The writing is wonderful and the characterization is carefully done but I lost interest in the characters about halfway through.

Why oh why has it taken me this long to discover David Malouf?! He's quickly become one of my favorite Aussie authors. I've not come across many other writers that are able to get inside every single character's heads as well as Malouf. He really gets in there, I felt like I understood every character, from their every motivation and weakness to their sins and ultimate downfalls. His writing is crisp and to the point, Malouf does not waste words. I could just describe the story here, give a summary, but the thing is, I'm not exactly sure what happened. On the surface The Great World is the tale of two men, thrown together in a war prison camp which ultimately leads to their confusing friendship, but really the book is about much more, the families they come from, the places they grew up, but more so the people they are inside. And maybe they alone know the other, but I'm not even sure the story is about all that. All I know is that I loved living in Malouf's words for a brief bit, and I cannot wait to go back into the worlds he creates.

Malouf deserves the Nobel.

I’m working my way through all Miles Franklin Award books and this is one of the better ones. I was a bit sceptical about the way this book supposedly tracked war experiences, but the more powerful aspects of the story line centred around class divides and economic divides that are still a big part of Australian society today - many very likeable and believable characters who interact but have very different realities.

This book was a setwork for my final year at school. Why on earth would you set this as a text for teenagers? I shake my head. Maybe I should have just taken the regular course for 16 year olds instead of the advanced one.
I loved this book, especially as I obviously didn't have the capacity for it the first time around and all its intricacies. The epic/ human scale of the narrative, the emotional nuances, the dreamlike qualities, the narrative shape.
I do get tired of the phrase 'the centre/ core/ ground/ heart/ bones of things.' What is being talked about is endless and ineffable, that which 'can not be held on to' but is still ' not lost'. However I love reading Malouf, and this book was just my cup of tea.
At the same time that I read this book, I watched a comedy special on TV a couple of times - Carl Barron's Drinking with a Fork. Carl's outlook on Australia and Australians - self-deprecating, affectionate - leavened my reading of this essentially serious book with a bit of Australian warmth and humour.

A wonderful yarn in the typical style of Malouf's stories and style. An epic of story that covers decades but neatly weaves simple stories about people's everydayness, even in the context of war and capture. His sense of history neatly draws a thread through the sequence of scenes or connected stories, at times carefully moving to and fro without losing the present. His descriptions capture that everydayness in a way that makes living amplified even in its mundanity. There is no glamour but interest in the human existence, helped probably a little for aussies and kiwis by its specific context. Great story told superbly. My favourite book.

Quattro giovani soldati australiani (Vic, Doug, Mac e Albert, detto Digger) si incontrano sull’isola di Singapore, prigionieri dell’esecito giapponese dopo l’armistizio del Generale McArthur nel 42. Trascorrono 4 anni fra la Thailandia e la Malesia, impegnati nella costruzione di quella che verra’ poi chiamata “la ferrovia della morte”. Quelli fra loro che torneranno a casa, non saranno piu' gli stessi, ma avranno un bagaglio di esperienze, privazioni, dolore inimmaginabili, per i quattro ragazzotti partiti per il fronte come se si trattasse di un'avventura con campeggio.
Questo e’ il fulcro del libro. L’autore focalizza poi la narrazione sul rapporto di amicizia fra Digger e Vic, dei quali ci viene narrata anche l’infanzia, e la maturita’.
Onestamente, il libro mi e’ piaciuto piu’ per l’ambientazione, perche’ dell’Australia del secolo scorso proprio non so nulla, che per la storia in se’ e per se’. Interessanti le descrizioni di Sydney, e dello sviluppo demografico e urbanistico degli anni 60; del movimento hippy in Australia; dei soldati americani impegnati nel conflitto in Vietnam che trascorrevano i periodi di permesso in Australia.
I personaggi principali …li ho sentiti molto distanti…e devo dire che ho preferito i personaggi femminili, nessuno dei quali e’ protagonista, ai due principali maschili.

Malouf's longest and perhaps most intricate work, the novel possesses great quality and immense strength in its characterisation and plotting. That this has been managed with an almost incredible sensitivity to the vagaries of human existence and an inimitable deftness of touch is amazing.

Thus, the reader gets the feeling that they have witnessed so many things in a short span of time, seen a number of wonderful lives being led, and have silently accompanied a plethora of characters who find their truths in their own singular journeys.

The novel is surely epic in scale, in terms of the various spaces it portrays as well as the wide time-frame that it considers, but Malouf's treatment of all of it is so light--as if 'The Great World' were a rangoli of colours that the reader feels would be disrupted if they were to come too close.

4.5 Stars
My 6th reading of the Prix Femina Estranger
At times, a laborious reading.
Not that gripping at the start, but as it develops ] and I started searching Who the author was [, I came to realise that I was indeed reading prose written by a poet.
A(nother) lovely surprise/reward "given" by the Prix Femina Estranger.

The Great World is a Great Book.
Great Story, Great Characters, Great Writing.

I Greatly recommend it.

This would be a 3.5, I think, and I would probably have enjoyed it more if I hadn't read it in bits and pieces over a long period of time. It's beautifully written, and concludes with one of the most striking descriptions of dying I've ever read.

I re-read this novel just before I read Narrow Road to the North and it moved me more. The experience of Australian WW2 prisoners of war is central to this novel too, but Malouf is more interested in character and in how war throws together people who would otherwise have nothing in common. Digger is a loner, a slow-speaking country fellow; Vic is an orphan who has been given an opportunity to make good and means to take it, by any means. The scope of the novel is broad, allowing us to understand the two characters from childhood to old age. One meaning of ‘the great world’ has stayed with me since I read this novel the first time over twenty years ago: that the world of our minds can be stronger than the world to which we are exposed and often have to endure. A book to savour more than once.