Elizabeth Costello : Eight Lessons
Milsons Point
:
Knopf
,
2003
Z1064567
2003
single work
novel
(taught in 3 units)
In Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons, the eponymous protagonist is a retired author of international literary acclaim, who now spends her time giving guest lectures and interviews at scholarly events around the world. Old age has loosened, rather than reified, her ethical and literary convictions, and swelled her emotional reserves; rather than provide the staid academic wisdom expected of her, Costello offers provocative, unsettling opinions on issues such as animal rights, literary censorship, and the nature of belief - opinions she may or may not believe in herself. Profoundly aware of itself, Coetzee's novel is about human morality and mortality, but above all, about literature itself and the ethical responsibilities of writers and readers.
Remembering Babylon
London
Milsons Point
:
Chatto and Windus
Random House
,
1993
Z452447
1993
single work
novel
historical fiction
(taught in 48 units)
'In the mid-1840s, a thirteen-year-old boy, Gemmy Fairley, is cast ashore in the far north of Australia and taken in by Aborigines. Sixteen years later, when settlers reach the area, he moves back into the world of Europeans, men and women who are staking out their small patch of home in an alien place, hopeful and yet terrified of what it might do to them.
Given shelter by the McIvors, the family of the children who originally made contact with him, Gemmy seems at first to be guaranteed a secure role in the settlement, but there are currents of fear and mistrust in the air. To everyone he meets - from George Abbot, the romantically aspiring young teacher, to Mr Frazer, the minister, whose days are spent with Gemmy recording the local flora; from Janet McIvor, just coming to adulthood and discovering new versions of the world, to the eccentric Governor of Queensland himself - Gemmy stands as a different kind of challenge, as a force which both fascinates and repels. And Gemmy himself finds his own whiteness as unsettling in this new world as the knowledge he brings with him of the savage, the Aboriginal.' - Publisher's blurb (Chatto & Windus, 1993).
Benang : From the Heart
Fremantle
:
Fremantle Press
,
1999
Z135862
1999
single work
novel
(taught in 31 units)
In the vast expanse of Western Australia, a young Indigenous man embarks on a profound journey within himself. Labelled as the successful outcome of his white grandfather's attempts to breed the 'first white man born', Harley wants to be a failure. Finding himself at a difficult point in the history of his country, family and self, Harley's story takes the reader on an eye-opening and heartbreaking narrative of the impact of colonisation on First Nations people in Australia. From one of Australia's most revered storytellers, Benang sheds light on the ongoing struggle for cultural preservation, and is an epic and beautiful story of celebration and lament, beginning and return.
The Monkey's Mask
South Melbourne
:
Hyland House
,
1994
Z528794
1994
single work
novel
crime
(taught in 31 units)
Eucalyptus : A Novel
Melbourne
:
Text Publishing
,
1998
Z279634
1998
single work
novel
(taught in 8 units)
On a property in Western New South Wales a man named Holland lives with his daughter, Ellen. Over the years, as she grows into a beautiful young woman, he plants hundreds of different eucalyptus trees on his land, filling in the landscape, making a virtual outdoor museum of trees. When Ellen is nineteen, he announces his decision; she may marry only the man who can correctly name the species of each and every gum tree on his property.
Suitors emerge from all corners, including the straight-backed Mr. Cave, a world expert on these famous Australian trees. And then one day walking down by the river where silver light slants into the motionless trunks, Ellen chances on a strange young man resting under the Coolibah tree. In the days that follow, he tells her dozens of stories - set in cities, deserts, and faraway countries.
Eucalyptus is at once a modern fairy tale and a marvelously touching love story, played out against the spearing light and broken shadows of Australia - its land, its history, its people. Murray Bail’s cunning, intricate, and mesmerizing narrative bristles with spiky truths and unexpected wisdom about art, feminine beauty, landscape and language. More, it eloquently affirms the seductive power of storytelling itself.
