![]() Then, of course, there is the problem of Australia. ![]() He conducts a philosophical argument with imaginative literature, frustrated at the ways language fails to fit the world – and that argument is acute, particularly for a writer whose approach is so painterly. He is awkward with voice, character and plot, preferring jolts and digressions to well-paced unfolding. Bail’s new novel, Eucalyptus, the first in 11 years, is the latest stage in his quest – and surprisingly suave.īail also insists on obstacles between the reader and the simple pleasures of fiction. He has resisted the trappings of success, insisting with prickly pride on the obstacles in the way of proper literary achievement. Bail’s spare output over 25 years might put him in the same category, were it not shaped by the contrary intention expressed in that early warning to himself. Usually it’s the other way round, the ambition being to become ‘a writer’ and no longer have to write. This feeling against is insistent and true,’ wrote Murray Bail in a diary in London in 1971. ![]()
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