Wednesday 19 July, 2006

More storm

One of the strange things about blogging is that I don't think of myself as having an audience other than my friend,Tom (when are you going to get a blog, Tom? You know you want one) and girlfriend, Virginia. I suppose I could always talk to her over the kitchen bench, but ichatting her and writing blog posts is more fun. We have a very modern relationship. Anyway. this is by way of saying people actually read my blog sometimes (who knew?) and I should apologise to Mary Cunnanae for the swipe I made at her on my Patrick White post. You can find her version of events in the exchange of comments on this blog post. She also had a piece in Crikey on Monday. For those of you who don't subscribe to Crikey here's a snippet.

'First of all, what I and others declined was not "the novel". It was one chapter. As I said to Sexton, that's like showing a square metre of the Sistine Chapel to someone who'd never seen the whole thing (I've read Voss and The Tree of Man, but not The Eye of the Storm) and expecting them to recognise it as great art.

The pertinent questions that Ms Sexton could have canvassed in her story, but did not, include: • How many copies of The Eye of the Storm and White's other novels does Random House Australia sell every year? It is in print as a Vintage paperback here, but I note that his novels carry the ISBN number of the Random House UK editions, meaning that that they are imported, rather than actually published domestically. • In what universities and upper level high school courses is the novel taught? • How many programs in Australian literature are there in the nation's universities? • Are all of the novels which have won the Miles Franklin Award still in print and available to Australian readers?'

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