literature; during and after WWII, limitations on transport and resources had given strength to the local industries rather than relying on publishers overseas, and the trend continued to hold firm. By the 1980s, of course, globalisation had fully taken hold of Australia and the academic humanities were shifting to a post-modern view, taking into account cultural and national differences more than ever before.

Each chapter in this volume is written by a different author, with subjects ranging from 19th century drama to the influence of Australian printing houses after WWII to the range of minority voices in the mid-to-late 20th century. At various points there are "perspective" chapters, that examine how Australia was seen (from both within and without) by the literary public and authors. The volume mentions just about every important writer and work between 1788 and 1988, taking a broad view of "literary history" to encompass poetry, journalism, publishing houses, and so on. There are discoveries galore - my favourite thus far is [b:Melbourne and Mars: My Mysterious Life on Two Planets|50234087|Melbourne and Mars My Mysterious Life on Two Planets|Joseph Fraser|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|75134757], an 1880s sci-fi/utopian novel that tells of a man who lives a double life, partly in Melbourne and partly in the Martian colonies where universal education underpins society to a much greater extent!

There is much valuable synthesis to be found in this volume as well.

Inevitably, the usual caveats apply. First, of course: 1988. More than three decades have passed, with many more literary events. Some writers have passed into the annals of history, others have proven more important than expected. National and cultural sentiments have changed (although, being written by academics, this volume takes a reasonably progressive view of history to begin with).

Moreso, however, this is not designed to be an "introduction" to Australian literature. With intermittent exceptions, authors don't give biographies of authors or explain works in detail. There is an expectation that this is being written for a somewhat enlightened reader already engaged with the subject, so a sentence might compare one novel with two contemporaries without providing any supporting evidence or narrative details. It's more a series of essays on broad literary subjects, citing books and authors as relevant.

Still a neat landmark in the journey of examining Australian literary trends, and useful at least for discovering works and writers.… (meer)

Laurie Hergenan PhD AO FAHA(1931 – 2019) was an Australian literary scholar. Educated at the University of Sydney and Birkbeck College in London, he held academic positions in Tasmania and Queensland. He was the founder and former editor of Australian Literary Studies (1963) and he published on Xavier Herbert.

And he was also the editor of the 1988 Penguin New Literary History of Australia.

This literary history, published in Australia’s bicentennial year, has been sitting on the shelf for a while. I picked it up to see what it had to say about Frank Moorhouse (and The Electrical Experience in particular) and ended up reading it, chapter by chapter, at bedtime. (Yes, a tad nerdy, I know.)

Even at university, I was not a scholarly reader. I’ve always been much more interested in the book than in what scholars have to say about it, and I’d always rather know a little about a lot, than a lot about a little. But this literary history of Australia is fascinating, capturing at a certain point of time, the currents and tides that have ebbed and flowed over two centuries of the written word in this country.

There is a chapter about Aboriginal literature. Stephen Muecke writes about oral storytelling, and Noongar man Jack Davis and Adam Shoemaker about written texts. Nothing in this book captures more clearly its moment in time than this chapter because it was written before the wealth of First Nations writing that exists today. Acknowledging that Aboriginal writing had gained a foothold in the Australian literary camp, it nevertheless remained unknown and invisible to most Australians. Based on my own reading experience I would say that was true. The first book I ever I read by a First Nations author was Sally Morgan’s revelatory My Place, and I read it in 1988. I went on to read half a dozen Stolen Generations memoirs in the 1990s, but it was not until 2005 that I read a novel: it was Butterfly Song by Wuthathi/Meriam woman Terri Janke.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/11/29/the-new-literary-history-of-australia-1988-e...

BTW My cover with this same ISBN is a painting of a rugged outcrop, from a painting called 'Australian Facade' by lloyd rees.… (meer)

This review has been crossposted from my blog at The Cosy Dragon . Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me, which appear on a timely schedule.

This is a novel I had to read for a literature class. It is not really a novel, as it suggested, it is a collection of short stories. It covers quite a long time period, around 100 years, from Peter Carey to Henry Lawson.

As befitting my usual treatment of literature studies books, I didn't read all of the short stories in this collection. I read and studied just three: Short Shift Saturday by Gavin Casey, Josie by Vance Palmer and Happiness by Katherine Susannah Prichard.

Short Shift Saturday is a gritty short story written in a realist manner. It's longer than the other two, and I felt that it was easier to understand and get into the depth of the characters.

Josie is an odd ducky. The whole short story is an odd ducky. It was a bit hard to read, and it certainly wasn't enjoyable. In a way, it was more disgusting than anything. It makes the point of the outsider in Australian early culture.

Happiness is told from the perspective of an Aboriginal woman. It feels like a setup, and I wasn't entirely convinced about the authenticity of feeling.

As a whole, I hated the unit of study that this book was part of, and I really didn't do well on any of it. For this particular assessment, I had jetlag! You can tell it's been on my mind for a while to review this book, because I went on holiday more than a month ago.… (meer)