I wondered about the title, Tourmaline; a semi-precious mineral used as a bridge to the spiritual. I also learnt a new word plangent (sound with a mournful tone) and if nothing else, this word serves as an appropriate summary of a book I didn’t like at all. I read it because a friend said she liked Randolph Stow’s writing. This copy was in my bookshelf. Perhaps coincidently, this same friend had previously lent me a dystopian book in a setting when water dried up which I couldn’t finish. So, perhaps this dusty, dried-out, depressing tale was in the same vein. Stow’s assortment of lame characters are barely alive, poorly conceived and more like cut-outs. Worse, their dialogue is confusing, aimless, repetitive, and obscure - as is the novel. The Christian-religious motifs were a turn-off for me even if they came to nothing and perhaps this was the point. There was no pleasure anywhere in this book just misery, disenchantment, failure, and obscurity. Just for a moment, when the narrator gives a form of ANZAC address about the pointlessness of death, my interest was piqued. I quote it here because it sums up the plangent tone of the novel…

Once it was said that they died for us. But we’ve never truly known what they died for. Some for us, some for God, some for themselves. Most for no one, for nothing, not understanding, not even asking. p.149

( )

The first line of this book is a favourite of mine: "I say we have a bitter heritage, but that is not to run it down."

I don't think Stow is known by many members of my generation, which I think is a shame. Well, I don't think he's for everyone. His prose must already have been amorphous and tricky even then; his intentions sometimes obscure; his themes specific and psychological. But, gee whiz, I enjoy him. There's something of Joseph Conrad in Stow's vision of man trying to fight nature armed only with culture and religion, neither of which he can be fully certain of. Transpose this to the dusty red of the Australian outback, and you have something most intriguing. ( )

Michael Random is deposited in the broken-down mining town of Tourmaline, WA. He's been rescued from the side of the road, near dying of heat exhaustion.
As he recovers the locals come under Michael's weird influence. He imagines himself a diviner, hence a saviour who will find a new water source for the town. The dead-beat lives of the townspeople are given a new perspective with his plans for religious and spiritual, as well as mineral revival; but is Michael simply a crazed dreamer, gone troppo?
An absorbing book with an off-beat prose style which suits the desperate locale and characters.

This Australian classic provided a good discussion this month. Most of us struggled with the context of the story and what it was trying to tell us, but the language and descriptive writing thoroughly impressed everyone. Good Australian fiction seems to thrive in a ‘sense of place’, where the reader can literally feel the extreme environment and desperation of those trapped within. Tourmaline is an excellent example of this.
We worked our way through the characters, reflecting on their natures and what they mean to the story and whether it is allegorical, spiritual or simply a study on
Australia’s European heritage.
It is worth saying that this book produced different emotions in all of us … depressing, creepy, discouraging, reminiscent and bewilderment! Quite a list from one small novel that was written in the 60s and proclaimed to be set in the future. Well, it can be said we are now in the future and Tourmaline could be any dry, outback town with a local pub, general store, resident drunk and aging policeman. But where Michael fits in can only be determined in the reader’s mind.
A great surreal Australian classic that deserves to be explored. ( )

Dustcover illustration by Sidney Nolan