Cirrus@Austlit

'My first curiosities about the new opera Eucalyptus, an adaptation of Murray Bail’s multi-award-winning 1998 novel, were regarding how Ellen and the many stories told to her by her ultimately successful suitor would be portrayed.'

'The third volume of Helen Garner’s diaries, How To End a Story, is a reminder of how affecting books, or art and culture more widely, are. This is art, as Elizabeth Grosz writes via Gilles Deleuze, as an ‘enhancement or intensification of bodies’, an ‘elaboration of sensations.’'(Introduction) 

'‘It is necessary in each situation,’ Jacques Derrida stated in 2007, in one of many instances of writing on writing, ‘to create an appropriate mode of exposition … to take into account the presumed or desired addressee.’ This was the phenomenon I sought while reading Susan Lever’s book on screenwriting for Australian television drama.' (Introduction)

'What are regions in Australia? One place to begin to define such a slippery term might be to draw on that of the Regional Australia Institute (RAI) which defines regional Australia as ‘all of the towns, small cities and areas that lie beyond the major capital cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra)’ (RAI 2017a). According to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW), Australians living in these areas:

experience poorer health and welfare outcomes than people living in metropolitan areas. They have higher rates of chronic disease and mortality, have poorer access to health services, are more likely to engage in behaviours associated with poorer health, and are over-represented in the child protection and youth justice sectors. (AIHW)' (Introduction)

'‘Books talk among themselves’, Umberto Eco (1984: 61) once quipped convincingly. Readers overhear those conversations, I assert. Some books sing to you (as Francesca Rendle-Short, in her performative essay on memoir in Offshoot, says of Maxine Beneba Clarke’s The Hate Race [232]). Offshoot crackles at me. Staying ululates.'  (Introduction)

'This essay focuses on my reading of the Australian writer Murray Bail's archived correspondence dating from 1978 to 2001, held in the National Library of Australia. The correspondence is in a set of four mostly mixed boxes, with the exception of one box almost entirely devoted to correspondence about Bail's third novel, Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus is about the seductiveness of storytelling, and it is structurally based on a range of eucalypt species, the iconic Australian gum tree. Bail's main correspondents are other writers, with the majority coming from Australian novelist and poet Rodney Hall, Australian expatriate novelist Shirley Hazzard, American poet Mark Strand, and the general reading public. Some material is restricted for several years. The correspondence of Australian writer Helen Garner, Bail's former wife, with a similarly acclaimed literary reputation, is equally restricted. I have also read some of Bail's letters in the archived correspondence of Australian journalist David Marr, Patrick White's biographer; Australian art writer Bernard Smith; Australian linguist Dymphna Clark; and Hall. The correspondence of some other relevant authors, such as the Australian Robyn Davidson, is not available in Australia.'  (Introduction)