#14: "As I grew older" by Ian Abdulla
Apr. 5th, 2009 09:45 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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50books_pocAs I grew older: The life and times of a Nunga growing up along the River Murray, by Ian Abdulla (Omnibus, 1993)
I'm... not sure about this book. But that's not about the paintings or the text (neccessarily), just about the presentation.
Abdulla's paintings include text, but on each opposite page in this book the text is corrected (grammar and spelling) and expanded, and it's that about which I'm not sure what to think. The copyright information mentions only Abdulla: no editor is credited. There's no real way to reconcile this dilemma - if the expanded text was not there, I might feel that the mispellings etc were being highlighted. And yet I feel the same as it is.
There is no plot to this book; no story. It is, in essence, a collection of Abdulla's paintings, all around the topic of his childhood on the Murray. While the text describes a difficult life, where sources of income (whether river-rat skins or empty bottles) were of prime importance, the paintings are bright, full of life and hope and happiness. The most striking is the one reproduced on the cover, of the rodeo at Berri. It's the only one at night: the only one with a black sky dotted with stars.
I love his way of painting the riverbanks, the trees half-way between smudged and spackled.
I would want anyone reading this to go into it aware that it is not really a children's book with a plot (even though it is undoubtedly marketed as such) but the sort of book one might find at an art exhibition. At the back there is a map noting where each painting is set, and discussing Abdulla's methods.
NB: "Nunga" is the "broad" language group term for indigenous peoples from the general area of what is now the state of South Australia.
I'm... not sure about this book. But that's not about the paintings or the text (neccessarily), just about the presentation.
Abdulla's paintings include text, but on each opposite page in this book the text is corrected (grammar and spelling) and expanded, and it's that about which I'm not sure what to think. The copyright information mentions only Abdulla: no editor is credited. There's no real way to reconcile this dilemma - if the expanded text was not there, I might feel that the mispellings etc were being highlighted. And yet I feel the same as it is.
There is no plot to this book; no story. It is, in essence, a collection of Abdulla's paintings, all around the topic of his childhood on the Murray. While the text describes a difficult life, where sources of income (whether river-rat skins or empty bottles) were of prime importance, the paintings are bright, full of life and hope and happiness. The most striking is the one reproduced on the cover, of the rodeo at Berri. It's the only one at night: the only one with a black sky dotted with stars.
I love his way of painting the riverbanks, the trees half-way between smudged and spackled.
I would want anyone reading this to go into it aware that it is not really a children's book with a plot (even though it is undoubtedly marketed as such) but the sort of book one might find at an art exhibition. At the back there is a map noting where each painting is set, and discussing Abdulla's methods.
NB: "Nunga" is the "broad" language group term for indigenous peoples from the general area of what is now the state of South Australia.
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