Lyn Jacobs Lyn Jacobs i(A26598 works by) (a.k.a. Marilyn Janette Jacobs)
Also writes as: Marilyn Jacobs
Born: Established: 1943 ;
Gender: Female
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Works By

Preview all
1 Beverley Farmer 1941-2018 Archetypes and Fluency in This Water : Five Tales Lyn Jacobs , 2018 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 3 no. 18 2018;

'It is not unusual to encounter feminist re-readings of traditional stories, in the manner of speaking back via parodic challenges to gender stereotypes, but it is rare to find a writer re-dressing the skeletal bones of narrative to offer nuanced and sensual texts which subvert but also re-animate tales. And that is what is achieved in Beverley Farmer’s This Water:Five Tales (2017). After the contemplative essays of The Bone House (2005), with their stark black and white imagery and emphasis on dormancy and stone, Farmer returns to fiction where inherited stories are re-shaped to challenge the confines of precedent. This new publication includes a first-person story that illustrates the formative effects of word and image, reinterpretations of two Celtic tales, one Greek legend and a macabre European fairy-tale. Each story is discrete but they all reconsider masculist perceptions of women through the ages. This paper considers the re-framing and interrogation of the gendered designs of oral and folkloric traditions in This Water: Five Tales, focussing on ‘water’as a unifying theme and the fluency of Farmer’s poetic prose.'  (Publication abstract)

1 Last Orders Lyn Jacobs , 2018 single work short story
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , December vol. 11 no. 1 2018;

'This story considers distance, remoteness and alienation in geographic and psychological terms. I hope the protagonist surfs to a safer shore.'  (Author's introduction)

1 Gardens and Inscription : Fictions by Tan Twan Eng and Fiona McGregor Lyn Jacobs , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 31 no. 2 2017; (p. 437-444)

'The "plots" of these novels (the term usefully implies narrative purpose, mapping of a course, a calculation or conspiracy, and a piece of land) move beyond formal Aristotelian structures to chart psychological boundaries and the human investment involved in making a life or a garden in difficult or hostile terrains. Aritomo, the Japanese mastergardener/artist in Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists, teaches his initially reluctant pupil, Yun Ling, a woman who petitions him to create a memorial garden for her dead sister, that despite his craft in simulating a garden's timeless quality, an essential element is change-the idea of static perfection, "a garden where nothing dies or decays, where no-one grows old, and the seasons never change," is an anathema (308). Did he borrow from heaven itself? (27) Yun Ling's escape from the hellish death camp, where prisoners and guards were buried alive in the tunnels of their own making, has horrific significance, as the elderly woman now wears her lover's body tattoo that reproduces the layout, the very plot of the garden, its vectors and schema, potentially locating both the grave of her sister and lost treasure. Home, a substantial Sirius Cove property, is threatened by high-rise development, weeds, debt, prolonged drought, Marie's failure to manage financial affairs, and the avarice of an ex-husband.' (Publication abstract)

1 Syd's Songs i "In the long surge between lunch and launch", Lyn Jacobs , 2016 single work poetry
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , December 2016;
1 A Zestful Romp through the Suspenseful and Serious Lyn Jacobs , 2015 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 29 no. 2 2015; (p. 489-491)

— Review of The Last Pulse Anson Cameron , 2014 single work novel
1 The Heart of the Matter : Vincent Buckley's Late Winter Child Lyn Jacobs , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue 2010; Vincent Buckley : Practising Not Dying 2011; (p. 129-149)
'Vincent Buckley was a celebrated poet, teacher, editor, critic, essayist, reviewer, Catholic intellectual, Professor of English at Melbourne University, member of the Australian Academy of the Humanities and founder of the Committee for Civil Rights in Ireland. He was also a husband and father. This article argues that while Buckley's writing was fuelled by political and personal concerns, the songs from the heart in Late Winter Child represent the culmination of a journey to find a poetic language to express his sense of the 'paradisal possibilities of life.'' (Source: http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/article/view/1461)
1 Another Guiding Light : Beverley Farmer Honored Lyn Jacobs , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 23 no. 2 2009; (p. 213)

— Review of The Bone House Beverley Farmer , 2005 selected work essay
1 Untitled Lyn Jacobs , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 2 no. 1 2009;

— Review of Journey Without Arrival : The Life and Writing of Vincent Buckley John McLaren , 2009 single work biography
1 Proximity and Distance : Australian Literary Responses to Asia Lyn Jacobs , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Down Under : Australian Literary Studies Reader 2009; (p. 513-525)
1 Untitled Lyn Jacobs , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Transnational Literature , November vol. 1 no. 1 2008;

— Review of Avenue of Eternal Peace Nicholas Jose , 1989 single work novel
1 Untitled Lyn Jacobs , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , vol. 23 no. 3 2008; (p. 357-359)

— Review of Thea Astley's Fictional Worlds 2006 anthology criticism interview autobiography
1 Tim Winton and West Australian Writing Lyn Jacobs , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: A Companion to Australian Literature Since 1900 2007; (p. 307-319)
1 Beverley Farmer Lyn Jacobs , 2006 single work biography
— Appears in: Australian Writers 1975-2000 2006; (p. 88-95)
1 Gail Jones' "Light Writing": Memory and the Photo-graph Lyn Jacobs , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , no. 5 2006; (p. 192-208)
'This article traces Jones's interest in photography/film and the ways in which metaphors of light, shadow and mirroring shape narratives.' (p.192)
1 Mapping Shared Space: Willmot and Astley Lyn Jacobs , 2006 single work criticism
— Appears in: Sharing Spaces : Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Responses to Story, Country and Rights 2006; (p. 86-99)
1 Tales of Two Cities: Fictions by Lau Siew Mei and Susan Johnson Lyn Jacobs , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 18 no. 2 2004; (p. 113-118)
1 Homelands vs 'The Tropics' : Crossing the Line Lyn Jacobs , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 2 no. 2003; (p. 167-178)
'In Australian fictions, "the tropics" feature as paradisiacal retreats, mosquito-infested war zones, touristic destinations or sites-of-last-resort on terminal pathways north. But they are also homelands and cross-cultural spaces where the nexus between Indigenous and non-indigenous people, as well as the environment, climate and geography, is distinctive ... This paper considers "the tropics" as contested sites in Australia and New Guinea, and indicates tensions between writing about or from within homelands' (p.167).
1 Being Othered in 'Our' Land Lyn Jacobs , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , Spring no. 172 2003; (p. 94-96)

— Review of Otherland no. 7 2001 periodical issue ; The Eastern Slope Chronicle Yu Ouyang , 2002 single work novel ; Two Hearts, Two Tongues and Rain-Coloured Eyes Yu Ouyang , 2002 selected work poetry
1 Webb's 'Socrates' Lyn Jacobs , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 62 no. 3 2002; (p. 40-46)

— Review of Socrates and Other Poems Francis Webb , 1961 selected work poetry
1 [Review] True History of the Kelly Gang Lyn Jacobs , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 1 no. 2002; (p. 96-101)

— Review of True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey , 2000 single work novel
X