Meanjin vol. 70 no.3

Reliable as ever, Melbourne-based literary journal Meanjin delivers a solid range of reading materials for the literary-lover in its latest issue, covering topics as diverse as porn in mainstream society, women in literature, and the death of Osama bin Laden.

In ‘Justin Bieber and the Image of My Terrifyingly Inevitable Death’, Brad Nguyen argues we should appreciate the Bieliebers (crazed Bieber fans). If we disregard their youthful hysteria and dedication to various auto-tuned songs, Nguyen suggests the irrational hatred Bieber tends to engender in the older set points more to our own insecurities than that of the tweens we’ve been raising. There’s also some weirdly appropriate Bieber portraits in the opening section of the piece, as if to remind us that if we stand in a wind-tunnel sideways for long enough, we may just achieve the same hair style as a pre-pubescent millionaire.

Jeff Sparrow (editor of Overland) recounts an odd kind of break-up story in ‘After Osama, what next?’ After the West ‘ended it’ with Osama bin Laden, Sparrow quickly pinpoints the extreme double standard that tends to typify situations where the West wants to be proven morally right, but history shows them up for hypocrites; namely, the contrast between the treatment of bin Laden and those tried in Nuremburg.

Julieanne Lamond covers vastly different ground; the ongoing struggle for women to make headway in literary fields. There’s certainly enough literature around documenting the standard feminist troubles and historical documentation of women’s frustration, with a key example being the patronising reception given to Miles Franklin’s My Brilliant Careerupon publication in 1901. However Lamond also raises the question of more insidious problems regarding how women’s writing is viewed – how and why the Miles Franklin Award continues to be overwhelmingly dominated by men, both in shortlists and prizewinners. There’s also the ongoing – and enduringly frustrating – assumption that ‘women’s literature’ (whatever that is) cannot be taken as seriously as anything written by a man. It’s a question that’s popped up more regularly of late, and here Lamond has enough space here to mine women’s literature and explore the ongoing question of how ‘Australia’ can be configured within the confines of a work of fiction.

The poetry and short fiction in Meanjin is, as always, suitably generous and disarmingly adventurous. Rebecca Giggs’ story ‘The Office of Icebergs’ is an intriguing blend of environment as war space, science as an imperfect faith with fallible human interpreters, and denial as an art form.

Lorelei Vashti’s article entitled ‘Return to Istanbul or Shit, I Don’t Fit’ covers an experience familiar to most people who go on exchange – that bewildering no-man’s land where a person successfully learns how to assimilate into a different culture, only to discover they’ve locked themselves out of complete inhabitation of either native country or foreign homeland. It’s the kind of fluid writing that’s fresh and jumps off the page, and makes for a stark contrast against the more structured prose that is generally displayed in other Meanjin essays.

Meanjin tends to lead the pack rather than follow it, and as such there are too many recognisable names in this issue to really mention here, but... oh what the heck, here’s a few anyway: Thomas Keneally, Bruce Dawe, Les Murray, Helga Leunig, Lindsay Tanner and Dave Graney. Meanjin is a catalogue of both the latest and greatest – if you don’t read it at least once, you’re missing out on a literary icon of more than 60 years standing.

Meanjin vol.70 no.3, September 2011
Editor: Sally Heath
Poetry Editor: Judith Beveridge
Deputy Editor Zora Sanders
Design and Production: Jenny Grigg
Melbourne University Press, $24.99 RRP
meanjin.com.au