#melissa lucashenko

[rubypomegranates]

“How all Aboriginal landscapes and peoples and sentient beings were connected across the continent, tied to each other in a thousand ways by names and totems and songs and dances and stories. How everyone somehow belonged to everyone else, before colonisation. Nothing alone, nothing ever in isolation, but always as part of a larger whole extending out to the air and the stars and the planets.”

Melissa Lucashenko “Edenglassie”

[thoughtfulfilm]

River (2021) dir. Jennifer Peedom & Joseph Nizeti

River isn’t really a documentary, it’s more of an artistic collaboration of musicians, cinematographers, writers, and an actor.

What results is somewhere between Baraka, a David Attenborough doco, and the video accompaniment to a poetic call-to-arms. This film is evidently intended as a visual and aural hymn to the sanctity of our waterways.

The voice-over narration features the earthy tones of actor Willem Dafoe (a perfect choice) reading words by the popular British nature writer Robert Macfarlane. But the soundscape of the film is mostly filled with lush and almost unceasing music (both classic and contemporary compositions) from the Australian Chamber Orchestra and longtime collaborator William Barton.

Despite the soundtrack, I found River an overwhelmingly visual experience. The gorgeous cinematography makes skilled use of aerial and drone shots as well as archival footage. There is a beautiful sequence in the first part of the film in which a drone shot weaves over the crevasses of a glacier then turns and follows the tumbling meltwater bubbling and surging over the sheer mountainside. It’s impossible not to feel a sense of joy and wonder as the cascading music of Vivaldi accompanies the descent; the soaring movements of both water and sound.

Nevertheless at times I felt myself wanting more periods of silence and raw natural soundscape to contemplate the images and words. The addition of the music felt overwrought at times in its incessancy.

There were moments of beautiful poeticism, poignance, and brilliance in the words of the narration, however there were also times when I found Macfarlane’s words repetitive. What I really wanted was a little more practicality, microdetail, or focus, rather than the generalism which risked descent into platitudes at times. It was interesting to read in the end credits that the film drew inspiration from Scottish writer Nan Shepherd, because I feel that the film could have learned more from the work of both Nan Shepherd and poets like Mary Oliver who are marked as great for their ability to link the small, individual, quotidian experience of nature to the grand and universal. This film attempts the latter while forgetting the former.

Although there is footage of many interesting locations a keen eye may be familiar with, none of the footage is referenced explicitly in the voiceover. This is frustrating at times, because sometimes it appears to relate to the narrative, and other times the footage is unrelated - and this is at worst misleading. An example is beautiful footage of the ruined pagodas of Bagan, on the banks of the Irrawaddy (Ayerwaddy) River in Myanmar, as well as clips of Burmese Buddhist monks crossing what may be either the river or another waterway such as Inle Lake. This footage is accompanied by narration which refers to how people in ancient cities used to worship rivers. Although many Burmese have long held animist beliefs, it is quite harmful to mislead viewers to conflate these with Buddhist practice and architecture. So you see, the film’s editing (both sound and video) didn’t quite pass the critic’s eye!

What is impressive is how the film made an effort to centre indigenous perspectives and disrupt prevailing anthropocene attitudes of domination and control. Writer Melissa Lucashenko is credited as indigenous consultant, and the narration beautifully frames human responsibility for rivers as seeing ourselves as upstream ancestors in the river of time who need to be mindful of our downstream legacy for our descendants.

An alluvial paean magnificat, despite some follies, worth watching - and definitely catch it at the cinema if you can to do justice to the visuals!

[tigerballoons]

🌷 April books 🌷

Yeah, sorry for blinding you, but you can't argue it doesn't meet the prompt....

🔹 The Possession of Alba Diaz - 4⭐

When plague strikes their city, Alba and her family retreat to a desolate mining village, where things take a turn for the sinister. A fun read, very bloody. Let down by the prose, which got a bit repetitive. If I'm told another thing feels like smashed glass... The opening implies a lot of time has passed since the events, so the epilogue was a bit of a suprise.

✅ Gothic fiction

🔹 On A Woman's Madness - 3⭐

The story of a young woman who leaves an abusive marriage and tries to make her own life, in a very conservative society. It doesn't end up very well for her. The writing style is pretty opaque, with time jumps between paragraphs and lots of things being hinted at but not stated clearly. I definitely don't have the cultural or geographic knowledge to really get the nuances. On other hand, I've never read a book from Suriname before! The queer themes were a nice surprise too.

✅ Book with a pink cover

🔹 Edenglassie - 5⭐

The main story follows a young aboriginal man in the first decades following the colonisation of Brisbane, with a second story in the modern day which is looking at community, belonging and gatekeeping. Eventually the threads come together. The nineteenth century story is stronger and I would have happily read more about it. Some things never get answered but I guess that's part of the point, that so much has been lost. Brilliant book, but oh boy will it make you angry.

🔹A Mouthful of Dust - 3⭐

The latest installment in the Singing Hills series of novellas. Cleric Chih and Almost Brilliant are sent to record stories from a town where a bad famine occurred. I'm not sure how it would hit for someone who hasn't spent time in the cannibalism fandom, but I didn't think it was very creepy and the final reveal was pretty flat. To be fair, Chih kind of agrees. I felt like the cat could have been in it more too, to build things up a bit more. Genuinely fascinated by the way this series alternates between good and mid every other book though, at least the next one is due to be good again?

✅ Non-European fantasy

[paulsemel]

Though it sounds like a feminist fantasy — and it is — in my new interview with writer Melissa Lucashenko about her novel "Too Much Lip," she explains how it's actually deeper than that.

📖🏍️🇦🇺

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[auswomenwriters]

General Fiction Round Up: July 2019

General Fiction Round Up: July 2019

July in General Fiction brought a decent haul of 57 reviews of 42 books. Thanks to our reviewers for steady winter reading and reviewing.

The most-reviewed book was new release feel-good fiction by Sophie Green, The Shelly Bay Ladies Swimming Circle, with five reviews by regular General Fiction reviewers Helen Sibbritt, Shelleyrae @ Book’d Out, Ashleigh Meikle – The Book Muse, Cloggie Downunder a…

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[bookstand]

With wit and tenderness, Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lucashenko writes back to the 'whiteman's world'

With wit and tenderness, Miles Franklin winner Melissa Lucashenko writes back to the ‘whiteman’s world’

Melissa Lucashenko, winner of the 2019 Miles Franklin Award. Courtesy of the Miles Franklin/ Belinda Rolland

Jen Webb, University of Canberra

Too Much Lip joins the other prizewinning volumes in Melissa Lucashenko’s trophy cabinet. Her first-ever novel, Steam Pigs (1997), was shortlisted for or won several major prizes, and in the past two decades her books have racked up 26 awards

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[bookstand]

The 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award Winner

The 2019 Miles Franklin Literary Award Winner

The links below are to articles reporting on the 2019 winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, Melissa Lucashenko for ‘Too Much Lip.’

For more visit: – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/30/miles-franklin-2019-winner-melissa-lucashenko-we-need-a-revolution – https://www.booktopia.com.au/blog/2019/07/30/melissa-lucashenko-wins-the-2019-miles-franklin-literary-award-for-too-much-lip/

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[auslgbtqya]

Killing Darcy by Melissa Lucashenko

1998

From the Publisher

Angry young Koori Darcy Mango is on parole, and looking for his mob in Northern New South Wales. Befriending the Menzies family wasn't at all what he had in mind, but then neither was the old house hidden in the bush near Desperation Creek. Why does the camera from the house take pictures of the past? It's Darcy's fate to find out.

Goodreads