AustLit

'An essay is both diagnosis and symptom. When placed in a collection, removed from its original context, an essay shifts its weight from the first category – describing the world – to the second – now elevated by its new companions, contributing to the apparition of some grand pattern. Along with the enlargement of the author’s name, from by-line to organising principle, so must the ideas enlarge to justify the new arrangement of material.' (Introduction)

'At the beginning of this wide-ranging collection of criticism by the novelist, critic, and academic Anthony Macris, the author notes wryly that an early candidate for the book’s title was Personality Crisis, such is its diversity of topics and styles. The implication here is that reviews and essays form a kind of autobiography. I’m not sure I would use the word ‘crisis’ to describe it, but certainly the portrait we have in this case is of a writer driven by very different kinds of curiosity: about literature and writing but also the art forms that lie beyond them – and, as centrally, by a social and political curiosity about the ways those forms change when they respond to the world around us.' (Introduction)