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Inez Baranay
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- published
by Collins Imprint in 1990
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ISBN 0 0207 16681 1
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Pagan
is brilliantly written. As well as being very readable, it offers
a highly intelligent analysis of the themes of Australia's 20th
century cultural history set around a story that was to grab the
imagination - and the tabloids - of the country in the way Azaria
Chamberlain was to do more than 20 years later. ... Baranay is one
of the most talented writers to emerge for some time. She has a
great sense of character, an acute mind which ranges through art,
music, philosophy, politics and literature, and a profound and
insightful comprehension of the dynamics of human behaviour. She
also has a savage and urbane wit and a rare ability to evoke human
tragedy in the most understated of ways.
- The
Advertiser, June 10, 1990
Baranay
skilfully brings the full weight of historical perspective to her
account of the 1950s antipodean happenings. ... The real strength
of Pagan, however, lies in its structural complexity. The novel
is a narrative tour de force. Baranay uses techniques which exist
at the outer limits of discontinuity, offering a multitude of narrative
viewpoints and voices. The risk of this approach, of course, is
that not all the narrative personae will be credible, but Baranay
doesn't falter. Even when using the unusual second person singular
to present Eveleen Warden's early years, the narrative remains
arresting and convincing.... Her open, inclusive style challenges
the narrow, authoritarian attitudes of the society she portrays...
- Editions,
(Sydney) March/April 1991
On the
simplest level Pagan fictionally re-creates the life of Rosaleen
Norton, the 'Witch of the Cross', who attracted the attention of
the media during the 1950s... the narrative focuses on a series
of events related to Norton's involvement with Sir Eugene Goossens,
one time conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, events which
rocked Australian cultural circles and resulted in his arrest ...
The scandal and conjecture surrounding [this] arrest provides much
of the interest for the novel.... But Pagan works on a number of
different levels as well. It's concerned with exposing the parochial
and puritanical nature of Australian society and the evil associated
not so much with Evvi's witchcraft but with the narrow-mindedness
of the Australian public and the vindictiveness directed towards
anything different or remotely threatening: reffos, European cafes,
'poofters' in white socks, artists, musicians and witches. ... Pagan
is also about the creative instinct and the fine balance between
the intellect and the imagination, the conflict between the desire
to surrender completely to natural harmonies and the power of the
intellect to discipline the mind. Music is referred to in similar
terms as Evvi's mystical trances. ... It works well as a fictional
recreation of a fascinating life and...challenges many of our
preconceptions about ourselves.
- Australian
Book Review
Pagan
works on several levels simultaneously. It chronicles a society
in transition, contains a moving evocation of young love, and tries
to unravel the circumstances of the Goossens scandal of reputed
orgies and pornographic photographs. the novel also deals with the
feminist tradition of Wicca - witchcraft - and the highs and lows
that individual live can encompass.
- The
Sunday Herald June 3, 1990
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