Classic Australian Short Stories [antikvár]

Introduction IX pii !Tc; : ¦ I I I' 1 In this selection of thirty-eight Australian short stories the editors have attempted to represent diversity in structure and style, illustrating the variation in literary trends in the his- I , torical development of this genre. While any collection will naturally, to some extent, reflect the tastes and literary views of the editors, each of these stories is a classic in the sense that it has won recognition within and beyond a period or 'school'— beginning with the pre-Lawson era represented by writers such as Price Waning and concluding with moderns such as Barry Oakley, Frank Moorhouse and Peter Carey. While literature can, and in exceptional cases does, transcend national boundaries, distinctive literary traditions do evolve from the cultural heritage of individual nations. The Australian short story in this century has been concerned principally with revealing human behaviour in quite ordinary situations, although it has not been without dramatic incidents and dexterous plots. Often the characters portrayed are brought to life more by the familiarity of their situations than through contrived anecdotes. The perception of writers like Henry Lawson, Gavin Casey, Alan Marshall and Elizabeth Harrower tends to magnify the subtleties rather than the dramatic aspects of human behaviour, while the latter are masterfully handled by such authors as Katharine Susannah Prichard and Patrick White. Either way, these short-story writers have a touch on character which is devastatingly sure. The short story is a most demanding literary form. What to the novelist is the most precious element in his work—the ordering of events to establish a rhythm corresponding to the rhythms of life—can be a nightmare to the short-story writer, who is all the while trying to economize on the scene-setting so as to quickly reach some glowing centre of action from which past and future will be equally visible. Yet the short story is—for both the writer I' . I. 1 ' I 'l .: ' : t ' r - . . I and the reader—probably as satisfying as it is demanding, for the I i, ' i ' '^rii iM'v