image of person or book cover 2206933206109155384.jpg
This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Forty-Seventeen selected work   short story  
Issue Details: First known date: 1988... 1988 Forty-Seventeen
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'He is a failed writer turned diplomat, an anarchist learning the value of discipline. He moves in a world which takes him from the Australian wilderness to the conference rooms of Vienna and Geneva; from the whore-house to warzone he feels the pull of the genetic spiral of his ancestry. At the sharp axis of his mid-life he scans the memorabilia of his feelings in the hope of giving answers. In his first full-length novel Moorhouse presents a roving, dissatisfied man entering middle age in a house-of-mirrors portrait: fragmentary and multifaceted. Sean, a hard-drinking, hard-living Australian, has just turned 40; the other half of the title refers to a precocious schoolgirl who is one of his many liaisons. The most important of the other women who drift into and out of his life include his ex-wife Robyn, now unflinching in the face of cancer; Belle, Sean's fellow sexual adventurer; and Edith Campbell Berry, an aging iconoclast whom Sean encounters in Vienna and Israel. Forty-Seventeen is told with characteristic Moorhouse style — candid, wryly insightful and morbidly comic— and, in this resonant and acclaimed book, achieves a new virtuosity.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • This work has been described as a collection of interconnected short stories and as a novel.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,:Viking , 1988 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Buenaventura Durruti's Funeral, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 1-14)
The Great-Grandmother Replica, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 15-22)
From a Bush Log Book 1 Going into the Heartlands with the Wrong Person at Christmas, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 23-31)
From a Bush Log Book 2 Disobedience, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 32-42)
The Grandfather's Curse, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 43-48)
Drink, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 49-57)
White Knight, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 58-70)
Libido and Life Lessons, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 71-76)
Delegate, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 77-92)
Disposal, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 93-102)
A Portrait of a Whore, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 103-113)
Martini, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 114-119)
A Portrait of a Virgin Girl (Circa 1955), Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 119-132)
The Story Not Shown, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 133-136)
Beirut, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 137-147)
Ex-Wife Re-Wed, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 148-164)
Rambling Boy, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 165-169)
Caves, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 170-174)
The Third Post Card, Frank Moorhouse , single work short story (p. 175)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Notes:
Faber and Viking editions simultaneously published 1988.
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Viking , 1988 .
      image of person or book cover 2206933206109155384.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 175p.
      ISBN: 0670821365
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1988 .
      image of person or book cover 2711128482001515163.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 175p.
      ISBN: 0140065105 (pbk.)
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Faber ,
      1988 .
      image of person or book cover 4230461827201745806.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 175p.
      Reprinted: 1989
      ISBN: 0571141080 (pbk), 0571152104
    • San Diego, California,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Harcourt Brace Jovanovich ,
      1989 .
      image of person or book cover 2002967079888796986.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Amazon
      Extent: 175p.
      Edition info: 1st U.S. ed.
      ISBN: 0151326959
    • Chippendale, Inner Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales,: Picador , 1994 .
      Extent: 175p.
      ISBN: 0330274902
    • North Sydney, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Vintage Australia , 2007 .
      image of person or book cover 5455009860354323720.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 265p.
      ISBN: 978174051145
Alternative title: Cuarenta y diecisiete
Language: Spanish
    • Barcelona,
      c
      Spain,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Versal ,
      1990 .
      Extent: 264p.

Other Formats

  • Large print.
  • Braille.

Works about this Work

Moorhouse and The Angry Decade Janice Shaw , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 27 no. 1 2013; (p. 31-36)
'Shaw discusses Frank Moorhouse's early writings on Australian sociography. Frank Moorhouse's early writings, in particular the short story collections he termed "discontinuous narrative," Futility and Other Animals (1969) and The Americans, Baby (1972), are a contribution to the current of social and literary changes in Australia around the events of 1972, a year which "has become one of those dates that serve as shorthand reference to distinct periods or phases" (v), according to Kiernan in his Introduction to The Americans, Baby.' (Editor's abstract)
On the Short Side Geordie Williamson , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 1 - 2 December 2012; (p. 18-19)
Rejected by America? Some Tensions in Australian–American Literary Relations Louise Poland , Ivor Indyk , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 309-322)

'This chapter focuses on the period from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, a watershed period in Australia-US literary relations, which saw the publication in the US of Australian novelists Peter Carey, David Malouf, Jessica Anderson, Thea Astley, Elizabeth Jolley, Helen Garner, Tim Winton and Beverley Farmer among others, but which was also crossed by tensions and contradictions which led to confusion, disappointment, lost opportunities, and sometimes the outright rejection of important Australian authors and their books. Among these tensions, we look at three in particular: the promising but limited role played by the multinational publisher (in this case Penguin Books) offering Australian titles through its US affiliate (Viking Penguin); the intervention by literary agents in Australia - US literary publishing relations; and the difference in values between the two cultures, which served to hinder the appreciation of important works of Australian writing.' (p. 309)

Australian Masculinities Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 97-117)
This criticism looks at the forms of maleness celebrated by Australian writers and how that 'maleness' is not just constructed by men. Women, Pons argues, contribute to this construction.
Transgressions Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 39-59)

'All serious art breaks the rules-there can be no innovation without some form of transgression. Yet the breaking of rules is not enough to produce serious art, and while the very focus of erotic writing seems to invite transgressions, these are not necessarily liberating or creative. When transgressions lie for the most part in the subject-matter, their translation into literary break-throughs is problematic, and they can in fact be undermined by writing that is bland, conventional and predictable. Literature, it bears perhaps repeating, is not the thing itself but a representation and thus a re-creation of it. Modes of representations are always ideologically loaded and, while the contemporary period has invented very little in terms of sexual practices, it has been able to innovate significantly in terms of representational practices. It remains to be seen what kind of articulation can be found between the two.' (p 39)

New Paperbacks Robin Lucas , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 3 December 1988; (p. 88)

— Review of Australian Golden Dagger Mysteries 1988 anthology short story ; Forty-Seventeen 1988 selected work short story
Insiders and Outsiders Reba Gostand , 1989 single work review
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , January vol. 7 no. 4 1989; (p. 64-67)

— Review of Numinbah's Tales From The Nick 1988 anthology short story ; Mudmaps to Paradise David A. Myers , 1987 selected work short story ; Bleeding Battlers from Ironbark : Australian Myths in Fiction and Film, 1890s-1980s David A. Myers , 1987 single work criticism ; Inside Black Australia : An Anthology of Aboriginal Poetry 1988 anthology poetry ; Forty-Seventeen 1988 selected work short story
An Excellent Gift for Christmas 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 20 November 1988; (p. 21)

— Review of Forty-Seventeen 1988 selected work short story
Come on Moorhouse, Let's Have a Novel A. P. Riemer , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 19 March 1988; (p. 74)

— Review of Forty-Seventeen 1988 selected work short story
Literary London Michele Field , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Australian Magazine , 22-23 October 1988; (p. 10)

— Review of Forty-Seventeen 1988 selected work short story
y separately published work icon Martini : A Memoir Frank Moorhouse , Milsons Point : Knopf , 2005 Z1222009 2005 single work prose

Moorhouse 'muses on the aesthetics of martini lore ... and the nature of drinking.' He also 'reflects on the role of the martini in his own life in prose as dry and intoxicating as the martini itself.'

Source: Random House website, http://www.randomhouse.com.au/WEB_ASP/ttle_detail.asp?isbn=1740513126
Sighted: 31/10/2005

'Return' in Australian Fiction Gay Raines , 1994 single work criticism
— Appears in: 'Return' in Post-Colonial Writing : A Cultural Labyrinth 1994; (p. 41-49)
Reserviors of Desire Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 11-37)
Transgressions Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 39-59)

'All serious art breaks the rules-there can be no innovation without some form of transgression. Yet the breaking of rules is not enough to produce serious art, and while the very focus of erotic writing seems to invite transgressions, these are not necessarily liberating or creative. When transgressions lie for the most part in the subject-matter, their translation into literary break-throughs is problematic, and they can in fact be undermined by writing that is bland, conventional and predictable. Literature, it bears perhaps repeating, is not the thing itself but a representation and thus a re-creation of it. Modes of representations are always ideologically loaded and, while the contemporary period has invented very little in terms of sexual practices, it has been able to innovate significantly in terms of representational practices. It remains to be seen what kind of articulation can be found between the two.' (p 39)

Australian Masculinities Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 97-117)
This criticism looks at the forms of maleness celebrated by Australian writers and how that 'maleness' is not just constructed by men. Women, Pons argues, contribute to this construction.
Last amended 29 Jan 2024 10:39:57
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