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y separately published work icon Nightpictures single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1997... 1997 Nightpictures
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

"We all live secret lives. During the day, we're hardly aware of them. We don't let ourselves see them. Only in the night do they come into their own, our secrets, the pictures running through our heads. Not language. Pictures. Pictures that make us tense up and groan out loud. Nightpictures.

"Sailor drifts through Venice. He is haunted by nightpictures, his most precious memories, that leave him fearful, shuddering, close to ejaculation.

"His affair with Dieppe is meant to be 'pure l'erotisme'. No kisses, definitely no falling in love.

"Dieppe has memories that haunt her, too. As their sexual relationship plays itself out amid the crumbling walls of Dieppe's shabby apartment, the verbal and sexual collide. Stories become confessions, and sex a kind of absolution.

"But some stories should never be told...

"Explicit, provocative and disturbing, Nightpictures is Rod Jones' most commanding work to date." (Publication summary)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Milsons Point, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Knopf , 1997 .
      image of person or book cover 6461302318646526072.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 252p.
      ISBN: 0091835194
    • Milsons Point, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Random House , 1998 .
      image of person or book cover 8903075227287725870.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 252p.
      ISBN: 0091835364 (pbk.)
Alternative title: Images de la nuit : roman
Language: French
    • Paris,
      c
      France,
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Albin Michel ,
      1998 .
      image of person or book cover 1834192846592296879.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 248p.

Other Formats

Works about this Work

Sex and Literature Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 61-80)

'In the arts generally and in literature in particular, depictions of sex are never a mere representation of life-they are more like a substitute for it, an alternative to it. They often express desires which cannot find fulfilment in reality, and thus are entrusted to the imagination by which, for all their 'baser' nature, they are turned, or sublimated, into something more acceptable to society, something that can appear on a canvas or a sheet of paper and relieve the artist's, as well as the viewer's frustration.' (p. 61)

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)

Erotic Writing in Australia : Then and Now Xavier Pons , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Changing Geographies : Essays on Australia 2001; (p. 269-277)
Circean Joys Julie Richards , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , January-February vol. 45 no. 1-2 2001; (p. 117-118)

— Review of Nightpictures Rod Jones , 1997 single work novel
All About Sexual Relationships Peter Wolfe , 1999 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 13 no. 2 1999; (p. 125-127)

— Review of Nightpictures Rod Jones , 1997 single work novel ; The Pillow Fight Matthew Condon , 1998 single work novel
Explicit Sex Scenes Cath Kenneally , 1998 single work review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 14 February 1998; (p. 8)

— Review of Swallowing Clouds Lillian Ng , 1997 single work novel ; Nightpictures Rod Jones , 1997 single work novel
A Freedom that Lets Us Melt into the Unknowable Future Dorothy Johnston , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 21 December 1997; (p. 22)

— Review of Nightpictures Rod Jones , 1997 single work novel
Hello, Sailor Catherine Ford , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 31 December 1997; (p. 7)

— Review of Nightpictures Rod Jones , 1997 single work novel
In the Bed of Night A. P. Riemer , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22 November 1997; (p. 10s)

— Review of Nightpictures Rod Jones , 1997 single work novel
Life-in-Death in Venice Don Anderson , 1997 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 197 1997-1998; (p. 39-40)

— Review of Nightpictures Rod Jones , 1997 single work novel
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)

Sex and Literature Xavier Pons , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 61-80)

'In the arts generally and in literature in particular, depictions of sex are never a mere representation of life-they are more like a substitute for it, an alternative to it. They often express desires which cannot find fulfilment in reality, and thus are entrusted to the imagination by which, for all their 'baser' nature, they are turned, or sublimated, into something more acceptable to society, something that can appear on a canvas or a sheet of paper and relieve the artist's, as well as the viewer's frustration.' (p. 61)

Merchant of Venice Jason Steger , 1997 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 14 December 1997; (p. 9)
A Sad Picture of Relationships Christopher Bantick , 1997 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 21 December 1997; (p. 22)
Extract from an Interview with Rod Jones and Romana Koval Ramona Koval (interviewer), 1997 single work biography interview
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 197 1997-1998; (p. 40-41)
Last amended 14 May 2020 12:33:15
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