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Notes
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Dedication : 'To Frank Moorhouse for those days'
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Epigraph : 'All these people that you mention/ Yes I know them, they're quite lame/ I had to rearrange their faces/ And give them all another name' [Bob Dylan - from Desolation Row]
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Publisher's note : The Phallic Forest collects Michael Wilding's stories about sex - the ones that could never be collected before. The title story was made into a short movie and its screening at the Melbourne Film Co-op caused raids and prosecution. It was one of the two pieces they cut from his first book.
Nation Review dropped another for its Queensland and West Australian readers. Others appeared in Man, Chance International, Batchelor and Tharunka. Banned, censored, cut and mutilated when they were first written, they are all collected here complete and unabridged.
Contents
* Contents derived from the
Glebe,
Glebe - Leichhardt - Balmain area,
Sydney Inner West,
Sydney,
New South Wales,:Wild and Woolley
, 1978 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
- The Phallic Forest, single work short story (p. 11-19)
- The Image of a Sort of Death, single work short story (p. 20-43)
- The Nembutal Story, single work short story (p. 44-50)
- Dexter Intrudes into the Short Story Embassy but is Deleted from the Book of the Same Name, single work short story (p. 51-53)
-
Don't Go Having Kittens,
single work
short story
'I remember that time travelling down on the Cathedrals Express in the middle of winter, my hands freezing as I tried to clear the windows of condensation to look at the white, still countryside. No heating was on. I’d sat as long as I could, hunched into my coat, the door of the compartment continually being opened and shut by people walking along the corridor and looking in, hoping for a warmer carriage, and then I heard a voice say it would be warmer nearer the engine. So I followed out into the corridor, pushing my way through people going in each direction, standing stamping their feet, curling their palms hopefully round cigarettes.' (Introduction)
- Come Down to the Cottage for the Weekend, single work short story (p. 71-77)
- The Fossil Evidence Re-Run, single work short story (p. 78-81)
-
Like Rat Turds to Me,
single work
short story
'When Bob and Helen moved into the house, Helen probably said something like, ‘How terrible to have such a big house for only two people.’ She would have meant nothing by it, would have felt no unease that in the village there were seven children to a bedroom, and here there were seven bedrooms to each of them, or something almost as ridiculous. She would have meant nothing by it except how wonderful it is to have a huge house; just as her father had used to say how terrible it was that his Jaguar did only twelve miles to the gallon. And at the same time she would have smiled secretly and knowingly to herself – something she had done even before she was pregnant – that soon there would not just be the two of them. Bob rather shambled. He was tall and quite broad-shouldered, but he would lower his head slightly as he walked, and his hair was repeatedly matted and ruffled. He was always running his hands through it in perplexity at some problem – at where to drink next, at how to explain a smashed rear light, at how to bandage a cut leg after falling over a concrete mixer outside a pub. The problem now was how to paint the house, with all its rooms, all grubby.' (Introduction)
- From His Apperceptions of the Terribleness of Things, single work short story (p. 101-106)
- A Month in the Country, single work short story (p. 107-111)
- Laundrom*t Person, single work short story (p. 112-119)
- Buying Jeans in Balmain, single work short story (p. 120-123)
- Emma : Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure : a Collage by Jane Austen, John Cleland, Michael Wilding, Michael Wilding , John B. Cleland , single work short story humour (p. 124-134)
- Tittert*n, single work short story (p. 135-139)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Fictions and Factions
1980
single work
review
— Appears in: Makar , September vol. 14 no. 3 1980; (p. 54-55)
— Review of Pieces for a Glass Piano 1978 selected work short story ; The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story -
Dear Friends, and Others
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: LiNQ , vol. 7 no. 2-3 1979; (p. 112-113)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story ; Familiar Places : Poems 1978 selected work poetry -
Untitled
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: Kunapipi , vol. 1 no. 2 1979; (p. 179-181)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story ; The Tabloid Story Pocket Book 1978 anthology short story ; The Most Beautiful Lies : A Collection of Stories by Five Major Contemporary Fiction Writers: Bail, Carey, Lurie, Moorhouse and Wilding 1977 anthology short story -
Untitled
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: Sand , vol. 20 no. 4 1979; (p. 73)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story -
Untitled
1979
single work
review
— Appears in: Australasian Small Press Review , no. 7-8 1979; (p. 64)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story
-
The Phallic Forest
1978
single work
review
— Appears in: Semper Floreat , November vol. 48 no. 17-18 1978; (p. 40)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story -
Fictions and Factions
1980
single work
review
— Appears in: Makar , September vol. 14 no. 3 1980; (p. 54-55)
— Review of Pieces for a Glass Piano 1978 selected work short story ; The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story -
Untitled
1978
single work
review
— Appears in: The National Times , 14 October 1978; (p. 38)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story -
Untitled
1978
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 9 September 1978; (p. 27)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story -
Untitled
1978
single work
review
— Appears in: 24 Hours , vol. 3 no. 9 1978; (p. 71)
— Review of The Phallic Forest 1978 selected work short story -
Ingenuity in Adversity
1972
single work
column
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 29 April vol. 94 no. 4802 1972; (p. 38-39) A review of the experimental films The Phallic Forest by Kit Guyatt and Michael Wilding, and Good Afternoon by Phillip Noyce.
Last amended 26 Nov 2007 15:43:13
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