Hannan Lewsley

I wonder how Silvey’s new release would hold up to this analysis. I ask because there is also a variety of recent Australian works that draw positively on the notion of the ‘other’. Tara June Winch’s recent book ‘The Yield’ immediately comes to mind, as do various novels of Peter Carey. Australian Gothic is always a fascinating notion, but I wonder if its themes are beginning to become a little out of step with Australian culture more broadly?

Ha! I wonder what happened to the cultural cringe?

Actually I should ask, would you put down your abstract expressionist’s brush and head the fight against the oppressor?

Can you justify your abstract expressionism?

The application of realism in any context is always fascinating and this is no exception! It left me longing for a cerveza in the JRC… imagine the conversations.

Great article, really interesting ideas.

The stratification of vernacular across a world like Middle Earth is particularly pronounced because most of the forms of language the reader is made privy to are represented in English. Yet English is far from a lingua franca for Middle Earth, in fact it sits quite low on the language hierarchy. It would be interesting to compare the representations of English and non-English vernaculars and to see how they are similarly stratified.

This is great, it highlights the power of narrative as a way of commenting indirectly on the realities of our present and such an approach reaches its zenith in the work of someone like Roald Dahl (do Fantastic Mr Fox next).

I would, however, challenge the portrayal of what the article terms ‘mere fiction’. I think that it would be productive to consider fictional portrayals on the same level as their non-fictional equivalent. I don’t think that fiction as a form of narrative is any less effective (as this article has shown) at conveying the realities of the world. In fact, I would say that it regularly engages at a level that exceeds it’s non-fictional equivalents, such as the essay. This is particularly relevant in the context of the themes in which the article and Dahl’s text explore: capitalism, exploitation, the plight of children, etc., where the individuals involved are suppressed to the point of being unable to offer an authoritative opinion.

Thrilling exegesis, love it.

The masking of humanity is always a fascinating exploration. This article highlighted 1984 vibes that I’d never really associated with Star Wars before: the struggle of the individual against malevolent structures of self-serving power. It’s always individual that loses out, but it is the persistence of the individual and the unperturbed -even increasing- humanism that accompanies it that makes these stories so very compelling.