Jack Maggs

In 1997 a signed copy of Peter Carey's book arrived in our home and was read by one of us. I always meant to get around to reading it too, and when it was my turn to make nominations to the book group that forms much of my reading this was the selected fiction nomination, so I have at last encountered the Dickens re-imagined story of what an ancient contemporary New York times review called "Great Extrapolations" . This is Carey's  take on the eponymous convict Abel Magwitch.

 Of course Carey is too skilled an author to write a sequel to that book: instead of directly choosing some personal experience for inspiration, he picked an inspiring story that obviously influenced him and made it his own with sketch of Victorian London that Dickens could be proud of, seemingly as fresh as a mobile phone video. Carey has his own set bizarre characters, and even inserts a Dickens alter ego into the plot, picking up several of the master's less admirable characterisics- an author of serials whose principal purpose is to make money, dabbling in mesmerism, too fond of young girls, but unlike Dickens his prose is pedestrian...

Maggs is not Magwitch, and the very dislikeable Henry Phipps is not Pip, but Carey gives them depth and authenticity.   The story, even though it didn't win a prize, shows why Carey has two Man Booker awards.

P.S.: My colleagues all enjoyed the book. Remarkably, two had the same first edition acquired and now read in similar circumstances to me. At post-discussion dinner the nominator chooses the wine. I found a most respectable Heschke shiraz grenache mouvedre blend to accompany a shared chateaubriand and worthily complement a great literary experience.

Love and Information

Daily Review

 The title of this play gives a much need clue to what it is about. I have selected only serious shots from available images but there was a lot of fun in this theatre  too.
The prospectus incited curiosity with its description: "eight chamelionic actors will embody more than 100 roles, through a series of tantalising vignettes. Like a single beam of light refracted, each scene exposes a different facet of the human condition." Well, that is a very fair description of what the veteran playwright of 4 decades Caryl Churchill set up, and the talented crew of actors and sound and light geniuses put us through in 95 minutes of mostly helter skelter run through life (but with an empathic portrayal of encounter with death and mourning), leaving us to ponder, like doing a cryptic crossword at high speed, to find where the connections are to be made. Again from the prospectus,  "..exhaustively mirrors our age of the splintered attention span. (New York Times). " 
One scene I loved was the anthropological museum where the stuffed animals were carried in, and then the human stone age specimens were also put on their plinths and had play as if also part of the taxidermy as those visiting the exhibition carried on with their own agendas.


Herald-Sun
I also liked Lee Bremer's (Australian Stage) take on it : "So there is no linear narrative. No story, as such, but perhaps many micro stories, all involving questions of love and information, more of the latter than the former, I think... The whole thing really is big, jangly, often frenetic, sometimes moody, frequently funny...  prodding us to think about the nature of information...we devour it, we send it, we are it. Literally, we are information, it's there in our DNA. Information can change the way we see a situation or think of a person. Sometimes we don't want to know certain information, or wonder if we would have been better off not knowing it. Some information we keep to ourselves as secrets; and is this better or worse for them (or us)... The stage was stark and white with movable white blocks for props and backlit doorways around the stage through which the actors entered and exited again to make their hasty costume changes. Sometimes all the cast were on stage together, sometimes just an intimate two engaging in no more than an intimate two or three words. Settings were varied – domestic home; the office; a roadworks site; the gym; a psyche consultation room; a garden; a cemetery... "


theage.com.au


Herald Sun

Entertaining Identities in Australia and Austria

Slide from David Williamson’s website

On May 28 David Williamson gave the third Marcus Clark address at the Athenaeum Club, commemorating a notable Melbourne early literary figure.  His topic was "Australian Identity". David has 45 published dramatic works, a higher score than Shakespeare, as was pointed out by the introducer who had starred in a 1963 Monash student review in which he had a hand. David replied that he has had a longer time on the job than Will.  While usually seeing the work in hand as his favourite, he admitted to affection for The Club and Don’s Party.  Emerald City also got a satiric mention.  He spoke of his “black arm band view” of the Australian identity and had much more to criticise than praise.  Yet there is a genuine soft edge to the cut as his screen play for Peter Weir’s Gallipoli shows—he intended it to be an anti-war statement about conflict, whose non-utility incurs his rage.  Old journalist comrade John Jost was in the audience to give another cameo comment which shall remain unreported.

And then for something completely different except for the often confused country names-

On Saturday we went to view Woman in Gold, a study in diverse identities of Austrians and perhaps also lawyers.  A well told tale that could have said much more about the treatment and flight of the Altmann family after Anschluss

 

Helen Mirren was once once again magnificent in portraying Maria Altmann (Bloch), a claimant against the State of Austria (for restitution of property).  The film gives a respectful portrayal of lawyers and the judiciary and even the Austrian authorities, who are nevertheless portrayed as authoritarian will little sympathy for facilitating the justice of claims recognized under their law