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Outsider Architecture : The Literary Constructions of Eve Langley
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 13 no. 2 2013;'Outsider architecture references a continuum of unofficial constructions, from the tenuous envelope of found materials that a homeless person folds about themselves nightly, to the compellingly precarious sculptural artefact, painstakingly but illegally built, in a front garden or on public land. One way that the homeless deal with their vulnerability to harsh weather, psychological disturbance and lack of privacy is the construction of ad hoc shelters from found objects and recycled rubbish. These shelters represent one form of outsider architecture. Roger Cardinal notes that another form is the idiosyncratic construction of sculptural assemblages, also, typically from recycled materials, to form architectural structures, modified dwellings, landscaped areas, collections, monuments and shrines that seem to pop up in most cities, or anywhere there are people (169). All over the world, homeless people seek to provide at least temporary shelter for themselves, and at the same time, a certain number of people, sometimes the same people, engage in personal projects of construction in which the expression of individuality is as, if not more, important than physical containment or shelter.
'This article will consider the work of one author, Eve Langley, as a form of outsider architecture and will suggest that the physical entity formed by Langley’s novels, as a manifestation of outsider architecture, provided their author with the hope of psychic shelter when she wrote them. Langley wrote at a time in which it was difficult for a woman to succeed as an artist, or to support herself financially. As well, she experienced a dysfunctional marriage and suffered from uncertain health. Despite these difficult conditions, she wrote compulsively, sending manuscripts, one after another to her publishers, long after they had stopped publishing her work.
'Yet, the large body of unpublished manuscripts in the Mitchell speaks of more than the mental ill health that is frequently associated with Langley. Consideration of the debates active within the literary community of New Zealand at the time Langley was writing, and the nature and content of, in particular, her novelistic oeuvre, suggests that Langley may have been writing at least partly in response to local literary voices. Despite her peripatetic lifestyle and solipsistic tendencies, Langley was part of the community of writers living in New Zealand in the mid-twentieth century. Her writing was supported and criticised by it, and undoubtedly shaped by it. This article will consider the part this community played in Langley’s writing, the dual aspects of vulnerability and strength, feelings of alienation and centrality, exhibited in Langley’s authorial choices. By examining Langley’s body of work through the lens of outsider architecture, Langley’s prolific literary output in the face of a largely negative reception may be seen, not so much as the sign of a loss of control, but as a strategic, if eccentric, construction of an authorial presence.' (Author's abstract)
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Invisible, Unacknowledged, but Ubiquitous : Nan McDonald Joins Angus & Robertson
2013
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Telling Stories : Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012 2013; (p. 77-83) -
'Gold Leaf and Tinsel' : Theatricality and Performativity in Eve Langley's 'Bancroft House'
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 72 no. 1 2012; (p. 184-197) 'In the opening pages of Eve Langley's best-loved work, The Pea-Pickers (1942), Eve and her sister June adopt male names, showy masculine attire, and "[u]nder the dark interest of the travellers around [them]" board the train for Gippsland (11). The theatricality and performativity of "Steve's" actions in these pages is maintained at a high pitch throughout the novel and, in fact, throughout Langley's novelistic oeuvre. Steve (and Eve in the later novels set in New Zealand) is a highly theatrical character, and as such, her representations often suggest those acts and practices most typical of theatricality: "role-playing, illusion, false appearance, masquerade, facade, and impersonation" (Davis and Postlewait 4). The contradictory manifestations of excess and emptiness are frequently associated with the theatrical; theatricality is often defined as an excess of expressive means (that may need containment), but it is also commonly viewed in terms of an artificiality that invokes that which may not exist, or may not be true (Davis and Postlewait 4). In her well-known formulation of performativity, Judith Butler argues that repetition of a discourse actually produces the phenomena that it seeks to control (xii). In Langley's novels, the performativity of her narrator is expressed not just in speech acts but also in what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick calls the "minimal, in fact non verbal, performative utterance" (xvii). (Author's abstract)
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Archive of Desire : The Souvenir in Eve Langley's Australian Novels
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue vol. 11 no. 1 2011; (p. 1-10) 'In the six novels that Langley sets in Australia, that is, the two published ones and her first four unpublished manuscripts, Langley's narrator Steve travels widely through the countryside of Victoria, as an itinerant field hand and self-styled rover. She regularly returns to her mother's house and on these visits home she invariably brings with her evidence of her adventures. In this essay I explore the nature and employment of these souvenirs. The souvenirs archive Steve's day-to-day life away from her mother's house, but in doing so, as distancing devices, they assert a reconfiguration of the social space of that house. This, then, raises questions regarding the social landscape both within and beyond the house.' (Author's abstract) -
Alternative Eves
1999
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Hecate , vol. 25 no. 2 1999; (p. 164-179)
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White Topee
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: The Cairns Post , 14 August 1954; (p. 3)
— Review of White Topee 1954 single work novel -
Untitled
1955
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 14 no. 4 1955; (p. 577-582)
— Review of The Sun in Exile : A Novel 1955 single work novel ; The Shiralee 1955 single work novel ; White Topee 1954 single work novel ; Keep Him My Country 1955 single work novel ; The Mudflat Million 1955 single work novel ; The Careless People 1955 single work novel ; The Fury 1954 single work novel ; Sowers of the Wind : A Novel of the Occupation of Japan 1954 single work novel ; Pink Flannel 1955 single work novel ; The Mirage 1955 single work novel ; Undercurrent 1953 single work novel ; The Long Beat Home 1954 single work novel -
A Tract of Life
1989
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , October no. 115 1989; (p. 5-6)
— Review of Nettie Palmer : Her Private Journal Fourteen Years, Poems, Reviews and Literary Essays 1988 selected work poetry prose criticism review autobiography biography ; The Pea Pickers 1942 single work novel ; White Topee 1954 single work novel ; But Not for Love : Stories of Marjorie Barnard and M. Barnard Eldershaw 1988 selected work short story -
Untitled
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: Voice , December vol. 4 no. 1954; (p. 27-28)
— Review of White Topee 1954 single work novel -
The Burning Red Log
1954
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 21 August no. 36401 1954; (p. 11)
— Review of White Topee 1954 single work novel -
Archive of Desire : The Souvenir in Eve Langley's Australian Novels
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , Special Issue vol. 11 no. 1 2011; (p. 1-10) 'In the six novels that Langley sets in Australia, that is, the two published ones and her first four unpublished manuscripts, Langley's narrator Steve travels widely through the countryside of Victoria, as an itinerant field hand and self-styled rover. She regularly returns to her mother's house and on these visits home she invariably brings with her evidence of her adventures. In this essay I explore the nature and employment of these souvenirs. The souvenirs archive Steve's day-to-day life away from her mother's house, but in doing so, as distancing devices, they assert a reconfiguration of the social space of that house. This, then, raises questions regarding the social landscape both within and beyond the house.' (Author's abstract) -
'Gold Leaf and Tinsel' : Theatricality and Performativity in Eve Langley's 'Bancroft House'
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 72 no. 1 2012; (p. 184-197) 'In the opening pages of Eve Langley's best-loved work, The Pea-Pickers (1942), Eve and her sister June adopt male names, showy masculine attire, and "[u]nder the dark interest of the travellers around [them]" board the train for Gippsland (11). The theatricality and performativity of "Steve's" actions in these pages is maintained at a high pitch throughout the novel and, in fact, throughout Langley's novelistic oeuvre. Steve (and Eve in the later novels set in New Zealand) is a highly theatrical character, and as such, her representations often suggest those acts and practices most typical of theatricality: "role-playing, illusion, false appearance, masquerade, facade, and impersonation" (Davis and Postlewait 4). The contradictory manifestations of excess and emptiness are frequently associated with the theatrical; theatricality is often defined as an excess of expressive means (that may need containment), but it is also commonly viewed in terms of an artificiality that invokes that which may not exist, or may not be true (Davis and Postlewait 4). In her well-known formulation of performativity, Judith Butler argues that repetition of a discourse actually produces the phenomena that it seeks to control (xii). In Langley's novels, the performativity of her narrator is expressed not just in speech acts but also in what Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick calls the "minimal, in fact non verbal, performative utterance" (xvii). (Author's abstract)
- y Reality and the Shadow: The Adventure of Identity in Twentieth-Century Australian Women's Fiction 1989 Z203224 1989 single work thesis
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Oscar Wilde in Eve Langley's White Topee: The Transvestic Origins of the Australian Self Made Man
1996
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , Spring vol. 56 no. 3 1996; (p. 102-114) -
Italian Immigrants in Australian Fiction 1900-1950
1993
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 16 no. 1 1993; (p. 67-78)
- Gippsland, Victoria,