The most powerful literary force on the planet.

[Anonymous No.17261003]

The most powerful literary force on the planet.

[Anonymous No.17261446]

Ah yes the Australian classics everyone knows such as:

[Anonymous No.17261840]

>>17261446
My Diary, you fat wop bitch

[Anonymous No.17261908]

>>17261446
The Hungry Caterpillar.

[Anonymous No.17261936]

I want to read a novel about the grim interior deserts of Australia help me out /lit/

[Anonymous No.17261942]

>>17261003
L'Académie

[Anonymous No.17261946]

>>17261936
Do you mean Voss by Patrick White?

[Anonymous No.17261971]

>>17261946
apparently, yes. thanks

[Anonymous No.17262071]

>>17261446
Australian literature is the exit level of the Western canon. Only the most committed bibliophiles ever manage to breach its frontier and savour the obsidian black prose and poetry of the antipodes. Patrick White, Gerald Murnane, Randolph Stow. They all have a disquieting occult quality to them. Something warped. Australian writing is a delicacy with all the tangy saltiness of Vegemite.

[Anonymous No.17262092]

>>17262071
Haha. I'll have to try those authors. Australian history is also pretty interesting if you look past the superficial narrative. t. Australian

[Anonymous No.17262115]

>>17261003
Why has Australia been so based for so long?

[Anonymous No.17263285]

Take the Murnane-pill.

[Anonymous No.17263317]

I'd say my writing is pretty good.
I also has a YouTube channel with nearly 200k subs.
The blank page is my enemy but I can defeat it thanks to the calming noise of the steam machine coffee press and the air of the barista with fair hair.

[Anonymous No.17263358]

>>17263317
Post YouTube channel

[Anonymous No.17263368]

baylebridge

[Anonymous No.17263374]

>>17263368
Based.

[Anonymous No.17263387]

>>17261936
Wake in Fright by Cook?

[Anonymous No.17263388]

>>17261942

[Anonymous No.17263414]

>>17263358
R.C Waldun

[Anonymous No.17263430]

It's funny because Australia has no literature to speak of.

[Anonymous No.17263437]

>>17263368
He's an interesting Fascist-type thinker, and even more so for being uniquely Australian in his endeavour, but I just don't think he's too original, and reading this, I don't think too technically great either:

http://home.alphalink.com.au/~radnat/baylebridge.html

But again, he does have a very definite and persistent value. There's something alluring to his prose.

[Anonymous No.17263467]

>>17263430
We do, it's just that any great lit we do make goes largely unnoticed by a culture that claims smoking billies, goon of fortune, and football as a popular pass time. The working class seldom read at all, but when they do, they have good taste (I once overheard a 50yo tradie talking about how he's reading moby dick at the moment, which he quickly segued into the horrible broncos game last bight). The middle class read authors whose nepotistic ties got them on the front shelf at dymmocks. Shit like romance, sobby and over-the-top "white devil bad" abo stories, and self help. I don't feel like Gina Rhinehart or Clive Oalmer read, so who knows what the upper class does. The problem isn't that we make no good lit, it's that our culture despises any semblance of intellectualism, so greatness is discouraged by our tall poppy syndrome. You probably only end up with people like Patrick White as a result of men trying to break the mould and create something their countrymen can actually be proud of. To my knowledge, the most respected Australian lit is Paul Jennings' Round the twist.

[Anonymous No.17263554]

>>17262071
based

[Anonymous No.17263569]

>>17263467
round the twist is absoloutely based though

[Anonymous No.17263587]

>>17261446
Blood Red, Sister Rose

[Anonymous No.17263608]

>>17262115
Unequivocal Based and Ned pilled

[Anonymous No.17263615]

>>17261446
Such as The Day My Bum Went Psycho and Zombie Butts From Uranus

[Anonymous No.17263664]

>>17261446
>Robbery under arms

[Anonymous No.17263698]

>>17263467
I reckon this is a blessing. Keep Australia for the cultists and the underground. I’d hate to have some New Yorker type ponce writing think pieces about Pi O, and smoothening out the abrasiveness of our lit. Australia is a barren wasteland built upon a history of torture and genocide, it’s ruled by old world whigs and working class Tories. It’s upside down and dry. Australia’s ethics are joyless pragmatism, and so the fun we make out here an incoherent squawking. The immense space and flat horizon doesn’t suggest freedom, but desolation. The question that ontologically constitutes an Australian is what the fuck am I doing here? It isn’t being-there, al la Heidegger, but being-where that constitutes the Australian. Keating was right when he said we are the arse end of the world. With that comes a great respect for the grotesque as the dominant cultural mode. As such, you need to leave that for the cultists.

[Anonymous No.17263719]

>>17263664
based

[Anonymous No.17263756]

>>17263467
>>17263698
Also agree, there's something pretty uncanny about Australia that seeps into everything, the bush, the suburbs, parts of the city. Having lived overseas I missed it, and definitely think that you can see that reflected in our literature. People have mentioned Paul Jennings, but I see as the real avatar of the uncanny in Australia as Peter Carey, and plus I think Carey can carry his own in the speculative nature of his short fiction against even Borges, Gene Wolfe, R.A. Lafferty or whoever else comes to mind for you. And can compete without sacrificing what it is that makes his stuff Australian in essence, as you said the immense space, the desolation, solitude. There's something to be said in his ability to carry on Henry Lawson's legacy in that regard, and his stories also have the same kind of lopsided limping optimism as Banjo's songs and stories.

Anyway this description is too aesthetic-y so who gives a fuck, go read Carey though.

[Anonymous No.17263758]

>>17263437
I'm getting strong Emerson vibes.
>uniquely Australian
Actually achieving what every other Australian claims to be achieving somehow just makes him seem bogged down in Australianism. We are a nostalgic lot, it puts pussy on the table.

[Anonymous No.17263782]

>>17263569
Indeed it is anon

>>17263698
You raise a good point. I still wish there could be some middle ground option between unrecognised talent and a deluge new yorkesque think pieces. I just wish we had a society that aspired to be something more than a bunch of larrikins. Keating was based.

[Anonymous No.17263796]

>>17262115
Extremely based and Hermes-pilled.

[Anonymous No.17263819]

>>17263698
Sounds very similar to argentinian literature

[Anonymous No.17263907]

>>17263467
Based, it seems all somewhat intelligent Australians aware of the cultural question of their nation arrive at almost exactly the same statement.

[Anonymous No.17263971]

>>17263758
>Actually achieving what every other Australian claims to be achieving somehow just makes him seem bogged down in Australianism.
I agree, he should be praised as a figure of proto and later Fascistic reactionaryism in Australia, but at the least, a higher cultural force of the modern's vitalism for Australia.

You are completely right that there's the delusion of the common Australian in his everyday thinking himself by right and value "a thorough Australian." And the intellectual, or any hope or remnants of a culture not dashed by the arrival of modernity post-WW2, is not given the slightest look. I think most would agree, the only hope is authoritarian education programs intended to imbue Australia with the high culture of many far older nations.

[Anonymous No.17263979]

The Australian epic?

[Anonymous No.17264313]

>>17263979
An Australian epic would 40 thousand horse men, but sure

[Anonymous No.17264423]

Meg, Mogg & Owl

[Anonymous No.17264516]

Anything Tim Winton
Power of One
Specky Magee
The bugalugs bum theif

[Anonymous No.17264534]

Deltora Quest had based world building for a kids fantasy

[Anonymous No.17264661]

>>17263368
Awful writer.

[Anonymous No.17264675]

>>17263756
>go read Carey though
>Peter Carey was born in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria
Guess I'll be giving that a miss.

[versteht kein spargel No.17264678]

>>17263756
>Peter Carey
Cool. I read Illywhacker, which is one of the better magical realist jaunts and had some fabulous passages. I then tried one of his 21st century novels and was massively disappointed. What're the highlights of his shorter work?

[Anonymous No.17264684]

>>17262115
He'd weep to see Sydney now.
Or maybe he'd just be a modern Melbourne hipster and love Pho.

[Anonymous No.17264691]

In primary school an author visited and did a reading of their book. I ended up reading the trilogy (it was fantasy stuff) and a brother ends up marrying and pretty sure having kids with his sister or half-sister. They didn't grow up together though so it's ok.

[Anonymous No.17265073]

>>17262115
one of the great Australian Chads

[Anonymous No.17265110]

I liked The Town by Sean Prescott.

[Anonymous No.17265128]

[Anonymous No.17265136]

>>17261942
oh u!

[Anonymous No.17265603]

There was movement in the station, for the word had passed around...

[Anonymous No.17265718]

>>17263698
>The question that ontologically constitutes an Australian is what the fuck am I doing here?
Yeah. Aborted frontier consciousness. Manifest destiny without the destiny.

[Anonymous No.17265752]

>>17261446
Did remember reading this Aussie book about a cult school and some youth bringing the whole school down

[Anonymous No.17265988]

>>17264678
Haven't read his longer works about from True History of the Kelly Gang which I thought was good. I think the highlights are The Fat Man in History, War Crimes, American Dreams, and Do you love me?

[Anonymous No.17266005]

>>17264675
Honestly don't think I've heard a single bad thing said about Bacchus... or a single good thing either.

[Anonymous No.17266028]

>>17266005
I meant the Vic part, I don't even know where or what Bacchus Marsh is beyond that.

[Anonymous No.17266031]

>>17263971
Australia has always been a "modern" country, there was no sudden arrival of modernity with the end of WWII. From the very beginning the nation was based on forward thinking and "enlightened" ideas of government and natural sciences, hence the penal colonies in the first place.

[Anonymous No.17266210]

>>17262071
>Patrick White, Gerald Murnane, Randolph Stow
Where to start? Drop recs.

[Anonymous No.17266233]

>>17266028
Oh then you must be from a shit state full of racists and one australia voters, stay out of victoria bigot!

[Anonymous No.17266266]

>>17263819
Argentinians hate South Americans and think of themselves as Europeans. Australians hate both Abos and Anglos that are not them.

[Anonymous No.17266281]

>>17266233
I don't like Chuds but there is something genuinely odd in the way Victorians behave and speak.

[Anonymous No.17266320]

>>17266233
I don't know what "One Australia" is either, sounds like something you made up.

[Anonymous No.17266362]

>>17261003
The Day My Bum Went Psycho!!!!! You godless heathens have not tasted the sweet nectar of literature until you've read the bum series by Andy Griffiths

[Anonymous No.17266372]

>>17264534
I agree. Deltora quest was excellent middle school fiction.

[Anonymous No.17266392]

>>17266031
Not always forward and enlightened thinking. The natives were considered equal to plants and animals until 70 years ago

[Anonymous No.17266401]

There are more good Australian books than Canadian books, which is the only real comparison

[Anonymous No.17266519]

>>17266392
Progressive societies in Britain supporting aboriginals over squatters was why massacres aren't in the history books. "Enlightened" =/= "modern liberal," just a rational viewpoint based on empirical reasoning and in that sense Australia has always been modern.

[Anonymous No.17266756]

>>17266392
>The natives were considered equal to plants and animals until 70 years ago
myth

[Anonymous No.17267037]

>>17266756
yeah really it was 8 1/2 years ago

[Anonymous No.17267065]

>>17266401
demonstratively false.

[Anonymous No.17268565]

>>17264534
Very good book series and show.

[Anonymous No.17268588]

>>17265988
>True History of the Kelly Gang
HE'S A RIGHT UNAUSTRALIAN PORTRAYING NED LIKE THAT!

[Anonymous No.17268624]

>>17266031
Completely wrong anon, however we can see the utter destruction of typical Australian architecture post-WW2. There is now no unifying sense of suburban architecture and it is populated by little trinkets put onto each house as whatever the person felt like they wanted.

[Anonymous No.17268882]

>>17262092
>Australian history is pretty interesting
As an Australian I have to ask, how and why? It all seems like a bunch of colonials fucking around with each other on the edge of the globe completely isolated from the rest of the world.

[Anonymous No.17269006]

>>17263467
>Paul Jennings' Round the twist

You mean the 'Un-' series you wanker.

[Anonymous No.17269048]

>>17261446
Moll Flanders.

[Anonymous No.17269073]

>>17268882
Fear, isolation, genocide, masculinity. You said it yourself. Its the brutal frontier on the edges of the vast British Empire. Enlightenment ideology morphed into a mandate for pushing into the unknown and an early death. In the cities it is the turbulence that comes with colonial economics. One day you have money, the next day the clipper you invested in sinks near the cape and you're destitute. Socially a clash develops with European ideas of civility and decorum with the cut and dry day to day experience. To me Australian history brings parts of broader the Western experience into an isolated, hot, pre inhabited petrie dish. Like you guy you quoted said, you just have to look beyond the myths propagated by Howard public historiography.

[Anonymous No.17269144]

>>17269073
Interesting. Any good reads on Australian frontier history? Admittedly I just read about the Conisto massacre and it pretty much sounds exactly like what you are talking about.

[Anonymous No.17269295]

>>17269144

Forgotten War by Henry Reynolds is a good book about the history of frontier warfare across the Australian continent.

It very much a history book, so there aren't really "Australian themes", but if you want to contextualize the frontier I would recommend it. It covers how the settlers and the aboriginals fought for land, and at the end asks questions about how the frontier war should fit into Australian memory.

[Anonymous No.17269388]

Britbong here. I'll be honest I don't know fuck all about Australian /lit/ but you lads have top tier banter & make good music. Moot is a faggot, Aussies are based.

[Anonymous No.17269595]

>>17269388
>Make good music
Like?

[Anonymous No.17269757]

>>17268882
You could start with Lang and Whitlam. They were both removed by the crown. The Yanks tipped the election against Whitlam, too.

[Anonymous No.17270460]

>>17261003
kek

[Anonymous No.17270687]

>>17269295
FUck that revisionist abo loving faggot

Read Geoffrey Blainey instead

[Anonymous No.17270805]

>>17269295
I second this anything by Henry Reynolds is a great start. I really enjoyed “Why Weren’t We Told” would suit anyone starting out looking at frontier conflict. Blends the historiography and actual history well. A bit poppy and autobiographical at times though.
>>17270687
Blainey is the biggest hack of Australian history. Tyranny of Distance is great but everything after that is cope.

[Anonymous No.17270830]

>>17266210
Gerald Murnane - The Plains
You might get filtered though.

[Anonymous No.17271030]

He Died With a Falafel in His Hand

[Anonymous No.17271066]

>>17263979
have to disagree

[Anonymous No.17271119]

>>17261840
kek

[Anonymous No.17271216]

>>17269595
Jove's cove by wagon lord of course.

>>17269006
The "un" series were based. My favourite Paul Jennings work was probably the deadly series he did with Morris Gleitzman. I just mentioned round the twist because everyone knows of it and it's peak aussie storytelling

[Anonymous No.17271299]

>>17263467
>>17269006
>>17271216
Didn't this Jennings guy write the boy in the stripes pyjamas? I know I read one of his books in school.

[Anonymous No.17271368]

>>17269595
the Avalanches are pretty good, and AC/DC goes without saying

[Anonymous No.17271414]

>>17261446
The Vivisector

[Anonymous No.17271620]

>>17261003
Tierlist of countries I have most comfortably shat on:
S Tier: France, Australia
A Tier: Bulgaria, Spain, Great Britain
B Tier: Brazil, Japan, Germany, Monaco, Italy
C Tier: Romania
D Tier: New Zealand, Switzerland

[Anonymous No.17271902]

>australian "classic" literature
>always set in melbourne, sydney, or the bush
Where's the representation for the rest of us?

[Anonymous No.17271972]

>>17262071
>occult quality
Huh, I’ve never noticed this before (read a few Patrick White novels). You must be on to something though, because I know there is a book discussing alchemical themes in Patrick Whites works.

[Anonymous No.17272015]

>>17261003
Dostoevsky can't hold a candle to:

[Anonymous No.17272018]

>>17269388
>top tier banter

[Anonymous No.17272021]

>>17272015
Anyone, because he’s dead

[Anonymous No.17272022]

>>17271902
We have civilization and then we have the rest of Australia. All other cities are viewed as outposts still in the wild.

[Anonymous No.17272027]

>>17271902
Brisbane/Queensland: David Malouf, Andrew McGahan
Western Australia: Elizabeth Jolley, Xavier Herbert, Randolph Stow, Kenneth Mackenzie

[Anonymous No.17272041]

>>17271066
Lol Jisoe is such a character I love that doco its been a long time.

[Anonymous No.17272050]

>>17272027
>Underground is a novel by Australian author Andrew McGahan. It is set in a near-future right-wing governed Australia.
KEK

[Anonymous No.17272077]

>>17270687
You may enjoy Keith Windschuttle's "The Fabrication of Aboriginal History" - not that I trust Windschuttle, but he makes a decent case for the fabrication of many of those morbid indigenous persecution fantasies that pass for Australian history.

[Anonymous No.17272101]

>>17261936
Lasseter's Last Ride by Ion Idriess.

It's about a man who is attempting to locate a rumored gold deposit in the northern interior deserts. It's not high literature or anything but it's a good read and the mystery it is based on is also pretty interesting.

[Anonymous No.17272144]

>>17261446
The learned disguise

[Anonymous No.17272157]

>>17272077
The History Wars are one of those convoluted things where I don't know what the fuck is true and what isn't
genuine epistemological hell

[Anonymous No.17272476]

>>17266281
> there is something genuinely odd in the way Victorians behave and speak
Eureka Stockade syndrome, they think the rest of the Federation is out to get them constantly. Stuff like how the capital was moved from Melbourne to Canberra or how Daniel Andrews was attacked in the media for making it illegal to outside. They have to viciously defend everything and anything Victorian, even if its not an attack on Victoria itself.

[Anonymous No.17272490]

>>17272476
Maybe. I'm from QLD and never noticed it in WA or NSW people. I've never met anyone from Tasmania, NT or SA.

[Anonymous No.17272520]

>>17272476
I'm from QLD. Victorians have a constant stick up their ass and think they're the bees knees. There's a lot of NZ migrants down there so maybe that's got something to do with it. A very self-pitying, self-loathing bunch who project their own insecurities onto others. Dan Andrews is better than Gladys as far as containing his shit goes.

WA is cool, generally chill people, NSW is like the daggy uncle trying to fit in, SA is a bit snobbish about their wine (they at least have a reason to be snobbish unlike Vic) but otherwise an interesting bunch. NT is mostly defense force and abos, so they're either legends or shitcunts, and Tassie is uhh idk what Tas does, they stay out of the way which is fine I guess.

[Anonymous No.17272729]

>>17266392
Nonsense dude. Have you ever read any of the published journals and diaries of the many naturalists and explorers who traversed colonial Australia? There are a few somewhat bigoted ones, but the majority are extraordinarily eloquent, gracious and sensitive. You can read pretty much 90% of the foundational texts which make up Australian history on archive . org.

[Anonymous No.17272747]

>>17266281
>>17272476
>>17272520
When I went to Melbourne I was shocked at how pleased the city was to be itself. Melbourne Melbourne Melbourne. Everywhere on the fucking trams and bus stops. Melbourne. 100 years of serving Melbourne. Melbourne-based. They can't shut up about themselves. Henry Lawson hit the nail on the head when he said, in 1888, that "Victorians are very American in their egotism."

[Anonymous No.17272852]

>>17266281
>>17272476
>>17272520
>>17272747
It's funny because we Victorians don't think about people from other states at all, I don't even know the premier in any other state accept NSW whereas I guarantee that all you poofters know who Chairman Dan is.
Why?
Because literally nothing of note happens in Australia outside of NSW and VIC. NSW/Sydney got lazy and is now rich boomer central which equates to absolutely zero culture wereas Melbourne has shit going on all the time, it's literally the cultural and sporting capital of Australia.
Hell you can't even buy a onions latte in Perth or Adelaide after 7pm because they are all scared of the dark and close their shops before sun down.

[Anonymous No.17272873]

>>17272018
Haha, based Australian. I love how you guys joke.

[Anonymous No.17272899]

>>17272157
>epistemological hell
Check out the primary sources for yourself. I only keep copies of history books for their bibliographies. Most things are digitized on archive dot org.

[Anonymous No.17272929]

>>17272852
Victorian "culture" is a weak facsimile of a European cosmopolitanism, vaguely conceived and homogenized in the way only someone fundamentally separate from what it is they aspire to can do. It is laughable. The only vitality the state possesses is in their passion for football, and they still seethe about AFL superseding VFL, which throws a wrench in your affectation of aloofness.

[Anonymous No.17272931]

>>17272929
AFL revolves around Vic, you coping yob

[Anonymous No.17272966]

>>17272852
The reason why is because you're self-centred egotists. Cultural capital of Australia my ass, just a shit tonne of asians and mass consumerism disguised as culture.

[Anonymous No.17272980]

>>17272929
True Melbourne is full of tosspot wannabes but I do find it funny that whenever I meet an art hoe in Melbourne she's always from some other state which means Melbourne is the art hoe capital of Australia which means it's the cultural shining light amongst the boomer investment property waste land that is modern cultural Australia.

[Anonymous No.17272987]

>>17272929
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.17273046]

>>17272966
B-But we have trams and graffiti!

[Anonymous No.17273212]

>>17263615
Hahah I remember these ones

[Anonymous No.17273232]

>>17271299
No cunt

[Anonymous No.17273403]

>>17272929
>Victorian "culture" is a weak facsimile of a European cosmopolitanism
Melbourne is kinda like one of those fake European cities China were building a while ago—chinks included.

[Anonymous No.17273519]

>>17263387
Only useful post in the thread so far

[Anonymous No.17273588]

>>17263467
you must be an intellectual I can tell by you're are style

[Anonymous No.17273758]

>>17271066
one of the greatest docos of all time.... trains trains trains fucking trains

[Anonymous No.17273810]

>>17272852
>he doesn't know the god mark mcgowan
just lol

[Anonymous No.17273824]

>>17272929
>>17272931
it brings me so much pleasure whenever the eagles defeat a cucked and gay vic team in the footy

[Anonymous No.17273843]

>>17263615
Based Andy Griffiths appreciator.

[Anonymous No.17273856]

>>17273824
I kekked my ass off at Brisbane winning a few last year, no one here cares about gAyFL

>>17273843
Which was his best "just" book? For me, it was just disgusting

[Anonymous No.17273871]

>>17273856
>rugby
>just disgusting! instead of just crazy!

there's no hope for you, it's over.

[Anonymous No.17273882]

>>17273824
They only have a chance because the Vic players move over to those teams to buy megamansions because your real estate is cheap as dirt. No to mention our Victorian studs are out fucking your dirty bogan women on the reg. No wonder there's so many sad racist incels losers like you outside of vic.

[Anonymous No.17273894]

>>17273871
I must admit I don't watch any of the footballs. And yes it goes

Just Disgusting>Stupid >Crazy>Tricking >Annoying > the other shit he made

[Anonymous No.17273902]

>>17273882
>he thinks the best players are viccucks

[Anonymous No.17273938]

>>17273882
didn't a paki and some surfer whore who couldn't keep it in her pants cause your state to go into lockdown for half a year? Seems like incels remaining chaste are the good guys this time around.

[Anonymous No.17273943]

>>17273882
Vic players only have a chance because they don't live 3500km away from where they play.

[Anonymous No.17273953]

>>17264534
All of Rodda's stuff was great, I used to be a big fan as a kid. I wonder if they still hold up.

[Anonymous No.17274003]

>>17273856
Just crazy was definitely one of the greats. God, this is taking me back.

[Anonymous No.17274018]

>>17261003
If you're reviewing the water in the picture, then yes.

[Anonymous No.17274069]

go on au/sp/ Australians not discussing sport talking about literature go on literature board about Australia just a bunch of Australians talking about how everyone hates Victoria kek

[Anonymous No.17274428]

>>17263756
Carey's short stories are brilliant. I've never read anything that felt similar. Maybe Burroughs