Issue 88.9

Hearsay

ISSUE 88.6 AUGUST 2020

ISSUE 88.9 OCTOBER 2020

n Dit 2020

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Check out our content callout lists and submission dates at facebook.com/onditmagazine Find us on: Instagram @onditmag Twitter @onditmagazine Email onditmag@gmail.com

ON DIT CONTENTS Editorial What’s On? State of the Union SRC President Vox Pop Club Spotlight Econ Dit International Student News Pop quiz ARTICLES Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy Novel v movie The lost art of the book Books speak of books Book review: The Caine Mutiny Comfort me Christie!

Don’t be spineless Review: The First Law Trilogy CREATIVE WRITING AND ARTWORK Red Down the rabbit hole I hope this apocalypse is temporary Ego rot Meditation on a Capriccio Be luminous.

The party Where his first aid kit used to be Home Taking flight

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Momentarily I am a gatekeeper Poems by Chanel Tresize Groovy Mood by Lucy Edwards Speaking through motion Veldtflare If I want to be ready Biting into peaches Poetry with a twist Virtual classroom

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Nick Birchall Felix Eldridge Taylor Fernandez Larisa Forgac SUBEDITORS

Ivan Bucalo Michael Genrich Oliver Hales Maya Tlauka Emily Woodcock DESIGN

Larisa Forgac COVER ART

By Isobel Moore Instagram: @issimoore_

We wish to acknowledge the Kaurna people as the traditional custodians of the Adelaide region on which the University of Adelaide is located. We also acknowledge Elders, living and past, and understand that the cultural and heritage beliefs that the Kaurna people hold are still important to the living members of their community today.

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EDITORIAL

Welcome to Hearsay, our creative writing and literature themed edition of On Dit! One of my goals this year as an editor was to continuously encourage creative writing submissions in the magazine. Poetry and prose have always played an important part in the magazine, but our team really wanted to emphasise their power in this edition. For many students, On Dit is the first opportunity to get their work published in print. Hearsay then exists as a perfect forum to do so: an issue exclusively dedicated to the creative writings of students.

Hearsay stands as a testament to the literary abilities of our students, acting as a showcase of the creative talents of our contributors. There are stories of apocalyptic settings, of cultural assumptions, and of gatekeepers of words. The poetry in this issue is complex, meaningful, and emotional.

I made the decision to extend Hearsay to encompass any literary themed content, therefore not just limiting submissions to poetry and prose. By doing so, I wanted this issue to speak to all book lovers at the university. For me, books are such a significant part of my life (and you would only have to speak to me for a short amount of time to find this out‌). I wanted a hub for those like me who would love a tangible artefact which emanates a passion for reading and writing in its contents. In this issue, you will find reviews and meditations on various books, an article about the joys of reading a physical book, and another about the way in which society often privileges watching over reading.

One significant impact of the pandemic is the greater abundance of free time for hobbies, which means more time can be devoted to reading and writing – and fortunately so! Many of us look to words as an ultimate source of solace, whether this is by writing out our thoughts to get us through the hard times or by reading the words of other authors to cheer us up. I hope this issue comes at a perfect time when you are needing it most!

We hope you enjoy reading issue 88.9!

Taylor

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N O S ’ T A H W ?

N O S ’ T A H W Adelaide Business Students Ball

WHEN: October 2nd, 7:30pm WHERE:Ayers House

Theatre Guild Student Society: Marketing the Adelaide Festival

WHEN: October 8th, 6pm WHERE: Online (Via Zoom, registration on UATG Student Socity Facebook)

Adelaide University Ultimate Frisbee Club Training

WHEN: Tuesdays 6-8pm WHERE: Park 10, Mackinnon Parade

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W ?

N O S ’ T A H W ?

N One Direction 10 Year Anniversary Party WHEN: October 16th, 9pm-late WHERE: Lion Arts Factory

Vegan Festival

WHEN:October 31st, 11am-10pm WHERE:Rymill Park

Old Adelaide Gaol Halloween Lock In

WHEN: October 31st, 10:30pm WHERE: Old Adelaide Gaol

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STATE OF THE UNION Words by AUU President Stella Seung-Joo Woo

We are halfway through semester two already! How time flies! A lot of us would have had mid-semester exams, and I hope you have all obtained all the scores that you have wanted. Many classes are still online so I hope that you all have not been finding too many issues with the system. I personally feel that I am actually enjoying having classes online. Although we currently have classes online who knows what next year will hold for us! Not only are classes being affected, but many of our students are overseas and we also have international students who are still in Adelaide, unable to go home. Let us all hope that we get to see our family and friends soon.

Now on a more serious note, recently the Independent Commissioner Against Corruption (ICAC) had disclosed that the former Vice Chancellor Peter Rathjen has been found guilty of serious misconduct.

Of course, this behaviour is unacceptable and absolutely appalling, but regardless of whatever position someone is in, this is a situation that is not tolerable at all. If you ever feel unsafe on campus you can make a report to https://www.adelaide.edu. au/safer-campus-community/report-anincident, or if you come across a situation where you or someone else may be in danger you can call security.

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There have been concerns raised by students regarding testamurs. When students graduate they receive a testamur with the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor’s signatures, so students that have graduated between January 2018 and May 2020 that would like their testamur replaced would be able to if you place a request prior to the 15th of December 2020. The fee will be waived for those replacements.

Although this is a bizarre time, the AUU is always working towards ensuring that students are able to make the best out of their university experience!

As always make sure you message me or email me if you have any questions, need someone to talk to or have any feedback!

Stella Seung-Joo Woo AUU President auupresident@auu.org.au Kakao Talk ID: snipshot

SRC PRESIDENT Words by SRC President Oscar Ong

A few weeks ago, SA’s Independent Commissioner Against Corruption found that former VC Peter Rathjen engaged in sexual conduct against two female staff at a function.

I am still deeply shocked by the findings and livid that he was given a payout as much as $326,400. The SRC strongly condemns the serious misconduct of the former VC and is appalled that it has taken almost a year and a half for the gross misconduct to be exposed.

It is simply not good enough.

Although ICAC has found that the University responded to the complaint appropriately when it was made, the SRC believes more needs to be done. I have requested the university to commit to a timeline for reports of such incidents to be dealt with in a set timeframe, an improved and complete review of sexual harassment/assault process.

The SRC is also calling for the former VC to reimburse any money he was paid while on leave for reasons related to the investigation.

I have also advocated that the university replace testamurs signed by disgraced former VC, Peter Rathjen the night the news broke. I am glad the request was granted and graduates will be given a free replacement testamur if they request it prior to 15 December 2020. More details here: https:// bit.ly/2RfPeGZ All students regardless of gender, economic circumstance, differing physical or mental health, sexual orientation, colour, culture, national origin, age, religion or ethnicity have the right to feel safe on campus. The SRC do not tolerate any form of bullying or

harassment irrespective of what position someone holds, which is why the SRC voted to remove the immediate past SRC President, Henry Armfield, over an allegation of abusing a woman. We will continue to call out what is wrong and work towards a better future together.

Working with the university, I was able to increase postgraduate research scholarships to support Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at the university. I have also been working on ad-hoc issues that you raised through ‘overheard’ and emails, including cleaning of carpets, the Echo360 1.5 speed option, delayed PNG processing times, maintenance of the clubs lounge, extension of Muslim prayer room etc.

It is certainly an extraordinary time to take on the job as SRC President, but I will promise you that I will continue to work hard every single day until the end of my term to ensure you feel safe on campus and all your issues are resolved. If the ICAC news has raised any issues for you, please make sure you are aware of the services and support available: Lifeline: 13 11 14, Beyondblue: 1300 22 4636, Sexual Assault Hotline: 1800 737 732, Yarrow Place Rape & Sexual Assault Services: 1800 817 421 Oscar Zi Shao Ong SRC President oscarzishao.ong@adelaide.edu.au Facebook/WeChat ID: oscarong1997

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vox pop Oliver Law and Arts 1. Seeing people again

1. Being back on campus, although I do miss in-person lectures

2. Idealistically in nature, realistically in my room at 2am

2. Grind & Press in Nexus

3. Cormac McCarthy

3. Donna Tartt

4. Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal

4. Any Dan Brown novel (for the action but not for the writing)

5. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (but it’s not going to happen)

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Maya International Development

5. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

What has been the best part of Semester 2 so far?

Where is your favourite spot to study?

Who is your favourite author?

What is an underrated book?

What book do you want to read before the end of 2020?

Emily Arts and Teaching 1. Being able to physically smack people that are being annoying

Michael Media (Visual Design) 1. Blended study is something new 2. The Reading Room

2. The cafe/hummus place in Schultz 3. Sarah J. Maas

3. William Gibson 4. The Adventures of Goodnight & Loving by Leslie Thomas

4. Beat the Reaper by Josh Bazell 5. Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

5. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

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CLUB SPOTLIGHT

The Writing Centre Book Club is now OPEN for business!

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“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

Nothing suits this unprecedented period better than this famous quote from Charles Dickens.

While binge-watching TV shows whilst covered with warm blankets is an activity that perfectly matches with the uncertainty permeating through the society, this semester requires a new norm. We relate to the absence of motivation and the anticipation for socialisation.

Our answer? A virtual book club!

We are a group of enthusiastic volunteers at the Writing Centre who present to you a brand-new book club. Our book club has a light workload and will be lots of fun! Instead of trying to read a dozen novels over the semester, we’ll be reading an anthology.

Breaking Beauty is an anthology of short stories by Adelaide Uni Alumni, full of the complexities of life: a mixture of wittiness, joy, sorrow, bitterness and adventure.

Throughout the semester, we will host Zoom meetings on the Wednesday of every even week at 4-5pm. Our next meeting is coming up in week

10. Remember, it is never too late to join us! We will discuss one story at each session, and invite the creators to come and have a chat. We endeavour for the meetings to be a safe place for you to share your feelings and experiences. Oh, and don’t forget to bring questions to ask some of our beloved South Australian writers!

We welcome everyone to join us regardless of your degree, your nationality, or your beliefs. All students are invited! Check us out on Facebook by searching ‘Writing Centre Book Club Members’ to find out about our next event. We would love to see you there!

CLUB SPOTLIGHT

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ECON DIT A rejoinder to ‘In defence of laissez-faire’ Words by Max Douglass Issue 7’s Econ Dit piece, ‘In defence of laissez-faire’, provided a bona fide yet largely misguided attempt at defending what many would consider the dominant economic paradigm since the failure of Keynesianism to economically and intellectually combat the downturns of the 1970s. I commend the writer for endeavouring to defend the ideology which many, especially on campus, would attribute the 21st century’s ills of climate change, inequality, and in the words of Princeton Professor of Economics Angus Deaton, economic “despair”. Whilst I agree in principle with many of the comments in the previous article (what undergraduate can disagree with a Nobel Prize winner?), its conclusions are derived from an endless conga-line of non sequiturs, some of which should not remain unaddressed.

times Trump will boast of ‘his’ pre-pandemic economy as he vies for re-election.

I largely agree with the author’s observation that power-hungry politicians will come from the less-than-desirable end of the morality distribution. Moreover, in theory, as a student of Jacob Wong’s Advanced Economic Analysis III, my coursework mandates that I must also agree with the authors assertion that the model politician reoptimises their behaviour by continually making and reneging on their promises. The only problem is that this statement is not supported by the Political Science literature. Francois Pétry and Benoit Collette’s meta-analysis of 18 articles on election promise keeping found that parties fulfil 67% of their promises on average, far from the ‘megalomanic’ numbers that Issue 7’s article would otherwise predict.

The issue begins with the notion that seemingly all governmental duties are “undertaken by politicians who are elected by the people”, which is only partially correct. Since Max Weber’s seminal analysis of bureaucracy, the public service of developed economies has been increasingly rationalised, and its power taken away from the elected representatives and put into the hands of highly trained career officials, albeit with some efficiency loss. On the economy, for instance, Alan Blinder and Mark Watson’s ‘Presidents and the US Economy: An Econometric Exploration’ found no causal effect between the top-job incumbent and economic performance, despite how many

The most dangerous non-sequitur of the article, however, is the false dichotomy between apparent Stalinism and laissez-faire, which appears to corner any intellectually honest reader without a Communist Party membership into the choice of the latter.

This harkens back to Margaret Thatcher’s slogan that ‘There is no alternative’ (TINA) to the status-quo market economy. The only problem is that, there is an alternative.

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It is by no mistake that the most robust democratic societies are also those with the most sizeable and efficient state machinery, no matter how much it may contradict the author’s Millian prediction of the “tyranny of

the majority”. The economic development of almost all successful market economies has consisted in the mutually reinforcing growth in the power of the society with the power of the state. This development has consisted, in MIT economist Daron Acemoglu’s terms, in the ‘shackling’ the Leviathan of state power by society at large, with both making appropriate concessions to the other.

Rather than laissez-faire doctrine, only those societies that maximise and have maximised inclusivity, transparency, accountability and democracy have been able to appropriately reap the rewards of the state-supported market economy. Without being intellectually dishonest, this is no more clearly seen than in comparing developed Western democracies with the stateless laissez-faire societies of the Horn of Africa. The former exhibit a large proportion of government spending as GDP, have highly trained bureaucracies, heavily regulate industry and developed through state supported R&D and industry.

The latter, with no centralised state nor market intervention, would appear to be the ideal laissez-faire society, yet where is the economic miracle? Are we really left only with a choice of laissez-faire as the author claims? I would argue not.

In discussing the financial crisis, the author chooses a fascinating hill for his case for laissez-faire to die on. Apparently, in merely granting credit licenses, the government mandates an oligopoly-turn-cartel market for banking. They then advocate a seemingly sound competitive banking market. Fortunately, and close to home, this system of ‘free banking’ existed in early Australia and provides a useful realworld example to compare the doctrines.

Australia’s 1880’s speculative land boom led to extravagant increases in lending by small financial institutions, and by the time the bubble popped in 1893, Australia had entered its worst recession in history, with real GDP falling 17 percent between 1892-3 according to the RBA, with 54 of 64 banks which were operating in 1891 closing by 1893. Most notably, David Merrett observed that “increased competition from such

new entrants weakened banks’ prudential standards”, directly antithetical to the author’s theoretical predictions of a banking market made more efficient and benevolent by deregulation. Whilst the author cited the famous paper ‘The Market for Lemons’, they may have been better off espousing the virtues of laissez-faire by discussing a competitive and homogenous market, such as, the literal, market for lemons.

Unfortunately, a true ascription of the financial crisis to the pitfalls of laissez-faire would be beyond the capacity of this response.

Its origins, however, are to be found in the laissez-faire inspired corporate-led financial deregulation of the Reagan era, and its presentation as governmental interventionturn-failure in the previous article serves merely as a piece of ruling class propaganda.

Though there exists a large canon of exceptional economists whose defences of laissez-faire make much needed contributions to the debate, I cannot help but feel Issue 7’s defence is built on an intellectual house-ofcards. Its conclusion may be tenable, but its reasoning is ahistorical, illogical and, most of all, in the current economic and political environment, can even be seen as dangerous.

Given the piece’s continual allusion to ‘hierarchy’ and the reference to the oftenmisplaced ideological boogieman of ‘critical theory’, I cannot help but feel the sentiment of the commentary has been derived not from robust analysis but from the unfortunate depths of Jordan Peterson YouTube clips.

For those interested in academic discussions regarding the state, development and institutions rather than rehashed public choice talking points from the 1980’s, I recommend Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s Why Nations Fail (2012) and The Narrow Corridor (2020), Ha-Joon Chang’s Kicking Away the Ladder: Developmental Strategy in Historical Perspective (2000), Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalisation and its Discontents (2002) and, for a seminal text in the field, Douglas North’s Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (1990).

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international international student student news news The acknowledgement of our pain: Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer vs. Hollywood Words by Ngoc Lan Tran “Nothing was more American than wielding a gun and committing oneself to die for freedom and independence, unless it was wielding that gun to take away someone else’s freedom and independence.”

Hollywood has a notoriety for their depiction of the Vietnam War—from the erasure of Vietnamese representation in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, to the glorification of American anti-heroes in Academy Awards Best Picture Platoon. Now, the latest Hollywood installment comes in the form of Spike Lee’s Da 5 Bloods. Praised for its emotional reflection of America’s underrepresented black veterans, the film is non-surprisingly extremely hard to watch.

The first few shots of Lee’s film may be most gruesome, for after it I ended up not watching the film at all. At the beginning is a hodgepodge of some of the most infamous and horrific media reports of the war: an execution of an unnamed Vietcong in Saigon, the incessant bombing, the mass spraying of Agent Orange. The pain and trauma of our people, built up over several decades, condensed and flashed by in a few minutes, seemingly aiming to drown and suffocate.

And I thought, here, these obligatory scenes

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of gore and death are just to set the context for the movie, for a reunion of American veterans, for the civil rights of American citizens. Lee’s movie and message are important, but what about us, the Vietnamese people? How did we end up so disturbingly silent, conveniently violent, unfairly vengeful, and altogether invisible in the backdrop of the silver screen?

“Don’t you see that Americans need the anti-American? While it is better to be loved than hated, it is also better to be hated than ignored.”

Viet Thanh Nguyen’s novel, The Sympathizer, was published in 2015 and won the Pulitzer Prize the following year. It is not just another book about the Vietnam War. The narrator, who remained nameless throughout the installment, is a double agent for the Vietnamese Communist Party and the US military. “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds,” he says, and because of this he simply found himself being able to see any issue on both sides. He calls it a talent. He is also a refugee. After minutely dodged the fall of Saigon in 1975, he resides in Los Angeles, the city where people come to reinvent themselves and fulfill their American Dream. Here he continues to feed intel back to

There is no summary that does justice to Nguyen’s literary masterpiece. Funny, gripping, and extremely smart, The Sympathizer accomplished something that Hollywood has never managed to do: Meaningfully acknowledging the experience of Vietnamese people. A refugee himself, Nguyen understands there are no real winners in war. It has never been as simple as either being victor or not. Throughout the novel is a constant struggle between two opposites: America or Vietnam? Freedom and democracy, or communism and reunification?

In terms of the narrator’s background, Caucasian or Asian? By doing this, Nguyen implies that perhaps there is no such thing as opposites. Given the right circumstance, one will need to adopt and merge the two extremes within the confines of their body, and expand upon it with the strength of their will.

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.”

We tend to forget or fail to realise that often, our connection is forged upon the sharing of our vulnerabilities. It is over the knowledge that deep down, every single person is incredible fragile and fundamentally imperfect, that leads to the willingness to let down the guards of our pride and ego to welcome others. The Sympathizer is exactly that—a remedy to Hollywood doctrines, and a reminder that Vietnamese, American or other, we are first and foremost human, then inhuman, then as equally desperate as any to grapple with the past, fumble through the present, and scarily prepare for the future.

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In the backdrop, there is no room for a complex development of morale and character. Would there be a point to say Vietnamese people just want freedom and reunification for their torn country, when communism is such a dirty word that every shred of humanity is effectively erased? It seems that no crime is greater than antiAmericanism for the association of which is anti-democracy, and ultimately sympathiser of the communist regime. It seems that barely any Vietnamese are outspoken about our motherland being a socialist republic, having a need to partially shake off the label of Vietnamese to redeem and justify for the cruel association with communism. And thus, it seems that our identity is to be condemned to preside in extremities, in black and white, either a communist or not, evil or not. As

“The unseen is almost always underlined with the unsaid.”

inter na ati ti

“Remember, you’re not half of anything, you’re twice of everything.”

immigrants, we must live by certain rules, take up certain values, speak a language in a certain way, or the penalty would be to risk overstaying in a foreigner’s country.

Viet Thanh Nguyen wrote a story about a Vietnamese double agent, but also about the struggle and complexity of being a Vietnamese refugee in America. He also opens the conversation on how easy it is to disregard the pain of those different from you. Nguyen remarks that, albeit universal, pain is also private. It is simple to forget that people half-way across the globe do not suffer the same way one does, but trauma and experience are not any less real. This is the message Nguyen is trying to deliver: that we are all the same, and that pain is pain, and must be soothed or else impossible to resolve.

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Vietnam, while slowly and eventually coming to the realisation of his true identity.

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RED

WORDS BY EMILY WOODCOCK

One would think that digging clay would be easy. A malleable hunk of red dirt to be picked up and discarded. One clearly has never attempted to dig clay before. The groaning mechanical limb of the backhoe was doing most of the work on breaking through the rich topsoil. A lone man in grey stood out among the sea of bright orange vests, as he beckoned forward the site manager, a lean man in his early fifties.

“Why wasn’t this dig finished in 1932, when that sheep station owner found it?” The man’s calculating eyes swept over the site, a frown on his forehead as he squinted through the sunlight at Dr Tim Portend.

“The archaeologists at the time couldn’t excavate the Austrosaurus mckillopi without breaking it. Mr Wade, the man who owned the Clutha sheep station in 1932, and the station manager’s brother successfully exhumed a few bones, but not the whole fossil,” Dr Portend patiently explained, sweat beading along his temples from the relentless heat of the Australian outback.

“They then forgot where the site was even though they put up posts, and lo and behold, it took the Mayor of Richmond and his bloody helicopter to find it again in 2014.” Dr Portend paused, looking towards the frowning man. “I do want to thank you, Mr Ames, for donating enough money to the University of Queensland to finish this dig.”

The man, Mr Ames, waved away the thanks as he brushed off some stray soil from his expensive grey suit. “It is of interest to me, this dig. I heard that before Mr Wade left this location he buried something of importance?”

“Ah, well. You’d be better off ignoring all that superstition about Mr Wade, eccentric though he was. If he had something not from this Earth, I reckon he’d hide it somewhere better than a dinosaur they were planning to dig up.”

Mr Ames’ frown deepened in consideration. “Nonetheless, I’d like to be informed of any discoveries, whether it is dinosaur bone or otherwise,” he smiled, a show of teeth. The site manager looked perturbed but nodded in agreement. “Excellent! I’ll let you and your volunteers get back to it, shall I?” As Mr Ames ambled towards his sleek black SUV, a disgruntled Dr Portend turned to the nearest volunteer and muttered, “Weird fellow that one. Insists we’re going to find something other than ‘sauropod’ bones down there.” He shook his head and went back to surveying the backhoe’s efforts, pushing aside Mr Ames’ words as he refocused on the site and planned where to assign the volunteers.

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DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE

BY JAMES L. L. PETERS I am sat at my writing-desk with tea, petrichor and isolation. Maddened by the state of things, six-feet apart or six-feet deep they say.

So we are here searching for distraction, this balcony gemmed with the drips of a wind-ridden rain and a dilating minister.

Imagine if I had taken the shrinking bottle to slip into another land, and sink out of the sofa.

I am sat at the window waiting for ferocity to pass, looking through the looking glass, not sure which is the zoo animal and which is the storm.

To wait some more and walk the tightrope catenary.

How we hate to be locked up in our hutches.

How convenient that we cannot take to the streets.

I have given up on waiting for the raven and given in to building castles in Spain.

Ruminating on the westering carol; cake-fed, and grinning at me like a Cheshire.

This certainly has the world up in arms, because it was all either too late or too much.

Yet through these times one must remain composed, hopeful, compassionate, devout, while the world is frightfully parsimonious, while it is not politic to be out.

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Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy -

novel v movie Words by Michael Genrich

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a 1979 novel by Douglas Adams. Adapted from the 1978 radio series, it was followed by a TV series in 1981 and finally reached movie theatres in 2005.

The original radio play spawned an absurd fictional universe and it wasn’t long before it was adapted to different media platforms and expanded on. The novel of the same name was the first deeper dive into this mad universe. It was followed by five more books, the last being Mostly Harmless, published in 1992. The movie came along much later in 2005 (after Adams’ death) and breathed new life into the 25 year old story.

At the heart of this universe is Arthur Dent. Arthur is a stereotypical 70s British bloke who wakes up to the demolition of his home - an issue which is quickly overshadowed by the demolition of the Earth by aliens. Arthur soon discovers that his best friend is in fact also an alien who became stranded on Earth while writing for the titular “Guide”. Arthur and his alien friend are picked up in the nick of time, barely escaping Earth’s destruction, by the President of the Galaxy to join a

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quest to discover the meaning of life, the universe and everything. The story satirises daily life against the backdrop of science-fiction and existential philosophy.

THE NOVEL (1979) To an Australian audience, the style and tone of the writing will seem quintessentially British. The learning curve is steep. The book contains lots of extraneous information about various alien races, galactic rock bands, and unusual phenomena which all help to paint a colourful picture of the universe. It’s heavy with dialogue and light on character descriptions. It’s a surprisingly short novel and, for me, it meant that the characters were a little under-developed. On the flipside, the novel indulges in exquisite phrasing like, “Wonderful perfect quadraphonic sound with distortion levels so low as to make a brave man weep”, and long, enriching side plots that make you feel like you’re playing little side quests to the main story.

Unlike radio plays where listeners can find cues in the characters’ voices, or movies where the cues are both audio and visual, novels offer readers the opportunity

to use their imagination in every sense.

Building mental pictures takes time and the breakneck pace of the story means there is a lot to take in. I think the follow up books, particularly Restaurant at the End of the Universe achieved worldbuilding in a way that the much shorter first novel could not. Regardless, with such a complex setting, it was always going to be a challenge to encompass this universe into a single film.

THE MOVIE (2005) Movies are forced to abandon florid prose in favour of images that, in my view, attempt to tell the same story to everyone.

The movie also presents the universe in a new and perhaps in a more ‘worldly way’, with the addition of new characters and the casting of American actors.

Although the movie includes plenty of narration, it inevitably operates within the affordances and constraints of film.

As a writer, I’d suggest that transposing written works into a visual medium comes at a price. Readers carry their own ideas of what things look like, how they feel, how they smell, even . Because writers give us a licence to imagine the characters and scenes, the pictures we’ve carried around in our heads will always be different to the ones represented on-screen.

For me, important elements are missing from the movie that make the world of the novel much richer. For those who loved the books and afterwards decided to watch the movie, it might seem like characters and plot devices have been shoe-horned in just to wrap it up in 109 minutes. That said, the movie draws from, and adds to, the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy canon in an accessible way.

THE VERDICT I prefer the universe of the novel. It’s a unique novel that can seem chaotic. It takes a non-linear approach and offers an imaginative experience in line with the premise of the story.

All up, the universe of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a perfect opportunity to explore the ways that storytelling adapts to different mediums. Irreverent sciencefiction philosophy remains the dominant theme, but there’s a way for everyone to approach the story in a way that suits their taste.

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The lost art of the book Words by Mikaila Stavrinakis

Last week I was stumped by something so simple as the act of reading a book. I sat lazily on the sofa, semi-upside down, reading Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. In my possession for two years, I knew Bourdain wrote like he speaks, so, I thought, Why read the book when I can just watch him on TV? An unfortunate and common sentiment among many people nowadays. I am not entirely innocent of this charge. As I flip the pages and journey through Bourdain’s tumultuous years in the New York culinary scene, my mother scoffs from the other room.

“Why are you always reading books?

Don’t you have anything else to do?”

I was taken aback. Did she seriously ask me this? For centuries, reading has been a legitimate form of entertainment, so why am I being called out for it now? I dismissed her comment entirely in the moment. But as I lay in bed that evening, I thought to myself, Is reading really dead?

An adrenaline rush pulses through my body when I buy a new book. All the fibres in my being light up, and the receptors in my brain go into overdrive.

I relish the smell of a freshly opened

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book, unmarked and uncreased, ready to be consumed, sometimes in a matter of hours. Where some choose to take advantage of online shopping by buying copious articles of clothing, there are roughly five new books waiting at my front door each week. It’s like a drug habit, but not as bad for your teeth.

It never takes long for these precious new specimens to become tattered and torn, but that’s half the fun. A well-read, well-loved book will have dog-eared pages, tea stains and pencilled notes in the margins. Maybe a torn page here and there as well; all signs of something that is treasured by its owner.

I can’t help but wonder, though, has there really been a decline in reading?

For the life of me, I can’t remember the last time I shared a great book with a friend. I’ve had no trouble recommending a show on Netflix or Stan, obscure arthouse cinema, and even some foreign films. But not a single book in sight. The last time someone even borrowed a book from my mini library, it was a text about the relationship between psychological and physical disorders; in other words, a manual. Great read as it may be, it does not compare to The Metamorphosis.

There is no setting in which I am more content than sitting down with a cup of tea, some biscuits, and basking in the afternoon sun with a heavy tome.

The tranquillity of the world around me becomes a stage for the ballet of words which my mind has choregraphed for no one else’s pleasure but my own.

Imagining the wild African plains so admired by Hemingway in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.

Navigating the supernatural and dark comedy of Bulgakov’s classic, The Master and Margarita. Even succumbing to the complexities of the sci-fi world Herbert created with Dune. I have never felt more at ease than in the first moments of opening a book. Going completely blank, my mind prepares for the welcome onslaught of words and worlds. My fingers trail the edge of each page as I linger slowly on each word, careful not to gloss over any sentences. Not until my eyes begin to strain and the pages start to blur do I place a tattered piece of paper in the spine and shut the cover. Only then do I sit back, intoxicated, reflective, absorbing the wisdom I’ve been offered from this wondrous creation in my hands.

For however long someone stares at the Mona Lisa in The Louvre, the same

principle of admiration and love that comes from seeing such a beautiful and mysterious piece of art can be applied to the humble novel. For most, however, it is easier to watch a scene than to read it. We simply no longer have the time for books.

It is not to say that I am a better person for reading, rather than watching. I watch my fair share of reality television, believe me. But society itself has outgrown the need for slow forms of entertainment.

Everything has to move at light-speed.

Shopping, cooking a meal, downloading a film – all can be done in a matter of seconds. We are losing track of the simple pleasures in life. So, whilst many would sit down to a Netflix binge with a cup of ramen, I will be listening to my beef bourguignon bubble away on the stove, devouring the classic literature that shaped the world we live in today. The art of the novel is lost, and it is up to us to come together and find it again. And to answer my mother’s question: No, I don’t have anything else to do. Now leave me alone while I jump headfirst into this Franz Kafka classic.

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I HOPE THIS APOCALYPSE IS

TEMPORARY

Words by A. S. Lelli Two years ago, my unlicensed therapist suggested that I document any significant changes in my life and their impact upon my mood. She said to spare no detail. So far, I’ve made note of a pandemic-turned-full-blownapocalypse, a growing anxiety rash upon my upper torso, and many regrets surrounding adolescent interactions. Much has happened. I’ve handled it exceptionally well.

White clouds spill from my mouth like chimney smoke as I cradle my bark-brown cigar. I moved in mere days before the world fell into chaos, and I think it’s obvious.

The house currently holds several incongruous loveseats, a fake Ficus, two unhung full-length mirrors and enough dinner plates to cater a wedding. And the cigars are in fact chocolate Corinthians I was saving for Christmas. I hold

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them between two fingers and bite instead of blow.

Somehow, my backyard vegetable plot is flourishing. My succulent vegetables glimmer with morning dew like sweat on tight skin. It has triggered unexpected desires. Yesterday, I evaluated my eggplant collection and salivated through my mask. Masks aren’t necessary anymore, but I like to wear them. I also don’t eat eggplant.

I recently decided to cover my bare walls in words. I’m a horrible writer, so, I use the words of bygone poets and novelists to construct my new world. I write in chalk and acrylic paint and finetipped ink; overlapping revolutionary ideas with my pathetic journaling. It reads like hot garbage, but it’s quite the aesthetic. I wish I could spin my feelings into gold like these writers. I sit at my wobbly, self-assembled desk and try to force my thoughts into fruition, but I only possess half of the requirements.

I am very good at feeling things, but I can’t make others feel it too.

All this — among other activities prompted by months of solitude and boredom— have caused my fingers to cramp. I resort to reminiscing instead.

unexpected moistness of gum under my hand because a high school classroom is a fucking cesspit.

As long as I replay and relive these things, everyone and everything within them stays alive. Including me. Memories, more than relics or churchyards, are where the dead live; where even I live most often; in my own, and in others’.

I now regret not attending all three parties I was ever invited to. I was barred from experiencing those drunken, mostly innocuous riots, and I didn’t have it within myself to sneak out. My mother warned me about the dangers of adolescents who indulged in firewater; who lazily thrusted on the dancefloor; who shaved the backs of their thighs (I don’t know why that area specifically); who tasted strangers’ lips. Well, now everyone is dead and nothing matters anymore… so I guess you could say I’m familiar with isolation.

Side note: it is incredibly difficult to dance with no music, but I believe I’ve mastered it. And guess what? I really can dance like no one is watching, because I haven’t seen or felt the touch another human being in eleven months.

So, ha.

I treat my memories like precious elixirs that eternalise me and survive me. I watch them in a trance: meekly and leisurely, like a film. I don’t recall the extraordinary things. No, I feed off mundanity; off of tropical storms that rain applause onto rooftops; mornings that sing of strawberry jam, tea stained teeth; shining gossamer bridges between spider-lily bushes; the

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Ego rot Based on Study for Figure IV, Francis Bacon (1909 – 1992).

by Ivan Bucalo

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Have you got the children, Daphne?

Bring them here. I’d like to see them.

Oh – look at her. A face just like yours.

Rosy red cheeks, dimples, the whole shebang.

Pretty as a picture. Would you like it framed?

I could get it framed for you.

My uncle’s a framer, and his uncle before him.

We could hang it on the mantlepiece.

It would go well with other things that we have.

Ah. Pardon my boots, dear: they seem to have dragged the mud in.

It’s not my fault, you know. It’s not. My fault.

It’s not even what you think it is.

A temper.

A noonday disposition – Gets hot with the windows down, you know?

Why can’t we open a window? Let some air in?

Yes, but it’s a figure of speech. Dear.

Oh, blast it. Blast it all.

Cigarette? Now? Oh, alright. Just to keep the mouth busy.

Will the smoke make you happy?

Would you like to see me burn for you?

I can burn for you, unapologetically, endlessly, simply, putting it frankly, as one does, I will burn for you, Daphne, like a smokestack.

What’s that?

Bread and butter pudding? Now? Oh, that’s too much. That really is too much, dear.

You even put the raisins in it.

Just sit down, will you? Will that be enough? Thank you.

The bombs are almost here, and you’re making a complete fucking fool out of me.

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by Ivan Bucalo

Meditation on a capriccio Based on Capriccio with ruins of the Roman Forum, Claude Lorrain (1604 / 05 – 1682).

Eons – eons, shadows overlapping, And within, without, the centuries delayed.

This twice-slain carcass, shivering in the Cold, and receding; nothing but the days.

The days, falling like so many columns Into prim, petal-like arrangements; Marble colossi crumbling and reduced To foliage: specks beneath the firmament.

Above, so below; the hours wax and wane, And life passes in a deluge throughout: Each footstep a letter, chained by sweat to The next, and spaces left to map the drought.

It was said, so often, this face shall be Remembered once by the heat of its flesh; Twice, upon an urn effaced by characters; Third, in a muddy heap, where it now rests.

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I crossed the reeds; haunted gates opening Downwind beneath the moonlight’s valleyed pass And saw, both within me and from the out, The quiet rapture of all existence.

All three incarnations coincided, And the air itself seemed a beastly thing, Choked by the harvest and its savage hope Of renewal in repetition.

It is good we do not remember well The sins of our fathers, but extoll them Nonetheless, for then we are like mayflies – Our lives too brief to lose their innocence.

Be luminous. The inspiration is going.

Be luminous. The feeling is dying.

by Tiah Bullock

there is nothing to do no currency of youth so, here I remain in the violence of my quiet bed

graveyard

and arrange the bodies I’ve been you before and before and before and now by the foot of this bed

graveyard.

I take what bone is left, snip sinew, drain and gouge so to slip on a skin, eyes empty for mine though, it is their’s the same and dance in its ill-fit. by the foot of this bed

graveyard

I parent dead tongues

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THE PARTY Words by Isabella Sykes

I had wondered if it would be rude to refuse.

As far as I knew I was his only ‘friend’ in the office, and that was by stretching the definition. I didn’t know anyone who had befriended someone from his culture. There was a lot of fear and distrust in the community. I wasn’t necessarily more progressive than the rest, it was just that my parents had raised me to be polite to anybody, no matter their skin colour or height. It was simply easier to smile and wave than scowl and feel the distaste, the confusion, the unease that his people provoked.

I arrived at eight as requested. Their house looked nice. A cottage with a brick path winding over a tiny - yet immaculate – lawn, dotted with large purple and yellow flowers. I forget what they’re called. I felt that I’d wandered into an enchanted 30

meadow. The effect was ruined somewhat by the roaring of the fivelane M5 thundering along beyond the back fence, but housing in this area was cheap, and I found myself appreciating their effort.

I knocked. The door opened and it took me a beat to remember to look down at waist height. A girl was there, wearing a smocked pinafore, positively vibrating with excitement.

She had coloured her skin the particular blue shade reserved for special events.

“Brian!”

Kerz’ts floated up behind her and shooed her from the door.

“I am glad you made it! Pay no mind to N’szaza, she has been very excited about a human coming!

Would it be alright if she asks you some questions later perhaps?! She was hoping she could interview you for her school report!”

I looked over at N’szaza, whose eye stalks had swung round to face me. She reminded me greatly of my younger cousins, who also attempted to play it cool in the face of great curiosity.

“That would be fine,” I smiled at him.

“Come! Come! My parents are most excited to meet my friend from work!”

His parents were gracious and welcoming. A moment of confusion occurred when I handed them the wine I’d brought and had to explain that it was a human custom of appreciation to the host. I was carefully introduced to numerous family members and friends and realised I was being proudly shown off. His slightly shrivelled grandmother insisted I sit next to her and in broken English told me colourful stories about her life. At ten his mother honked for attention and the ceremony began. I had been a tad

concerned about this - exactly what was it that happened at a Tr’sertsian coming of age ceremony?

It was disgusting. It was beautiful.

It was heart-warming, watching Kerz’ts peeling off his outer skin, ‘The Skin of Childhood’, I was later told, while all around him his family yelled encouragement, praise, and ribbed him when he got stuck around the tricky spinal area. There was laughter, mucus, and when it was completely removed, a joyous upswelling of honking. His mother and father gathered up the skin and portioned it onto dessert plates. I took mine with some reservation and N’szaza hovered by with an offered “Whipped cream or custard?!”

I chose both and thanked her. It… wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever eaten.

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Where his first aid kit used to be Words by Mitchell Suursaar

Thanks to his mother, Xander was always well dressed; well presented.

He never understood the importance of appearance, though he would later be told his ignorance – his father, Cole, called it callowness – blinded him more than it should have. “I understand why you need a suit Dad,” said Xander with a mouth full of bristles and foam over a freshly refurbished porcelain sink, “but why do I have to wear this getup?”

place. While Xander inspected the suit with the acute curiosity an eight-year-old approaches anything, he asked, “Dad, what do you actually do for work? Mum said you’re a Para… para –” “Paramedic,” interrupted Cole. He pointed to the insignia printed on his breast pocket, which depicted serpents coiled around a sceptre.

“What does that mean?”

“Because, dear,” Cole insisted as he crouched next to Xander and straightened his son’s tie, “you need to look the same as the other children, so they know you belong.” A wry smirk crept across his face. “That’s why they call it a uniform.”

Cole chuckled to himself as a glob of turquoise paste escaped from Xander’s mouth, trailed down the toothbrush, and landed with a splat on the cuff of Cole’s suit. This suit was the same as many fathers: a uniform, one, which illustrated – the joke his son so aptly overlooked – his

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Cole, ever the caring parent, paused a moment and returned to stand in front of the mirror. While he searched for the right way to approach this delicate subject, he locked emerald eyes with himself. “Do you remember when Pop used to give you medicine?”

“Even when I wasn’t sick.”

“Yes dear, even when you weren’t sick,” Cole broke his stare, pulled a bottle of antibacterial lotion from a drawer, and slathered his face and neck, “Pop was

a great doctor.” He knelt and applied a healthy dose of the solution to Xander’s face. “I do what Pop did. It’s just that the tools are different. When someone was sick in Pop’s time, he would give them medicine, antibiotics.”

“And then they got better?”

“They did, most of the time. But some people thought they were all better when they were still sick. Medicine hid the virus, so people stopped taking it, even though Pop told them they shouldn’t stop.”

“What happened then?”

Cole brushed his son’s cheek, “The sickness returned,” he answered.

“So, they didn’t know they were still sick?”

its face with the same fondness he did Xander’s. “The virus came back stronger.

Doctors, like Pop, tried to treat it, but it never worked. It was already resistant to the medicine.” Cole kissed the picture, returned it to its perch, and, in the same motion, retrieved his state-issued Glock 18 from the counter, and holstered it.

“But that doctrine is in the past. Now we have more effective ways of treating patients,” staring into the photograph, speaking softly as his eyes welled, his expression stern, “treatments that stop them from hurting others.”

As Cole turned to leave, Xander read the large, bold, yellow block letters printed on the back of his father’s suit. “Dad, what does ‘Euthanizer’ mean?”

“No one did. Sick people spread the virus without even realising.” Cole stood once more. This time, he lifted a framed photograph from the vanity and brushed

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It starts so young.

The bad habits, the feelings of inferiority, the need to constantly please.

It continues into relationships.

When you’re grown, older, when you’re supposed to be wiser.

Your self-worth is low, you seek what you think you deserve.

You cower.

Twist.

Change yourself.

It continues again, this time into marriage.

You’ve sought what you wanted, what you think you deserve.

But you’re broken.

And you’re tired.

And you don’t think you can do this anymore.

That’s when you meet him.

HOME

BY MEGHAN ZADOW

And he sees you.

Sees you cling, cry, break, and tremble.

He sees you apologise incessantly where you have no fault or blame.

Sees you over explain.

Change.

Twist yourself.

He takes your hand in his, as he comes to stand beside you.

He gives you comfort, warmth, and the love that you needed to heal.

You find yourself able to breathe for what might be the first time in your life.

Your soul knowingly tangles with his, because where else is it going to go, if not home?

The eagle chick waits, so fearful and frail, Perched so high on the rugged old cliff.

Just 10 weeks old, a baby indeed, As the mother calls harshly, with a screech and a wail.

TAKING FLIGHT

BY MICHAEL BROHIER

The rocks lie there mutant, so jagged and worn; Surely the mother knows better than this?

To force your dear child to leap for its life?

But the chick has no helper, alone and forlorn.

Despite all the odds, it leaps sure to die, Away from the safety and surety of home.

Its wings flutter bravely as it plummets below And then all at once, a sight to behold, the eagle begins to fly.

So are you that fledgling, secure yet called on?

For life is quite simple when safe and at peace.

Yet do you not envy those ones flying past you Just as that eagle, so free on the wind, a heavenly scene.

Maybe it’s time, just maybe for you To spread those grand wings and see yourself fly.

Maybe what’s good needs to pass for what’s best, As you leap for your life, and leap with all faith to reach for what’s new.

I can’t guarantee the absence of fright But that chick and that mother would say to you now, “Have faith so courageous and no room for fear, Reach out and reach higher, jump off and take flight.”

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BOOKS SPEAK OF BOOKS: IN PRAISE OF THE INTERTEXT IN UMBERTO ECO’S THE NAME OF THE ROSE Words by Taylor Fernandez

“Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside of books. Now I realised that not infrequently books speak of books; it is as if they spoke among themselves.”

Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (1980) is ostensibly a murder mystery.

Certainly, it bares the markings of one. William of Baskerville arrives at a Benedictine monastery with his novice Adso for a theological discussion, which quickly turns into an investigation of a series of murders in the abbey. Yet the murders themselves feel inconsequential to the complex discussions of religion, literature, and semiotics that pervade the novel. Perhaps most fascinating is Eco’s attitude toward intertextuality; the book becomes a story about stories. In the abbey’s library — of which its complex structure and sheer abundance of books is a bibliophilic wet dream — Adso comes to the realisation that books are in constant dialogue with each other as opposed to the outside world.

We, as readers, often subscribe to the search for the new in literature, the unconventional, or the unique. It is the plot twists that catch us off-guard that will sometimes determine whether or not the ending is satisfying, or the narratives that express something we have supposedly never heard of before that entices us. It

can be argued, however, that no literature can exist as something completely new: it is instead a product of its influences.

Consider the reviews of contemporary fiction, where authors will continuously have their work compared to others: the merit of the text is derived from their similarities to other works, or more specifically, the great works. Family sagas get likened to Franzen, anything slightly dystopian in nature is called ‘Orwellian’, a modern playwright with a Pulitzer under their belt will be called ‘the Shakespeare of the digital age’. Books are considered to have their meaning shaped from their relationship with other texts, hence whatever meaning we extract from them cannot be analysed in isolation. Often, in postmodernist literature, intertextuality manifests into a hyperawareness of the book’s literary predecessors, whether through implicit or explicit allusions. In accordance with Eco’s belief, books are not just in conversation with the readers, but they are engaged in a dialogue with each other.

This idea is the beating heart of The Name of the Rose. Intertextual connections and

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literary references are commonplace in Eco’s depiction of 1327 Italy. You only have to look as far as the protagonist to see the first indication of this. William of Baskerville, as his name coyly suggests, is pure Sherlock Holmes reincarnate.

Like Holmes, William is clever, witty, and observant… albeit without the drug addiction. He is a monk, mind you. Adso of Melk, William’s novice, is fittingly the counterpart to Watson, completely in awe of William’s talent. William even refers to him as “my dear Adso”. When the pair arrive at the monastery, Adso is dumbfounded by William’s ability to recognise that a horse has run away from the abbey by identifying his prints in the snow. It is interesting to witness how Eco, a semiotician, views signs in relation to the act of deducing meaning.

The deductive method synonymous with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s protagonist becomes, in the literal sense, a study of signs (or that should read: A Study in Signs). William tells Adso: “I have been teaching you to recognise the evidence through which the world speaks to us like a great book.” And yet, the difficulty of making a singular meaning out of evidence – or signs – is slowly revealed. Eco’s viewpoint channels the postmodernist idea that truth is unobtainable since there is no objective reality. Characters are not exclusively borrowed from fiction, however. The blind librarian in The Name of the Rose is called Jorge of Burgos: a reference to the Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges. Eco draws on very similar themes to Borges, and it is even considered that Borges’ story ‘The Library of Babel’ inspired the aforementioned library in The Name of the Rose.

Books seem to drive the narrative in The Name of the Rose, where a multiplicity

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of stories are embedded into the novel. Eco draws from a wide berth: Latin references, historical tales of the Church, and classical allusions. In fact, Aristotle’s Poetics occupies a significant portion of the plot and is pertinent to understanding the novel’s conclusion.

Even the multilayered narrative of the book confirms that The Name of the Rose is a book about books (about books?).

The novel begins with a prologue where the narrator fictitiously reveals that the contents of the story are translated from a 1968 novel, which was itself translated from the real writings of a 14th century monk. This structure – an ancient text translated into a French novel and then again into Eco’s novel – confirms the ingrained intertextual nature of books.

But what can we learn from Adso’s revelation that books speak of books?

Well, for starters, all texts form one mosaic; they cannot be taken in isolation, lest their richness is lost on us.

Intertextuality in literature is therefore unavoidable. In cases like The Name of the Rose, it functions more than to show off the author’s plethora of reading, but to instead draw attention to the existing parallels between everything in the literary world. Hence, when Adso asks, “To know what one book say you must read others?”, I agree with William’s sentiment that “at times this can be so”.

BOOK REVIEW: THE CAINE MUTINY

Words by Will Broderick

When you’re in quarantine during a global pandemic, there’s few places better to escape to than the high seas of the Pacific Theatre of World War II. And there are few books that better capture life at sea than The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1951 odyssey which tracks the ill-fated voyage of a US Navy destroyerminesweeper under the command of the complicated and disturbing character of Captain Queeg.

The story is told from the perspective of Willie Keith, who we see evolve, from his first day at midshipman school to the pivotal role he plays in the titular mutiny.

Through Willie’s eyes we see an array of in-depth character studies from all quarters of the Caine. The action of the war is also complemented with the poignance of the world the men of the Caine left behind.

Wouk describes both evocatively, with a level of detail that only someone who served on a ship like the Caine could provide. As the circumstances of life on the Caine devolve further and further towards the crescendo of the mutiny, where each of the main characters are faced with difficult moral quandaries as Captain Queeg’s full personality is revealed.

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The court-martial following the mutiny is one of the most well-crafted and realistic moments of its genre that I’ve ever seen put to paper. Every testimony throws the case onto a new course, all leading once again to a second climax when Queeg takes the stand. The ramifications of the court-martial are delved into in all of their complexity, providing an ambiguous yet fitting ending to a story which prides itself on bringing the costs of war to the page as realistically as possible, which is quite a feat considering the censored literary environment of the early 1950s.

Overall, The Caine Mutiny is well-worth the read for its attention to detail, realism, and its unflinching journey into the moral complexities and costs of war. I’d also recommend watching the 1954 film version – featuring a captivating performance from Humphrey Bogart – after reading the novel, as both complement each other and present the story of World War II as you’ve never seen it before.

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COMFORT ME CHRISTIE! WHY THE ‘WHODUNNIT’ FEELS SO DAMN GOOD RIGHT NOW Words by Theodora Galanis

I read Agatha Christie’s 1926 novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd for class last semester. I was probably ten years old the last time I read one of her books and, though I’d expected my literary tastes to have developed over the last thirteen years, I enjoyed it every bit as I remember.

Classic detective fiction was considered bad taste for a while. It was too corny, too formulaic, and in the worst of cases, too predictable. American literary critic, Edmund Wilson, wrote an essay in 1945 with a title that asks the question we’re all thinking: “Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?”

You know, Edmund, I didn’t think that I cared either. That was until halfway through the novel when I realised that I had shamelessly fallen into Christie’s secret trap door of clues and thrills. It became impossible to not care about who killed Ackroyd. Like Detective Poirot, I found myself scraping through the pages to find any shreds of incriminating evidence tucked away in a snippet of dialogue or a detail of the setting.

In the same week, I watched Knives Out, the 2019 star-studded film written and directed

by Rian Johnson. The plot follows Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) as he investigates the death of successful crime fiction author, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer).

Knives Out pays homage to Christie’s legacy, featuring an archetypal cast of quirky suspects, a grandiose mansion fit with a creaky staircase and a trap window, an impossible murder, and a foreign detective

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anonymously sent to solve the mystery.

Without critiquing Johnson’s cinematography (or Craig’s highly questionable southern accent), I have to admit that the punchy dénouement in Knives Out was just as epic and satisfying as the one in Roger Ackroyd.

I’ve been thinking: what is it about the whodunnit that continues to captivate us through the ages?

The ‘golden age’ coins a tradition of detective fiction published in the inter-war period between the 1920s and 1930s. Christie is considered one of the major writers of this time, as she developed many of the highly stylised and self-referential motifs that still lurk in the structures of contemporary murder mysteries today. According to literary scholar Gill Plain, Christie’s interwar fiction “both reveals and attempts to heal the ruptures of social organisation. In her construction of the grievable body she offers a talisman against death’s fragmentation and dissolution, a sacrifice to ameliorate the wounds of war.”

In plainer words, the murdered body is a symbol for an inexplicable trauma to an otherwise stable reality. This resonated with social anxieties generated by the shock of war. By creating a controlled setting (a group of stock characters stuck in one big house), detective fiction authors create a microcosm of society, fit with all of the oppressive class, gender, and racial stereotypes that are present in everyday life. The heroic detective then makes logical sense of the illogical murder, and we all end up feeling pretty good.

Some psychoanalytic readings have even gone as far to suggest that the murder mystery alleviates our death-drive by involving the reader in the criminal thrill, and then relieving them of the guilt which is cast off to the always convicted criminal. Without getting all Žižekian here, the main idea is that solving the crime always feels fantastic.

It feeds into moral fantasies of law and order, of good guys and bad guys, and of the faith in the positivist scientific method to reveal a knowable reality. In the world of Christie, there is a reason for everything: you just have to possess the genius to detect it. But, real life is not so simple.

A quick google search for “who caused COVID-19” generates almost 755,000,000 results. Apparently, lots of people want to know whodunnit. Including Prime Minister Scott Morrison who in April said, “Now, it would seem entirely reasonable and sensible that the world would want to have an independent assessment of how this all occurred, so we can learn the lessons and prevent it from happening again.”

Someone should give the guy Detective Blanc’s details. Mind you, he probably charges a hefty fee for an investigation of this scale . . . I wonder what’s left in the PM’s holiday budget.

Donald Trump has gone for the approach my mum took in the first five minutes of Knives Out: obnoxiously identifying the suspected guilty party before the investigation properly kicked off. In a tweet on 17 March, Trump referred to COVID-19 as the “Chinese Virus”.

Despite the negative backlash, he continued to antagonise the nation, and on 17 May labelled them again responsible for the outbreak:

“Prior to the Plague floating in from China, our Economy was blowing everybody away, the best of any country, EVER. We will be there again, and soon!”

The accusations from the President obviously aggravated China, contributing to the extension of a bilateral trade war. Any attempts at a ‘phase-one thaw’ in January were seriously impeded by the unfolding health crisis and political trash talk. And, Australia hasn’t gotten off scot-free either.

In May, China suspended permits for beef supplied by Australian abattoirs in spite of Trade Minister Simon Birmingham’s desperate attempts to placate the rising tension.

While the trade tensions between Australia and China have now somewhat settled, we are certainly no closer to gaining a clear handle on this international mystery. Recently, two prominent Australian journalists were evacuated from Beijing and Shanghai after forced questioning from Chinese authorities regarding the detained TV anchor, Cheng Lei. For the first time in almost fifty years, China is free from an Australian media presence.

Stan Grant for the ABC argued that this event sees “Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’ . . . coming to pass”, while Chinese-government owned newspaper, The Global Times, has accused the Australian government of “hypocrisy” and “double standards” on press freedom. Look like more guilty suspects and pointed fingers.

If we’ve learned anything from detective fiction, jumping the gun never ends well.

And, if we’ve also learned anything from realworld political crises, there is no such thing as the sweet, solvable solution that is waiting to be unveiled by a charismatic mastermind.

So, if you are concerned about how COVID-19 began, pick up a murder mystery. It might just calm your nerves. Am I predicting a resurgence of Christie-style detective stories?

I sure am hoping for one.

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Momentarily Words by Dagmar Morello

You swim through a hall deep with people. Your stroke: a hand offered here, cheek there, a jaw-aching smile, and sweating armpits. Your host greets you, and you hold onto him, momentarily, as if a life buoy, before releasing. He grasps your shoulders, holding you like the winner’s cup.

Together, you enter the room, and he pulls you under, deeper.

The kitchen steams and sizzles as he guides you, a large arm across your shoulders, like old friends, toward the bar. Together you salute the silks and linens milling at a scatter of tall, occasional tables. It is a shiver of sharks; brilliant white teeth, shiny lip 42 42

gloss, sparkling gold and silver slung around slim wrists (fingernails long, perfect, red and burgundy), ears dangling gold, and platinum chains lie on throats exposed; firm, strong hands (fingernails clean and trim), a cluster of cufflinks, casual collars; sparkling, solitary diamonds atop clean-shaven jaws, and more teeth; straight and white, and glinting gold.

Your host is the alpha, and they give way. Beckoned by the next prize, he gestures at his hunting ground, offering up the possibilities to you.

You step outside, ice-chinking drink in hand. Her laugh carries like the cascading call of church bells.

Chocolate curls halo her alabaster face; they are reflected one and the same in the perfectly still pool (night swimming comes later). She glances your way. You move together.

You move together across damp sheets, scents mingling. You sleep under stars, breathing deep.

Rolling together over grass, her tangled locks catch burrs and twigs, you laugh until you cannot breathe.

You hold your breath as you tread, together, down an aisle deep with well-wishers. She pants and grasps your hands as, together, you greet the cries of a new-born. You kiss her perfect, unmade face as you leave for work - alone (shark-bait). She sighs loudly, drops the kids off at school, leaves for a conference - alone. You collect the kids, cook dinner, sit through tears and homework. She straightens her curls, applies lip-gloss, and dons a pantsuit, grabbing her leather satchel as she walks out the door. You gaze through the bedroom window as she reverses fast down the

drive - again. You applaud alone at school awards nights. You sleep in the recliner, cheeks salty.

You swim through a room deep with people, the alpha shark greeting you like an old friend. You offer your hand here, cheek there, a jaw-aching smile. You shift through the shiver of silks and linens milling at the scatter of tall, occasional tables. You float past the sparkling, shiny lips, long red fingernails; barely notice the gold earrings glinting and platinum chains on throats exposed; elude the cluster of cufflinks, casual collars, diamond studs atop clean-shaven jaws, and teeth, straight and white. A laugh carries like the call of a magpie on a summer’s day. Red wine curls, a wheel of fire above a porcelain face. She looks your way, and you see – a crack.

You glance at your watch, take a sip of your drink and step back inside.

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I am a gatekeeper Words by Tahlia Giblot Ducray

They always cling on as I wake, long tendrils tangling into my sleep-addled mind, gently coaxing me back to the land of impossibility and madness. Come back. Come back! Please! I don’t want to disappear! Mingled and mangled and soft desperate voices. They are most persistent upon waking, pulling and tempting and begging. It is impossible not to hear, and even harder not to listen.

Some days are harder than others.

Crowding, crowded. The newest ones are the loudest. Catch me! Set me down!

Set me free! Sometimes I do; sometimes I don’t; mostly I can’t. Like pearls in an upended bottle; pushing, catching, trapped. Let me out! Even if I could let them all come out, most would not survive; too small, too weak. It’s why I’m here; why I exist. I am a path from there to the real. I am a Gatekeeper; a judge, an executioner.

When I was young I would let them all out, bring them to life in black and blue and grey, like birds on a power line. Too many faded away, falling, failing; a cage, not a refuge. What have you done? A few breathed their first but remained lifeless, twisted into shapes not their own. Wrong!

Nothing right; so much left! It hurts! I shut the gates.

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Now, most voices pile up and stagnate behind the doors. Why. Why? Why! Some join together into a more coherent whole.

Will you listen now? Sometimes I let them out, try once more to ink them into the fabric of reality, try to give them a home.

Many still fall out in a jumble, incomplete, fated to nothingness. I’m sorry. I’m sorry!

It never stops hurting. The few that come alive may not be perfect, but they hand me the key to the home I created with a whisper. Thank you for trusting us, for trusting you, for trying when no one else could.

But the strongest voices? They sit behind the gate, feeding off the husks of the fallen, watching, waiting, learning.

See? See? They gently direct the mind constantly. They murmur through the cracks in the gate. Look! Look at what I could be! These are the most dangerous ones. They become their own architect, constantly shifting and growing. They let themselves be coaxed out, before retreating back behind fogged glass, unreachable. See? See? Maybe you don’t.

They leave behind empty shells and fragile bones, like grave markers to the ones I never gave a chance. Remainders, reminders, constantly humming. Hurting, empty, lonely. A song of the failures I never attempted. It is one I must carry.

Always.

I know there are many like me; Gatekeepers of the voices. I’ve met many of them, have spoken to them about many things. But not this. Maybe they experience the same; maybe I am alone.

All I know is the voices will never stop. I’m not sure I would ever want them to. They are a part of me, my duty in life.

My responsibility as a writer.

By Chanel Tresize

I’ve found my heart, it’s nestled comfortably, waiting at the door, Wandering hesitantly, the pain fills me raw.

When has love found me, I always come to it When has luck found me, I mostly rely on delayed wit.

i’ll love you amicably. i peak through the cracks in my skin, i can feel my insides churn to lift my feet. my features fold to communicate lips moving, verbalising the mind behind it. i love me, my body, and the mechanics clanking under my skin. i love me, therefore, i love you all too amicably with my arms open for friends and lovers lost to the wind.

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By Suvam Sinha

The space in front of our chests, “Your hands dancing in an intuitive harmony the space carved into a stage.

You the visionary, the architect and your chest the projector, the space celluloid and your hands the actor.

The space in front, an empty page and your hands like ink weaving and swinging, scripting plays bending thin air into each scene each frame a page from your elaborate play.

The actors mould thin air into meaning as they cut and sew light into sound to hear what you want to show.�

I plead you not to look away?

I have a lot to show on the space in front of my chest the ever so beating heart: the glorified knell the tactile soundtrack to our silent play I plead you not to look away?

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DON’T BE SPINELESS, BUY A REAL BOOK Words by Olivia Edmonds

In my mind, there is absolutely no question of the physical book’s ability to beat the E-book in any physical or metaphysical altercation. Besides the fact that a Kindle’s measly translucent glass could never be a worthy opponent for a leathered hardcover, there are a multitude of reasons for why the physical book is indomitable. Sure, you may have heard this argument before; the new versus the old, the economics behind books for your buck, the ‘it is just so convenient when I’m travelling’ argument. Whilst these are valid, there are just some aspects of curling up with a book that remain irreplaceable.

I am of the strong belief that books should not become untouchable, sacrosanct artefacts, to be preserved for the sake of preservation. For me, as much as a story can mould the reader, the reader too can mould the book. Physical books are an acute expression of the dichotomy between the tangible and imagination. The very pages themselves hold memories: every household owns a cookbook with sticky pages on the pancake chapter, or smatters of icing binding together the Barbie and the Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake

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recipes. These leftovers between the pages are memories themselves, perhaps more poignant even than the buttery words of Nigella.

Much of my home library has become a vestige for these memories. In my copy of The Half Blood Prince, my 13-year-old self scribbled a shell-shocked “NO!!! ☹:(” in the margin besides the passage outlining Dumbledore’s death (spoiler alert, but also c’mon it has literally been 15 years). On my shelf, along the spine of Fantastic Mr Fox, are tiny beagle shaped teeth marks from our first family dog.

For my twenty-third birthday, a friend gifted me a novel with her favourite lines lovingly underlined. To this day, my parents continue to write messages in the front endpaper, wishing me a Merry Christmas. Re-reading reveals books that have been so lovingly dogeared over the years, the lines are now permanently embedded in the pages. The countless times I have moved has not prevented me from lugging along boxes of cheap paperbacks, of which most have pages holding on for dear life.

I have cringe worthily left price tag stickers on books, purely because they

are in a different currency and remind me of the places I have visited. Sometimes, for a thrill, I keep the sticker on to remind myself of the joys of inflation, but mostly because I will always remember when and where I have read a good story.

Alone in an unknown place, a physical book can be a truly comforting thing.

Books read by the sea become yellowed and wrinkly. As you absorb the words, they absorb the sun and salt. A stray train ticket from a trip to visit an old friend may nestle itself between pages. A coffee could have stamped your copy of Gone Girl as you sat in an empty airport at 3am waiting for a flight home. Perhaps a book was so good you opted for backpacking with it for 3 months, risking the extra luggage fee, over parting with it. Because of this, a book is so often my favourite souvenir.

book club - becomes a briefly uniting experience. Books passed down from your parents to your own kids become treasured heirlooms.

You will never see me buy a Kindle, because emailing a link to a friend is simply not the same as tying a red ribbon around 1984. You will never see me buy a Kindle because reading Rainbow Fish to your little cousin just isn’t the same without the reflective shiny scales for them to paw at. You will never see me buy a Kindle, because I want to hold stories close and feel the weight of the author’s words in my hands.

Plus, a real book never runs out of battery.

Printed books have the dreamy ability to captivate your senses. For book lovers, there is no better sight than the colourful well stocked shelves of your local bookshop. The simultaneously saccharine and mellow smell of fresh books is tantalising and evokes a Pavlovian response in every reader. The sound of a hefty hardcover’s spine cracking as it’s broken in is the shotgun that signals the beginning of a new narrative.

In a world where we are bombarded by blue light, there is no better respite than between the covers of a new book. Vibrant stacks of books besides your bed are a positive reminder of the perspectives you are yet to encounter… whilst also serving as excellent nightstands. Novels begrudgingly studied in high school become nostalgic relics of a distant past. Passing a book between friends - at even a failed

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VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE VELDTFLARE Words by Taylor W

Claire was her name, the girl at the mud-covered truck, the one who wanted to lean on in it but hesitated, the one who was alone; and she was looking through the dirtied tempered glass which might had never been cleaned in all its life, looking at the baskets of clothes and boxes of food and of belongings, all hers her father’s and her son’s, nothing of Gam’s, and the sun was beating down on the glass and beating down on her and bouncing off the red hot ground, and she sighed and spat on the floor and looked at the wood-grime house which for a hundred odd years had withered in that the light of lights. She saw it not knowing if it was the very last time she would see it at all or if perhaps it had been the very first, just as one sees that in all their life along they never once til now really ever saw their friend in the face, only all too late, with the blood gone and the blinkings stopped, born anew but deftly ever constant.

She approached and with the three wooden steps came the three familiar creaks. Jars of a deathly stench hung from the rafters and held in their

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orbit clouds of wretched flies. The shade of the veranda was perceptibly cooler but mattered little-to-none.

Claire jammed open the screen-door and it seemed to cry as she had entered it.

The place was bare but always was.

The front room was immediate, dozens of eucalyptus landscapes and a singular framed summer ocean, Gam on the splint-wood chair with loose blues folded round her waist and chest. In her arms was Claire’s child in a big pink hat.

—Muah, said her son, — Maaah.

—Hello my love, hello.

—You’re back, said Gam. —Back and gone and back and gone.

She turned to better face the standing blonde, aching and mostly unable to. A sunbeam separated them and seemed to divide the very room into segments. The child reached for his mother; broke the beam; babbled further and again.

—Gam I think it’s time for us to leave.

—No, no.

—Muah.

Claire approached them. — Come here baby.

—I got the boy.

—I’ll hold him it’s okay, hello baby.

—Hi.

—We really, Gam, are you listening to me?

She was looking out the window again, always looking, staring at or for something which no one else could ever know. —I go where Father needs me, she said.

—Well I’m bout to talk to him too and I think it’s time for all of us . . .

—Clay, said the man behind her.

He was six-foot-nine and obscured partly by the header of the anteroom’s frame. Claire turned to see him clean shaven as always and impeccably dressed whilst her son rubbed and clung upon her neck and chin and face.

—We’re going, said Claire, —we need to leave.

—I told you already I wouldn’t say this again.

—Dad . . .

—Yuddaburra needs the Lord’s surety and I am the surety of the Lord, we are not going anywhere.

—I’ve been into town, I’ve been online and I’ve seen the fire maps I’m telling you we need to go, we’re going we need to go.

—Father knows, said Gam.

—I have seen the Will of the Lord and this town will be untouched, for we are blessed by waters the likes of which no fire can uncleanse.

—If it hits us, there may not be

time to get Gam out, are you listening to me?

—You speak in ‘ifs’ and ‘mays’ but the Divine language leaves no room for doubt, said the Reverend. —You panic over nothing don’t you see? If you must flee then flee, we will go nowhere, such as the Lord commands on us . . . and when you and my blood of Christopher should crawl back upon our unscathed sanctuary, we will welcome you, as always, with arms outstretched, such as the Lord commands on us.

—Muah.

—Wait baby . . . Gam I, Gam will you listen to me?

—What rests in Father’s hands is all, what rest is rest.

—She is not yours to take, said the Reverend.

The front door buckled as a man upon it smacked three times.

—Hello? said Macintyre. — Hello, Reverend?

—I’m . . . leaving, said Claire, one hand holding her child as the other wiped the sweat which with time alone would intensify, that is, to speak not even of those other flames. —I’m leaving and I’m taking the truck.

—Mac, come in.

—Thank you, how are you, Father?

Claire slithered past. While looking at a tree, Gam mistook a leaf for a pale green bird. She was smiling at it, although the sun had dimmed.

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by Gemma Rose

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I want to reserve my kisses for peaches. And lips that I have never tasted.

The circle of wine glasses and cups of tastes I’m new to.

Honey I’m waiting for my next love I heard it in her laugh.

Her fall to the floor In the empty and hollow And darkest sky shore Different colours of acrylic have many meanings of the scenes they paint. I’m seeing lavender oil separate in bath water.

Caressing the curves of bodies.

The residue of orange that leaks from the red fire sparks and candle glow. I wait for it to be traced onto me, like pollen from Sunflowers.

Saliva of new lovers on cheeks and butt cheeks and fingers As I taste the merengue I bake you before it sets The lemon merengue pie baked with Lemons from my mother’s backyard; the recipe from my grandmother Generations of love learnt and mixed together.

Blanket forts with many shades of pink and gold. How many homes can exist for me to hold her.

You? And hands on faces and air that held there between two faces for the first time like an aged fine wine.

It will be the perfect time I’m looking for a shadow of past love For only in the absence can I empty and feel full again. Draw this settled bath water.

Only in the cold can I open my heart to heat again So free me of Lukewarm love and wild fire friendship.

Because baby we both deserve to sizzle in amber’s ember.

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biting into peaches

by Gemma Rose Biting into peaches Leaks full moon’s glow Down my chin In the stars I fall within.

Biting into peaches Leaves my hand reaching out for connection Your company aection I hardly held her eyes that night But marbles still collected Building up inside my pockets And my dreams they were dissected Pulling me down Rooting a tired anxious kite to the ground Streamer caught in the wind Tissue paper separates My sins they are skinned And leave them soaked in the lemon tea that is the song of her voice and company Darling come back to me Biting into peaches Her pointed corners Smudged like ash around her eyes

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Biting into peaches I would linger In the absence of the air she swallowed But every time I happened to, I placed my heart in warm clay And my flesh it moulded as I reached forward And parts of me started yearning Yes, I may know that I fancy her But what really entices me Is how she makes my weak spots feel comfy Darling come back to me Biting into peaches Rust growing around certain chakras In your terror it bewitches Biting into peaches The core of me is ripe and juicy The house is piling corners that were cracking,

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REVIEW: THE FIRST LAW TRILOGY Words by Jialun Qi

Being a sucker for mainstream media, I choose my reading material from Top 100 book lists found on the internet.

I am also a sucker for character-centric fantasy, where the story is stuck on the shoulders of the protagonist(s), and rarely moves away from their immediate surroundings.

The First Law trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie, has this sucker covered.

Its complete disregard for world-building and complex plotlines is excellent for the contemporary fantasy reader. Generic story beats, generic medieval-ish setting, generic plot twists, even generic foreshadowing – boom – get it over with, no stress.

I like the generic-ness because I don’t wanna have to squint at an idiotic map to know where everything is. I don’t wanna waste my time trying to understand some made-up culture with made-up customs. I don’t want a compendium of five hundred fictional medieval lords and know who ruled where. No thanks, George R. R. Martin.

This trilogy cuts out all that junk and leaves you only with character exploration, and all of them are deeply

56 56

unpleasant in the most pleasant way.

You’ve got the torturer, the mass murderer, the wimpy little bitch, garden variety megalomaniacs…You will have trouble sympathizing with any of them.

What keeps the pages turning, really, is your delight in watching the characters suffer. Read enough of their suffering, and you start to feel sorry for them, but not nearly as much as they are sorry for themselves.

You know how every day you have to suffer through work you don’t like, chores you hate, bills you can’t pay, and uni stuff you have to pantomime?

The suffering in this book dwarfs all of that, and you feel great after reading it, since you’re like, Man, I know my life sucks, but at least I’m not scum like these people.

The narrative style is clipped and quick, geared for action, and there is a lot of action. Head-chopping stuff, too. In fact, there may be too much head-chopping.

The snappy prose is blisteringly fast, but when chapter after chapter is just descriptions of the anatomic minutiae of head-chopping, even light-speed reading can’t sustain this reader’s interest.

The book tries to mix it up by having some melodramatic political drama on top of the melodramatic character drama.

At first you’re like, I wanna get back to the action and the suffering, but by the second book you’ll be addicted to all the fake politics like how some people are addicted to Question Time.

The third book degrades into pages and pages of action, and it is a bore, like a restaurant with one signature dish that’s very good, so you keep going back for it, but it doesn’t have anything else to offer.

So, even though the dish is great, you stop enjoying it.

how their world works, they are staying in-character.

Which makes the occasions when they do monologue absolutely bizarre. Imagine, out of nowhere, the most reticent character suddenly explaining the rules of duelling in a scholastic dissertation.

It’s like a brick of exposition delivered squarely to the temple.

This gets worse as the series goes on. The author kind of runs out of patience for nuance and just hammers the story beats out. Which is OK, I guess, since there wasn’t much nuance to begin with.

Do I recommend it?

I ended up skimming the pages just to reach the final resolution, in which the characters either stop suffering by dying or continue to suffer by living.

There are a few truly 10/10 action setpieces, though. One at the end of the first book, a lot of them in the second… and none in the third, even though it has the most action. Yeah, the third book is bad.

As for everything else….

I know I said I hated lore, but the lore is almost too bare bones here, and nothing could be done to improve it, since everything is a trope and there is no depth by default.

If you enjoy well-written action scenes, then yes. If you enjoy a veneer of political intrigue in your fantasy, then sure. If not, then probably not since that’s half the story.

But I would suffer through all of it again just to read the torturer chapters; the prose randomly slips into first-person every other sentence, like the book is going crazy (unreliable narration, blah, blah). It is the cheapest of tricks, but I like cheap things, and I like tricks. In moderation, at least.

7/10.

Characters rarely monologue on lore stuff. Because by not giving a shit about

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POETRY WITH A TWIST

BY FELIX ELDRIDGE

58

A TWIST OF FATE Fate A term used in jest by those on the ascent and in sadness by those on the wane A term curdled in bitterness, cruelty and pain A term upon which forbidden love is stifled A term upon which people’s independence is trifled A term representing those shackled to a path they have not chosen A term synonymous with those whose opportunities have been frozen A term portraying a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more A term that encompasses those who stare hopelessly into the Universe’s gaping maw A term predicating the existence of some higher power that directs us as they please A term lamented by those suffering from hardship, loss and disease A term that I will use to deflect flak; When I get my bad Admin Law results back

FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE First they came for my carpet, and I did not speak out because I didn’t need the carpet.

Then they came for my chair, and I did not speak out because I didn’t need the chair.

Then they came for the bed and I did not speak out because I didn’t need the bed.

I hate my cats.

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VIRTUAL CLASSROOM

BY ADELAIDE MCELHINNEY

Dark. Light. War. Peace. Chaos. Order.

Binary opposition, the teacher says.

Related words with opposite meanings, the teacher says.

The privileged word is always first, the teacher says.

It should be light/dark, peace/war, order/ chaos, the teacher says.

But what if I’m a villain, I say.

A villain wouldn’t put order before chaos, I say.

It’s convention, the teacher says.

What about Iago, a student says.

What? The teacher says.

Which way would he put it, the student says.

Convention, the teacher says.

Why’d he do it, the student says.

He doesn’t say, the teacher says.

He mentions adultery, I say.

He mentions promotion, I say.

Searching for excuses, the teacher says.

Then why, the student says.

He refuses to tell us, the teacher says.

Maybe there is no reason, the student says.

Maybe he’s just racist, I say.

He’s definitely racist, the teacher says.

Wouldn’t be the first time, I say.

What? The student says.

A black was persecuted, I say.

IOr have been asked a Muslim, I say. to write a piece on Italian culture.

I could have written Won’t be the last, the student says.

If this were modern he’d be in the KKK, I about fooda or music,play, classics when say. talking of culture – or perhaps some Or a Nazi,cultural the student says. However, peculiar practices.

He calls an uppity n--, I say. you the Othello reader probably know most of Cough, the lecturer interrupts. this already: Italy is not the least known In Shakespeare language, student agrees. country in Adelaide – andthe even if you did You can’t say that word, the teacher says. not know, a quick Google search would Even in a any historically accurate context?

I say. saturate demand of such culinary, Even then, the teacher says. musical or traditional information about He kills Desdemona, the student says.

Italy.

Iago? I say

25TH OF APRIL: LIBERATION DAY

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Words by Roberto Rossi

Othello, the student says.

For cheating, the student says.

She didn’t cheat, I say.

He thought she did, the student says.

An honour killing, I say.

There’s no honour in killing, the student says.

Sometimes there’s honour, I say.

There’s no honour in murder, the student says.

In battle there’s honour, I say.

Desdemona’s a non-combatant, the student says.

Yes, I say.

There’s no honour in killing Desdemona, the student says.

I know, I say.

You called it an honour killing, the student says.

It’s what they call it, I shrug.

Is death ever honourable, the student says.

In battle, I say.

What about Seppuku, the student says.

Maybe, I say.

It’s a matter of perspective, the teacher says.

I don’t think death is honourable, the student says.

Never? I say.

It’s messy, the student says.

What about after, I say.

After? The student says.

You know, life after death, I say.

Reincarnation? The student says.

Heaven, I say, or Valhalla.

It’s a matter of perspective, the teacher says.

Beep, the computer says.

Remember to log in next week, the teacher says.

Close programme, I say.

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Pop quiz!

Which novel was not published in 2020?

A. ‘Red at the Bone’ by Jacqueline Woodson B. ‘Topics of Conversation’ by Miranda Popkey C. ‘Exciting Times’ by Naoise Dolan D. ‘Real Life’ by Brandon Taylor Which of these characters is not a protagonist from a Jane Austen novel?

A. Elizabeth Bennet B. Catherine Morland C. Lucy Honeychurch D. Fanny Price Which Indigenous Australian author won the 2019 Miles Franklin Prize for her novel ‘Too Much Lip’?

A. Tara June Winch B. Melissa Lucashenko C. Alexis Wright D. Sally Morgan Which of these novels is under 1000 pages?

A. ‘It’ by Stephen King B. ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ by Alexandre Dumas C. ‘Ulysses’ by James Joyce D. ‘Infinite Jest’ by David Foster Wallace Which famous author does not make an appearance on The Beatles’ 1967 album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’?

A. Oscar Wilde B. Truman Capote C. Aldous Huxley D. Edgar Allen Poe Send us an email (onditmag@gmail.com) with your answers. The first person to get all the correct answers will win a prize!

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