Michael Connor is an Australian writer, critic and historian.
The Follies Bizarre -
political theatre in Australia
Is Australian political theatre bad? Of course it is.
Why? Read the horror story in The Follies Bizarre,
published in Quadrant magazine, March 2008.
[READ ESSAY]
Error Nullius
My book, The Invention of Terra Nullius, suggested that what the historians and lawyers have taught us about terra nullius is wrong.
How did Australia's elite historians and lawyers defend themselves? The pack attacked with errors and shoddy arguments.
Watergate was a moment when truth and falsehood collided. Nulliusgate was a moment when Australia's cultural elite covered up falsehood and error with more falsehood and error.
Read "Nulliusgate" and listen the Introduction to The Invention of Terra Nullius here.
How to invent a massacre
It's easy. Abuse chronology, ignore context, accept any evidence without scepticism - at least that is how it was done in Victoria.
The Convincing Ground near Portland is now recognized as being the site of a massacre which took place in 1833 or 1834. A mistake has been made - but no-one cares.
"Convincing Ground: a history" looks at the documentary evidence which has been abused and tortured - but no-one cares.
The Convincing Ground is the site of a modern tragedy - and no-one cares.
[READ ESSAY]
The Politics of Grievance
The Politics of Grievance is an unpublished Australian history thesis/book which examines three milestones in the evolution of our liberal democratic nation - the events around an 1819 petition claiming both political rights and good capitalist freedoms for the young colony, the ‘Dinnerist Crisis’ of 1825, and the Sudds Thompson Case of 1826.
Along the way it offers some healthy revisionist history. William Wentworth was not the author of a book which bears his name. The colony was not divided into ‘emancipists and exclusives’. That tiresome man Chief Justice Francis Forbes was an oath breaker, behaved rather deviously in the Sudds Thompson Case, and possibly acted improperly or illegally in a particular land deal.
And how much do we know of our history when we get both terra nullius and ‘exclusives and emancipists’ wrong?
[SAMPLE CHAPTERS]
Fiction
This is a collection of unpublished fiction.
‘An Academic Death’. Each time I submitted this for publication I changed the geographic locale. I thought this would make it more interesting for magazine editors. That was probably a mistake.
One southern state editor replied that my story had been vetted by the magazine’s legal advisers, and they advised against publication. I was shocked to think that they thought there was someone wandering about who was as frightful as my invented heroine.
'Goodbye John Howard' is a Chokoville character sketch.
'The Very Worst Secret'. The basic idea for this could be true.
'The Ship of Fools' is an extract from an unpublished comic novel called South. This episode tells how the Menzies government awarded leading Australian intellectuals travelling fellowships and sent them to Europe. The name of the ship they chartered was changed from Sans Souci to The Liberation of Australia and these two chapters recount what happened next. Within the novel the episode is used to dispose of an unnecessary character - some may think it unfortunate that I had to bump off our leading writers and artists to do so. Others may breathe a sigh of relief.
Theatre
When I lived in Algeria I wrote a play. The only theatrical agent I had ever read about was the great Peggy Ramsay, who was Joe Orton's agent. When I went to London on holidays I sent her a copy of my play. She invited me to her office.
It was a wet day. It was raining. I wore a roll neck white pullover and a trench coat, with the collar turned writerishly up - it was the seventies.
Miss Ramsay gave me tea, and advice. She told me to write what I knew about. I could never really decide whether that was very good advice, or very bad.
Books! Books! Books!
The Invention of Terra Nullius
was a publishing sensation! It was doused with some of the worst
reviews ever written in Australia. Not surprising really - it was
reviewed by the very people it criticised. There are serious problems
with the old history and this book looks at some of them - and it's not
a bad read.
Copies of the rare first edition are still available.
Buy The Invention of Terra Nullius online here or here.
Pig Bites Baby! Stories from Australia's first newspaper is social history, and a glorious excursion through Nativity Sydney. One snobbish academic reviewer of The Invention of Terra Nullius disdainfully suggested I must have learnt to write by compiling this collection. I was delighted - to be compared with Sydney Gazette editors
George and Robert Howe is a wonderful compliment. Sometimes I wonder
why academic historians hate our history so much - while amateurs love
it so much?
Pig Bites Baby! is history without too much historian. This is how the ancestors themselves saw their fascinating, tiny new world.
Buy Pig Bites Baby! online here.
More Pig Bites Baby! is the
second volume in the series. It moves on to cover the Macquarie years
and, comparing the two books, you can see Australia growing and
changing. All the time, from the very beginning, there was something
typically Australian in the humour, and the enduring beliefs in
individualism, private property, and British rights.
Buy More Pig Bites Baby! online here.