Drusilla Modjeska
Autor/a de The Orchard
Sobre l'autor
Drusilla Modjeska is an Australian writer whose previous books include Poppy & The Orchard. (Publisher Provided) Drusilla Modjeska is an Australian author who wrote Second Half First, which made the Victorian Premier¿s Literary Awards 2016 shortlist in the Nonfiction category. (Bowker Author mostra'n més Biography) mostra'n menys
Obres de Drusilla Modjeska
Visitants: Text Classics 1 exemplars
Obres associades
Etiquetat
Coneixement comú
- Nom normalitzat
- Modjeska, Drusilla
- Data de naixement
- 1946-10-17
- Gènere
- female
- Nacionalitat
- Australia
- Lloc de naixement
- London, England, UK
- Llocs de residència
- Papua New Guinea
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia - Educació
- University of New South Wales (PhD)
Australian National University - Professions
- writer
editor
Membres
Ressenyes
Llistes
Premis
Potser també t'agrada
Autors associats
Estadístiques
- Obres
- 17
- També de
- 3
- Membres
- 794
- Popularitat
- #32,083
- Valoració
- 3.8
- Ressenyes
- 17
- ISBN
- 42
- Llengües
- 1
- Preferit
- 2
Alas, while Exiles at Home is interesting enough, it didn't help much with that. Modjeska, IMO, misrepresented Dark's novel as dealing with ‘women’s experience’, because it focussed on maternity and the psychology of motherhood (Loc 4458). Though I'm prepared to concede that perhaps today's greater awareness of mental health has influenced my opinion, I don't think that was the novel's major focus at all. As you can see in my review, I thought that Dark was primarily interested in how the mental health of her central character was always under question (because she was a woman who had been gaslighted) yet the collective madness of WW1 and the hysteria that surrounded it, was never questioned.
Exiles at Home is, as Judy Turner wrote in the first paragraph of her (paywalled) 1982 review for the ABR, primarily a political history of women's writing in the 1920s and 1930s. It barely mentions the literary qualities of these women's writing, because Modjeska was interested in feminist politics rather than literary developments. It ascribes the biggest influence on these writers to the conservative, nationalist Australian critic Nettie Palmer.
Perhaps like Judy Turner whose words imply discontent, I wanted this book to be more than it was. I wanted literary criticism of women writers which certainly at the time was in short supply if the reference books I have are anything to go by. But what Modjeska delivers instead is an assertion of the significance of women writers in the interwar years. Which makes it all the more obvious that the token literary criticism there that there was, had failed to grasp a significant literary movement. She interrogates women's fiction to see if they were writing about political issues that affect women rather than just the 'domestic' issues that marginalised women's fiction for so long. Part of that was redefining what 'domestic' issues are...
[Would anyone today suggest that Eleanor Dark's exposure of the way women experienced mental health services in Prelude to Christopher, was a 'domestic issue'?]
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/02/01/exiles-at-home-australian-women-writers-1925...… (més)