• Author:agent Peter Rose http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/rose-peter
Issue Details: First known date: 2019... 2019 'To Stand the Blows' : The Flexile Diaries of Helen Garner
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Anyone who keeps a diary day in, day out for decades knows why Helen Garner, a few years ago, destroyed her early ones, deeming them boring and self-obsessed. Incineration has a long, proud history: think of Henry James, late in life, at his incinerator in Rye, burning all his letters and private papers – that lamentable blaze. The sheer misery and tedium of our early journals can be dejecting. ‘What is the point of this diary?’ Garner asks herself in 1981. ‘There is always something deeper, that I don’t write, even when I think I’m saying everything.’' (Introduction)

Notes

  • Epigraph: Several new perceptions of the unfortunate creature that I am have dawned upon me consolingly.’

    Franz Kafka, 7 January 1911

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Book Review no. 417 December 2019 18419649 2019 periodical issue

    'Welcome to the December issue of ABR – always our most anticipated edition of the year because of the inclusion of Books of the Year. Thirty-three leading critics and writers nominate their favourite publications of the year. Find out what people like Beejay Silcox, James Ley, Susan Wyndham, Andrea Goldsmith, and Bronwyn Lea most enjoyed reading in 2019. Other highlights include Peter Rose on Helen Garner’s brilliant and defiant diaries; Zora Simic on the legacies of sexual harassment; Angela Woollacott on Margaret Simons’s biography of Penny Wong; and Chris Flynn on Elliot Perlman’s new novel. Elsewhere, legendary journalist Brian Toohey reviews Edward Snowden’s memoirs, Monash historian Christina Twomey laments the ‘terror in extraterritoriality’, and the poet Michael Hofmann contributes a brilliant satire on Donal Dump (aka Donald Trump).' (Publication summary)

    2019
    pg. 10-13
Last amended 16 Dec 2019 08:54:48
10-13 https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2019/december-2019-no-417/689-december-2019-no-417/6050-peter-rose-reviews-yellow-notebook-diaries-volume-i-1978-1987-by-helen-garner 'To Stand the Blows' : The Flexile Diaries of Helen Garnersmall AustLit logo Australian Book Review
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