It's arguable that David Malouf is the greatest living Australian writer. Dream Stuff is a collection of his short stories, and show off not only his flawless technique, but what it is that moves him. Many of these stories are about family, love, and violence.

Malouf has the ability in a few paragraphs to evoke a landscape or a scenario and develop a character or a relationship. Many of the stories revolve around the ways families create a history of avoiding the big issues and focusing on the inconsequential. Malouf cleverly uses the Australian way of unspoken-ness to evoke some of the big issues he wishes to explore.

These issues include the idea of love - what does it mean? Does it last? Should ideology override the bonds of family? What effect does mindless violence have on people?

The main protagonists in the stories vary - a young child, an old man, several women - and all are evoked with skill and beauty. The stories that struck me most revolved around children trying to make sense of their fathers, piecing together their character when they were absent, or trying to understand the decisions they made, with tragic consequences.

Each story is like a highly polished gem, and no matter which way the reader looks at it, this collection sparkles with creativity and style.

Highly Recommended

Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/

Another exceptional book by David Malouf. This is a collection of beautifully written short stories. Some of the more notable stories are: "At Schindler's" about a young boy whose father is missing and never returned from war and how he and his mother slowly accepted the fact, "Night Training" about a young seventeen year old who joined the military and how he and another young soldier were singled out by an officer to harden them for what was to come and two stories that were rather disturbing, "Lone Pine" and "Black Soil". Both of these stories were amazingly written but a little horrifying.

I thought Dream Stuff was very confusing. It has a lot of stories in which didn't make sense to me.

Stunning.

dnf - don’t know if i just wasn’t in the right mindset, i just didn’t really enjoy the writing

More than most, re-introduced me to the beauty of short stories, some dozen years ago.

I dont even know what this book was about, I really should have DNFd it, it was not for me. It contained a few short stories and i didnt even get a single one. I guess they all played in Australia in the 50s an 60s and it was just too much for me.

Incredible stories

first i've read by this author. good short stories of all variety - family tales, murder tales, & in between - set throughout australia - city, outback, beach. really connected with some of them & will check out more of his work.

This is my introduction to David Malouf. I was lucky to find a number of his hardbacks in pristine condition in the Dublin Oxfam Bookshop at €5 each! This book of nine short stories, Dream Stuff is about longing and nostalgia ranging over a century of Australian life. A desire to reach back in time, back to some place which may have never existed, except in our dreams and the self-created impressions of the moments we have lived, which are already gone. The 9 stories here all have a strong element of longing and loss. From At Schindlers, where a boy begins to understand that his father, missing in action during the second world war, won’t be returning, as he develops an attachment to his mother’s new boyfriend, to the nostalgia of the patriarch Audley as he watches the museum which housed his family treasures go up in flames (Great Day). All of these stories feature something now gone, a moment which has disappeared, only to be revisited and recaptured, reassessed, reworked until it takes on a new truth in the internal dream worlds of the narrators which present them.

I enjoyed the stories. Australian short stories that I have read have all created a sense of place and time that is distinctly Australian in many respects and this book is no different. The reader can see why David Malouf is acclaimed and award winning. The writing is quality. I only found one story a bit boring. 1:8 isn't a bad ratio! I look forward to his other books.

A published review:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/08/20...

A short story collection that ranges from contemporary to the early times of colonisation, with characters that span from motherless/fatherless children to venerable politicians. A very supple narration that shifts from one point of view to another. The characters often come to some kind of realisation, sometimes enlightenment and a renewed bond to life, the land, or one another. A couple of the stories are more somber and depict random acts of violence (well, the story set the furthest back depicts two acts of violence, one random, one of retribution).

1.5 stars

I may direct you towards my Tim Winton Minimum of Two review for a better understanding of this rating, just here it's on a softer scale. I wasn't filled with bitter hatred while reading this collection, only tiredness. Tiredness of all this Australian male writing, unbearable in almost every respect. Malouf's writing is a bit better than Winton's, in my opinion, but still mostly flat. There are many better collections of short stories out there with a lot more to offer than this one.