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Notes
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Dedication: for Stephanie.
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Epigraph: 'The trained hand often knows more than the head' (Paul Klee).
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Nothing Simple : The Impossible Object in Alex Miller's The Sitters
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Border Crossings 2016; (p. 167-180) -
Dougald's Goat : Alex Miller and the Species Barrier
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 187-200) 'I would like to open with a proposition, a theory if you like, that, in a great many narratives , there is a place, a site, where they confess, or at least pay some acknowledgement to, the stories they have not followed in order to follow the story that they have. Their roadkil, one might facetiously term it, their rejectamenta, their abject. And it is not just stories, it is concepts as well, even or perhaps especially ethical positions: places, sites, where they acknowledge all that has had to be set aside in order for those stories, concepts and ethical positions to come to be. I do not say that they in any way specify or itemise them, or that this acknowledgement is anything but the vaguest symbolisation - indeed, it is so much a matter of the subconscious that it is hard to see how it could be - although in some cases they can take a pronounced and almost indisputable form. In one of the bold philosophical projects of which I sometimes dream, I would in fact go further and attempt to demonstrate a collateral premise that much of our human ethics are based upon a separation from and rejection - abjection is a better term, since this is a matter of our identity and what we do to shore it - of the animal, and that the animal therefore always haunts, unacknowledged, our ethical reflections. Miller's texts, I suggest, are ethical reflections, and so are haunted in this way.' (Author's introduction 187) -
Like/Unlike : Portraiture, Similitude and the Craft of Words in The Sitters
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 89-100) ''Portraiture is the art of misrepresentation. It's the art of unlikeness. That's why it's so difficult,' the narrator of The Sitters explains early in his fraught and deeply individual account of painting from life (and death). As the work of painting proceeds, he takes the reader into some of the concerns that have come to characterise Miller's fiction: the dense matter of families and origins, the mechanics of desire and the mediations and complications of art. Within this larger frame, this paper will examine the novel's highly specific concern with the labour of writing and painting, the duplicitous and unreliable crafting of words, lines and images, and will focus on its insistence on the unstable doubleness of words, things and selves.' (Author's abstract: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/australian_literature/images/content/conferences/miller_abstracts2.pdf) -
The Presence of Absence in The Sitters
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 78-88) 'In the second paragraph of Alex Miller's The Sitters (1995) the narrator informs us that his memory of Jessica Keal allows him 'to approach the last enigma of my life - my family and my childhood. That cold legacy of silence and absence' (2). Bernadette Brennan's fine essay on The Sitters, in the context of Maurice Blanchot's meditations on death, notes that the narrator never explains 'why his experience with Jessica has given him the energy to begin painting...his childhood' (104). That it does so is indisputable, and Peter Pierce points us in the right direction, in his article on 'The Solitariness of Alex Miller', when he observes that Jessica functions as 'a Wordsworthian trigger to recover past 'spots of time'' (305). The connection between the frame of the entire narrative - and I use the word 'frame' not only to indicate a narrative frame but also in the sense of a picture frame, since this is a novel that foregrounds the connections between literary and visual art, between a novelist creating a character and a painter creating a portrait.' (Author's introduction 78) -
Disestablished Worlds : An Introduction to the Novels of Alex Miller
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 1-28)
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Play with the Problem of Evil
1995
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Summer no. 141 1995; (p. 82-84)
— Review of The House in the Light 1995 single work novel ; Dark Places 1994 single work novel ; Still Life 1994 single work novel ; Billy Sunday 1995 single work novel ; The Sitters 1995 single work novel -
Fiction Not Fully Imagined
1995
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 29 April 1995; (p. C10)
— Review of The Sitters 1995 single work novel -
Portrait of a Relationship Lacks Third Dimension
1995
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 6 May 1995; (p. 13A)
— Review of The Sitters 1995 single work novel -
The Painted Moment
1995
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 29 April 1995; (p. 8)
— Review of The Sitters 1995 single work novel -
Portrait of the Artist as a Man
1995
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 7 May 1995; (p. 10)
— Review of The Sitters 1995 single work novel ; The Rose Crossing 1994 single work novel -
The Solitariness of Alex Miller
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 21 no. 3 2004; (p. 299-311) The article presents an overview of Alex Miller's literary career and development as a writer and examines his six novels published to date. -
Literature and the Intimate Space of Death
2008
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 22 no. 2 2008; (p. 103-109) The essay examines imaginative strategies employed in the attempt to represent the experience of death. Some of Maurice Blanchot's theories about death and dying are utilised to 'negotiate the spaces of absence and death' that inform Alex Miller's The Sitters and Noel Rowe's poem 'Next to Nothing'. -
y
Literary Migrations : White, English-Speaking Migrant Writers in Australia
Wollongong
:
2011
Z1860612
2011
single work
thesis
'In this thesis, I am arguing that [a] false core/periphery binary has made a particular group of migrants ,-those who are white and have migrated from English-speaking countries - invisible - invisible as migrants, that is. For the writers within this group, this leads to a critical blindness in relation to their work and place within Australian national literature. As a critic, however, I look at the work of Ruth Park, Alex Miller and John Mateer and see it is profoundly influenced by their migrant experience. More often than not they write about themes that are typical of migrant writing: alienation, identity, belonging, home, being in-between cultures, history. For a more appropriate, complete appreciation of their work, this thesis argues that it is imperative to go back to the beginning and return the 'default setting' of migrant to its literal meaning.' [From the author's abstract]
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Disestablished Worlds : An Introduction to the Novels of Alex Miller
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 1-28) -
The Presence of Absence in The Sitters
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 78-88) 'In the second paragraph of Alex Miller's The Sitters (1995) the narrator informs us that his memory of Jessica Keal allows him 'to approach the last enigma of my life - my family and my childhood. That cold legacy of silence and absence' (2). Bernadette Brennan's fine essay on The Sitters, in the context of Maurice Blanchot's meditations on death, notes that the narrator never explains 'why his experience with Jessica has given him the energy to begin painting...his childhood' (104). That it does so is indisputable, and Peter Pierce points us in the right direction, in his article on 'The Solitariness of Alex Miller', when he observes that Jessica functions as 'a Wordsworthian trigger to recover past 'spots of time'' (305). The connection between the frame of the entire narrative - and I use the word 'frame' not only to indicate a narrative frame but also in the sense of a picture frame, since this is a novel that foregrounds the connections between literary and visual art, between a novelist creating a character and a painter creating a portrait.' (Author's introduction 78)
Awards
- 1996 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
Last amended 11 Jul 2006 09:09:19
Settings:
- Canberra, Australian Capital Territory,
- Araluen, Braidwood area, Canberra region (NSW), Southeastern NSW, New South Wales,
- Urban,
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