In addition to reviewing new Johnsonian publications, we are particularlykeen to review in he Southern Johnsonian books of Johnsonian or generalinterest written by JSA members. We reviewed Nick Hudson's Modern Australianusage in the last issue. Here, we present a review by Paul Tankard of anothermembers, Peter Ryan. The work is Lines of Fire: Manning Clark and OtherWritings. Clarion Editions (Sydney, 1997).
Peter Ryan is well-known in Australia as a publisher (24 years as directorof Melbourne University press) and as a columnist (most recently with TheAge and Quadrant). He has been a member of the Johnson Society of Australiasince soon after its inception.
This selection of 40 of his essays and reviews has a Johnsonian feelto it (I counted eight mentions or quoters from Johnson: Johnsonians willalso recognise the name of Ryan's cat). Ryan, like Johnson "readslike a turk", and the subjects of his review are, as Johnson saidof his early reading, "all literature, Sr...all manly;" whichmeans, not novels. History, literary scholarship and biography seem tobe his favorites, and he uses the review form to show how the books havestimulated his own memory and imagination. His articles about notable contemporaries,such as Sir Paul Hasluck and A.D. Hope, are generally reminiscent, enlivenedby his own private knowledge.
The same characters appear and re-appear, and the book is virtuallya kind of biography. We get a portrait of a lively and critical intelligence,sceptical and forthright, impatient with cant and cowardice. he writesas an informed and thoughtful amateur, and is impatient of the professionals(most academics and school-teachers) who today control access to knowledgeHe champions te need to be apart from the crowd in order to reads, evento think, and reviews Anthony Storr's book about solitude, The School ofGenius. The only forms of "exercise" Ryan indulges in are "walkingand riding - both activities which combine well with observation and reflection."(Can we imagine Johnson going to a gymnasium?) His pugnacity is also demonstratedin the opening piece, an extract from his memoir of his gruelling wartimeexperiences in Papua New Guinea.
The book has been produced, on imagines, partly to capitalise on thecontroversy aroused by Ryan's articles about the work of Manning Clark.As the publisher of Clark''s six volumes of A History of Australia, Ryanhas some severe things to say about the work's style and tone, accuracyand selectiveness.
However bad-mannered such iconoclasm may appear, Ryan asserts that noneof his substantive criticisms have been answered by the academic apologistsfor the late historian. All three articles are here, and readers may judgefor themselves. The selection and introduction are by A.K. Macdougall,who runs Clarion Editions, and has produced a handsome and well-made book.A signed deluxe edition (hardbound in buckram) is also available from thepublisher.