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Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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The Ruin of Time and the Temporality of Belonging : Journey to the Stone Country and Landscape of Farewell
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 201-216) 'At first glance, Landscape of Farewell (2007) appears a simpler, more streamlined story than its predecessor, Journey to the Stone Country (2002). In the first person, Max Otto, a widowed German professor specialising in the history of massacres, tells of his journey to Mount Nebo in Central Queensland, a journey precipitated by his encounter with visiting Aboriginal Australian academic Vita McLelland. His journey is conducted in the context of his not yet assuaged grief for his wife, and of his haunted suspicions about his father's complicity in the horrors of wartime Germany. Peter Pierce (2004) has identified some of Miller's enduring preoccupations: 'solitariness', 'artful evocations of the visceral', tensions between ancestry, freedom and exile, and the indeterminacy of memory. While many of these recur in Landscape, I focus in this paper on how the theme of time is exercised in this novel, with its spare but concentrated prose and apparently straightforward narration. How does Landscape of Farewell draw us inwards as well as onwards, into an intricately nested set of temporalities that speak to selfhood, truth and reparation, to cross-cultural translation, to mortality and relinquishment, and to the intractable terrain of moral debate about the past? What does Miller's mode of narration bring to familiar questions, in Australian culture, of place and belonging?' (Source: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/australian_literature/images/content/conferences/miller_abstracts2.pdf) -
Old Testament Prophets and New Testament Saviours : Reading Retribution and Forgiveness towards Whiteness in Alex Miller’s Journey to the Stone Country
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 170-186) 'In Journey to the Stone Country (2002), Alex Miller explores a national history in a regional setting, mapping a literary path towards reconciliation between black and white on what we may consider - and what he himself has described - as a place sacred to both Indigenous and European dreaming ('Sweet Water', 104). Yet Journey to the Stone Country is not only a literary journey. Contained within the literary of Miller's intricately drawn fictional world is the literal, the lived experiences of the character's real-life counterparts, whose stories inform the reconciliatory movements of the novel.' (From author's introduction 170)
-
Old Testament Prophets and New Testament Saviours : Reading Retribution and Forgiveness towards Whiteness in Alex Miller’s Journey to the Stone Country
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 170-186) 'In Journey to the Stone Country (2002), Alex Miller explores a national history in a regional setting, mapping a literary path towards reconciliation between black and white on what we may consider - and what he himself has described - as a place sacred to both Indigenous and European dreaming ('Sweet Water', 104). Yet Journey to the Stone Country is not only a literary journey. Contained within the literary of Miller's intricately drawn fictional world is the literal, the lived experiences of the character's real-life counterparts, whose stories inform the reconciliatory movements of the novel.' (From author's introduction 170) -
The Ruin of Time and the Temporality of Belonging : Journey to the Stone Country and Landscape of Farewell
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 201-216) 'At first glance, Landscape of Farewell (2007) appears a simpler, more streamlined story than its predecessor, Journey to the Stone Country (2002). In the first person, Max Otto, a widowed German professor specialising in the history of massacres, tells of his journey to Mount Nebo in Central Queensland, a journey precipitated by his encounter with visiting Aboriginal Australian academic Vita McLelland. His journey is conducted in the context of his not yet assuaged grief for his wife, and of his haunted suspicions about his father's complicity in the horrors of wartime Germany. Peter Pierce (2004) has identified some of Miller's enduring preoccupations: 'solitariness', 'artful evocations of the visceral', tensions between ancestry, freedom and exile, and the indeterminacy of memory. While many of these recur in Landscape, I focus in this paper on how the theme of time is exercised in this novel, with its spare but concentrated prose and apparently straightforward narration. How does Landscape of Farewell draw us inwards as well as onwards, into an intricately nested set of temporalities that speak to selfhood, truth and reparation, to cross-cultural translation, to mortality and relinquishment, and to the intractable terrain of moral debate about the past? What does Miller's mode of narration bring to familiar questions, in Australian culture, of place and belonging?' (Source: http://sydney.edu.au/arts/australian_literature/images/content/conferences/miller_abstracts2.pdf)
Last amended 7 Nov 2007 14:13:04
