Why haven't my fellow countrymen written anything worthwhile?
>bush poetry is just awful
>only Australian kiddies know who Blinky Bill is and that's because of the cartoon, not the book
>Colleen McCullough is our one claim to international fame and that was over thirty years ago
Is it time to emigrate, /lit/?
>>8116964
>>Colleen McCullough is our one claim to international fame
Robert Hughes is better known.
But you're right overall.
Great Australian writers like Patrick White and Simon Leys weren't born here.
>>8116964
>Why haven't my fellow countrymen written anything worthwhile?
We are an extremely young country with a small population which lacked the urbanisation and social institutions that produce great authors. By the time we started developing in these areas globasliation started to hit.
Whilst we might not have great literature we have still hit far above our weight in areas of science, sport and economic endeavors.
>>8116983
Uh-uh-uh! You know the rules, Ausanon - they are fully Strayan until the publicly disgrace themselves. Then they're Kiwi again.
Nick Cave wrote a book. Idk if it's any good but at least you guys get to claim Nick Cave.
>>8116999
>science, [sport] and economic endeavors
the purpose of an anglo colony in a nutshell
australia is a cultural desert
>>8117037
hey i'm trying to curb my negativity
any positive things about australia?
we lost the easy going thing (if we ever had it)
>>8117058
>we lost the easy going thing
lol?
No we didn't. Where are you from? Melbourne?
>>8116964
Alan Moorehead was once considered on par with Hemmingway. He's probably going to be almost completely forgotten by history since his work was very much a product of its time but I think he's still worth mentioning.
What about our Henry Lawson? He wrote stuff
>>8117068
naw worse
sydney
>>8117248
>sydney
Ah. Is being easy going outlawed by your Sharia Law now?
>>8117261
>originally from melbourne
naw you can smell the convict roots in this city i swear
Murnane is one of the best writers.
up there with kafka
>>8116964
>Why haven't my fellow countrymen written anything worthwhile?
we have something called the Cultural Cringe. anything that smells of wank is immediately ridiculed, so we don't have a lot of professional postmodernists or philosophers. we're more likely to be taking the piss out of them (see the "Angry Penguins" scandal).
>>8117391
David Chalmers and Peter Singer
You make the best hoaxes.
>>8117058
It was the first country to have a social Democratic Party in power and demonstrated you could have good working conditions and a strong labour movement without vilolence or inefficiency.
Managed to create the most egalitarian society of all the settler colonies and successfully defeated numerous attempts to import or create the inequality and tyranny that fucked over and created conflict in other colonies.
Ensured that land was distributed in a way that wouldn't centralise it the hands of absente landlords
Put down an Irish rebellion
Defeated attempts by planters to introduce slavery
In general though Australia is probably one of the most surprising countries in history what started as penal colony run by he military somehow managed to produce one of the most stable, prosperous and egalitarian nations in history all of which was done without the immense violence and blood shed seen in other nations
>>8116964
Shit could be worse. The only internationally known NZ writer is Katherine Mansfield, and that was a century ago. And most of the world thinks she's British anyway.
Any other 20+ ausfags about to experience another lonely weekend in solitary?
>>8117541
Yep. But I'm going to get shitfaced tonight, so I've got that to look forward to.
>>8117541
>>8117544
I don't even drink. My weekend will be trying to work up the willpower to get studying done and feeling bad about how little I study for 2 days straight.
>>8117544
I'd like to get fucking munted but my doughy physique is already doing me no favours.
>>8117187
Bush poetry is objectively awful.
In the UK I would say Peter Carey is probably the most famous Australian writer on the literary scene.
Aren't there like 6 people in Australia? Why would you have more writers than say Canada?
What about Elliot Perlman? He's not groundbreaking or anything but his stuff is pretty good. I actually quite liked Three Dollars. A.B Faceys An Unfortunate Life is also a really good look at life in Australia at the turn of last century. It's almost Dickensian.
>>8117551
Man that hits close to home
>>8117058
>science, sport and economic endeavors.
Even that we lag behind in other countries. The only things that helps us stand out is the memes people have about Australia, which most locals embrace with unironic gusto.
Also, why would the age of the country have anything to so with it?
>>8117417
All of these examples probably speak more to our apathy than anything else
you australians invented https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamtime
>>8116964
Probably because we don't give a shit about something unless its considered cool or popular
I don't think you would find another group of people on the planet who are lore masters for both Greek mythology and Rambo movies. I don't think I have ever met someone who has read Plato but they get the gist of Zeus raping people. Other than that its all Harry Potter and Game of Thrones (the show, not the books)
>>8117907
>Also, why would the age of the country have anything to so with it?
Because the "Australian Identity" hasn't existed long enough for there to really be anything in it worth discussing in a literary sense that's uniquely Australian.
We have a similar origin to the US with our frontier period, and our whole egalitarian, sobriety thing in regards to the ANZACs is pretty similar to the death of the old west. We're currently going through a weird transitional period as we start aligning more with China as a result of our economy which might trigger a little introspection, but overall we don't have a huge amount that's unique to Australian culture, particularly in literature. Films are a bit better, probably because they're more accessible to the majority than literature is (see The Rover, Animal Kingdom, Wake in Fright, Gallipoli).
>>8117967
But America has always had a literary/philosopher culture. After the federation it seems like we all just went "fuck it"
If you like hard sci-fi, Aussie author Greg Egan writes some of the best out there.
Australia's most famous author will be YOU!
>>8117977
True, but America's first settlers were pilgrims that carried a religious/philosophical tradition with them, and the revolution was basically a lightning rod for anti-monarchists, who would have been more likely to be writers/philosophers than other groups, whereas Australia's colonization was based more on social/economic grounds, with a majority lower class immigrant population for most of it's history, and a culture focused less on abstract ideals like the American Dream and more on getting enough to eat.
Mathew Reilly is a better aussie version of Tom Clancy
Although he writes from the perspective of non-Australians and, well, how great is Tom Clancy?
>>8118014
Reilly's pretty great if you want to read a Spielberg movie
>>8117401
>Peter Singer
:^)
>>8117788
>A.B Facey
I tried reading him but his writing was awful. I guess that was the point because it was the first thing he'd written in like his 80s and it was hyper-sincerity or something but still
>>8117911
Fun fact: I dropped acid once and communed with local dreamtime ancestors.
>>8117999
Yeah I know.
>>8116964
Is bush poetry really awful? I find it kind of endearing. It's pretty cringey sometimes though. But if you don't know Waltzing Matilda off by heart you can fuck right off back to China
Has anyone read The Shiralee? I greatly enjoyed that one.
The Road with less depression and more drunken bogan fights.
>>8118029
Waltzing Matilda is about a undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who steals a sheep, sings to it and then rather than go to jail, jumps into a river and dies, and his autistic ghost haunts the creek for years to come
And there are mother fuckers that want that shit to be the national anthem
>>8118033
>Waltzing Matilda is about a undiagnosed paranoid schizophrenic who steals a sheep, sings to it and then rather than go to jail, jumps into a river and dies, and his autistic ghost haunts the creek for years to come
Holy fuck how could you NOT like this
>>8118033
>go to jail
haven't they hanged them for sheepstealing back then?
>>8118043
What is there to elaborate? I didn't really communicate actually I just saw shit like pic related moving around me. Probably influenced by the fact that a day before I was reading a thing on Jungian archetypes and aboriginal myths (it might have been a Joseph Campbell book).
It was honestly terrifying, I mean I actually thought the spirits were going to kill me for a bit. Haven't done any drugs since.
>>8118038
I didn't say I didn't like it, but its just a meme that has gone way to far
>>8118049
That sounds like a sick time, I gotta hang out with you more aus-friend
>>8118049
tell us more about your dreamtime journey, anon
>>8118073
I was kinda surrounded by weird figures like those in the pic dancing around me and I remember thinking I was going to die and then the hallucinations got real strong and I believed for a while that I was actually dead.
At some point I just kind of gave in and stopped worrying about being dead but it still wasn't nice.
>>8116999
Yeah, lots of good psych research is happening in your shit country.
>>8118029
>:^)
Aside from preference utilitarianism clearly having nothing fundamental to stand on, what's wrong with him? He does a much more thorough job of showing exactly where other moral philosophies are bullshit compared to any other philosopher.
Clive James is a remarkable wirer. Cultural Amnesia being his best work
>>8121699
>le killing babies man xD
Memes aside, he actually makes very logical points and I agree with him on pretty much every one of his opinions I've read. It's just that in aus we study his theories in HS as part of the ethics unit of the Philosophy course and so he's a meme.
>>8121751
>Cultural Amnesia being his best work
Noice mate. I don't know how much James counts as an Australian writer since he's lived in the UK most of his "adult" life.
>>8116964
Emily Rodda is based.
>>8122227
quads confirm
>>8117541
Every weekend perpetual solitude here.
Do you know anybody that reads? Only thing anybody reads is game of plebs.
>>8117541
Melbourne here.
I'm literally at a party, sitting in the corner reading bleeding edge.
Fucking end me senpai.
>>8118033
We spell it as 'gaol', cunt.
>>8117279
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
>ctrl+f Peter Carey
>a fucking pom's the only one mentioning him
What the fuck's wrong with you people? Oscar & Lucinda is a masterpiece.
>>8117391
>see the "Angry Penguins" scandal
>tfw genuinely enjoyed those poems
>>8117101
But he's not Australian...
>>8118033
>tfw had a dream about Slim fucking Dusty last night
>>8122331
Turbo autist
>>8116964
Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate
>>8122467
He was born in Melbourne.
