Reviews
Believing in Fairies: The Good People by Hannah Kent
I know this probably makes me a bad reviewer but I am pretty agnostic about the question of literary value. I carry the inherent suspicion of canonicity of my generation of scholars and feminists (and the generation that went just before me). The question of what makes a book important, or even very good, is difficult for me. But to review a novel is to wade into the waters of literary value and try to snag something on your stick. I tend to snag things I have inherited from modernism and its impact on my education as a literary studies scholar: the complexity of the ideas that the book is grappling with, or its awareness of other books, or its ability to do something new. But there are others things to snag, that have tended to be coded feminine: the pleasure of plot, the engagement of complex identification, recognition, thrill (the kinds of things Rita Felski writes so beautifully about in The Uses of Literature).
Deep Listening: The Intervention Anthology & Writing to the Wire
‘Two projects of collective authorship, these books interrupt the singular authority that has imposed the Intervention onto Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and mandatory immigration detention onto asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by boat.’
Crossing The Line: Position Doubtful by Kim Mahood
To cross a line can be to start something – a race or a journey – or to breach a boundary. It can also mark a disruption or a transgression. In her new memoir, Position Doubtful, Kim Mahood crosses many lines. She broaches topics that are fraught with ethical, social and intellectual complexities, and while she does so with a confidence earned through experience, she does not relinquish her uncertainties. She questions herself, her right to be doing what she does, her reactions to people and to her situation as a white artist working with Aboriginal people.’