Varun Ghosh (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to pay tribute to a prince of Australian literature. Earlier this year, Peter Rose retired as the editor of the Australian Book Review after 24 years at that helm. During his tenure, Peter edited nearly 250 issues of the magazine, and more than 1,500 writers have benefited from his deep understanding of culture and language as well as his vision for Australia's literary landscape. As Professor Frank Bongiorno has observed:

If we think of Australia in imaginative, cultural, and creative terms … Peter's stewardship of ABR must be considered a formidable national contribution.

One of Peter's most important attributes as an editor was his deftness in crafting and shaping language. He brought—to borrow some of his words—a poet's attention to language to the job of editor. Unshowy and humble in outlook, Peter had a light and improving editorial touch. Literary critic and Yale professor Harold Bloom, in his book How to Read and Why, observed:

Literary criticism, as I have learned to understand it, ought to be experiential and pragmatic, rather than theoretical. The critics who are my masters—Dr. Samuel Johnson and William Hazlitt in particular—practice their art in order to make what is implicit in a book finely explicit.

'Fine' is an apposite word for Peter, reflected in the precision of his editorial incisions and grafts, the gentle manner of his delivery of this guidance, and the space that he created for writers, particularly new and young writers, to find and write in their own style and voice.

I had the privilege of writing for the ABR under Peter's guidance. I remember with fondness the hint of a wry grin that would form on Peter's face when I pitched him a bad idea. It would then disappear, just before he guided me away from folly—gently, of course. I have lost count of the number of emails I have received from Peter with some variation of these words: 'Dear Varun. Thanks for a good review. Here's my light edit. Regards, Peter.' What joy! His style of editing gave me the confidence to take risks with my writing at times, and he always made my copy better, editing with that generous and minimalist spirit. I'm sure countless other Australian writers have had similar experiences and have benefited likewise.

Another of Peter's attributes is that he loves literary criticism. Book reviewing is often an unloved art, yet, with nuance and care and occasional riposte, Peter supported, defended and celebrated the place of critical writing and critical writers in Australia. As Peter observed in an interview:

I think the great critics are as immediately distinctive and recognisable as say a jazz singer or a trumpeter or a great opera singer … the critics who excite me and whom I certainly look for at ABR are the ones with an individual voice, individual phrasing.

He could also be intolerant of those who sought to take cheap shots at Australian critics, describing one such diatribe in these terms:

What a cliched, ungenerous and discreditable overview of book reviewing in this country, with its sentimental and predictable coda about mythic Manhattan standards … They—

Australian critics—

do not deserve to be derided in such an idle and pusillanimous fashion.

Of course, editing a literary magazine is not easy. In his 1946 essay, 'Confessions of a book reviewer', George Orwell noted the challenges of editing magazines:

Nearly every book is capable of arousing passionate feeling, if it is only a passionate dislike, in some or other reader, whose ideas about it would surely be worth more than those of a bored professional. But, unfortunately, as every editor knows, that kind of thing is very difficult to organize.

It is a credit to Peter that he took the responsibility to organise it seriously. He created opportunities for and supported Australian writers, particularly young writers. Money is important for young writers, particularly in Australia, where arts funding remains too low and where writers are paid too little for their work. Peter was exercised by this.

Deploying his astute financial sense and nuanced understanding of human nature, he set about seeking private funds to increase ABR's rates for writers and to expand the scope of the magazine and thus give it capacity to give young creatives more space to flourish. The additional funding, alloyed to Peter's audacity and imagination, has seen the magazine expand from its literary foundations to broader cultural pursuits. ABR Arts now offers critical pieces on music, theatre and other creative fields.

ABR is also home to generous prizes and programs, including the Calibre Essay Prize, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize, the Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize, and writing and editorial fellowships. Each of these initiatives creates opportunities for writers today, and, under Peter's stewardship, the magazine has actively sought to discover and promote new Australian talent, not just relying on or rewarding established or existing writers.

Adjacent to the edifice that Peter built at ABR sits Peter's own creative work, which includes five poetry collections, two novels, a memoir and countless reviews. His memoir, Rose Boys, won the National Biography Award in 2003, and is centred around his family. Peter's father, Bob Rose, played football for Collingwood, and was a legend as a player and a coach at the mighty Magpies. He was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame in 1996, and, at Collingwood, the Most Courageous Player award, which was created in 1991, is named in Rose's honour. Four of Bob's brothers also played for Collingwood.

Peter's brother Robert showed promise as a cricketer and as a footballer, until a car accident left him a quadriplegic at age 22. Rose Boys describes the jarring impact of the accident and its aftermath on the Rose family. By turns sentimental, observant and unsparing, the book details the challenges of a family dealing with a young man whose spinal injury changed the nature of his life and of the lives of his partner, his parents and his brother. The book also explores the experience of a young and successful sportsman, part of a family with a rich sporting history, who had significant aspects of his identity and future suddenly taken away. With characteristic perception, Peter examines not only the enormity of what had been lost, but also the value and the poignancy of what was left. Describing a reunion of Robert and his Collingwood teammates, Peter wrote:

I was struck, as always, by their invincible camaraderie. Nothing had changed over the decades: the tales and tunes, the harmony and hyperbole. How sane they were, and affable. I thought what an extraordinary boon it had been for them joining Collingwood in their teens, instantly forming dozens of friendships, and retaining them for the rest of their lives. … there was something profoundly innocent, even boyish, about these men as they poured late beers and slapped each other on the back, I felt they knew something about kinship and contentment that poets didn't.

For all his attributes in prose, Peter is foremost a poet. I am not qualified to comment on his poetry, but it tickled me that his first collection of poems, titled The House of Vitriol, upset his parents because they thought the title referred to Peter's childhood home. It actually referred to the parliament. I close on two passages from his poem 'Different voices' that seem appropriate both to that title and to this place. The first is:

Do not doubt

that somewhere in heaven

feeble-minded bureaucrats

remember our trespasses fondly.

The second is:

Cynicism came to dinner the other night.

Exquisite manners; no appetite.

(Drinks like a fish!)

Thank you, Peter, for your contribution to Australian literature and for your many kindnesses to me.