[Review] The Pacific Room single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 [Review] The Pacific Room
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'Simile haunts The Pacific Room. So many sentences begin ‘It’s as if ...’ that the phrase seems like an incantation. Michael Fitzgerald writes that he agrees with Robert Louis Stevenson that ‘every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning.’ For the reviewer coming from outside the circle, this book does not so much erect screens as exist within a lush, enticing forest of signs which seems indifferent to one’s presence. As Teuila, the Samoan fa‘afafine, confidently climbs to the summit of Mount Vaea in the dark, we are told, ‘For an outsider there is no hint of what lies ahead, so inscrutable is the dense foliage.’ One is aware that given time and multiple readings, the forest might become as familiar as it is to Teuila. On a first reading, the best option is to let the strangeness of the book seep into one’s consciousness and resist the temptation to seek clarification at every twist in the path.' (Introduction)

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    y separately published work icon Australian Book Review ABR no. 397 December 2017 12320003 2017 periodical issue

    'Rainbows and bad losers

    'The mood outside the State Library of Victoria on 15 November 2017 was exultant – once the precarious line from Canberra had been restored and the ABS’s expatiatory chief statistician, David Kalisch, finally announced that 61.6 per cent of Australians had voted Yes in the postal survey. The feeling was one of relief and euphoria. It was over, at last, and the democratic rights of all Australians had been ratified by a substantial majority of Australians.' (Editorial)

    2017
    pg. 41
Last amended 20 Dec 2017 13:07:14
41 https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2017/december-2017-no-397/214-december-2017-no-397/4456-gillian-dooley-reviews-the-pacific-room-by-michael-fitzgerald [Review] The Pacific Roomsmall AustLit logo Australian Book Review
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