The Drover’s Wife and other Stories by Murray Bail

August 18, 2022, 5:48 am

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04AE0040-D3D9-49D5-AC55-121EB7856B5F

1975

When I read this book, my thoughts will appear in the comment stream below…

2 thoughts on “The Drover’s Wife and other Stories — Murray Bail”

nullimmortalis August 17, 2022 at 9:13 am Edit
HUEBLER
“It was his intention, he declared, to ‘photographically document . . . the existence of everyone alive.’.”
There seems something appropriately resonant, in hindsight, with my chance review yesterday HERE of PIERRE MENARD, AUTHOR OF THE QUIXOTE by Jorge Luis Borges. Who rebel? Hu reactionary? This is an intriguing series of separate descriptions of the 23 numbered types of human being that make up the who-we-all-are and the who-YOU-are at the very end of it all. The ‘Zynopic’ me, the ‘STILL LIFE’, the synchronous maniac effected by every cause, and more, and less. But I also recognised myself, somewhat, in Murray Bail’s no. 1: the one who wants to avoid anonymity, to build a legacy by inventing words and ‘planting’ them in various places so that they end up in a prestigious dictionary, such as I have already done with the word ‘nemonymous’! And in no. 7: ‘At least one person who thinks words are as concrete as objects’. And, most of all, in no. 15: “At least one person who is convinced his or her experiences would make an interesting nov—“ that is a descriptive section comprising two blank pages!
nullimmortalis August 18, 2022 at 1:46 pm Edit
LIFE OF THE PARTY
A story that watches us read it but not having even read it itself. A man in a treehouse, an absent party as it were, has invited guests to a barbecue leaving all the ingredients there to be prepared and consumed, and then watching as they made their own party without him. I was particularly intrigued by a neighbour called Zelda, who I don’t think was at the party, who seemed to only do things beginning with z, like always calling nought or nothing with the word zero. Cf Zymurgy, Zythm, Zynopic and Zyvatiate in ‘Huebler’.