Machinations of a Jinx single work   short story   humour  
Issue Details: First known date: 1933... 1933 Machinations of a Jinx
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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Notes:
Explanatory notes by Russell McDougall

Works about this Work

Xavier Herbert. Requiem for Genius Russell McDougall , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , vol. 23 no. 2 2017; (p. 106-125)

'In today’s global celebrity culture it’s hard to imagine a word more over-used and abused than ‘genius’. It is a slippery word with a long and contradictory conceptual history. Yet, in the Land of the Tall Poppy, self-confessions of genius invariably have paved a broad road to public ridicule and denigration. Xavier Herbert’s notion of genius was not static. It changed throughout his life and it evolved through his writing. He agreed with Carlyle that the first condition of genius must always be a ‘transcendent capacity of taking trouble’ and on this foundation he built his own concept of genius, as the unending ‘capacity for loving’. This article explores what genius meant to Xavier Herbert and how it translated into his fiction, before considering how our sense of genius today influences the way we respond to his most challenging fictions of love and hate, 'Capricornia' and 'Poor Fellow My Country'.'  (Publication abstract)

Xavier Herbert. Requiem for Genius Russell McDougall , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Studies Review , vol. 23 no. 2 2017; (p. 106-125)

'In today’s global celebrity culture it’s hard to imagine a word more over-used and abused than ‘genius’. It is a slippery word with a long and contradictory conceptual history. Yet, in the Land of the Tall Poppy, self-confessions of genius invariably have paved a broad road to public ridicule and denigration. Xavier Herbert’s notion of genius was not static. It changed throughout his life and it evolved through his writing. He agreed with Carlyle that the first condition of genius must always be a ‘transcendent capacity of taking trouble’ and on this foundation he built his own concept of genius, as the unending ‘capacity for loving’. This article explores what genius meant to Xavier Herbert and how it translated into his fiction, before considering how our sense of genius today influences the way we respond to his most challenging fictions of love and hate, 'Capricornia' and 'Poor Fellow My Country'.'  (Publication abstract)

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