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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Twenty years ago, when I first arrived on the plains, I kept my eyes open. I looked for anything in the landscape that seemed to hint at some elaborate meaning behind appearances.
'There is no book in Australian literature like The Plains. In the two decades since its first publication, this haunting novel has earned its status as a classic. A nameless young man arrives on the plains and begins to document the strange and rich culture of the plains families. As his story unfolds, the novel becomes, in the words of Murray Bail, ‘a mirage of landscape, memory, love and literature itself’.' (Publication summary : Text Classics)
Notes
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Epigraph: 'We had at length discovered a country ready for the immediate reception of civilised man...' (Thomas Livingstone Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia).
Contents
- Introduction, single work criticism
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Also sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Retrospective Intention : The Implied Author and the Coherence of the Oeuvre in Border Districts and The Plains
2020
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Gerald Murnane : Another World in This One 2020; (p. 45-62) 'This essay examines the dialogic relationship between Gerald Murnane’s final novel, Border Districts (2017), and his third published novel, The Plains (1982), to argue that Murnane’s late works enact a “retrospective intention” that revises the meaning of his earlier works. Murnane’s writings depict a complex relationship between author, intention, text and reader through the notion of the “implied author”, a figure that gives coherence to the total meaning of a work, while also being purely textual in nature. By comparing Wayne C. Booth’s influential definition of the implied author and Murnane’s use of the term, however, I argue that Murnane foregrounds and exploits its internal contradictions for generative purposes. The implied author functions similarly to what I will call retrospective intention.' (Introduction) -
The Story of Norstrilia Press
2019
single work
review
— Appears in: SF Commentary , April no. 98 2019; (p. 71-84)
— Review of The Altered I : An Encounter with Science Fiction 1976 anthology short story criticism poetry ; The View from the Edge : A Workshop of Science Fiction Stories 1977 anthology short story ; Moon in the Ground 1979 single work novel ; The Dreaming Dragons : A Time Opera 1980 single work novel ; The Stellar Gauge : Essays on Science Fiction Writers 1980 anthology criticism ; Lavington Pugh 1982 single work novel ; An Unusual Angle 1983 single work novel ; The Plains 1982 single work novel ; Landscape with Landscape 1985 selected work short story ; Dreamworks : Strange New Stories 1983 anthology short story ; In the Heart or in the Head : An Essay in Time Travel 1984 single work autobiography criticism -
y
Grounded Visionary : The Mystic Fictions of Gerald Murnane
Oxford
:
Peter Lang
,
2019
22038132
2019
multi chapter work
criticism
'Grounded Visionary: The Mystic Fictions of Gerald Murnane is a reading of Australian writer Gerald Murnane’s fiction in the light of what is known as the Perennial Philosophy, a philosophical tradition that positions itself as the mystical foundation of all the world’s religions and spiritual systems. The essential tenet of that philosophy is that at a fundamental level all of life is a unity―consciousness and world are the same thing―and that it is possible, if extremely difficult, for the discriminating individual mind to experience this wholeness. Murnane’s work can be seen not to take its lead from writings in this philosophical tradition but rather to resonate with many of them through Murnane’s unique artistic expression of his experience of the world. The crux of the argument is that beneath their yearnings for landscapes and love, Murnane’s narrators and chief characters are all in search of the essential unity that the Perennial Philosophy postulates.
'Taking its cue from Murnane’s self-description as a "technical writer," this book examines each of the author’s works in detail to reveal how structures and themes are seamlessly woven together to create artworks that shimmer with mystery while at the same time remaining thoroughly grounded in the actual.
'Grounded Visionary is the first full-length study of Gerald Murnane’s work to tackle head-on his underlying mystical sensibility and is also the first to deal comprehensively with the author’s complete fictional output from Tamarisk Row to Border Districts. This book will be of interest to all lovers of modern literature and will be of special interest to students of Australian literature and those concerned with the interface between art and spirituality.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
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What I’m Reading
2018
single work
column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2018; -
Green Shadows : Venturing into Gerald Murnane’s Plains
2018
single work
prose
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 63 no. 1 2018; (p. 39-47)'I have been delivered of my books.'
These words hang in the air as Gerald Murnane confirms his retirement during a rare address to around thirty academics, writers, publishers and fans at the Goroke Golf Club. The one-day symposium, 'Another World in This One : Gerald Murnane's Fiction, is part of the Western Sydney University's 'Other Worlds: Forms of World Literature' project. On first glance it is a curious connection: how can the life work of an author who has rarely left the small pockets of Victoria, suburban Melbourne and a few regional villages and towns that he has called home for eighty years inform us about a literature of the 'world'?' (Introduction)
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Soundings from Down Under
2003
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 17 no. 1 2003; (p. 60-63)
— Review of Armidale 1979 selected work poetry prose ; 'Unemployed at Last!' : Essays on Australian Literature to 2002 for Julian Croft 2002 anthology criticism ; The Plains 1982 single work novel ; Authority and Influence : Australian Literary Criticism 1950-2000 2001 anthology criticism extract ; Black Sheep : Journey to Borroloola 2002 single work prose -
Murnane Makes It Plain: The Truth is Out There
2004
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 18 no. 2 2004; (p. 179-180)
— Review of The Plains 1982 single work novel -
Norstrilia Press Catalogue
1996
single work
review
— Appears in: Scratch Pad 15 , April 1996; (p. 1-2)
— Review of The View from the Edge : A Workshop of Science Fiction Stories 1977 anthology short story ; In the Heart or in the Head : An Essay in Time Travel 1984 single work autobiography criticism ; An Unusual Angle 1983 single work novel ; Dreamworks : Strange New Stories 1983 anthology short story ; The Plains 1982 single work novel ; The Dreaming Dragons : A Time Opera 1980 single work novel ; Moon in the Ground 1979 single work novel ; Landscape with Landscape 1985 selected work short story -
Untitled
2012
single work
review
— Appears in: The Lifted Brow , no. 14 2012; (p. 28)
— Review of The Plains 1982 single work novel -
Gerald Murnane's 'The Plains'
1982
single work
review
— Appears in: Meanjin , Summer vol. 41 no. 4 1982; (p. 523-525)
— Review of The Plains 1982 single work novel -
Bookmarks : Plain Sales to Sweden
2003
single work
column
— Appears in: The Age , 5 July 2003; (p. 6) -
The Photographic Eye: The Camera in Recent Australian Fiction
2002
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 16 no. 2 2002; (p. 137-141) Genoni discusses Australian novels, published largely in the late 1990s, that feature 'a character who is a cameraman or woman, sometimes professional, sometimes amateur, but to whom the world is framed, filtered and focused through the lens, the viewfinder, and the zoom.' He concludes, 'if we accept that space is produced by discursive practices, then we must question whether the text that is embedded in over 150 years of photgraphic production has not shaped an imagination that encounters space in terms of time as well as, or perhaps rather than, place.' -
The Figure of Woman and the Fantasy of the Modern Australian Nation : Travelling to the 'Empty Centre'
2003
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , November vol. 18 no. 42 2003; (p. 273-283) The article offers 'a Lacanian analysis of the function of Woman in Murnane's The Plains, a novel which is itself preoccupied with the use made of the image of Woman in the reproduction of prevailing national fantasies' (273). -
Gerald Murnane : Exploring the Real Country
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Subverting the Empire : Explorers and Exploration in Australian Fiction 2004; (p. 145-194) -
'Inner Experience' in Gerald Murnane's The Plains
2004
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Imagining Australia : Literature and Culture in the New New World 2004; (p. 108-119)