Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 'Pastures Where There Was Red Dust' : Caustic Playfulness in Michelle de Krester's New Novel
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Humans are narrative creatures. We tell stories to make sense of ourselves, but our stories – be they historical, political, fictional, or personal – shape us as much as we shape them. In the service of narrative expediency, we often sacrifice nuance. We turn chance to prophecy, and accidents into choices. We justify and excuse ourselves. We anoint heroes and villains. As novelist Michelle de Kretser warns, it is ‘frighteningly easy’ to turn the people around us into characters and to forget that: ‘The only life in which you play a leading role is your own.’ De Kretser’s new novel, The Life to Come, cleverly exposes the perils of narrative egocentrism by refusing to create a centre. Rather, she splits the book into five distinct sections that overlay rather than interconnect, and in which human complexity is privileged over narrative simplicity.' (Introduction)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Book Review ABR no. 395 October 2017 11968677 2017 periodical issue

    'Few advanced, wealthy, secular societies have found this issue so fraught. Soon, happily, this matter will be behind us, and government and citizens will be able to get on on with the important issues confronting this society, especially climate change, the urgency of which is attested to by several contributors to our Environment issue.' (From Editorial)

    2017
    pg. 18-19
Last amended 30 Nov 2017 15:33:49
18-19 https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2017/october-2017-no-395/212-october-2017-no-395/4279-beejay-silcox-reviews-the-life-to-come-by-michelle-de-kretser 'Pastures Where There Was Red Dust' : Caustic Playfulness in Michelle de Krester's New Novelsmall AustLit logo Australian Book Review
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