Damaged Men: The Precarious Lives of James McAuley and Harold StewartBest known as the founding editor of Quadrant, an unrepentant Cold War warrior and an advocate of the sanctity of Christian marriage, poet and polemicist, James McAuley, is shown here to have had darker traits which escaped the limelight. The biography also explores his many links with Harold Stewart and what turned this writer, critic and habitue of Sydney's bohemian world, into a rabid hater of his native land. Why did he choose to spend the last 30 years of his life in self-imposed exile in Japan. |
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academic ADFA MSG233 Alec Hope Amy Witting Angry Penguins artistic ASOPA August Australian author's collection Bando became Boismenu Buddhist Catholic Chinese Christian Church claimed communist Conlon culture decade Devil and James Donald Horne Dorothy Auchterlonie dream English Ern Malley essay faith folder 85 Fortian friends Green Papers Guénon Guinea H.M. Green haiku Harold Harold Stewart Harris Harry Hooton Hermes Hetherington Heyward Papers Hobart Honi Hoonji Hooton Hope Papers Horne Papers intellectual interests interview James McAuley Japan Japanese Jim's John Cotter Kerr Kubuna Kyoto later LaTrobe Library Letter to G Letter to McAuley Letter to Michael literary living Marion Riley Masaaki Masamato McAuley's Melbourne mental Michael Heyward modern MSPA never Noblet Norma McAuley collection poems poet poetic poetry political Porlock Quadrant reading recognised Santamaria Shirakuso Similarly spiritual Stewart Papers Street student Tasmania tradition Trakl verse whereas writing young
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Page 111 - Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.
Page 111 - Unmeasured measure of immensity; The nails that pierce his hands and feet make fast The axis of the world, his outstretched arms Give falling nature its stability. Now is the three hours' darkness of the soul, The time of earthquake; now at last The Word speaks, and the epileptic will Convulsing vomits forth its demons. Then Full-clothed, in his right mind, the man sits still, Conversing with aeons in the speech of men.
Page 83 - The world is waiting for a new faith— especially the youth of the world is waiting for a new faith. The old institutions, the old parties, are dead at the roots: they receive no refreshment. The young men and women stand apart, indifferent, inactive. But do not let us mistake their indifference for apathy, their inactivity for laziness. Intellectually, they are very wide awake.
Page 77 - ... insensible of absurdity and incapable of ordinary discrimination. Our feeling was that, by processes of critical self-delusion and mutual admiration, the perpetrators of this humorless nonsense had managed to pass it off on would-be intellectuals and Bohemians, here and abroad, as great poetry. Their work appeared to us to be a collection of garish images without coherent meaning and structure; as if one erected a coat of bright paint and called it a house.
Page 142 - Note. This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my particular friend : we often read the Bible together in its infernal or diabolical sense which the world shall have, if they behave well. I have also the Bible of Hell which the world shall have whether they will or no.
Page 80 - Petit Testament In the twenty-fifth year of my age I find myself to be a dromedary That has run short of water between One oasis and the next mirage And having despaired of ever Making my obsessions intelligible I am content at last to be The sole clerk of my metamorphoses. Begin here: In the year 1943...
Page 76 - ... and Jacks and Hanses are not observed people transformed. They are just made up. They are not projections of Mr. Harris's imagination on real people he has met but projections of Mr. Harris upon himself. The result is that Mr. Harris himself never comes to life either. It is all in the dream world. Had the writer's ability matched his conception we should have had the picture of a living man. As it is, we have a Zombi, a composite corpse, assembled from the undigested fragments of authors Mr.
Page 75 - Various writers have used the stream of consciousness technique for telling a story. Mr. Harris's stream of consciousness has as many tributaries as the Amazon. Baudelaire gave us an example of the artist as the analyst of his own moral sickness. Mr. Harris is morally sick and discusses his symptoms with the gusto of an old woman showing the vicar her ulcerated leg.