Remembering Babylon - David Malouf

Apparently, David Malouf is recognised as one of Australia's finest writers. I heard an interview with him on one of the ABC's podcasts months ago - he had just written a libretto for a Aussie composer. After reading this book, I'd have to say he's pretty darn good. There are some glowing commendations on the back cover, including one from Michael Ondaatje... I'm not sure I would agree wholeheartedly with Ondaatje's assessment of "thrilling in style and adventurousness"... to me, the story is a little more understated and ethereal than thrilling.

In short, Gemmy is a Brit who after a rather miserable childhood as a street kid takes to the high seas after burning down his erstatz master's home (with said master therein...). At some point in the voyage is cast from the ship and washes up, of all places, in Queensland. He is discovered by a mob of Aborigines, and he is in pretty dire shape... I recall a rather vivid description of little crabs crawling over him as he's lying on the shore.

But life goes on, and the Aborigines take him under their collective wing and for what must be a number of years, he lives with them. I don't think they kept him around as an oddity for a bit of a laugh - he learned much in the line of bush skills, and picked up a pretty good connection to the spirits of the land.

While Gemmy's hanging out with the Aborigines, white folks are of course struggling up the coast and setting up the raggedy little settlements that have become today's cities and regional centres. In the tradition of stories featuring white settlers and Aborigines, eventually the two worlds intersect. In this story, Gemmy falls (literally - from a fence) back into white life.

But he's not quite 'white' anymore, and this sets up the spiralling tension within the settlement that he's ended up in - there are those sympathetic to him, and those that are antagonistic.

That's probably enough of a spoiler - here's what I really liked about the book. When I finished it, I had this feeling that I really had seen only the part of the story that Malouf wanted me to see - that is, I had the whole plot, I knew who the characters were, but there were bits and pieces that for all intents and purposes were shrouded with a kind of secrecy. It was almost like there was a part (almost a dimension, I think) that we the reader weren't privy to, and wouldn't be unless we had undergone some sort of initiation or cultural coming of age. In the meantime, we get to see just enough to satisfy us, and to protect the interests of ... whatever is shrouded.

There's a passage in the book that really reminds me of this: Gemmy is on an expedition with an enthusiastic amateur naturalist from the settlement, who with great pleasure (and no small skill) is drawing the local flora, and inscribing these drawings with such wisdom about their restorative - or indeed deleterious - qualiteis as Gemmy is willing to share. During this expedition, we get a peek at Gemmy's perspective as he is sharing such bits that are safe to share - but he doesn't let on for a minute that he sees the world entirely differently with the land's power and spirits kind of overlaid on the physical bits that our naturalist saw. Some plants he just passed over describing; their power too much for him to handle, so there was no way he was going to risk the white guy messing around with them.

It's one of those cases where on the one hand I'm a little impatient and want to know what's on the other side; and on the other hand, I am really impressed at this sense that the book evoked in me.