Dennis Altman (1) (1943–)

Over my years of reading 65% of my books have been purchased new. Most of them are paperback. Of the other 35%, initially I used the public library but once I started earning money...I had the overwhelming need to own and keep, the rest were second hand. This current book is second hand (gotta love Abebooks). I am one who annotates and underlines in books that I want to fix in my mind and, as I am also someone who rereads books, I frequently find myself coming across my previous marks of interest and I can check my present self against my much younger one. What happens surprisingly seldom is that I will buy a book already underlined by the previous owner and I am just now discovering what a joy that is, to compare minds in an even more concrete way. I have always felt a bit of a vandal when I underline, which I seldom do in the hardcovers I own, but which in later life I did more frequently in my paperbacks so to find so little evidence of previous readers in the books I purchased only increased my guilt and shame. The only mitigating factor in my case is when I buy a book and love it enough to underline I usually keep it for 40 or more years (they will remain on my shelves till I die and will be as yellow and dried up as myself by that time and fit only for a dumpster). Okay, I have only just started this book about one of my life's heroes but felt compelled to get this bit off my chest right away.

The book is now finished and I am heartily sorry. I wish there were more. I wish I had a photographic memory...I would really like to have swallowed this one whole. I instantly wanted to reread it but restrained myself. This is a book about Gore Vidal..not really a biography more a critique or an indepth review of him as a person, his personas, his output, his impact. It is a view of Vidal's views and expressed opinions of the world at large and America in particular. It is a book friendly view of Vidal and lauds him..which as a major fan of the man, I liked to read. Having read his books, watched his speeches and interviews over the last fifty years...Vidal was, indeed, prescient. All he warned against has come home to roost and is so depressing that I am glad he is not hear to see it.… (mehr)

It’s Sunday morning in Australia and we went to bed at midnight last night not knowing the results of yesterday’s election. Ironically, given that the election was called to rein in some fractious independents in the upper house, it looks like we may end up with a hung parliament along with a senate even more fractious than the last. Interesting times…

I borrowed How to Vote Progressive in Australia from the library because I was puzzled by the results I got on the ABC’s Vote Compass survey. For the last two elections, ABC Online has offered a survey where voters respond to questions about their policy beliefs – and Vote Compass aligns those beliefs with the policy positions of the three main parties and tells the voter which party best represents their point of view. Both times I’ve done this I’ve ended up with a party I didn’t want to vote for. Both times I rejected the results.

The title of this collection of essays is a bit misleading: How to Vote Progressive in Australia doesn’t really help to answer the question. But what it does do is to clarify the situation for the bemused voter who doesn’t understand why the Greens and Labor are at each other’s throats, it charts the rise of the Greens and in an especially cogent essay by Carmen Lawrence it clarifies what we might mean by ‘progressive’ anyway.

In politics, including in Australia, the much over-used word ‘progressive’ has come to describe people’s positions on a cluster of issues, the precise composition of which depends on who’s doing the talking. But it appears to be used as shorthand for a vaguely left-wing way of looking at the world, based on the premise that it is possible to change society for the better. It’s certainly not a revolutionary agenda. (p. 78)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/07/03/how-to-vote-progressive-in-australia-edited-...… (mehr)

Steven and his ailing lover James visit the city because James is keen to understand the place that has shaped his partner's life. During their time in Tasmania they are repulsed and fascinated by the reactionary politics of an island that has been an independent country for twenty years (when they arrive in Hobart Steven and James learn that the Tasmanian government plans to deport all known homosexuals to Australia). While in Hobart Steven also begins to examine his past, recalling the people he has loved, reconciling the changes he has witnessed, exploring questions of human intimacy and identity, and slowly gathering the strength he needs to survive his lover's death.… (mehr)