<
https://theconversation.com/witchcraft-and-fascism-collide-in-jane-rawsons-imaginative-new-novel-175641>
"
Review: A History of Dreams - Jane Rawson (Brio Books)
In an age of polarisation, it’s instructive to return to the late 1930s, in the
lead up to World War II, when the far left and far right were energised and
prominent. In Australia, we tend to think that Nazi sympathisers didn’t exist,
or were never significant, but in fact there were documented events in Adelaide
and Katoomba that revealed fervent support for Hitler’s rise to power.
Contemporaneous left-wing papers suggested, sensationally, that there were
10,000-20,000 Nazis in Australia. There were, at least, 177 paid up members of
the Australian Nazi Party and many more sympathisers across the country, with
an enthusiastic group in South Australia.
A German Club in Adelaide celebrated Hitler’s 50th birthday in 1939 and support
continued throughout the war, with multiple parties held for Hitler’s birthday
in 1945, just weeks before the Nazi defeat.
A History of Dreams was inspired to some extent by Nazi enclaves in South
Australia, but as Rawson has said “it’s also really about here and now”. It is
a surprising, uncategorisable book: part historical novel, part speculative
fiction.
In this, it resembles Rawson’s second novel
From the Wreck (2017), which was
also set in South Australia. The plot of
From the Wreck circles around the SS
Admella, which sank in 1859 and was famously eulogised by poet Adam Lindsay
Gordon. Rawson took a real event and grafted a sci-fi narrative onto it –
namely, the story of a shape-shifting alien, who becomes a life-long obsession
for one of the shipwreck survivors."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
