Essays: Quicksilver N. Rothwell

• Author: N. Rothwell
• Title: Quicksilver  (6 essays)
  
• Published: 2016
• Trivia: Awarded Prime Minister’s Literary Award Non-fiction  2017
• Trivia: Short List Multicultural NSW Award 2018
• List of Challenges 2018
• Monthly reading planning
• Lists of Awards
• #DealMeIn2018  Jay’s  Bibliophilopolis

Australia:    Essay nr 2:   Quicksilver

1. Theme:  crossing the sacred line
2. European colonization upset the balance of the Australian Aboriginals.
3. Missionaries imposed their belief – colonial administrators imposed order.
4. The title of the book Quicksilver represents the  ancestral powers that were stirred.
5. “…once the sacred, that quicksilver, has been put in play
6. …you can never tell where it will go.”

Australia:    Essay nr 4:    The Mirror that Creates 

1. Theme:  outsiders
2. Rothwell sketches Australia’s foundation
3. …its physical and mental development.
4. It is often the European visitors – D.H. Lawrence or Bruce Chatwin
5. …who are sensitive to the landscape.
6. Australia served as a refuge for writers from Europe shattered by WW II.
7. “Outside eyes determined what Australia…..was felt to be.”

Australia:   Essay nr 5:    What lies Beyond  Us

1. Theme:     the landscape behind the landscape
2. This was the most interesting essay in the book.
3. I learned about landscape literature by Eric Rolls
4. …his book (1981) won many prizes but it is impossible
5. to find a copy of the book…  A Million Wild Acres !
6. I also I learned about the ionic Australian poet Les Murray.
7. He celebrates country virtues in his poems and
8. …has me baffled at times  by the  metre he uses.
9. This is part of  his uniqueness…. metre always matters.
10. He has been tipped to win a Nobel Prize in the future!

Conclusion:

1. My notes include just a few thoughts
2. ….that impressed me in this book.
3. I really enjoyed Nicolas Rothwell’s analysis
4. …of culture and identity in this collection of essays.
5. If there is a weak point
6. ….it would be Rothwell’s  ’round-about’ way of approaching
7. …the central issue in his essay.
8. It took a dosis of patience on my part
9. …to keep reading when I thought:
10. “What does this have to do with Australia?”
11. But I persevered and enjoyed Rothwell’s thoughts.