The Best-Sellers of James Hilton
Old people, or at least older people, people like me, have a certain sheaf of things we tend to bang on about: the ignorance and ingratitude of the young, the decline in standards, reading, spelling, manners, culture in general, and so on. If we write books we are sometimes faced with the problem of what happens to a piece of writing (a novel perhaps) when it becomes a piece of seeing (a film or a television series). Of course you can always say no, but that doesn’t seem to happen often because of vanity, natural curiosity and (of course) money, that magic dust that can be turned so easily into things we want.
There is a rule we want to enunciate, we writers, that good books make bad films and conversely that bad books … It isn’t true as a rule, but it often is true.
Good books are often long. Proust—a television series in a hundred parts? Yes, there has been something, but in a much shorter compass. I haven’t seen it; the general verdict is not favourable. Ulysses…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins