No comments about The universal autobiographer: the politics of normative readings. (Framing Stories and Poetry).: An article from: Journal of Australian Studies.

No comments about The tidiest revolution: regulative feminist autobiography and the de-facement of the Australian women's movement.: An article from: Australian Literary Studies.

No comments about Robin Boyd: A Life (Melbourne University Press Australian Lives).

No comments about Ted Serong: The Life of an Australian Counter-Insurgency Expert (The Australian Army History Series).

1 comments about Australian Brass: The Career of Lieutenant General Sir Horace Robertson.

1. Horace Robertson was a unique Australian, and brought to his military career the qualities of detailed planning and leadership at a time when they were most needed. He did not play the internal political game which had brought some of his colleagues to higher rank earlier than Robertson, but concentrated on meticulous training and development of the troops under his command. Jeffrey Grey's biography reminds us of the important role that Robertson played during and after the Second World War, and highlights the legacy which Robertson left for future generations of military leaders. As he should be, he is remembered through the naming of the forward Darwin Army Base, after one of our most important and successful soldiers.

1 comments about Melba: Nellie Melba: A Biography (Australian Lives).

1. Before Hetherington's exhaustive study of the legendary opera star, Nellie Melba, the available resources ranged from exaggerated to false. Not that Dame Nellie helped matters much; besides being a legendary singer, she had the marketing instincts of Martha Stewart and succeeded in creating quite a bit of self-myth that appeared and reappeared in newspapers, magazines and biographies. The 1909 biography by her secretary Agnes Murphy, a ghost-written autobiography by Beverly Nichols and a biography by Percy Colson, which appeared in 1932, a year after Melba's death, could all be described as "Melba's life the way she'd like us to remember it." Also in 1932, Nichols published "Evensong", a novel whose unpleasant, selfish and domineering central character is obviously intended to be Melba. Within a year "Evensong" appeared as a play and a film. A willing public accepted Nichols's fiction as fact. MGM's film, "Melba", and a 1961 centenary biography by Joseph Wechberg did nothing to dispel the well-entrenched myth.

   Hetheringon succeeds in cutting away this accumulated legend to paint a balanced portrait of the complex Nellie Melba, a study well-grounded in solid research and primary sources. In clear and very readable prose, he presents a woman with a superior vocal talent and intense ambition, a stubborn woman dedicated to hard work and convinced that if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself. That Hetherington has a detailed knowledge of his subject is obvious. Occasionally he seems overly critical, though that may be an attempt to remain impartial.

   The book contains numerous photos of Melba, some posed and in costume, and a few candid, the latter scarce as Melba rarely allowed candid photos of herself. For anyone who would like a detailed portrait of this remarkable Australian, this is an excellent place to start.

4 comments about The Singing Line: Tracking the Australian Adventures of My Intrepid Victorian Ancestors.

1. An interesting effort by a distant, if not vague relation to an historically insignificant figure, albeit one from whom myths form with their customary accuracy. What bits of research and experience are fairly presented are harmed, in my view to no benefit, by gratuitous asides regarding her apparently long-suffering companion, family and (soon to be former?) friends. One must wonder what would have been the book had the author not worked for a newspaper, which one might suspect arranged its serialization gratis. The photos beg for the book guillotine.



2. I was fortunate enough to have the chance to live in Melbourne Australia for more than three years. I have experienced large parts of the journey Alice and her husband undertake in their quest to better understand her ancestor's experiences in creating the first telegraph line across Australia.

   I found the book to be very Alice Thomson-centric. She seems to glorify all aspects of her journey while continually placing Charles Todd higher and higher upon his pedestal. I was hoping she would rekindle some of my own memories of the Australia outback. However, Ms. Thomson invariably spends paragraph after paragraph describing her husband's illness or her own tiny adventures driving the Land Cruiser or walking around Coober Pedy. Her descriptions of the local towns and environs is terse, quick, and dull. I do not recommend this book to anyone except Alice Thomson and her immediate family.




3. I bought this book because I am interested in the early explorers and travellers in to the Australian hinterland and because I was about to travel to some of the same areas the author had visited. I found the bits about Todd, the man who came to Australia to look at the stars and ended up connecting Australia to the outside world by a telegraph wire, quite interesting. Although I thought perhaps Alice Thomson was a bit confused as to whether the story was about Alice Todd (the great grandmother for whom she was named) or Charles Todd who laid the line. And I could see where she was coming from in trying to relate the story of her own travels with her husband in the same area and the Todds adventures. But again I'm not sure she pulled it off exactly. By exaggerating her own hardships, she underplayed the genuine difficulties the Todds endured and both stories lost credibility - for me, anyway. But what I really disliked about this book was its horrid comments about Australians and the way they live, in these so-called remote areas. She makes it sound as though one hour out of Adelaide she was alone in the world with people almost unrecognisable as human beings. Spare us the "don't come the raw prawn", "strewth cobber" cliches (which are always only used by the English, anyway). And I hope she feels ashamed at the way she treated people who went out of their way to help her, for a few cheap laughs. In great frustration (it was so nearly a good book) I eventually threw it on the campfire, unfinished, at Lake Eyre, halfway along the Singing Line.



4. This was truly an amazing book. The author involves you in the very foundations that build up the Australian telegraph system - you become part of the history as she takes you through the life of her great-great-grandmother and grandfather. It reveals, once again, how many people gave up so much so that we can have a secure foundation in our society. Well worth owning.

No comments about A Trick of the Light.

No comments about Riders of destiny: The 4th Australian Light Horse Field Ambulance, 1917-1918 : an autobiography and history.

No comments about Yami: The Autobiography of Yami Lester.