November 2009
SOCIETY
'Lovesong' by Alex Miller : Allen & Unwin, 272pp; $39.99
Geordie Williamson
“In tragic life,” wrote George Meredith in Modern Love, a savage poetic account of the breakdown of his marriage, “No villain need be!...
More ...SOCIETY
'Manhood for Amateurs' by Michael Chabon: Fourth Estate, 400pp; $32.99
Louis Nowra
There’s something of the eternal kid about Michael Chabon. Whereas other serious writers have outgrown Marvel comics, Star Trek and the...
More ...SOCIETY
School for Gangsters: 'Underbelly' and 'The Wire'
Alan Saunders
“Was that like a movie or what?” says one young thug to another after a shoot-up at a petrol station. We’re in the middle of the Melbourne...
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Tooth and Claw: Lars Von Trier's 'Antichrist'
Luke Davies
The opening five minutes of Antichrist (released nationally on 26 November) are a compelling symphony of exquisite film-making. In hyper-...
More ...Stockholm Syndrome: Stieg Larsson's 'Millennium' Trilogy
Kirsten Tranter
It’s hard to escape Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo these days in bookshops: the eponymous heroine’s gorgeously rendered...
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Animating Spirits: Janine Burke's 'Source: Nature's Healing Role in Art and Writing
Sebastian Smee
Janine Burke’s Source (Allen & Unwin, 400pp; $55.00) is about the inspiration and sanctuary that artists have found in nature. It reads...
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Sub-prime: Peter Carey's 'Parrot and Olivier in America'
Philip Hensher
Peter Carey said a decade ago: “My fictional project has always been the invention or discovery of my own country.” Whatever place he meant...
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Obscured by Clouds: Pink Floyd's 'The Wall'
Waleed Aly
In the mid-1960s, a young underground band played a gig at a Catholic youth club. The promoter refused to pay the band, which decided to...
More ...MEDIA
Rising Son: James Murdoch
Malcolm Knox
The Absence of TrustMurdoch’s choice of speech title was a simple pun. The object of his attack was to be the BBC Trust, the governing body...
More ...POLITICS
Copenhagen and Beyond: Conference Bound
Tim Flannery
For all their importance, the international climate negotiations have hardly been pursued with urgency. Until recently, they have been...
More ...Copenhagen and Beyond: Sceptical Thinking
Peter Doherty
The scope of what science can do is constantly being enhanced by technology. While microbiology is benefiting from new, ultra-high-speed...
More ...POLITICS
Changing Frontiers: The National Party
John Birmingham
The Flinthart of that once-upon-a-time rarely flinched from the confronting, and occasionally violent, practice of direct action when...
More ...Golden Eye
Gail Bell
One year, in the middle of December, I received an unexpected Christmas card. Inside, the message read: “Felix and I are both marvellously...
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SOCIETY
Masterchef
Gay Bilson
It is like a sixteenth-century court: royal, papal, judicial – take your pick. The court makes its own rules and makes sure, by its self-...
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POLITICS
A Necessary Idea
Fiona Capp
After driving from one side of the island to the other, we arrive at a gate blocking the road. Lena Pasternak hops out to open it. Several...
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POLITICS
Pirate Politics
Charles Firth
By this time next year, Australia’s political system could be controlled by pirates. In June this year, Sweden’s Pirate Party secured 7.1%...
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POLITICS
Comment: The History Wars
Robert Manne
Paul Keating and John Howard were early players in what Australians have come to call the History Wars, whose main field of battle is the...
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POLITICS
Comment: Bill of Rights
Geoffrey Robertson
The most remarkable feature of the National Human Rights Consultation Report, released last month, is its projection of the voices of ‘...
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The Brutal Truth: What Happened in the Gulf Country
Tony Roberts
In 1881, a massive pastoral boom commenced in the top half of the Northern Territory, administered by the colonial government in Adelaide.1...
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POLITICS
Richard Casey & Mahatma Gandhi
On 1 December 1945, as British rule of India entered its tumultuous final phase, Mohandas Gandhi arrived in Calcutta. That night, he held...
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