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'Unlike many city-dwelling Australians, the desert holds no terrors for me. Instead, like DH Lawrence, I find the cathedral forests of the coastal regions oppressive and disquieting. Lawrence brought to his descriptions of the Australian bush the same overwrought sensitivity that created the claustrophobic emotional landscape of 'Sons and Lovers', and the appalling, majestic insularity of the Italian mountain village in 'The Lost Girl'. He was the writer who made explicit the sense of some non-human presence in the Antipodean landscape, and while I have a different interpretation of the 'speechless, aimless solitariness' he attributes to the country, his instincts were good.' (Publication abstract)
Notes
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Epigraph: The vast continent is really void of speech...this speechless, aimless solitariness was in the air. It was natural to the country. - DH Lawrence, Kangaroo
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- Kangaroo 1923 single work novel
- To the Islands 1958 single work novel
- Tourmaline 1963 single work novel
- Midnite : The Story of a Wild Colonial Boy 1967 single work children's fiction
- The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea 1965 single work novel
- The Songlines 1987 single work prose
- Tracks 1980 single work autobiography
- Can My Country Hear English? : Reflections on the Relationship of Language to Country 2018 single work criticism
