Remembering Babylon

For a novel that has won the inaugural International Dublin Literary Award and was shortlisted for two more, this was quite the disappointment.

The only positive I can give is the elegant prose and eloquence David Malouf displays in the writing. It's absolutely remarkable his literary prowess in that area. However, the overall story is unorganized and lack proper connection. It's also quite boring as the story doesn't build any suspense or incorporate any complexities to hype up the plot. I can even say that there was no plot. It was very sporadic and seemed without a purpose.

This was such a drudgery to finish and I definitely didn't enjoy reading it. The chapters had zero continuum and were poorly intertwined.

2.5 Stars

This is book is very beautifully written. It's about an early British settlement in Queensland, outback Aus, in the 1840s. These are harder times, the land is rough, the conditions are harsh, the people group together single-mindedly. The story focuses on one family of Scottish settlers, the McIvors, with their two daughters and nephew under their care. The sensibility Malouf has in portraying these migrants is sparse and elegant. He really captures (sensibly short) glimpses into their mentality and the difficulty of this new Australian life in a land they'd have never known before. Stylistically, it seems gorgeous, for the most part. And yet I really dragged through the second part of this book. For all it's sensibility, it has little sensitivity. In fact, it seems almost self indulgent. The novel starts when these three young kids, playing out in the red-dirt scrub, come across a young man who has been living with an Aboriginal tribe for years. He is ostensibly white, although he's become accustomed to living in this tribe and speaking their language and seeing the land the way they see it. I'm not sure, by Malouf's descriptions, that this boy Gemmy, isn't handicapped in some way. He comes to live with this family, he's fascinated the children but he is viewed with great suspicious by the other settlers. They seem to fear that he will aid the Aborigines in an attack on the settlement. There are no Aboriginal characters... just this strange abject character in young Gemmy. A weird sort of attempt at, well I'm not sure, forming another Australian identity?

Far be it for me to judge a book based on the virtue of its indulgence in notions of identity, on appropriation and all that. Often style is enough for me. And I'm very over the suspicious style of reading that has consumed the MO of literary analysis, you know, where we must read through various ideological lenses (race, gender, etc.) as though these notions constitutes the complexity of human experience and art creation. But here I think suspicion is warranted. The laudedness of this book, critically, seems to rest on Malouf's fine talent, but what exactly is he doing here in creating this strange crossover? I'm not sure it's at all hopeful. I seem to tend towards Germaine Greer's assessment of the novel:

It is dreadful because it invokes the unending tragedy of the settlement of Australia by Europeans to use it only as a background for flights of invention so self-indulgent that the reader is almost ashamed to participate in them. `Remembering Babylon' is most dreadful in that it reduces Aborigines to the role that today's black Englishmen, Americans or Australians might have thought they had finally transcended, the role of the white man's id. Aware of the revulsion that would ensue if he were to use a real Aborigine as the butt of his supremacist fantasy, Malouf invents a lay figure, the limping, speechless black white man, Gemmy Farley, whom he need not shrink from calling a savage. Gemmy is black because he lived for 16 years with the natives who found him washed up on the northern shore. Even then he was struck by their smell, "animal, unfamiliar".The smell of the blacks "like dead swamp water" pervades the book. By some miracle the hunter- gatherers were not wiped out by the diseases of which Gemmy was certainly a carrier. After 19 years of living off them he decides to come south and seek his own kind. Though historically coastal Queensland had a relatively dense Aboriginal population, the Scots settlement where Gemmy fetches up is presented as virtually black- free, with the blacks living in a mysterious region of their own further north. They flit by the Scots settlement at night, like the goblins in my second-grade reader, the Hobyahs, who came run-run- running on the tips of their non-human toes. The story that Malouf does not want to tell is how the white man tried to exploit the blacks as labor.
...
Malouf represents the tension between European and Aborigine as a matter of fear and fantasy; in fact it was a bitter struggle for survival (such as is now raging in Amazonia) in which there were no winners. The Aborigines who were sustained by the land were massacred by the arms and the diseases of the white man who could not survive on the land, which his hard-hoofed beasts reduced to a condition that could sustain no one. This tragedy does not concern Malouf, who prefers to frig his imagination to produce a girl engulfed in a swarm of bees attracted by her menstrual flow.
...
The only black who is allowed to speak is the fake black, and he is not allowed to say much beyond (unbelievably) "Don't shoot. I'm a British object." Gemmy's wordlessness covers not simply a reticence where Aborigines are concerned, a tact that avoids commandeering their alien reality, but a genuine ignorance by incuriosity.

Again, the point of the novel is vague, it is solipsistic. A flight of fancy in imagination and in craft that poses no questions about this past and suggests nothing much beyond itself. Someone might suggest Malouf points to the single-mindedness of a small settlement and the scapegoating of an outsider... but then what was the point of this abject figure of Gemmy? Why call upon a ghostly Aboriginal presence? The point is that Malouf seemingly basks in his ignorance in the Aboriginal tribes of this area in Queensland. Under this consideration his style seems indulgent, showy, overinflated because it adorns, cloaks, positively masks a glib and willful ignorance of what he draws upon. He simply does not care for truth in this unimaginative and ornate grab for beauty.

Plucked from a stack of books I bought during college but opted not to read (take that, Prof. Mukherjee!). I wasn't inspired to read it 7 years ago, and, after finally reading it, understand why. The book is pretty dull. Granted, it's not too long at 200 pages and was artfully written, but the events that transpire in the book's pages didn't need to be novelized; in other words, a one-paragraph summary could pretty much convey most of what the book seeks to explore. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but the plot isn't worth drawing out over the course of a novel. Pass.

Warning: this is a beautiful review, but I want to alert the reader that reading it will ruin the plot and the process of suspense and mystery. I've given away too much but you'll love reading it when you have finished the book.




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What is love?

I never thought an introductory query like this can be proper for a review of this novel with a Tarzan-like principal protagonist.

Sometime in the mid-19th century a young British boy named Gemmy Fairway, with some degree of mental retardation, was being used as a rat catcher by a cruel man named Willett. Later, he came aboard a British ship and was exploited for years as a cabin boy. When he was not needed anymore, he was cast ashore in Australia and was taken in by aborigines with whom he stayed for sixteen years, learning their ways and language, and almost forgetting those of the English.

The novel starts on the day Gemmy--all dirty, emaciated, practically naked and looking more like a wild animal than a man--was found by three young children: Janet, her sister Meg and their adoptive brother/cousin Lachlan, a boy who was a little older than them. They were of Irish descent, and belonged to a small European community established amidst the vastness of the untamed continent, at the time when communities like theirs still had fear of these natives/aborigines who were perceived to be savages and more numerous.

The three kids brought Gemmy home as if he was a cute, little, lost puppy they had found along the road. Lachlan was especially proud of him like he was something he caught while hunting. They clothed, cleaned and fed him. Then, trouble in paradise. Several of the neighbours thought Gemmy to be dangerous. That he was some sort of a spy for the blacks (aborigines) who raised him and intent on doing them harm. There were sub-plots here and several other interesting characters all written in a vivid and thrilling style that the characters and events came out alive from its pages.

A lot of other books are like this also, however. So what made it special to me that I gave it five stars? Well, this was what happened. Gemmy disappeared. Nine years later, when Lachlan was already a young man and working, he came to know of Gemmy's fate. Apparently he rejoined the blacks. Then he was killed when some marauding whites overran their community and massacred them.

Suddenly, it's 50 years after. Lachlan is now a high government official and Janet is a nun. Their parents had long died. Lachlan himself had lost a beloved grandson, Willie, who fought during world war 1 and this loss he constantly remembers day after day.

At this point, I was holding the book and saw there were only a few pages left. I said to myself, it's only about 3 stars, this novel is not going anywhere and it's about to end. Impossible for the author to establish a point in so few a pages.

Lachlan leaves the convent where he paid Janet a visit. Janet thinks of her present concerns then, later, reminisces about the past, remembering those she had loved now all gone.

I can't quote the entirety of it here, it's too tiresome to type it. And even if I reproduce it all here, you wouldn't understand because you do not know the stories and all the characters. But I shall copy the final four paragraphs here, FOR MYSELF, and for the pleasure of reading them again, slowly, as I punch the keyboards:

"When she glances up again, for she has been dozing, the misty blue out there has become indigo; the first lights have been doused, though the houses themselves do not fade from her mind, or the children who are sleeping in them. The first bright line of moonlight has appeared out on the mudflats, marking the ever moving, ever approaching, ever receding shore. All this a kind of praying. It does not make a house any less vivid out there because she can no longer see its light; or the children any less close because they no longer come to visit; or Willie because she has never known him except for what she has felt in Lachlan, and through him, in herself, the wedge of apple in his mouth; or her mother, long gone, standing out onn the hillslope in the dark, the dark of her body solid through the flimsy stuff, the moonlight, of her shift; or her father slumped at the breakfast table, the loose skin of her mother's hand, like an old glove, on the leathery back of his neck; or in darkness now, on the other side of the house, the single mind of the hive, closed on itself, on its secret which her own mind approaches and draws back from, the moment of illumination when she will again be filled with it; and Mrs Hutchence who has led her to this; and always, in a stilled moment that has lasted for years, Gemmy as she saw him, once and for all, up there on the stripped and shiny rail, never to fall, and Flash slicing the air with his yelps in clear dog-language, and his arms flung out, never to lift him clear; overbalancing now, drawn by the power, all unconscious in them, of their gaze, their need to draw him into their lives--love, again love--overbalanced but not yet falling. All these, Lord, all these. Let none be left in the dark or out of mind, on this night, now, in this corner of the world or any other, at this hour, in the middle of this war...

"Out beyond the flatlands the line of light pulses and swells. The sea, in sight now, ruffles, accelerates. Quickly now it is rising towards us, it approaches.
"As we approach prayer. As we approach knowledge. As we approach one another.
"It glows in fullness till the tide is high and the light almost, but not quite, unbearable, as the moon plucks at our world and all the waters of the earth ache towards it, and the light, running in fast now, reaches the edges of the shore, just so far in its order, and all the muddy margin of the bay is alive, and in a line of running fire all the outline of the vast continent appears, in touch now with its other life."

Intresting themes... painfully boring book. I read it for uni and hated every second I had to endure this torture.

Written by the internationally admired novelist and poet David Malouf, this is an unusual take on the interactions between the European colonists and the native Aborigines in C19 Queensland.

The central character, Gemmy Fairley, is based on the life of James Morrill, a sailor who was shipwrecked and washed up on the Queensland coast where he lived for sixteen years with the Aborigines, before returning to the settlers’ “civilisation”. Both men announce themselves with the same words, “Don’t shoot! I am a British object!”, but the Gemmy of Malouf’s imagination seems to be a more poignant and touching character who seems to have adapted quite easily to Aborigine life, after an even harder childhood as an orphan exploited by a London rat-catcher.

At first, Gemmy is a source of curiosity and amusement, but in an isolated, insecure white immigrant community, he soon arouses suspicion mingled with a repulsion which is heightened by the nature of his difference – physically damaged by adversity, he is between two cultures, a white man who looks and behaves like a native. In a community which lives in a constant sense of fear of the unknown, uneasily aware of the presence of elusive, possibly menacing strangers, they dare not trust him, particularly when he is reported to have received a visit from a couple of Aborigines.

In this subtle psychological drama, Malouf tends to portray the Aborigines in a more sympathetic light, as more sensitive and empathic than the white settlers, although they remain more two-dimensional than the latter. The Aborigine couple “were concerned that in coming here, among these ghostly white creatures, he might have slipped back into the thinner world of wraiths and demons he had escaped, though never completely in his days with them. They had come to reclaim him; but lightly, bringing what would feed his spirit”. As tensions rise in the colonial village, those who have supported Gemmy feel rejected by the community, but disillusioned with their former friends in return.

The Minister, Mr Frazer, makes use of Gemmy’s local knowledge and labour to dig up the unfamiliar local plants he wishes to study. This gives him the idea of developing a market for local fruit and vegetables, but the plan is bound to wither in the face of a Governor who thinks only of imposing his own British culture.

By turns disturbing and beautiful, carefully crafted, Malouf’s prose needs to be read slowly, like a poem, to appreciate more fully the vivid pictures created of Queensland, to note the small details which may prove relevant later and to understand fully the thoughts he wishes to convey.

From the outset, I felt that the novel which focuses on small insights was building up slowly to a powerful climax but this drifted away in the last three chapters which seem disjointed, rushed and too disconnected from what has gone before, featuring insufficiently developed relationships, or characters who have not even appeared previously. Perhaps the author is simply most interested in showing how , for instance, a single incident may have particular significance in one’s memory; a person may have a lasting influence which may be hard to grasp, perhaps only when it is too late.

This novel is worth reading for the quality of the writing and observation, and the issues it addresses, although I would rate “The Conversations at Curlew Creek” more highly from the viewpoint of structure. ”Remembering Babylon” could be a good choice for a book group, since it could spark discussion over the experience of being a colonial settler, the relationships with indigenous groups, and the psychology of individuals in groups under pressure, or living in a world where they need, but do not have, “a sense of the presence of those who have gone before”.

Set in the 1840s, Gemmy Fairley served as cabin-boy on a British ship from which he was cast overboard, washing up on the shores of Australia. He grew up among an aboriginal group, from whom he learned survival skills. The story opens many years later, when he is found by the children of white settlers. Gemmy’s presence disrupts the settlers’ orderly lives, and he becomes a focal point for the community’s fears and prejudices. As the novel progresses, the storyline shifts from Gemmy to the points of view of a handful of other characters. Malouf’s lyrical prose vividly depicts the Australian landscape. I particularly liked the female beekeeper who later becomes a nun. I quite enjoyed this book, and its examination of issues that are still relevant to contemporary discussions of race, culture, and the environment.

During the 1850's in Australia's Queensland frontier, three distinguished characters meet and indelibly impact each other's lives. All are transplants from the UK. Janet and Lachan are the children of settlers. The third is a description defying misfit named Gemmy; a young man whose adult years have been spent living with a tribe of native Aborigines after being cast away from a British sailing ship. He is completely acculturated into the indigenous ways, barely able to converse with a few words of English.

The story is written in the third person by a narrator with limited omniscience, one that shifts from character to character with each chapter. Using this technique, the author skillfully develops complex relationships between his characters, as they act out their ambitions, intentions, and fears. Early on, Gemmy enjoys a secure, albeit undefined role in the community, living with a respected family. Within the boundaries of their homestead and through intuition and feelings, Gemmy develops relationships with each family member. Outside of their homestead and after the initial curiosity subsides, currents of fear and distrust arise. They quickly intensify and the story unfolds.

Right up until chapter 19 ends and 20 begins. At that point the author abandons this frontier community on the edge of outer darkness and declares that World War I is underway. Somehow, seventy years have passed. The reader is reintroduced to Janet, now/known/as Sister Monica, bee expert of international reputation and member of a cloistered convent. Hers is a life of devotion, beauty, and purpose. Lachan on the other hand, has become a high-ranking government official, grieving over the loss of his wife and their only son in the European war. Through Lachan and Janet’s conversation, the author attempts to resolve the reader’s curiosity and explain whatever became of Gemmy and some of the lesser characters. This final chapter is abrupt, short, and unsatisfying. It seemed to this reader, a cheap technique to end an otherwise gripping story.