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This image has been sourced from online.
y separately published work icon Homesickness single work   novel   humour  
Issue Details: First known date: 1980... 1980 Homesickness
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'It could almost have been their own country: these sections with the gums briefly framed like a traditional oil painting by the slowly passing window. The colours were as brown and parched; that chaff-coloured grass, Ah, this dun-coloured realism. Any minute now the cry of the crow or a cockatoo; but no.

'Thirteen men and women travel the world on a package tour but wherever they go nothing is as it seems.

'Challenged by the unexpected, by differences and subtleties, Bail’s tourists are in turn repelled and attracted—and all are altered.' (Publication summary)

Exhibitions

18388257
18387981

Contents

* Contents derived from the Melbourne, Victoria,:Text Publishing , 2012 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Introduction, Peter Conrad , essay

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • South Melbourne, South Melbourne - Port Melbourne area, Melbourne - Inner South, Melbourne, Victoria,: Macmillan , 1980 .
      image of person or book cover 1307301119728672735.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 371p.
      ISBN: 0333298969
    • Ringwood, Ringwood - Croydon - Kilsyth area, Melbourne - East, Melbourne, Victoria,: Penguin , 1981 .
      image of person or book cover 4649325339017873849.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 317p.
      ISBN: 0140058958
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Faber ,
      1986 .
      image of person or book cover 5087388976588188140.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 317p.
      ISBN: 0571138403 (pbk.)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 1998 .
      image of person or book cover 78547294218857590.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 421p.
      ISBN: 1875847642
    • New York (City), New York (State),
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,
      :
      Farrar Straus and Giroux ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 5163206490559457050.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Alternative title: Homesickness : A Novel
      Extent: 421p.
      ISBN: 0374172471 (alk. paper)
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,
      :
      Panther ,
      1999 .
      image of person or book cover 935878231616661241.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 432p.
      ISBN: 1860466834(pbk.)
    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Text Publishing , 2012 .
      image of person or book cover 8490355394746998396.jpg
      Cover image courtesy of publisher.
      Extent: xiv, 421p.p.
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: 26 April 2012.
      ISBN: 9781921922619 (pbk.)
      Series: y separately published work icon Text Classics Text Publishing (publisher), Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2012- Z1851461 2012 series - publisher novel 'Great books by great Australian storytellers.' (Text website.)

Other Formats

  • Also sound recording.

Works about this Work

Knowing the Name of Things : Inscribing the Tourist Gaze in Murray Bail’s Homesickness Jean Page , 2020 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of the European Association for Studies of Australia , vol. 11 no. 1 2020;

'In his postmodern novel Homesickness (1980), Australian novelist Murray Bail depicts a group of Australian tourists on a package tour through diverse countries—including an unnamed African country, the UK and Ecuador—and cities of London, New York and Moscow. In addressing the archetype of the tourist, for which the mobile Australian is judged suitably representative, Bail explores the various perspectives of his diverse group in their picaresque encounters with unfamiliar, Other landscapes and people. In particular he focusses on the nature of their descriptions of such encounters in an increasingly virtual or curated world of global tourism (its museums, guides, exhibitions). This is seen in the dialogic, arguably appropriating, acts of naming, identifying, epistolary accounts (notably in postcards) and also photography, including by the group’s tellingly blind photographer. From a postcolonial perspective, Bail’s tourist group can be considered akin to the settler, albeit in a global situation in which places visited and their people are viewed as Other. This article primarily addresses Bail’s examination of the nature of human apprehension of unfamiliar and familiar worlds through the binaries of distance/closeness, as well as though ratiocinative, visual, classifying, collecting impulses as distinct from a more chaotic, random indeterminate acceptance. A central anchoring, comparative reference point is the familiar (the Australian home, landscape, vegetation and its various stereotypes including in unfamiliar places) and the alternative counter viewpoints of non-travellers. Consideration is given to themes concerning consciousness and the visual, including perspectives of philosopher Maurice Blanchot and postmodern theorist Ihab Hassan.'

Source: Abstract.

Morality at Bay : The Lesson of the Americas in Murray Bail's Homesickness Michael Ackland , 2014 single work criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 28 no. 2 2014; (p. 275-288, 535.)
'For four decades Murray Bail's writing has been at the forefront of inventive and intellectual challenging Australian fiction, yet his preoccupations remain elusive, his works enigmatic. His first book, Contemporary Portraits and Other Stories, signalled the arrival of a major talent, an expectation matched by subsequent award-winning novels, such as Homesickness and Eucalyptus. His work, however, has been often accused of inventiveness for its own sake. Here, Ackland discusses Bail's Homesickness.' (Publication summary)
'On All Fours Passing, Tintinnabulation' : Murray Bail's Creative Case against the Imperial Word Michael Ackland , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Tapestry of the Creative Word in Anglophone Literatures 2013; (p. 231-240)
Untitled Sam Twyford-Moore , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 14 2012; (p. 23)

— Review of Homesickness Murray Bail , 1980 single work novel
Inside the Maze Michael Ackland , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Experimental Fiction of Murray Bail 2012; (p. 37-102)
"Burbank Meditating..." Ken Gelder , 1981 single work review
— Appears in: The CRNLE Reviews Journal , December no. 2 1981; (p. 13-15)

— Review of Homesickness Murray Bail , 1980 single work novel
Untitled Sam Twyford-Moore , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 14 2012; (p. 23)

— Review of Homesickness Murray Bail , 1980 single work novel
Untitled D. Anderson , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: Westerly , December vol. 25 no. 4 1980; (p. 94-96)

— Review of Homesickness Murray Bail , 1980 single work novel
Untitled G. Baxter , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian Magazine , 11-12 October 1980; (p. 16)

— Review of Homesickness Murray Bail , 1980 single work novel
[Untitled] Helen Daniel , 1980 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 11 October 1980; (p. 30)

— Review of Homesickness Murray Bail , 1980 single work novel
The World, the Text, and the Tourist : Murray Bail's Homesickness as a Guide to the Real Wenche Ommundsen , 1991 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Narrative Technique , Winter vol. 21 no. 1 1991; (p. 1-13)
Surveying a Novel Trend Russell Wenholz , 2004 single work column
— Appears in: Canberra Sunday Times , 11 July 2004; (p. 19)
Detourism : Murray Bail's Photographic Fiction John Attridge , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Journal of Commonwealth Literature , vol. 39 no. 3 2004; (p. 69-91)
The article draws parallels between Roland Barthes' theory of photography and Murray Bail's photographic techniques in Homesickness and Eucalyptus.
Deceptive Construction : The Art of Building in Peter Carey's Illywhacker Brian Edwards , 2005 single work criticism
— Appears in: Fabulating Beauty : Perspectives on the Fiction of Peter Carey 2005; (p. 149-170)
A poststrucural reading of Carey's novel which considers the novel as 'an exercise in bricolage', and compares it with some of Murray Bail's texts.
'No One Gives a Fuck about Australia' : Aussies Abroad in The Riders and Homesickness Nathanael O'Reilly , 2009 single work criticism
— Appears in: Bernard Hickey, a Roving Cultural Ambassador : Essays in His Memory. 2009; (p. 177-185)
Last amended 11 Oct 2018 07:14:01
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