A special 1980 issue of the London Magazine, a respected literary publication, dealing with Australia has come our way with interesting observations about the American influence on the nation .
The magazine had previously devoted an issue to Australia in September 1962 which had included Patrick White's long story A Cheery Soul, a discussion of Sidney Nolan imagery , poems by Judith Wright and Randolph Stow, articles by Ray Matthew and Alan Seymour , a memoir by Hal Porter , the novels of Patrick White , Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll .
The magazine had previously devoted an issue to Australia in September 1962 which had included Patrick White's long story A Cheery Soul, a discussion of Sidney Nolan imagery , poems by Judith Wright and Randolph Stow, articles by Ray Matthew and Alan Seymour , a memoir by Hal Porter , the novels of Patrick White , Ray Lawler's Summer of the Seventeenth Doll .
Ian Ross , who compiled the material for the l980 special , had visited the country in 1955 and l963 . He said that there seemed to be less sense abroad at the start of the l980s of any specific Australian identity than there was in 1962. When he lobbed here in March 1980 to prepare this issue he observed Australia had changed in appearance and habit since his earlier visits .
Australians in 1980 seemed little worried about " marsupial relationships " or problems of national identity. We were closer to California than Britain and our cities were developing along American lines.
Americans were also influencing the way the younger generations of Australians wrote and painted . It was inevitable that Australians looked increasingly across the Pacific or up to Asia rather than to Europe .
Poems in the issue had been selected by Les Harrop, editor of the Melbourne literary journal Helix ; Christine Godden , director of the "adventurous Australian Centre for Photography, " Sydney , had helped choose photographs , which included some of studies by Bill Henson , the subject of controversy in recent times .
The contents attempted to give an idea of what was going on in Australia at the start of the l980s. Gary Catalano suggested a new relationship between painters and the landscape. Poet and academic Vincent Buckley wrote about Australian racing . A former editor of the Sydney Morning Herald J. D. Pringle wrote about Australian communes in a new book . There were articles on theatre, David Williamson's latest play, George Johnston's novels . A colourful, illustrated article about lawless prawn fishing in the Gulf of Carpentaria tells how skippers fire at each other with shotguns and Karumba, in Queensland , is said to be a wild west town full of " fucking misfits", which no doubt would have caused shivering British readers to think twice about moving to the sunny colonies .
Advertisements in the magazine included one for Peter Carey's The Fat Man In History to which he could add more flab by writing about some of the tubby , big jowled Conservatives in Australia , especially in Queensland , not to forget a former certain NSW pollie in America where the food servings are huge . And dear Dame Edna is shown here with a Treasury of Australian Kitsch , said to be a feast of bad taste , her best hat modelled along the lines of the Sydney Opera House. The back and front cover from Shopping Day by Russell Drysdale .
