THE MONTHLY ESSAYS 

“All I knew of Abbott when he entered Parliament in 1994 at the age of 36 was that he had been educated by Jesuits, had wanted to be a priest and had described himself as “a junkyard dog savaging the other side”. It was only in early 1998 that I began to take serious notice of him, and that was because of a statement he made in Parliament about Bob Santamaria, who had recently died. Abbott called him “a philosophical star by which you could always steer” and “the greatest living Australian”. I thought that Santamaria had lost all political relevance decades earlier and was astonished that anyone would honour a man who inspired so much hatred.”

In “The Whirling Dervish”, Louis Nowra takes a close look at the current Opposition leader and his aspirations to be prime minister. Abbott, who ousted Malcolm Turnbull as Opposition leader last December, has made it clear he sees the next federal election as a fight – one he is ready to take on. Nowra examines the sometimes controversial personal life of Abbott, and explores the religious influences that have made him the politician he is today.

*

“Soon there are journalists swarming all over the story of the starved girl. Television crews turn up at the house. The father becomes talkative. He has a pudgy face, a long, bleached ponytail and a strange, inward-looking gaze. Police attending the scene have told him his daughter has died of starvation and dehydration. ‘I don’t know how this can be,’ he tells the cameras. ‘She’d eat like anything.’”

In “Ebony”, Anne Manne conducts a detailed examination of the case of the little girl who died of starvation alone in the filthy room in which she had been locked. With an eerie sense of immediacy, Manne depicts the events as they unfolded: the ambulance officers’ hideous discovery, the father’s attempt at deceit, the revelations about the incompetence of government agencies, and the terrifying and destructive relationship of the parents unravelling in court.

*

“To lure the high roller away from Las Vegas, where he was already losing millions – and to lock him into Crown – James Packer’s casino offered Kakavas free luxury accommodation, free food and drink, free limo travel and a private jet to ferry him from his home on the Gold Coast. It even flew him to the Philippines and back for a holiday. On several occasions Crown also gave him up to $50,000 in cash as ‘lucky money’, delivered in a cardboard box as he boarded the plane.”

 In “The Biggest Loser”, award-winning journalist Paul Barry reports on the case of “problem gambler” Harry Kakavas, who recently attempted to sue Crown Casino for preying upon his gambling addiction. High-flying Kakavas, who made his fortune in the Gold Coast real-estate market, sued the casino for the $35 million he allegedly lost at its baccarat tables.

*

“Special qualities have been ascribed – sometimes superstitiously, sometimes accurately – to these people, qualities to do with the sacred, the creative, the magical.”

In “The Outsiders”, Sebastian Smee explores the relationship between mental illness and creativity. He raises important questions concerning the link that is often made between illnesses such as schizophrenia and creative genius, suggesting that popular assumptions may be an impediment to appropriate levels of intervention and medical care. He couches his wide-ranging discussion in a narrative of the tragic stabbing-deaths of art curator Nick Waterlow and his daughter, Chloe.

THE NATION REVIEWED

“Late last year, to a strangely muffled fanfare from his friends, the third volume of Keith Windschuttle’s self-published magnum opus, The Fabrication of Aboriginal History, appeared. Its subject is the stolen generations. Windschuttle must have regarded its publication as urgent. This is quite possibly the first occasion in the history of publishing where Volume Three of a single-authored history has preceded Volume Two. While from a narrow political point of view Windschuttle’s book is probably irrelevant, from the historical and ideological points of view it ought not to be ignored.”

In the Monthly Comment, Robert Manne reviews the latest publication by Keith Windschuttle, right-wing warrior and editor of Quadrant magazine. In a thorough examination of Windschuttle’s evidence and methodology, Manne outlines the flaws in Windschuttle’s thesis, and in his continued denial of the history of the stolen generations.

*

Plus, in “Comforter”, Anna Goldsworthy heads off to sleep school, with her son, for lessons in uninterrupted slumber; and in “Saga”, Cate Kennedy ventures out on a moonlit night to ponder the Twilight phenomenon, and those seduced by its central dilemma.

ARTS & LETTERS

“Waters is at his best when he makes you want to look away. What he spies on is obscene, but these are Freudian primal scenes, forbidden reveries projected onto the screens behind our shuttered eyes.”

In “Divine Intervention”, Peter Conrad uses the occasion of the Australian tour of John Waters’ one-man show, This Filthy World, to celebrate the career of the shock-comedy auteur. Conrad analyses the numerous ways in which Waters has revolted and nauseated us in his creation of a unique kind of counterculture, and considers the reception he has received in Australia throughout his career – from the days of heavy-handed film-censorship to the present, where new forms of erotic experimentation have the potential to sideline even Waters himself.

*

“Seidel’s honesty can be called all kinds of things – brutal, savage, toxic, ruthless – but I will go with ‘miraculous’ because it’s an honesty I’d thought extinct. For me, discovering Seidel was the poetic equivalent of a naturalist coming across a Tasmanian tiger.”

In “Easy Rider”, Kate Jennings revels in the exquisite poetry of Frederick Seidel, while seeking to understand of the basis of its appeal, given that much of Seidel’s writing is undeniably self-indulgent and sometimes even “transgressive”. Jennings considers his “trust-fund” persona and his repetitious themes, but cannot help proclaiming: “Bless his randy, polarising soul!”

*

“The bitterness of an interrupted life is nothing compared to the bitterness of an interrupted work: the probability of a continuation of the first beyond the grave seems infinite by comparison with the hopeless incompleteness of the second.”

– Vladimir Nabokov

In “The Sins of the Son”, Simon Leys reflects upon the creative processes and literary legacy of Vladimir Nabokov in the wake of the posthumous publication of The Original of Laura: A Novel in Fragments. From the 138 detachable filing cards that constitute the book, Leys attempts to piece together the author’s original design and questions the literary judgement of the son that decided to publish this “fragmented, tentative, unfinished” draft. 

*

Plus, in “Lost Boys”, Luke Davies reviews two films: Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet and John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road; and in “Border Crossings”, Alice Pung ponders the politics of the Australian TV series John Safran’s Race Relations.