I too love that earlier Malouf novel, Alison....
Doug
On 14-Apr-09, at 10:30 PM, Alison Croggon wrote:
> I just bought Ransom yesterday. I haven't been this excited about a
> new Australian novel for a while, but An Imaginary Life is one of
> all-time favourite books.
>
> xA
>
> On Wed, Apr 15, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Max Richards
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> From today's The Australian online:
>>
>> IN Elma Crane's primary school class in Brisbane, some time during
>> World War II,
>> one little fellow sat up straight and attentive among his rowdy
>> classmates.
>>
>> "I don't remember his academic work," Mrs Crane, 93, said
>> yesterday, "but I
>> remember David Malouf as the polite little boy who always sat right
>> in the
>> middle, always doing the right thing."
>>
>> She cannot recall the exact afternoon she took up a copy of Homer's
>> Iliad and
>> began to read to the fidgety class of nine-year-olds at West End
>> Primary. It was
>> a way to fill in the final hour of a wet afternoon, and the Iliad
>> was somehow to
>> hand. She knew it was the kind of "compelling story" children would
>> respond to,
>> full of adventure, mystery, action and power.
>>
>> Malouf remembers so well how galvanised he was by Elma, then Miss
>> Findlay,
>> reading out loud from the epic story about the Trojan war that he
>> included a note
>> about his teacher at the end of his new novel, Ransom.
>>
>> etc
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> This email was sent from Netspace Webmail: http://www.netspace.net.au
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Editor, Masthead: http://www.masthead.net.au
> Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
> Home page: http://www.alisoncroggon.com
>
Douglas Barbour
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http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
Latest books:
Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=664
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
A little planet blues, for the
deathwatch.
A season of rictus riffs.
Dennis Lee
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