Donald Horne (1921–2005)
Auteur van The Lucky Country
Over de Auteur
Werken van Donald Horne
Donald Horne on How I Came to Write " The Lucky Country " (Mup Masterworks) (Mup Masterworks) (2006) 6 exemplaren
Changing the system : political and constitutional reform : some options and difficulties (1981) 2 exemplaren
Quadrant : May - June 1965 No 35, Vol IX No 3 1 exemplaar
The Permit, "a sample book" not the actual novel 1 exemplaar
The lucky country, [Rev. 1 exemplaar
Gerelateerde werken
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Geboortedatum
- 1921-12-26
- Overlijdensdatum
- 2005-09-08
- Geslacht
- male
- Nationaliteit
- Australia
- Geboorteplaats
- Kogarah, New South Wales, Australia
- Woonplaatsen
- Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Muswellbrook, New South Wales, Australia - Opleiding
- University of Sydney
- Beroepen
- journalist
writer
social critic
Professor of Political Science, University of New South Wales
Chancellor, University of Canberra (1992-1995) - Prijzen en onderscheidingen
- Australian Living Treasure
Leden
Besprekingen
Lijsten
Prijzen
Misschien vindt je deze ook leuk
Gerelateerde auteurs
Statistieken
- Werken
- 43
- Ook door
- 2
- Leden
- 669
- Populariteit
- #37,728
- Waardering
- 3.4
- Besprekingen
- 10
- ISBNs
- 59
- Talen
- 1
Ouch. But true. It was still mostly true when I read it in my young adulthood, even after three years of a progressive government in 1975. Greg at Goodreads thinks it was still true in 2015 and in comments we can see that a reader called Terry Wang thought so too in 2021 ... but I think that's a bit harsh... though you do have to wonder a bit about an electorate that ...
Let's not get sidetracked.
Most people, however, do not know that Horne also ventured into writing fiction. There is probably a good reason for this. As always I am open to correction, but I suspect that his sole venture into the novel, The Permit, which was published in 1965 by the independent publishing company Sun Books, sank like a stone into oblivion. Because, alas, it isn't very good at all. It's derivative, tedious and predictable.
Five or ten pages into 'Monday', the first chapter of this ponderous satire, and a reader will recognise its origins in Franz Kafka's posthumously published The Castle (1926, Das Schloss). With chapter headings named by the days of the week, the reader of The Permit will find by the heavy-handed end of 'Tuesday' that actually, it would be better to re-read The Castle.
And that's what I did. I'd already read The Castle round about 1982, probably as a set text for my BA, but I had a Naxos audio book, narrated brilliantly by Allan Corduner, and translated by David Whiting, and it was a fresh and refreshing experience to revisit this classic of absurdism.
As you can see at Wikipedia, The Castle:
Bureaucrats and politicians have always been cheap targets, but at least Kafka's absurdism is entertaining. K arrives in a village to take up a position as a land surveyor, but it turns out that there has been a mix-up and there is no position. To sort this out, he embarks on a quest to meet with a bureaucrat called Klamm but he soon discovers that the village is so intimidated by the authority of the Castle, that his efforts are considered highly problematic and he gets himself into all sorts of bother. Not least when he decides to marry Frieda so that he overcomes the problem of not having a residency permit. To get accommodation he has to take up work as a cleaner. Although the reader knows that nothing K can do is going to resolve his problem, nothing in the novel is predictable, and much of the absurdism seems perfectly real.
Horne's The Permit, however, plods through his scenario with weighted boots.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/04/26/the-permit-1965-by-donald-horne-and-a-nod-to...… (meer)