'Didgeridoo is a variant of one of the oldest literary forms – a gathering of people, each of whom tells a story. A group makes its way every week to a tutorial where one of them presents a paper. Each has chosen a topic and is in some sense subject to the thing being considered. History is no easier to get in order than a person’s life, and the fourteen characters of this collection are depicted as they try to do both. They have all to choose a passage, written long ago, to illustrate their theme, and the author has a similar challenge, because a passage of music, the art revealing the innermost psyche of a culture, enters every story. Music too is history: thirteen of the pieces are European, and ‘classical’, while the sound of the didgeridoo is a vestige of the past and a reminder that the land, timeless and anonymous, shapes all in its unrelenting way.' (Front Cover)
