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"We all live secret lives. During the day, we're hardly aware of them. We don't let ourselves see them. Only in the night do they come into their own, our secrets, the pictures running through our heads. Not language. Pictures. Pictures that make us tense up and groan out loud. Nightpictures.
"Sailor drifts through Venice. He is haunted by nightpictures, his most precious memories, that leave him fearful, shuddering, close to ejaculation.
"His affair with Dieppe is meant to be 'pure l'erotisme'. No kisses, definitely no falling in love.
"Dieppe has memories that haunt her, too. As their sexual relationship plays itself out amid the crumbling walls of Dieppe's shabby apartment, the verbal and sexual collide. Stories become confessions, and sex a kind of absolution.
"But some stories should never be told...
"Explicit, provocative and disturbing, Nightpictures is Rod Jones' most commanding work to date." (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
-
Sex and Literature
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 61-80)'In the arts generally and in literature in particular, depictions of sex are never a mere representation of life-they are more like a substitute for it, an alternative to it. They often express desires which cannot find fulfilment in reality, and thus are entrusted to the imagination by which, for all their 'baser' nature, they are turned, or sublimated, into something more acceptable to society, something that can appear on a canvas or a sheet of paper and relieve the artist's, as well as the viewer's frustration.' (p. 61)
-
Transgressions
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 39-59)'All serious art breaks the rules-there can be no innovation without some form of transgression. Yet the breaking of rules is not enough to produce serious art, and while the very focus of erotic writing seems to invite transgressions, these are not necessarily liberating or creative. When transgressions lie for the most part in the subject-matter, their translation into literary break-throughs is problematic, and they can in fact be undermined by writing that is bland, conventional and predictable. Literature, it bears perhaps repeating, is not the thing itself but a representation and thus a re-creation of it. Modes of representations are always ideologically loaded and, while the contemporary period has invented very little in terms of sexual practices, it has been able to innovate significantly in terms of representational practices. It remains to be seen what kind of articulation can be found between the two.' (p 39)
-
Erotic Writing in Australia : Then and Now
2001
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Changing Geographies : Essays on Australia 2001; (p. 269-277) -
Circean Joys
2001
single work
review
— Appears in: Quadrant , January-February vol. 45 no. 1-2 2001; (p. 117-118)
— Review of Nightpictures 1997 single work novel -
All About Sexual Relationships
1999
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 13 no. 2 1999; (p. 125-127)
— Review of Nightpictures 1997 single work novel ; The Pillow Fight 1998 single work novel
-
Explicit Sex Scenes
1998
single work
review
— Appears in: The Courier-Mail , 14 February 1998; (p. 8)
— Review of Swallowing Clouds 1997 single work novel ; Nightpictures 1997 single work novel -
A Freedom that Lets Us Melt into the Unknowable Future
1997
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 21 December 1997; (p. 22)
— Review of Nightpictures 1997 single work novel -
Hello, Sailor
1997
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 31 December 1997; (p. 7)
— Review of Nightpictures 1997 single work novel -
In the Bed of Night
1997
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22 November 1997; (p. 10s)
— Review of Nightpictures 1997 single work novel -
Life-in-Death in Venice
1997
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 197 1997-1998; (p. 39-40)
— Review of Nightpictures 1997 single work novel -
Transgressions
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 39-59)'All serious art breaks the rules-there can be no innovation without some form of transgression. Yet the breaking of rules is not enough to produce serious art, and while the very focus of erotic writing seems to invite transgressions, these are not necessarily liberating or creative. When transgressions lie for the most part in the subject-matter, their translation into literary break-throughs is problematic, and they can in fact be undermined by writing that is bland, conventional and predictable. Literature, it bears perhaps repeating, is not the thing itself but a representation and thus a re-creation of it. Modes of representations are always ideologically loaded and, while the contemporary period has invented very little in terms of sexual practices, it has been able to innovate significantly in terms of representational practices. It remains to be seen what kind of articulation can be found between the two.' (p 39)
-
Sex and Literature
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Messengers of Eros : Representations of Sex in Australian Writing 2009; (p. 61-80)'In the arts generally and in literature in particular, depictions of sex are never a mere representation of life-they are more like a substitute for it, an alternative to it. They often express desires which cannot find fulfilment in reality, and thus are entrusted to the imagination by which, for all their 'baser' nature, they are turned, or sublimated, into something more acceptable to society, something that can appear on a canvas or a sheet of paper and relieve the artist's, as well as the viewer's frustration.' (p. 61)
-
Merchant of Venice
1997
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Sunday Age , 14 December 1997; (p. 9) -
A Sad Picture of Relationships
1997
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times Sunday Times , 21 December 1997; (p. 22) -
Extract from an Interview with Rod Jones and Romana Koval
Ramona Koval
(interviewer),
1997
single work
biography
interview
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , December-January no. 197 1997-1998; (p. 40-41)
Awards
- 1998 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
-
Venice,
cItaly,cWestern Europe, Europe,