Margaret Simons
Author of Malcolm Fraser: The Political Memoirs
About the Author
Image credit: Allen and Unwin Media Centre
Works by Margaret Simons
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- journalist
- Nationality
- Australia
- Places of residence
- Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
- Associated Place (for map)
- Victoria, Australia
Members
Reviews
A comprehensive biography of one of Australia's more complex politicians. Well-written, fully researched, Simons situates Wong's "complexity" in our political context with clear-eyed insight. Worth reading.
Organised into four chapters named for the seasons, Six Square Metres is the warts-and-all story of Margaret Simon’s tiny garden in inner-suburban Melbourne. It is not a garden that can conform to expert advice because its location means that there is very little sunlight in the back garden and she is reduced to growing shade-tolerant vegies in raised beds while growing more demanding plants in pots that live on her roof. Many of her plants sulk because they are not only planted in the show more wrong kind of environment – she is always hopeful that she will be able to break the rules of gardening – but also because she neglects them when she is busy. (Simons is one of Australia’s very best freelance journalists. I’ve reviewed one of her books here).
The sulky plants in her garden are due to a combination of what she calls her culpable neglect and general incompetence – but she is unrepentant:
Simons has the same problems as we do with zucchini: the first few humble little ones are a joy to eat, but we soon get sick of ratatouille, zucchini fritters, zucchini cake, and zucchini muffins – and likewise we also don’t care to stuff marrows from when zucchini have been left to grow monstrous and fat like overgrown phallic symbols. (However I don’t feel this way about excess tomatoes or pumpkins, because they store well, and our current crop of excess cucumbers is making an excellent pickle.)
Yet despite these challenges she finds the garden a comfort in a crazy world and she considers herself a failure if she has to buy vegetables from a shop.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/28/six-square-metres-reflections-from-a-small-g... show less
The sulky plants in her garden are due to a combination of what she calls her culpable neglect and general incompetence – but she is unrepentant:
…gardening books are to gardening what childcare books are to babies, pornography to sex, Home Beautiful magazine to housing, and a literal reading of the Bible to Christianity. Counsels of perfection don’t work for me. I am too messy. I am not a fundamentalist. My edges are not clipped; my tomatoes sprawl unpruned and unstaked. (p.5)
Simons has the same problems as we do with zucchini: the first few humble little ones are a joy to eat, but we soon get sick of ratatouille, zucchini fritters, zucchini cake, and zucchini muffins – and likewise we also don’t care to stuff marrows from when zucchini have been left to grow monstrous and fat like overgrown phallic symbols. (However I don’t feel this way about excess tomatoes or pumpkins, because they store well, and our current crop of excess cucumbers is making an excellent pickle.)
Yet despite these challenges she finds the garden a comfort in a crazy world and she considers herself a failure if she has to buy vegetables from a shop.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/02/28/six-square-metres-reflections-from-a-small-g... show less
I'm not one of those who dismiss all politicians as self-serving and a waste of space. I've met too many who genuinely wanted to change things for the better, even if I didn't agree with their choices and/or they didn't always achieve their ambitions. But I'm also not one of the 'Penny Wong fan club' or her 235,000 followers on Twitter. I just think she's one of the most interesting politicians we have, and when one of the best journalists we have in this country— Margaret Simons— writes show more her biography, I want to read it.
Simons bookends the bio with Penny Wong's lack of enthusiasm for its existence. She did not want the book written, though she eventually reluctantly agreed to interviews. Famously circumspect, Wong insisted that her personal life remain private, and consistent with her public persona, though she was willing to own her mistakes and errors of judgement, she also refused point-blank to discuss issues such as the destructive leadership debacle or to reveal any cabinet discussions. Simons had to rely on others to learn that amongst Wong's less well-known political attributes, she has consistently been an astute judge of her leaders, both in terms of their character and their capacity to attract the vote. Simons is even-handed, using multiple sources to unpack the betrayals, but reading between the lines, it's clear that Wong values loyalty and stability. Because that's how you stay in government, and then you can get things done.
Despite these access limitations, Simons has written an immensely readable book, in the notoriously difficult genre of political biography. And in the process, despite herself, Wong came to believe that the book might have some benefits...
Not so much the obvious thing
Simons suggested that as the book came into being, she herself
Simons likens it to an audience responding to a tragic play leaving the theatre with a greater understanding of the human affairs it depicted.
Wong concedes that maybe a book about her career is just a small way in which we can have that discussion about what we hope for and expect of political representatives and the polity, and what we can do better.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/21/penny-wong-passion-and-principle-by-margaret... show less
Simons bookends the bio with Penny Wong's lack of enthusiasm for its existence. She did not want the book written, though she eventually reluctantly agreed to interviews. Famously circumspect, Wong insisted that her personal life remain private, and consistent with her public persona, though she was willing to own her mistakes and errors of judgement, she also refused point-blank to discuss issues such as the destructive leadership debacle or to reveal any cabinet discussions. Simons had to rely on others to learn that amongst Wong's less well-known political attributes, she has consistently been an astute judge of her leaders, both in terms of their character and their capacity to attract the vote. Simons is even-handed, using multiple sources to unpack the betrayals, but reading between the lines, it's clear that Wong values loyalty and stability. Because that's how you stay in government, and then you can get things done.
Despite these access limitations, Simons has written an immensely readable book, in the notoriously difficult genre of political biography. And in the process, despite herself, Wong came to believe that the book might have some benefits...
Not so much the obvious thing
— a high-profile gay person as a role model for others, and 'that meaning something to vulnerable people
Simons suggested that as the book came into being, she herself
... had come to think of it as being about politics itself: how hard it is, the price that is paid in the struggle to make change, and both the necessity and inevitability of compromise, even when — as with climate change — such compromise may do us in.
Simons likens it to an audience responding to a tragic play leaving the theatre with a greater understanding of the human affairs it depicted.
Perhaps they might also grasp the humanity behind the headlines — and what it meant for a person of talent, passion and principle to devote herself to delivering the service of political representation.
Wong concedes that maybe a book about her career is just a small way in which we can have that discussion about what we hope for and expect of political representatives and the polity, and what we can do better.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2019/11/21/penny-wong-passion-and-principle-by-margaret... show less
What a disappointment this petty, pontificating confection is. It showed plenty of promise but quickly foundered as the author became sidetracked in self-serving sophistry.
Lists
Gardening (1)
2022 To-Be-Read (1)
Awards
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Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 19
- Also by
- 3
- Members
- 251
- Popularity
- #91,085
- Rating
- 3.8
- Reviews
- 11
- ISBNs
- 42
- Favorited
- 1