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Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 Inattentions of Reading
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'Whatever else it is, reading is surely one of the central activities and interests of literature. Literature, though, is hardly a central activity or interest in contemporary culture. So it seems odd that readers of Gerald Murnane who are also critics or reviewers like to point to the author’s eccentricities: he has never worn sunglasses, for example; he’s reclusive, never flown on a plane and doesn’t like to travel; he never watches films, doesn’t like the sea, and, among other things, he’s obsessed with horse racing, keeping colourcoded files on races, horses and jockeys that can be recalled or retrieved at will, and so on. But, we might want to ask, isn’t literature (of which Murnane may be an Australian exemplar) already an eccentric activity or interest? Certainly a passionate interest in and a devotion to literature today isn’t  as eccentric as it gets, but nevertheless it’s unconventional and slightly strange.' (Introduction)

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    y separately published work icon Meanjin vol. 78 no. 1 Autumn 2019 16531898 2019 periodical issue

    'We were just a little surprised when the Australia Council said yes. But then a year later—as you were—they said no.

    'Three years back, when the council redrew the map of arts funding, Meanjin lost its rolling three-year key organisation grant, a pattern that had allowed if not luxury then a degree of certainty. Money was the root of it all: the council’s budget had been gutted and cuts had to be made. Whatever discomforting ripples were felt through opera, ballet and theatre companies had become a toxic trickle by the time the tide of change made its way down the funding food chain to bodies whose business was literature.' (Jonathan Green, Introduction)

    2019
    pg. 18-21
Last amended 25 Feb 2021 08:12:43
18-21 Inattentions of Readingsmall AustLit logo Meanjin
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