'Peter Carey is one of Australia’s finest creative writers, much admired by both literary critics and a worldwide reading public. While academia has been quick to see his fictions as exemplars of postcolonial and postmodern writing strategies, his general readership has been captivated by his deadpan sense of humour, his quirky characters, the outlandish settings and the grotesqueries of his intricate plots. After three decades of prolific writing and multiple award-winning, Carey stands out in the world of Australian letters as designated heir to Patrick White. Fabulating Beauty pays tribute to Carey’s literary achievement. It brings together the voices of many of the most renowned Carey critics in twenty essays(sixteen commissioned especially for this volume), an interview with the author, as well as the most extensive bibliography of Carey criticism to date. The studies represent a wide range of current perspectives on the writer’s fictions. Contributors focus on issues as diverse as the writer’s biography; his use of architectural metaphors; his interrogation of narrative structures such as myths and cultural master-plots; intertextual strategies; concepts of sacredness and references to the Christian tradition; and his strategies of rewriting history. Amidst predictions of the imminent death of ‘postist’ theory, the essays all attest to the ongoing relevance of the critical parameters framed by postmodernism and postcolonialism.' (Publication summary)
'As we usher in 2006, the world these days is not so unlike a futuristic Peter Carey story: its borders expand and contract, coincidences abound, vast geographical expanses unravel. The circuits of culture have bizarre dreamscape logics, and time, history, and nation are no longer recognisable in the text-books we once relied upon for guidance and authority. Peter Carey's short-story 'A Windmill in the West' comes to mind: borders are dizzyingly arbitrary, yet nation and empire have direct and pernicious material effects on its main character despite, or perhaps even because of, their randomness. How interesting it is that in this context the first edited collection of critical essays on Carey's work should be produced by a German scholar — Andreas Gaile. Gaile has done a fabulous job editing this peerless international collection of critical essays on Carey's oeuvre. But what are the logics of the literary commodity market, of global critical reception, and coincidence that have produced this long overdue collection in such circumstances? ' (Introduction)
'As we usher in 2006, the world these days is not so unlike a futuristic Peter Carey story: its borders expand and contract, coincidences abound, vast geographical expanses unravel. The circuits of culture have bizarre dreamscape logics, and time, history, and nation are no longer recognisable in the text-books we once relied upon for guidance and authority. Peter Carey's short-story 'A Windmill in the West' comes to mind: borders are dizzyingly arbitrary, yet nation and empire have direct and pernicious material effects on its main character despite, or perhaps even because of, their randomness. How interesting it is that in this context the first edited collection of critical essays on Carey's work should be produced by a German scholar — Andreas Gaile. Gaile has done a fabulous job editing this peerless international collection of critical essays on Carey's oeuvre. But what are the logics of the literary commodity market, of global critical reception, and coincidence that have produced this long overdue collection in such circumstances? ' (Introduction)
