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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'On a family sheep station in western New South Wales, a brother and sister work the property while their reclusive brother, Wesley Antill, spends years toiling away in one of the sheds, writing his philosophy.
'Now he has died. Erica, a philosopher, is sent from Sydney to appraise his life's work. Accompanying her is Sophie, who needs distracting from a string of failed relationships. Her field is psychoanalysis.
'The pages Wesley wrote lie untouched in the shed, just as he left them. What will they reveal? Was he a genius? These turn out to be only a couple of the questions in the air. How will the visit change the lives of Erica and Sophie?' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Reading Group Guide available through the Text Publishing website.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Braille.
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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A Piano Made in Australia : Reinventing an Emblem of Cultural Wealth in Murray Bail's The Voyage
2017
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 31 no. 2 2017; (p. 361-373)'[...]it is a conversation about Australia that exposes the sense of cultural superiority of the "ridiculously over-confident" (53) "Bertolt Brecht lookalike" (48; see also 94) and opposes it to Delage's own lack of self-confidence (exemplified, in the first place, by "his surprise" at being asked about his native countr y; 92). [...]the critic is more interested in Australia's natural stereotypes than in its architectural icons, which implies that, in his view, nature easily outweighs culture on the antipodean continent: "he only wanted to know about the dangerous spiders and sharks that infested Australia, and the snakes, how lethal were they really" (92); for him, the Sydney Opera House, which Delage's personal complex of secondarity leads him to consider "provincial" (70), is simply "typical of the New World['s]" preference for "appearance over substance" (92), while Delage is, for his part, tempted to think that it is precisely his piano's "appearance . . . [that] had shifted attention from the technical improvements hidden beneath the lid" (148). According to Eileen Battersby, Bail's "concise in scale" but "vastly thought-provoking novel" contains "some inspired nods to the great Austrian writer Thomas Bernhard's final [sic] novel, Woodcutters" (1984), which offers an über-critical portrayal of a "cannibalistic city" seemingly graced with a propensity for dragging the higher reaches of its "ap- palling society" (Bernhard 34) into what Bernhard describes as an insufferable "social hell" (4)-thereby subverting the values of this cultural elite from within since he8 was, up to a certain point, part of the same "artistic coterie" (Bernhard 84). [...]the Australian creator's own ongoing subservience to Western standards (despite Europe's enduringly paternalistic and misplaced assumptions of cultural superiority) is presented as his or her predicament.' (Publication abstract)
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“Towards an Australian Philosophy: Constructive Appropriation of Enlightenment Thinking in Murray Bail’s The Pages”
2016
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Postcolonial Gateways and Walls : Under Construction 2016; -
'We are All Philosophers; We Cannot Help Being' : Credos, Life-Choices and Philosophy in Murray Bail's The Pages
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 3 2012; A critical study of Murray Bail's novel, The Pages. -
Farce and Philosophy Collide in 'The Pages,' Murray Bail's Latest Novel
2010
single work
review
— Appears in: Seattle Times , 15 August 2010; (p. 4)
— Review of The Pages 2008 single work novel -
Missed Appointments : Convergences and Disjunctures in Reading Australia across the Pacific
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 91-103)'This essay will discuss both what the Australian-American cultural relationship has been built upon, and why that transpacific architecture has not been more foregrounded. It begins by focusing on Americans who had transient relationships with Australia, but ones that yet impacted on their careers and were emblematic of patterns in the transpacific relationship. The traffic between the US and Australia these individuals represent indicates that beneath formal notice there exists a patchwork of encounters ramified in such a way as to provide a base for later criss-crossings. Yet, in each case, fissures are also revealed - 'missed appointments' - that suggest why the potential transpacific 'rendezvous with destiny' was never actualised in the era where that above phrase had recent resonance.
Three of these Americans—Arlin Turner, John Hope Franklin, and Constance Helmericks--were from the West or South, and the fourth, James Michener, though from the East, early evinced an interest in parts of his country and the world beyond the Eurocentric orientation imposed on privileged Americans. The paper will also look at Margaret Mead and the entire idea of "Australasia" with which she was associated to diagnose patterns of racial and cultural images conveyed, or misconveyed, in the trans-Pacific process.' (Author's abstract).
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[Review] The Pages
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , June vol. 87 no. 9 2008; (p. 48)
— Review of The Pages 2008 single work novel -
Landscape of Light
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 28 June 2008; (p. 11)
— Review of The Pages 2008 single work novel -
Philosopher's Tome
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 28 June 2008; (p. 12)
— Review of The Pages 2008 single work novel -
Outback Quest for Insight
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 28-29 June 2008; (p. 10-11)
— Review of The Pages 2008 single work novel -
Estrangement in Paradise
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , July vol. 3 no. 6 2008; (p. 4-5)
— Review of The Pages 2008 single work novel -
A Hard Task Master
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 21 June 2008; (p. 10-11) -
Modesty Prevails
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 28-29 June 2008; (p. 32-33) The Age , 28 June 2008; (p. 26-27) -
The $42,000 Question
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 25-26 April 2009; (p. 33) -
Five Males and a Miles
2009
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 13 June 2009; (p. 24-25) Jason Steger previews the 2009 Miles Franklin Literary Award. He looks at each of the shortlisted works in turn, noting their authorship, their 'form' and quoting from reviews previously published in the Age. -
What's Wrong with Australian Fiction? : A Sceptical Look at the Miles Franklin Shortlist
2009
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Quadrant , December vol. 53 no. 12 2009; (p. 22-29) 'Once in a while, a literary prize gets awarded to the most talented writer in the field. Admittedly this would happen a lot more often if the judges of such awards simply drew the prize-winner's name out of a hat. The Nobel committee, even if it occasionally pulled out the name of the hat-maker by mistake, would still obtain less bizarre results using the hat method than it does by applying its literary judgment. But still, when a literary award is given to the right winner for the right reason, you get a dim reminder of why such prizes were considered a good idea in the first place.'
Awards
- 2009 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards — Fiction
- 2009 shortlisted Victorian Premier's Literary Awards — The Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction
- 2009 shortlisted Miles Franklin Literary Award
- Sydney, New South Wales,
- Central West NSW, New South Wales,
- Rural,