Kevin Rabalais
Autor von Novel Voices
Werke von Kevin Rabalais
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- #250,752
- Bewertung
- 3.7
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- 1
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- 7
Landscape of Desire is a masterly first novel fictionalising this same story. Ambitious in scope and structure, the book assumes some knowledge of the expedition and its protagonists, introducing multiple narratives that shape events before, during and after the loss of the party, and fracturing the chronology to sustain interest in a story already very well-known.
Rabalais has resisted the temptations of first person narrative, but we hear the perspectives of Burke, the moody and eccentric police inspector-turned-leader of the expedition; and also the stoic surveyor Wills who turns out to have more in common with Burke than either of them knew. There is the narrative of the sole survivor John King and his sojourn among the Aborigines who saved his life; of William Brahe, haunted by the bad timing of his departure from Cooper’s Creek; and Alfred Howitt, sent by the exploration committee to investigate the disappearance but who found only King still alive. And – missing from the heroic version of this doomed expedition that my generation learned at school – there is also the love interest: the young actress Julia Matthews whose mother hopes for more than a policeman as a husband for Julia and who, in this novel, is thus the catalyst for Burke’s efforts to impress her with his heroic venture. (Unless there is more to the historical record than I know, this is one of a number of imagined aspects of the novel.)
By and large the technique is successful, though Julia’s voice is not as convincing as the others. She does not, of course, have as significant or as dramatic a part to play. Hers is a bit part, in the vast amphitheatre of this novel. But the other characters are very compelling – they all have so much invested in their enterprise; ambitions offset by the simple kindness and generosity of the indigenous woman Karuwa at home in a landscape that terrifies them all.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2014/04/10/landscape-of-desire-by-kevin-rabalais/… (mehr)