Pixelated Semantics

A schizotypical inventory

Something dark this way comes

Brisbane-based author Andrew McGahan's acceptance speech for the Miles Franklin award puts forward the kind of dangerously truthful perspective that seems to have been absent from the mainstream arts and media for the last 9 years:

"... Australia is on the verge of something very dark socially and politically, and in response to that there has to be, and there always is in times of social oppression if you want to call it that, the arts always flourished under that oppression and react against it in outrage and protest. I really think that not just novels, but all sorts of arts [...] is going to get quite angry, quite bold and quite fierce and be better novels for that."

When reportedly asked if the nation's leaders should "watch out", he replied:

"I doubt they'd be scared of a bunch of writers but it might add up over the years, so they should be."

A view, (hopefully evidenced by much of the writing on this site), that this writer is in wholehearted accord with. This is not art for art's sake, after all - almost every day there are cultural and social reversals from the ascendancy of a "religious right which continues to press the government on conservative and symbolic reforms that have little or no impact on reality".

Item posted by AutoEditor at 11:12 am ::