person or book cover
Image courtesy of Magabala Books
y separately published work icon Earth single work   novel   historical fiction  
Is part of Jim Fox 1988-1999 series - author novel (number 4 in series)
Issue Details: First known date: 2001... 2001 Earth
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

With his fourth novel, Bruce Pascoe firmly establishes himself at the peak of contemporary Australian literature. Earth is a daring and thought provoking work; a novel of voices from the past and the present. The setting is the Victorian countryside, west of Melbourne during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The story unfolds through the lively dialogue of its protagonists, some wordly, others more ethereal. It is a story of love, denial, hypocrisy, greed and murder. There is also humour and warmth in the narrative, counterbalancing the sense of anger and sadness at the injustice, duplicity, mendacity and callous brutality being perpetrated in the name of Christianity, civilisation and progress. And ultimately there is hope amongst despair, as old values richly reassert themselves against overwhelming odds. (Source: LibrariesAustralia)

Notes

  • Dedication: For the Australians.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Other Formats

Works about this Work

y separately published work icon Polities and Poetics : Race Relations and Reconciliation in Australian Literature Adelle Sefton-Rowston , Oxford : Peter Lang , 2022 24390199 2022 multi chapter work criticism

'A reconciliation movement spread across Australia during the 1990s, bringing significant marches, speeches, and policies across the country. Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians began imagining race relations in new ways and articulations of place, belonging, and being together began informing literature of a unique new genre. This book explores the political and poetic paradigms of reconciliation represented in Australian writing of this period. The author brings together textual evidence of themes and a vernacular contributing to the emergent genre of reconciliatory literature. The nexus between resistance and reconciliation is explored as a complex process to understanding sovereignty, colonial history, and the future of society. Moreover, this book argues it is creative writing that is most necessary for a deeper understanding of each other and of place, because it is writing that calls one to witness, to feel, and to imagine all at the same time.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Non-Human (Narrative) Authority in Bruce Pascoe’s Earth Dorothee Klein , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Poetics and Politics of Relationality in Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Fiction 2021;
'[P]ulling Tomorrow's Sky from [the] Kete' : Culture-Specific Narrative Representations of Re/Membering in Contemporary Māori and First Australian Novels Hanne Birk , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Narrative and Identity Construction in the Pacific Islands 2015; (p. 209-223)
'Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia constitute plural, heterogeneous and hybrid spaces, in which a multiplicity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures live together but are not treated equally. How can indigenous novels contribute to ensuing transcultural negotiations of competitive and synergetic processes of re/membering in “post”-colonial contexts? What roles do the texts play in the construction processes of different versions of the past and of cultural identities? Proposed answers rely on a cultural contextualization of “classic” categories of narratology: Indigenized methods of a “post”-colonial narratology are used to interpret culture-specific representations of cultural re/membering and to outline transcultural functional potentials of a contemporary Māori novel, Patricia Grace’s Potiki (1986), complemented by references to a First Australian text, Bruce Pascoe’s Earth (2001).' (Publication abstract)
Learning to Read Country : Bruce Pascoe’s Earth, an Indigenous Ecological Allegory David Michael Fonteyn , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology , vol. 4 no. 2014; (p. 35-51)

'Allegories contain specific forms and techniques which define a text as an allegory, including an intention written into the text. The reader is required to make an effort to determine that intention if they are to uncover the allegory. Also, allegories function didactically to educate the reader in a certain way, and, through that education, transform the reader. This is the traditional function of allegory.

'In this paper, I read Bruce Pascoe’s 2001 novel, Earth, as an example of what I term an ‘Indigenous ecological allegory’. The novel encodes in allegorical form an Indigenous worldview of the natural world. Many theorists agree that such a worldview can broadly be termed ecological. The didactic principle is to educate the reader about this Indigenous worldview of Country. As the reader comes to an understanding of Country, the narrative events, which describe a colonial (1880s) war between non-indigenous and indigenous people, as well as the language that encodes those events, become re-interpreted through this alternative metaphysics. What emerges is a possibility for the overturning of incipient dualism. The growth in the reader’s knowledge of Country opens the way to mutual acceptance. Country makes welcome all people to its land on the provision of respect and a commitment to its care.

Pascoe’s novel utilises medieval allegorical forms, techniques and strategies in order to expose the narratives and language of the Australian Tradition to the language of the ‘other’ of Indigenous Country, that is (more specifically) the Wathaurong language and worldview that it encodes. The allegorical techniques include a cyclic narrative structure involving a Threshold scene followed by related scenes and commentary, direct address to the reader, narrative digression, debate, allegorical names and puns. Using these techniques, Pascoe uncovers a polysemy that has developed within the English language in its encounter with the Indigenous people.

'Finally, while allegory has yet to be studied in ecocrticisim as a form for writing nature, I argue that it is an ideal literary form in which Nature and an ecological worldview may be portrayed in a written text.' (Publication abstract)

Unsettling the Colonial Linear Perspective in Kim Scott's Benang Anne Le Guellec-Minel , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Commonwealth , Autumn vol. 33 no. 1 2010; (p. 35-44)
'This paper focuses 'on how Kim Scott undertakes in his novel Benang (1999) to subvert the simplistic, destructive and ultimately self-defeating doctrine of progress championed by colonists whose eugenicist policies aimed at 'breeding out' the Aboriginal heritage. Scott shows how pioneering megalomania drove those white visionaries of the future of Australian race to aspire to being their own beginning and their own end. To counter this colonial narrative which maps out progress as a process of purification, and posits sameness as the only desirable goal on the national horizon, he deploys a circuitous and ultimately circular exploration of time and space. This narrative is informed both by the memories of his narrator's Aboriginal relatives and by the narrator's imaginative empathy with his ancestors, which eventually enables him to substitute a pattern of return and permanence for the narcissistic and misguided abstraction of linear progress.'' (p 35)
A Promising Outlook on a Hopeless Situation Lars Ahlström , 2003 single work review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 17 no. 1 2003; (p. 67)

— Review of Earth Bruce Pascoe , 2001 single work novel

' This may very well become the classic the text on the back claims. It is a fearful tale but yet promising, a promise to which we have the depressing record. It is a book about the Aboriginal situation in 19th- century Melbourne but the main characters are not Aboriginal, at least not only and to start with not primarily. (Introduction)

Untitled Ian McFarlane , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: Voice : A Journal of Comment and Review , March no. 1 2002; (p. 34-36)

— Review of Miles McGinty Tom Gilling , 2001 single work novel ; Earth Bruce Pascoe , 2001 single work novel
In a Fourth Novel, Writers Deliver the Goods Michelle Griffin , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 1 September 2001; (p. 10)

— Review of Earth Bruce Pascoe , 2001 single work novel ; The Art of the Engine Driver Steven Carroll , 2001 single work novel
Delight from a Naturally Gifted Writer Ian McFarlane , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 27 October 2001; (p. 17)

— Review of Miles McGinty Tom Gilling , 2001 single work novel ; Earth Bruce Pascoe , 2001 single work novel
Two New Novels Katharine England , 2001 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , September no. 234 2001; (p. 58-59)

— Review of The Deepest Part of the Lake Robert Hillman , 2001 single work novel ; Earth Bruce Pascoe , 2001 single work novel
Unsettling the Colonial Linear Perspective in Kim Scott's Benang Anne Le Guellec-Minel , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Commonwealth , Autumn vol. 33 no. 1 2010; (p. 35-44)
'This paper focuses 'on how Kim Scott undertakes in his novel Benang (1999) to subvert the simplistic, destructive and ultimately self-defeating doctrine of progress championed by colonists whose eugenicist policies aimed at 'breeding out' the Aboriginal heritage. Scott shows how pioneering megalomania drove those white visionaries of the future of Australian race to aspire to being their own beginning and their own end. To counter this colonial narrative which maps out progress as a process of purification, and posits sameness as the only desirable goal on the national horizon, he deploys a circuitous and ultimately circular exploration of time and space. This narrative is informed both by the memories of his narrator's Aboriginal relatives and by the narrator's imaginative empathy with his ancestors, which eventually enables him to substitute a pattern of return and permanence for the narcissistic and misguided abstraction of linear progress.'' (p 35)
Learning to Read Country : Bruce Pascoe’s Earth, an Indigenous Ecological Allegory David Michael Fonteyn , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australasian Journal of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology , vol. 4 no. 2014; (p. 35-51)

'Allegories contain specific forms and techniques which define a text as an allegory, including an intention written into the text. The reader is required to make an effort to determine that intention if they are to uncover the allegory. Also, allegories function didactically to educate the reader in a certain way, and, through that education, transform the reader. This is the traditional function of allegory.

'In this paper, I read Bruce Pascoe’s 2001 novel, Earth, as an example of what I term an ‘Indigenous ecological allegory’. The novel encodes in allegorical form an Indigenous worldview of the natural world. Many theorists agree that such a worldview can broadly be termed ecological. The didactic principle is to educate the reader about this Indigenous worldview of Country. As the reader comes to an understanding of Country, the narrative events, which describe a colonial (1880s) war between non-indigenous and indigenous people, as well as the language that encodes those events, become re-interpreted through this alternative metaphysics. What emerges is a possibility for the overturning of incipient dualism. The growth in the reader’s knowledge of Country opens the way to mutual acceptance. Country makes welcome all people to its land on the provision of respect and a commitment to its care.

Pascoe’s novel utilises medieval allegorical forms, techniques and strategies in order to expose the narratives and language of the Australian Tradition to the language of the ‘other’ of Indigenous Country, that is (more specifically) the Wathaurong language and worldview that it encodes. The allegorical techniques include a cyclic narrative structure involving a Threshold scene followed by related scenes and commentary, direct address to the reader, narrative digression, debate, allegorical names and puns. Using these techniques, Pascoe uncovers a polysemy that has developed within the English language in its encounter with the Indigenous people.

'Finally, while allegory has yet to be studied in ecocrticisim as a form for writing nature, I argue that it is an ideal literary form in which Nature and an ecological worldview may be portrayed in a written text.' (Publication abstract)

'[P]ulling Tomorrow's Sky from [the] Kete' : Culture-Specific Narrative Representations of Re/Membering in Contemporary Māori and First Australian Novels Hanne Birk , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Narrative and Identity Construction in the Pacific Islands 2015; (p. 209-223)
'Aotearoa New Zealand and Australia constitute plural, heterogeneous and hybrid spaces, in which a multiplicity of Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultures live together but are not treated equally. How can indigenous novels contribute to ensuing transcultural negotiations of competitive and synergetic processes of re/membering in “post”-colonial contexts? What roles do the texts play in the construction processes of different versions of the past and of cultural identities? Proposed answers rely on a cultural contextualization of “classic” categories of narratology: Indigenized methods of a “post”-colonial narratology are used to interpret culture-specific representations of cultural re/membering and to outline transcultural functional potentials of a contemporary Māori novel, Patricia Grace’s Potiki (1986), complemented by references to a First Australian text, Bruce Pascoe’s Earth (2001).' (Publication abstract)
y separately published work icon Polities and Poetics : Race Relations and Reconciliation in Australian Literature Adelle Sefton-Rowston , Oxford : Peter Lang , 2022 24390199 2022 multi chapter work criticism

'A reconciliation movement spread across Australia during the 1990s, bringing significant marches, speeches, and policies across the country. Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians began imagining race relations in new ways and articulations of place, belonging, and being together began informing literature of a unique new genre. This book explores the political and poetic paradigms of reconciliation represented in Australian writing of this period. The author brings together textual evidence of themes and a vernacular contributing to the emergent genre of reconciliatory literature. The nexus between resistance and reconciliation is explored as a complex process to understanding sovereignty, colonial history, and the future of society. Moreover, this book argues it is creative writing that is most necessary for a deeper understanding of each other and of place, because it is writing that calls one to witness, to feel, and to imagine all at the same time.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Non-Human (Narrative) Authority in Bruce Pascoe’s Earth Dorothee Klein , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Poetics and Politics of Relationality in Contemporary Australian Aboriginal Fiction 2021;
Last amended 9 Jul 2021 09:58:56
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