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Geoffrey Dutton (1922–1998)

Author of The Australian Collection: Australia's Greatest Books

91+ Works 657 Members 11 Reviews

About the Author

Includes the name: Geoffrey Dutton

Works by Geoffrey Dutton

The Literature of Australia (1976) 55 copies
Colonel William Light Founder of a City (1960) 38 copies, 2 reviews
Russell Drysdale (1969) 33 copies
The Hero as Murderer (1967) 23 copies, 1 review
Tom Roberts 1856-1931 (1987) 20 copies
The squatters (1985) 20 copies
Republican Australia? (1977) 16 copies
Kenneth Slessor (1988) 14 copies, 1 review
City life in old Australia (1984) 13 copies
Out in the Open: An Autobiography (1994) 12 copies, 1 review
Whitman (1961) 11 copies
Patrick White (1971) 9 copies
Sir Henry, Bjelke, Don baby and friends (1971) — Editor — 8 copies
Patterns of Australia (1980) 8 copies
Tamara (1970) 8 copies, 1 review
S.T. Gill's Australia (1981) 7 copies
New and selected poems (1993) 6 copies
Artists' portraits (1992) 6 copies
Andy (1968) 6 copies
Flying low : a novel (1992) 4 copies
Impressions of Singapore (1981) 4 copies
Prowler (1982) 3 copies
Modern Australian Writing (1966) 3 copies
Africa in black and white (1956) 3 copies
Eye Opener (1982) 2 copies
Seal Bay (1966) 2 copies
Selective Affinities (1985) 1 copy
Paintings of S T Gill (1962) 1 copy
A body of words (1977) 1 copy
The Beach 1 copy

Associated Works

Bratsk Station and Other New Poems (1966) — Translator, some editions — 110 copies

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Reviews

Hosted by Simon at Stuck in a Book and Karen at Kaggsy's Bookish Ramblings, the biannual Clubs are a great way to rediscover treasures in your TBR. The rules are simple: we just read a book from the designated year. I've participated in _target="_top">11 of these Club Reads so far and this time round the year is 1970. The week runs from October 14th-20th but I'm a day early because October 14th is the anniversary of the birth of Katherine Mansfield and I'm keeping that date for her.

1970 was a terrific year in Oz Lit. I was too impecunious to buy books in 1970 but I made up for it afterwards. Among my favourites are

And now, also Tamara. It is, admittedly, a rather obscure title by historian, poet, novelist, and author of non-fiction Geoffrey Dutton (1922-1998). In his day he was a prominent figure in the Australian literary scene but maybe not so well-known outside it, and maybe also now forgotten here. He doesn't get a mention in the 2009 edition of Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature, and though he rated considerable column inches in the 1985 edition of the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, Tamara is mentioned only as a love story set in Russia. Which wouldn't have made me want to read it.

Yet this is a book that is maybe more fascinating now, than when it was first published, and since Dutton's fiction doesn't have much of a presence online, this is a longer review than usual...



Tucked into my copy of Dutton's third novel Tamara was a printout of a rather churlish contemporary newspaper review by an academic who shall remain nameless. The caustic framing of the title and the dismissive tone of the review may well have discouraged potential readers if they (a) understood what the critic was on about and (b) took any notice of it. It begins like this:
Sartre has explained the Stalinist repression of non-ideological literature (Babel for example) as an attack on the symptoms of that 'new class' that Djilas foresees of the professional elite.

In 1970 without the benefit of Wikipedia, did anybody know who Djilas was? More importantly, did they know anything about the USSR apart from Cold War propaganda? Dutton did. The dust jacket on my edition tells me that he'd been there himself, in 1966, to attend a festival to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of Shota Rustavelli, the Georgian epic poet, and he'd managed to wrangle some time away from official scrutiny in Georgia and around the Black Sea. His impressions from this trip inspired Tamara.

This is the blurb from the dustjacket:
Angus James, friend of poets, lover of wine, poetry, and the other serious pleasures of living and, incidentally, distinguished Australian agronomist, is in Moscow for a world conference of soil scientists. By a happy accident he finds himself co-opted as Australian delegate at the festival to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the birth of the Georgian epic poet, Shota Rustavelli. His total ignorance of the latter's works in no way inhibits enjoyment or curbs his oratory. And then through the mists of rhetoric and strawberry-tasting wine, he catches his first glimpse of Tamara; black-haired, beautiful, and Russia's greatest poetess. They meet, they love... and the pressures of politicians and ideologues come ponderously to bear upon their idyll.

It is obvious that the Soviets who co-opt Angus know as little about Australia as Australians did about the USSR. It is inconceivable to his Soviet hosts that Angus might not be as devoted to his country's poetry as they are to theirs. (When I was in Russia in 2012, even the shop girls wanted to show off their knowledge of great literature, not just Puskhin and Tolstoy but also the canon of Western greats such as Dickens and Austen.)
'Here, Angus,' said Tamara, 'let us see what these people have on their bookshelves, it will be of interest to your friends in Australia.' Angus could not help finding it touching that even the most sophisticated Russians were proud of the passion for reading amongst their people. [...] She took him past the piano under its white embroidered cover to the glassed-in bookcase, and pointed out Pushkin, Chekhov, a detective story, translations of Thor Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki, Dickens, Steinbeck, Richard Aldington, anthologies of Avkhasian, Georgian and Russian poetry, piles of a fat magazine called Foreign Literature, one volume of which was the whole of Graham Greene's The Comedians, and a volume of Novy Mir entirely taken up by Kinglsey Amis's Lucky Jim. (p.53)

There are allusions all over the place in that paragraph, some of them having different meanings with the passage of time.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/10/13/tamara-1970-by-geoffrey-dutton/… (more)
 
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anzlitlovers | Oct 13, 2024 |
A soft five stars. What a find - in a small country town at a charity book stall for a mere $5! Geoffrey Dutton's book is a journey through 100 great books of Australia's first 200 years under white rule, avoiding poetry, plays, and for the most part short stories - but including anything prose-based, including history and journals.

It's a delicate five stars because a) the book is inevitably dated after 35 years, and b) no-one is going to agree with all of the options. Unfortunately, those 35 years mean an awful lot when it comes to multicultural and gender representative literature. At the same time, Dutton was always of the "new school of thought" and he proactively notes that about a third of the books included deal directly with Australia's Indigenous population or their history.

Nevertheless, with those caveats aside, this is sublime. Each book is given a generous discussion as well as a short excerpt and a biography of the author. Dutton reaches back to the very first settlers, examining the more moral men and women who - unfortunately - were not always heard by those in power during our country's complicated past. He restricts himself to one book per author which, although it means some tough decisions with authors like Thea Astley and Patrick White, allows him to run through a wide spectrum. Importantly, this is a luxurious read, happy to delve into all sorts of areas of the public consciousness, and it reminds me how, even as someone with a university education in literature, my knowledge of my own country's literature is average at best. A worthy find.
… (more)
 
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therebelprince | 1 other review | Apr 21, 2024 |
Geoffrey Dutton was a legend. This is a beautiful collection of colour and black-and-white plates of the depiction of Aboriginal Australians by Europeans in art, ranging from the first settlers and French explorers, through Tom Roberts, Arthur Boyd, and propaganda cartoons, to works contemporary to the book's publication in the 1970s.
 
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therebelprince | Apr 21, 2024 |
Dutton & wife drove 100,000 miles through 45 countries in in 1950s this Vol. 3
 
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FawknerMotoring | Jul 17, 2021 |

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Works
91
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657
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Rating
½ 3.7
Reviews
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ISBNs
86
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