Friday, September 09, 2005

death of donald horne


I was saddened to read of the death of Donald Horne in the paper this morning. Two coincidences:

(1) Lecture I am to give next Wednesday entitled 'The Lucky Country'
(2) Found bag under car seat this morning containing Sun Books promotional item I bought for a buck a few months ago. It is a mock-up of Horne's book The Permit (1965).

If nothing else we can thank Horne for taking the words 'Australia for the white man' from the masthead of The Bulletin in the early 60s. At least that is the myth (a few months ago I tried to trace the last ever 'Australia for the white man' in the bound copies of The Bulletin at the Bailleau, and I was unable to.)

As well as writing The Lucky Country he also furthered the career of Lillian Roxon via the magazine Weekend and wrote an excellent tome called Looking for Leadership which certainly gave Howard what for. Howard of course had to give some kind of appraisal of Horne, which as usual he did, praising him through gritted teeth.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's astounding how often he grits his teeth if someone dies. Like they did it deliberately or something.

weekend

I just get so tired. I have been extremely exhausted on weekends recently. But it might be because of the heatwaves.  So, see below. Do you ...