Issue Details: First known date: 2022... 2022 Choirs of Reform : Jane Rawson’s Topical Allegory
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'Allegories can be divisive. They are inherently deceptive, forever speaking with forked tongues. Animal Farm both is and isn’t a fairy story about talking pigs. Spenser’s Faerie Queene isn’t just an epic poem about the Redcrosse Knight’s chivalric virtues. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe isn’t merely a fantasy about plucky children conquering a malicious ice queen. Some readers enjoy being literary archaeologists fossicking beneath a narrative’s surface for deeper meaning. There is a thrill in peering through a story’s topsoil, discovering the many-layered substrata beneath it, seeing the author’s politics supporting the words. Others prefer texts without overt messages. To them, as Barthes puts it, the writer should be ‘dead’. Let readers engage with the work on their own terms. Let the book speak for itself.' (Introduction)

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  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Book Review no. 441 April 2022 24293321 2022 periodical issue

    'April won’t quite seem the cruellest month now that the latest issue of ABR has arrived. In our cover feature, Kieran Pender retraces the ignominious history of the case against the whistleblower Bernard Collaery, while in an extended essay review, James Ley assesses the impact of Amazon on contemporary fiction. There’s a rogues’ gallery of political biographies: Patrick Mullins looks at Bob Hawke, Iva Glisic combs through Stalin’s library, David Reeve revisits the young Soeharto, Sheila Fitzpatrick reviews the late Stuart Macintyre’s final book, while Joan Beaumont reflects on the peculiar institution that is Australian Studies at Harvard. In fiction, Robert Dessaix dives into the new Edmund White, Gay Bilson takes another turn with Craig Sherborne, and Patrick Allington bids adieu to Steven Carroll’s T.S. Eliot quartet. There’s also new poetry by Judith Bishop and Anders Villani, plenty of arts reviews and much, much more!' (Publication summary)

    2022
    pg. 27
Last amended 4 Apr 2022 10:56:15
27 https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2022/april-2022-no-441/976-april-2022-no-441/8989-lisa-bennett-reviews-a-history-of-dreams-by-jane-rawson Choirs of Reform : Jane Rawson’s Topical Allegorysmall AustLit logo Australian Book Review
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