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Andrew Lemon

Auteur de Box Hill

12 oeuvres 35 utilisateurs 3 critiques

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Comprend les noms: Andrew G. F. Lemon

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The Pebbled Beach at Pentecost par Andrew Lemon
Is it fair to say that until recently (apart from FIFO holiday destinations) Australians didn't think much about 'the Pacific Family' as our politicians like to call it? I bet I wouldn't be the only one surprised to learn that back in 2018 we were launching a "new chapter in relations with our Pacific family" and that 'the Pacific Step-up is one of Australia's highest foreign policy priorities'. This declaration is made at DFAT's 'Pacific Step-up' webpage, which (a-hem) needs a fair bit of updating since the election seven weeks ago has given us a new Prime Minister and a foreign minister who has made it her business to engage with Pacific nations most of us couldn't place on a map. (I mean, we know, duh, that they're in the Pacific. But exactly where, in relation to us and each other?) I suspect that a lot of us are on the bottom step of the ladder, though I also hope it's true that plenty of us have been ashamed and angry about Australia's indifferent stance on climate change which is affecting these nations.

Screenshot: DFAT Pacific Step-up page viewed 9 July 2022

I'm also willing to hazard a guess that most of us know very little about the colonial history of these nations. Which is why Andrew Lemon's The Pebbled Beach at Pentecost is so interesting. It's set amid 19th century colonialism in the Pacific, tracing the events that led up to the death of a young Englishman on Pentecost Island in 1887.

Award-winning historian Andrew Lemon, delivering the recent Weston Bate Oration at the RHSV (Royal Historical Society of Victoria), explored the writing of Australian history as literature. Christina Browning from RHSV Marketing kindly sent me the text of his wide-ranging speech which considered the reasons why journalists and storytellers outsell academic historians when writing on historical subjects and also the impact of Australian novels, plays and poetry on Australians’ understanding of their history.
"Let’s start with historical novels, ubiquitous in Australia. Many take their historical settings very seriously indeed—so much so that the authors become our quasi historians. Their names are legion, from Marcus Clarke, Henry Handel Richardson, Miles Franklin (writing as ‘Brent of Bin Bin’), Ernestine Hill and Eleanor Dark through to contemporary novelists such as Thomas Kenneally, Robert Drewe, Kate Grenville and now Hannah Kent. Martin Boyd in The Cardboard Crown and Lucinda Brayford was a historical novelist. Patrick White was, with soaring flights of imagination, in novels such as The Tree of Man and A Fringe of Leaves. Peter Carey has long used history as a canvas for his dark satire."

(He doesn't mention Indigenous historical novelists, so I'll just mention those that come to mind: Anita Heiss, Sienna Brown, Julie Janson, Leah Purcell, and Marie Munkara, and I'll also suggest that all the First Nations fiction that I've read involves a reckoning with Australia's Black History.)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/07/09/the-pebbled-beach-at-pentecost-by-andrew-lem...… (plus d'informations)
 
Signalé
anzlitlovers | Jul 9, 2022 |
Buried by the Sea : a history of Williamstown Cemetery par Andrew; Morgan Lemon, Marjorie
Cemeteries - Victoria; Williamstown Cemetery; Burials
 
Signalé
yarrafaye | Apr 24, 2020 |
Box Hill par Andrew Lemon
Box Hill - History
 
Signalé
yarrafaye | Apr 23, 2020 |
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Statistiques

Œuvres
12
Membres
35
Popularité
#405,584
Évaluation
4.0
Critiques
3
ISBN
15