Fraught with Danger and Promise

Carey, G

Fraught with Danger and Promise

Carey, G

Permalink

Publisher:: Text Publishing Company
Publication Type:: Chapter
Citation:: Tourmaline, 2015
Issue Date:: 2015

Closed Access

	Filename	Description	Size
	Stow-Tourmaline_Carey-intro_clean.doc	Accepted Manuscript version	36.5 kB	Microsoft Word	View/Open

Copyright Clearance Process

Recently Added
In Progress
Closed Access

This item is closed access and not available.

Full metadata record

Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Carey, G https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3127-3891	en_US
dc.date.issued	2015	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Tourmaline, 2015	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/54321
dc.description.abstract	When the actor, director and writer Rachel Ward was leaving England for Australia, a friend handed her two books. If you want to understand the country you’re going to, he said, these are your essential texts. One of them was The Timeless Land, by Eleanor Dark. The other was Tourmaline, by Randolph Stow. There is something quintessentially Australian about Tourmaline. The outback town could be any outback town, the pub any rural pub at the end of ‘the raw red streak of the road’. The landscape of dust and flies is instantly recognisable. But what is this book about a stranger who comes to a once-prosperous mining town now stricken by drought, promising to bring water? Is it fable or allegory, a Western, or a philosophical examination of the differences between Christianity and Taoism? Tourmaline was published in England in 1963 and subsequently greeted with bewilderment in Australia. Dame Leonie Kramer dismissed it as ‘The Waste Land with a few more bar scenes’. Anthony J. Hassall calls it Stow’s least understood book. It is the most overtly modernist of his eight novels, and the author’s favourite, perhaps because it combined his talents as poet and prose writer. Indeed, the first few lines could easily be reformatted into poetry:	en_US
dc.publisher	Text Publishing Company	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Tourmaline	en_US
dc.title	Fraught with Danger and Promise	en_US
dc.type	Chapter
utslib.for	1904 Performing Arts and Creative Writing	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/Creative Writing Program
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CPCE - Centre for Creative Practices and the Cultural Economy
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	false	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US

Abstract:

When the actor, director and writer Rachel Ward was leaving England for Australia, a friend handed her two books. If you want to understand the country you’re going to, he said, these are your essential texts. One of them was The Timeless Land, by Eleanor Dark. The other was Tourmaline, by Randolph Stow. There is something quintessentially Australian about Tourmaline. The outback town could be any outback town, the pub any rural pub at the end of ‘the raw red streak of the road’. The landscape of dust and flies is instantly recognisable. But what is this book about a stranger who comes to a once-prosperous mining town now stricken by drought, promising to bring water? Is it fable or allegory, a Western, or a philosophical examination of the differences between Christianity and Taoism? Tourmaline was published in England in 1963 and subsequently greeted with bewilderment in Australia. Dame Leonie Kramer dismissed it as ‘The Waste Land with a few more bar scenes’. Anthony J. Hassall calls it Stow’s least understood book. It is the most overtly modernist of his eight novels, and the author’s favourite, perhaps because it combined his talents as poet and prose writer. Indeed, the first few lines could easily be reformatted into poetry:

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/54321