The Grass Library by David Brooks single work   review  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... 2020 The Grass Library by David Brooks
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'From the Man’s horse ‘blood[ied] from hip to shoulder’ in Banjo Paterson’s ‘The Man from Snowy River’ (1890) to the kangaroos drunkenly slaughtered in Kenneth Cook’s Wake in Fright (1961), non-human animals have not fared well in Australian literature. Even when, as in Ceridwen Dovey’s Only the Animals (2014), the author’s imagination is fully brought to bear on the inner lives of animals, their fate tends towards the Hobbesian – ‘solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’ – reflecting back to us our own often unexamined cruelty. The rare exceptions, such as J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello (2003), incorporating a fictionalised series of animal-rights lectures, serve only to point up the rule.' (Introduction)

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Book Review no. 420 April 2020 19050568 2020 periodical issue

    'The April issue of ABR appears at a time of enormous crisis and seclusion around the world. Never has good journalism or creative writing been more important. In 'Coronavirus and Australian Book Review', the Editor outlines how the magazine is responding to Covid-19. Elsewhere in the issue, Jenny Hocking (Gough Whitlam's biographer) writes about John Kerr and the Palace Letters, and Johanna Leggatt laments the likely closure of AAP, with its ominous consequences for media diversity and investigative journalism. We have reviews of new books by Felicity Plunkett, Cassandra Pybus, Tom Keneally, Lydia Davis, and many more.' (Publication summary)

    2020
Last amended 17 Apr 2020 08:56:15
https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2020/april-2020-no-420/761-april-2020-no-420/6352-ben-brooker-reviews-the-grass-library-by-david-brooks The Grass Library by David Brookssmall AustLit logo Australian Book Review
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