AustLit

'Lying in bed one evening, a small boy is entranced by a piece of music on the radio. Listening late into the night, he waits to hear the name of the work. He scribbles it down on a piece of paper—a jumble of misspellings—and takes it to a music shop in the city. The recording is Gitterdiimmerung. In the late 1960s, the same boy, now 12 years old, buys a book on Greek sculpture with money that he has earned working in a milk bar in an outer-eastern suburb of Melbourne. The child grows up to make dramatic images of classical beauty. The boy was Bill Henson.' (Introduction) 

'It is dusk. I stoop below a dark-leafed camellia that droops in the spring rain, crimson petals mark the pavement blood-red. I'm reminded of Alexandre Dumas' consumptive courtesan Marguerite Gautier in La Dame aux Camelias, who announced her availability by carrying a posy of camellias—white for 25 days and red for the other five—these highly prized exotics conveying a secret message to her suitors.'   (Introduction)