AustLit

'In this essay, I chronicle my attempt to produce an accurate topographical map of the setting for Chapter III of Joseph Furphy’s Such Is Life and the route that the novel’s narrator and main protagonist Tom Collins follows through that landscape. I also set out my attempts to map the ‘exact locality’ of this setting within the real world of the Riverina, beyond Tom’s evasive admission that ‘it was somewhere between Echuca and Albury’ (SIL 82/102).1 Of course, it is not entirely necessary to fully answer these questions to be able to broadly follow the events that take place in Chapter III. Nevertheless, while the intricacies of the landscape are not immediately obvious from a cursory reading, it is evident from Furphy’s judicious and precise placement of numerous topographical and geolocational markers or clues within the text (notwithstanding Tom’s often seemingly fumbling attempts to conceal them), that he (Furphy) probably intended the ‘observant reader’ (SIL 2/2) to use these clues as signposts in order to form a detailed picture of location and landscape; or, perhaps, more in line with the wider themes of Such Is Life, he meant to lure him or her into such an attempt. I felt I owed it to Furphy to accept his challenge and try to ‘shift some of my inborn ignorance’ (SIL 128/159).'

 (Publication abstract)