/lit/ - Literature

the novelizations of Mad Max

>>15601885
It is exceptionally low in the intelligence quotient pool to judge works of art by the imaginary lines in which they were written.

>>15601885
No, there's isn't a single Australian author worth reading. Sorry anon.

I liked Illywhacker

>>15601944
peak /lit/ pseudery

>>15601944
you tried too hard sounding smart that you misinterpreted what OP was asking and made yourself a fool.

>>15601982
Goodness. I cannot believe you read that sentence and concluded it took intellectual effort to construct.

>>15602011
anon, this is an anonymous website, you don't have to try and save face to lessen the embarrassment. no one knows who you are anyway.

>>15601885
OF COURSE! For example there is, um... uh... one would be... uhhhhh... help me out here....

>>15602022
Precisely.

probably little outside of 100 year old poetry like Henry Lawson and Banjo Patterson

>>15601885
The only important Australian writer

Henry Lawson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yTKNOEs33s

gerald murnane, peter carey and patrick white

frank moorhouse and helen garner, but probably for australian readers only

>>15602057
>>15602061
>>15602203
>>15602226
Thank you

kenneth slessor for poetry

Miles Franklin
Randolph Stow
Xavier Herbert
Gerald Murnane
Christina Stead
Ruth Park
Frank Hardy
Kenneth Mackenzie
Inky Petersen
Henry Lawson
Marcus Clarke
Elizabeth Jolley
Les Murray
David Malouf
Andrew McGahan
Helen Garner
Patrick White
David Foster
Frank Moorhouse
Greg Egan

>>15601885
We were forced to read Boy Overboard in year 8. I don't think I've ridden any Australian novels since then.
Bush poetry is okay.
>>15602011
Jesus Christ I hope you die a painful death. Stop posting on /lit/

Currently reading The Shiralee by D'arcy Niland, it's fantastic. Kind of a True Grit tale so far, reads more or less like a Hemingway novel and flows beautifully.
Can also back up Ruth Park, all her stuff is great.

>>15602754
Five Bells is incredible, it's the only poem I learned in high school English that stayed with me.

>>15602765
>Bush poetry is okay.
I hate it so much. Like shut the fuck up, I can go outside too. We had this old timer come to my primary school and read us insipid bush poetry and then when we'd inevitably get bored and start talking he'd just have a breakdown and lament the death of bush poetry and how kids don't appreciate it these days. Then I went to high school and he came there and the same thing happened. Then I moved from NSW to WA and the same fucking guy came and it happened again! Just a miserable cunt spending his last days shouting at kids about jumbucks and boats and shit. Any Australians ITT have that guy between 2000-2012?

I recommend Voss.

>>15601885
reading books is for women and poofters

>>15602839
I wouldn't knock a whole genre just because one fuckwit. I'm from rural Victoria and the library in my town hosts a busy poetry evening on the first Thursday of every month. It's mostly just the old people having a catch up over some bikkies and a cuppa, but every few months some of the local men produce some nice stuff. I think it's nicer when you actually know the people and are familiar with the land they're writing about.

>>15601944
>intelligence quotient pool

And no one mentioned Joseph Jacobs "English Fairy Tales". Shame on you!

>>15601885
If anything sums up the entire history of Australian literature is the entire shit storm that was Ern Malley

>>15601944
>

>>15601944
>imaginary lines
There are no imaginary lines surrounding australia

>>15601885
Unironically anything by Andy Griffiths.

>>15602764
It took me an embarrassingly long time to learn the poet Les Murray is not the same dude that talked about soccer on SBS all the time

>>15601885
>Australian literature
Sorry friend, that ship sailed a long time ago. We had a good hope in the 50's after Patrick White, but it soon became apparent that modernity had stopped that now. Where the developments and hopes of an early nation had become those of the world in the modern crisis, technology and globalisation being merely examples of this. Strangled in the cradle I say. And one can see it was in essence still such an early country, because we relied upon the criminals and bush men of the past, the rebel's against the law, as our national heroes; a Ned Kelly or a Francis de Groot. Pathetic that a hundred years have passed and no one better!

There's pretty much no good literature in the world anymore, and I doubt any of it would come out of Australia.

>>15603401
Not to forget Paul Jennings.

>>15601944
>>15603347
Lmao anon was not only metaphorically wrong as he was statistically, but also literally!

>>15601885
>>15603414
>>15602839
Btw Bush poetry, that is Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson, are about the closest we ever got to an Australian poem. It's rough, but it has a bud of what could be Australia, or at least what could have been. It's own particular ideals which are only bush insofar as that is where the tales are told, not because of the same pseudo-nationality that extends barely beyond types of food and sport, and the endless parroting on of it--; The type of nationality we find everywhere in modern Australia.

But considering you're a big lez show poster I doubt you'd have enough intelligence to be able to either appreciate poetry or under stand its role to the nation.

>>15601885
all the aussie's i've known are backward bigoted assholes, so it's no surprise you wicked pieces of shit have no literature. it's a wonder any of you can read at all

>>15602915
where abouts lad? i'm in Bendigo, if its close ish to here i might come down some time.

had to read a book by some abbo chick who went to my school
we then had to write about how it is such a great story
but it wasn't
it wasn't even 1 story it was like 6+ short stories all with different people in them, in different places and nothing connected them at all
fucking shit book

>>15603414
>>15603426
australia was born in a twilight era. that's all there is to it. i don't think there's anyone or anything to blame. if anything modernism is responsible for australia's best literary output (you mentioned patrick white yourself). bush poetry should be appreciated in itself, not contrived into some kind of sentimental icon of 'nationhood'. the less you try to force it into some kind of holistic relationship with 'australia' and everything that name represents (mainly nothing), the easier it is to appreciate. stretched less thin. i appreciate bush poetry for its provincialism. i feel like the more local you go, the less you try to relate concrete phenomena to some grand narrative of 'australia', the more substantial your relationship is to the thing in question. australia is so conceptually empty, yet its multitudinous contents so rich. watching a bull ant climb over a rock. appreciating that in itself. i feel more connected to writers like flannery o'connor and walker percy and the sense of holy alienation their works exude. there is something cosmologically virtuous about that. i don't think it's anything to regret. it's a unique historical vantage point. the sun goeth down.

>>15603496
this is not some kind of literary statement or dogma btw, just a momentary impression. trying to express something. i probably already disagree with it.

What about Clive James?
I mean I haven't read any of his works and he ran away from Australia to mummy England out of embarrassment of us but he was good on TV.

>>15602061

Handsome check?

>>15601885
My diary.

>>15603496
Yeah, and there is a reason for that "twighlight era". Besides, Patrick White, isn't "modernity" in the sense of the newly found destructive force of the West for the past 100 or more years. You can say there are good things in "modernity", but when one thinks of modernity they do not mean a Mishima. It's the modern novel, but it isn't modernity.

I'm not forcing any relationship, that was exactly my point about pseodo-nationality. And saying that bush poetry is not dependent on the bush was a contextual attempt to help one understand it is not this pseudo-nationality trying to determine the most shallow possible national identity and self-value. Read some Herder anon, he goes very much into this question of nation, and with a Carlylian conception of the "great-individual", that is the hero, these two ends, it makes very much sense. There is no Banjo Paterson without Australia and its unique sensibility and ideals. We could have been something better, but whether in its own garbage state or that higher ideal, Australia as a people had the greatest of potential and characters. This was rarely found because no one ever attempted to really bring culture to Australia, like the effect any country's art has had when other high culture becomes available to it, inumerous times throughout history. Like France to Germany in the 18th century until it really had its own high and realisation of self-place. When one did try, to put those deep roots down and give culture, it was somewhat incidental like the Bulletin lifting Henry Lawson up while starting with political goals. If we had been given a hundred years earlier we would have been likely fine in contrast to our current specific problem of lack of culture. The buildings would have already been there, more and more suited and tied to the land, with a history to teach. But no, we were not so lucky. The buildings are now ugly, and no new building is in the slightest resembling of our people.

>>15603501
Understood.

>>15603577
australian threads on any board on 4chan are always depressing

>>15601885
Wake in Fright is genuinely 10/10

>>15603605
>Wake in Fright
Looks the goods

>>15601885
The Wallaby's Cradle.

>>15603577
yeah. most people are (understandably) complacent, and the few that aren't, seem to want to race to the bottom; have really banal ambitions. i don't think australia can be knocked off its current abyssal trajectory, for instance, by something grand and cataclysmic like caesarism (like you'd see, perhaps, in america). i don't mean anything utopian or necessarily enjoyable to live through (i don't wanna come off like an idle intellectual who just enjoys shit getting fucked up). but something like that might "revitalise" culture. an islamic colonisation of europe might do the same thing for them. but what could happen here? a slow burn... but what exactly are countries like australia and canada and new zealand becoming? there is not even the prospect of a destruction. basically stillborn countries. ts eliot wastelands.

australia is really beautiful though, and i do like a lot about it. i wonder what its demographic future will be. the general trend across the developed world is for secular (and moderate religious) urban populations to basically die out from low fertility while anti-modern relgious groups grow exponentially bigger. there were only 5,000 amish in 1900 and now there are 300,000 of them. their population is literally doubling every 20 years. the orthodox jews, who were a historically tiny minority in israel, now comprise 1/3 of israel's under-5 population which is absolutely FUCKED since they don't work or serve in the military. i wonder if there'll be any comparable shit here. australian rural noah's arc or something. a lot is made of multiculturalism but basically all of our migrants get assimilated into the low fertility urban cosmopolite population within a few generations. i might be missing something though.

>>15603590
yeah lol i've noticed this.

>>15601885
Ralph Rashleigh by James Tucker is very good.

>>15603590
I find them comfy. Always full of shitposts, but when there's discussion it's good. We may not have the politeness of euro threads or the extravagance of burger threads, but we're usually very down to earth and not pretentious.

>>15603590
Based Patrick.

But also yes, the future of Australia is bleak.

>>15603677
the next big change will come when talks about changing the flag or leaving the monarchy become mainstream again

>>15603605
The book? It's not so great. It's written like a mediocre thriller. Movie's good though

>>15601885
I will become the next great Australian author.
You heard it here first, frens.

>>15603698
>but when there's discussion it's good
the discussions are never about the future being positive which is my point. any australian thread on /lit/ can only ever talk about either poetry from a century ago, or the lack of intellectual culture in this country. i reckon the absolute majority of australians here think our future is destined for decline

>>15603677
>a lot is made of multiculturalism but basically all of our migrants get assimilated into the low fertility urban cosmopolite population within a few generations
and the solution it would seem is to import even more to counteract that. this doesn't seem sustainable at all

Outback? Out back amongst the weeping grass,
Quick son, to town grab us a loaf 'n' litre.
Milk and bread, honey and circuses;
Big cheer: AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, get to,
work, OI
for wage, OI
to live in, OI. The
Big Smoke: durry with piss 'n' mates after.
Black Fella? Bush Tucker? the our their land?
Right mate, piss up, not more: none of that here.
Ay? Nice bird, a keeper she is, puts out,
where's, koo
it, ka
gone; bar
Australi, ra

>>15603677
>ts eliot wastelands.
A very good analogy, but I like to think that there is still some movement in it. An unborn drumming you know? That, of the value of its highest, may one day cause a radical revolution in its culture. We would need only a few years, maybe a decade, to develop the structures and encourage the people to this; but more like a hundred for it to play its cultural course and find a strong solidification. But I suppose the people themselves, the "Australian volk" if you will, would need some uplifting first like the simple poetry of a Lawson, or a great leader.

None of this will happen because Australians don't care about either any sort of culture, or politics.

>i might be missing something though.
No, no you have a point. But that sort of earnest religiosity, this heroic conviction, is only found in those of a deep and long history of their endeavour. What religion has Australia? Christianity seems to have been forgotten to be talked about even by the Christian Australians. Though I get the feeling someone like Carlyle would be very much liked by the Australian spirit, very "down to earth" and an unwavering moral sense, yet completely appreciative of strength. Where England's mind can be fogged by its long culture, and Germany "cluttered"(if we could even make that judgement) by its complexity. Britain has a long history of culture and upper class, where though today they may have sunken too effeminacy and the masses their same dumb strength, it had always served to be the spirit to the English peoples wherein they have always had such a problem with masses of lower classes, and unsavoury lower classes at that. Australia does not have that upper class built and formed, to be put as the guiding star in the sky, so to speak. That is raised up into the national-mythology of itself, the spirit of its people. So to reply, I don't see where this true religious connection would come from for the Australian people, we would have to borrow much from other country's like Germany or France, and that is itself a difficult thing to do because the sense of distinct nationality is so worn away in most peoples minds, it is merely "a man" in Italy, and merely "a man" in France or Germany, just like here in their country.

>>15603745
>i reckon the absolute majority of australians here think our future is destined for decline
I don't reckon, I know. I know that if no man steps forward. Who will fulfil this cultural and national yearning? I do not know, as in, what media or place he will come out from.

>>15603801
Pls don't show them this.

well now that this thread has inevitably morphed into an australian doomer thread i guess it isn't off topic to ask this question, how many of you will be home owners before the age of 40?

>>15603750
I fucked up a bit in the first one.

Outback? Out back amongst the weeping grass,
Quick son, to town, grab a loaf 'n' litre.
Milk and bread and honey and circuses.
Big cheer: AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, get to
Work for OI wage to OI live in OI the
Big Smoke: durry with drink and mates, after.
Black Fella? Bush Tucker? The Our Their land?
Right mate, piss up, not more: none of that here.
Ay? Nice bird, a keeper she is, puts out,
Where's, koo it, ka gone; bar Australi? ra

>>15603846
Not me

>>15603846
>home owner
>ever

>>15603420
Also Morris Gleitzman

>>15603801
The holy texts!

>>15602011
This is an intelligent person

>>15601885

>>15601944
Literally better than your cunt in almost every metric, and we aren't an embarrassment on the global stage.

>>15603846
You can literally get $55K in free money right now under HomeBuilder + FBH grant, etc.

It's totally doable right now. Two of my friends have already entered into contracts to build this week because it's so piss easy to get approved for a comfy house for sub $650,000 somewhere relatively close to town, or if you want to go even cheaper just pick somewhere in an outer suburb.