Entry #248
- Listening to:
- Shostakovich, 24 preludes, op 34. Played by Tatiana
Nikolayeva, for whom Shostakovich wrote his later 24 preludes
and fugues.
- Just read:
- Granta 70: Australia, the new New
World (contents
page). This issue of Granta has a good sub-title. I'm
sure I get onto this with most people I know at one stage or
another (and bore them to death, no doubt). Australia and New
Zealand are a lot "newer" than the Americas: their
colonisation by Europeans happened much more recently (post
1840 in the case of New Zealand). Of course, all of these New
World countries had existing inhabitants, but on acknowledging
this, I can also say that New Zealand was the last major piece
of land to be inhabited by anyone. The Maori only arrived in
New Zealand 800-1000 years ago. Maori oral history includes
the story of their arrival, and names the great navigator who
discovered the country, Kupe. Contrast this with oral history
in Australia and the Americas; in both places the first
inhabitants arrived on the order of 20000 years ago.
Unsurprisingly their oral histories don't tell the story of
their arrival, they assume that they've been there
forever.
Anyway, this special, bigger-than-normal issue of the magazine
is full of good writing. I don't think much of the editor's
excuse for not including any Aboriginal writing, but what's
there is mainly excellent. There's an extract from Peter
Kelly's True history of the Kelly gang, which
recently won the Booker
prize, and quite a bit of other fiction. There are also
interesting non-fiction pieces, individuals reflecting on some
aspect of their interaction with Australia. I found the
account of a Darwin-based journalist tracking down an
Aboriginal artist who lives in a very isolated camp in the
tropical jungle particularly good.
Finally, it's clearly worth mentioning Peter Conrad's piece, just so I
can deny its relevance to my personal situation. He
left Tasmania in the 1960s, confident that he would never
return, to go to university in England. He's now an Oxford
academic. He's interesting about Tasmania and how restricted
and stultifying he thought it. He's probably absolutely
right, but it still comes across as rather patronising.
I've been playing quite a bit of the game
Stronghold recently.
It definitely appeals to the sand-castle builder in me. The various
scenarios that I've had to progress through have also been very
artfully designed to make me want to keep playing as more and more
neat capabilities are gradually opened up. I've recently been able to
build crossbowmen as well as archers, and I'm now in the middle of a
scenario where I get to build my own catapults to try and take out
another castle on the same map. (Hitherto, the focus of the scenarios
has been defensive.) Some other reviews:
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