期刊名称：Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature
印刷版ISSN：1447-8986
电子版ISSN：1833-6027
出版年度：2008
卷号：8
页码：107-120
出版社：Association for the Study of Australian Literature
摘要：Janette Turner Hospital’s fi fth novel Th e Last Magician refl ects her desire to
address cross-cultural injustices created by the structures of modern civilisation
and the subjection of women in masculine ideology. Turner Hospital has
said that the inspiration for the book came from photographs taken of the
Serra Pelada gold mine in the Brazilian rainforest by the South American
photographer, Sebasti.o Salgado. Th e author reveals a disposition towards the
Gothic mode and towards classical dark tales in particular when she has one
of her characters say that these photographs remind her of ‘Dante’s Inferno.
Th e Botticelli drawings’ (Th e Last Magician 48). Salgado’s shocking images
depict thousands of exploited Brazilian peasants descending and ascending
a mineshaft (http://www.masters-of-photography.com/images/full/salgado/
salgado_ladders.jpg). Th ey also evoke notions of the ability of the human
spirit to triumph over adversity. As Turner Hospital puts it, the photographs
show:
thousands of people in Brazil, the desperately poor [. . .] fl ocking to
this mine, which is a vast scar in the earth’s surface [. . .] the whole
range of human emotion is there: desperate need and panic and
greed [but also] these redemptive moments as someone leans to help
another up these precarious ladders out of the pit. (Store 37)
