Another book that I haven't, but will most likely finish someday.

I don’t think I’ve ever disliked a book as much as this one

Disturbing. Weird. Hard to classify. Well worth reading, though.

Back when I was a young and stupid undergrad I was forced to read this (probably meaning I read the first paragraph, the last paragraph, some random pages and took notes in the lecture). It was completely wasted on me back then! To the ignorant it seemed like quite a boring story where everyone hates each other and there is no happy ending, people just get older, go missing or whatever. Everyone seemed depressed and depressing (although even back then I did like Janet and the bees and kind of liked Leona too)

Rereading at age 40, I read a book I had not read before (much as some of the passages were familiar). In the interim I have become interested in sociology and social constructivism- the way people's identities are both their own choice AND constituted and limited by their relationships and context in place/time. The book looks at this glorious mess of identity in a complexly detailed mosaic of class, race, gender, age, family ties, use of (and relationship to) the land and dispossession. Gemmy is the clearest example, the character who has too many conflicting identities but somehow humbly navigates all of them.

But Janet was to me very interesting, especially in reference to Lachlan. Their relationship evolved in a way I completely didn't expect! (I don;t think that is a spoiler) and the young school teacher, George- not to mention Jock. Every character was a complex web of motivations, family background, emotional baggage, unrealised dreams, fears, social relationships, romantic involvements, pragmatism, race, class and gender. Desire in the book is dark and complex, and relationships are with the land and nature as well as with humans (but this is not romanticised or at least not too much)

If you want a feel good, straight forward story with a simple plot and a happy ending (as I used to) then don't even pick up this one. If you want to be challenged in your assumptions and think about what is the nature of human life, society and identity - especially exploring this from a critical post-colonial perspective then dive right into this bitter-sweet treat. (Please note it doesn't have long words and isn't all that hard to understand. I was personally just stupid when I was young)

Romanzo molto bello.
Malouf racconta la vita dei coloni inglesi arrivati in Australia a metà dell'800 e del loro difficile rapporto con le popolazioni indigene. Il pretesto per la storia è l'arrivo di un uomo che ha vissuto per più di 10 anni tra i nativi a causa di un naufragio. Si scatenano i dubbi e i sospetti perché ha dimenticato l'inglese e fatto sue le abitudini delle popolazioni locali.
Malouf, capitolo dopo capitolo, indaga la psicologia dei vari personaggi, il loro pensieri, le loro preoccupazioni, le grettezze e le superstizioni, ma anche i sogni e le speranze. Fa un ritratto una natura lussureggiante e maestosa, ma anche ignota e spaventosa nei suoi silenzi solitari e nei suoi minacciosi scricchiolii.
Altra qualità è la capacità di creare nel lettore una sottile inquietudine, un senso di tensione che incolla alla pagina.

I picked up this book and began reading it with no prior knowledge of the author or it’s subject matter.
My expectations were low however, I was in it for the appealing low page count and good opening descriptions.
As I reached page 100 I felt I’d found a pretty special book.

Opening in 1840’s in the Queensland frontier when British colonists (un) settled aborigine peoples. It raises questions of belonging and what is means to own and be owned by circumstance.
I would say however as a historical novel it does not lean on the usual cliché of Victorian storylines. The setting is secondary to the human side of the novel which focuses on mutual understanding from Gemmy Fairley the truly affable protagonist, he’s a dumb mute undeniable victim of the narrative who’s physical inability to communicate allows for bounding leaping unforgeable internal dialogue...

‘There was no finality in it. He knew that. One life burned up, hollowed out with flame, to crack the seeds from which new life would come; that was the law. The seasons here were fire, ash, then the explosion out of blackened earth and charred, unkillable stumps, of springy shoots and loose-folded, sticky little leaves.’

Malouf effectively analyses the (un) settlers way of thinking with passages describing the opportunity they offer by bringing civility and prosperity to the wild land. Though he could have flattened these characters into a familiar colonialist villain he tactfully gives them subtext and the complexity this topic deserves.

I would say if you are looking for a book to learn a little more about the aboriginal people they remain a mystery throughout.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the characters of Janet and Mrs Hutchence. And the final few pages in which we learn of the death of Lachlan’s son in WW1 will stick with me for a long time.

‘The boy must have had time to shut the knife and slip it, along with the apple into his pocket. Cutting into the hard little foreign fruit, inwards like that, to the core, was the last thing he had done, very solemnly as his grandfather was doing it, before they were called forward. The sour-sweet wafer might still have been in his mouth when he was hit - his last taste of the world.’

This book turned out to be a disappointment to me. Far too much flipping from person to person.... and from time period to time period. I wanted to like it... but not for me.
There was a LOT of description... and the story got lost in that. I also felt the characters were almost shadows... not well developed at all....

This is an absolutely beautiful book--I found myself quoting it constantly, i.e. "When she got up and walked out into the paddock, and all the velvety grass heads blazed up, haloed with gold, she felt under the influence of her secret skin, suddenly floaty, as if she had been relieved of the weight of her own life, and the brighter being in her was very gently stirring and shifting its wings."-- the character, Janet:

So I did like this novel for the the themes it explored, though I found the writing at times not so high quality. As I usually do when reading a novel, and for my own enjoyment not reading anything anyone else has said about it, just took the whole thing as literal. I soon realized that this could not be done and was not the author's intent. Questionable notion that a boy raised as English until the age of 13 would in a space of 16 years living with the aboriginal Australians lose almost complete memory of his past and even the ability to speak English? Even more the assertion that living among the Aborigines resulted in the physical alteration of Gemmy so that he becomes unrecognizable as a white person? The author even cites as an example of how this could be so in saying that whites who live for extended periods among the Chinese find their very physical features altered, including eye shape, through some sort of osmosis. Well no. I realized then that the book could not be taken that way, that the character of Gemmy was more of a symbol of the potential of what could be in common between the Aborigines and British settlers and what was unbridgeable.

Taken at that I liked the author's exploration of what could have been for the European settlement of Australia. Gemmy really represents the possibilities and limitations for that. Mr. Frazer representing the potential for the British to attempt to adjust to become part of the Australia land and perhaps coexist with those who were already living there. On the other hand most of the other white settlers are only eager to remake to the extent possible the new land into a copy of the England that they had come from. This made Gemmy, a white who had managed to assimilate, a threat beyond any reality. The existing human population is a threat to be feared and destroyed.

Of course in historical reality the deep racism that was in the mothers milk of the British who colonized the world at that time made any such cultural accommodation near impossible. And it was clear who would in the end prevail—"Guns, Germs, and Steel."

This is a postcolonial novel set in Australia and focusing on early British settlers and their hostility towards the Aboriginal population. It uses a third person narrative but has a shifting perspective, with each chapter being from the point of view of a different character. I did find this slightly confusing at times but other than that I really enjoyed the writing and getting the story from the different perspectives. After reading this I definitely want to read some more postcolonial literature focusing on Australia as I did find it very interesting and I believe it is an important topic which I need to explore further.

This book is so beautifully written it hurts.

I have never read Malouf before, and found this book, which was shortlisted for the 1993 Booker Prize, rather impressive and compelling. It is set in rural Queensland in the mid nineteenth century, where new settlers are establishing a farming community on the edge of wild land.

The plot centres on Jemmy, a young white man who has been living with Aborigines since being dumped at sea by a ship he was working on. Each chapter is told from a different character's perspective, as Jemmy's appearance unsettles the community and its fragile and untrusting relationship with their indigenous neighbours.