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johnhodges's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
never4get's review against another edition
3.0
The premise of this book, i.e. the husband's affair with a student that sparked Annabelle to head off north to where she was raised as a child, seems improbable. He is quickly forgotten in all that follows. Annabelle meets up with Bo, an aboriginal fellow she knew as a child but who was in the background at that time because they were in such different spheres. Clearly she loomed more highly in his recollection than he did in hers.
In the days and weeks where she meets up with up with him again they follow little-known trails in the outback, ostensibly to 'map' a dam for a company, but really to re-live the life that Bo was familiar with from his forbears. In this they are shadowed by a young aboriginal man, Anwer, in his van with pounding music - who seems totally disengaged by all that is going on. A younger woman too, Trace, is part of the team until she meets up with a young man, Matthew and becomes so totally absorbed by him that they go off together.
Annabelle and Bo have to come to terms with their very different backgrounds, but eventually they do become lovers - which seems satisfying for them both. However, at the end of the novel, they visit an aged aboriginal woman who has a totally vitriolic memory of Annabelle's family's involvement in wiping out the aboriginal inhabitants in that area. Specifically she recounts Annabelle's grandfather shooting the adults and killing the children with his spurs. She threatens to put a curse on Bo and Annabelle if he takes her to the Stone Country. This casts a pall over their relationship, but Bo has the attitude that people were angry because of past actions, but it is time to work together for the good of all. That is his view in trying to gain back the land lost by his grandmother.
In the days and weeks where she meets up with up with him again they follow little-known trails in the outback, ostensibly to 'map' a dam for a company, but really to re-live the life that Bo was familiar with from his forbears. In this they are shadowed by a young aboriginal man, Anwer, in his van with pounding music - who seems totally disengaged by all that is going on. A younger woman too, Trace, is part of the team until she meets up with a young man, Matthew and becomes so totally absorbed by him that they go off together.
Annabelle and Bo have to come to terms with their very different backgrounds, but eventually they do become lovers - which seems satisfying for them both. However, at the end of the novel, they visit an aged aboriginal woman who has a totally vitriolic memory of Annabelle's family's involvement in wiping out the aboriginal inhabitants in that area. Specifically she recounts Annabelle's grandfather shooting the adults and killing the children with his spurs. She threatens to put a curse on Bo and Annabelle if he takes her to the Stone Country. This casts a pall over their relationship, but Bo has the attitude that people were angry because of past actions, but it is time to work together for the good of all. That is his view in trying to gain back the land lost by his grandmother.
boyblue's review against another edition
4.0
A fascinating work. A lot of reviews are negative about it but I think they miss the point; there is a monotony and rhythm to life in inland Queensland that Miller has captured well. It's a feeling that might be familiar to those involved in agriculture or land custodianship across Australia and the world. All readers should be warned that this is actually a philosophical novel hidden within a romance novel. The philosophical part slowly sheds it's romance skin throughout the narrative until the end when all romantic pretence is gone. For lack of a better description Miller is an inverse Nicholas Sparks.
When confronting Aboriginal ideas and culture it's extremely important to consider time and what it means to a true custodian. The longest continuously extant culture in the world deals with time on a scale that is hard to describe to those that don't understand their way of life. It's something that you can feel Bo Rennie wrestling with throughout the book. He's a man of both worlds, he knows how to work the land as cattle country to survive in a European dominant society but he's also been educated in the traditional ways too.
The power of Bo's father and his natural talent of corralling stock shows the non-violent path that can merge those two paths. Bo has been struggling to replicate that his whole life. What makes it even harder is that his father's path resulted in him being broken by a system that better suits titles and deeds; liars and cheats. The silence that pervades his father's life and his time with Dougald is one way to deal with reconciliation and the life of a drover but it doesn't sit well with Bo. His Grandmother was also broken by that system and she even more than his father seemingly managed to integrate and thrive in the merging of European and Aboriginal culture. Bo is trying to revive her way of life.
I think it's also crucial to understand that the main character of this novel is actually the land itself. The people on it are transitory. Just as you can see the stories of all those from the generations before, Aboriginal and white, have turned to dust, you can also see the current generation will be forgotten and erased by the land in time too. Miller has similar skills to Cormac McCarthy in his ability to use imagery to tell the story. It seems he also believes that humans are image driven in their thoughts. It also seems he feels that the issues he is dealing with are in many ways too big for words.
The final showdown with Aunty Panya is great because throughout the story Bo Rennie's character has been built up as an Aboriginal man who has adhered to the old ways and understands his role as custodian of the land but also understands the way to make it work with Western influence. Not bowing down to the white people but continuing his purpose using their tools. Then you see all of this ripped apart like a thin film of tissue paper as Aunty Panya tells him he doesn't know anything, doesn't understand at all, and even worse has been fraternising with the enemy. The whole structure of his character collapses. It is a truly hopeless feeling.
All this time you've had the presence of Arner sitting there as a witness, a man who seems in many ways unshackled from time and the events happening around him. It's seemingly another path that one could take. Bo is trying to preserve his way of life and what he believes is right for his people, Les Marra thinks he's going to create a new future for his people by building a dam and submerging Bo's country and many people agree with him, Aunty Panya cares only for the past, Annabelle is lost in the space between her own incomplete memories and her foggy future, Trace and Matthew will forge ahead for love, all of them believing their way is the right way. Through all of this Arner sits and observes. He bears witness.
The mysterious stone is something many found frustrating but it's quite important because it demonstrates the true destruction wrought on Aboriginal culture by the Europeans. There is lost knowledge that has been stolen from them and they will never get back. Miller uses a very delicate touch to compare this complete annihilation of an oral tradition to the way the termites have turned the books to dust in the Ranna household. The way Annabelle reacts to the books shows how her upbringing has made her value the wrong things. The irony that the preservation of the Ranna station might prevent the dam where millennia of Aboriginal history couldn't is one of the more poignant points in the novel. Only at the very end of the novel does Annabelle realise that the hollowing out of the Aboriginal custodianship of the land through European influence is so many magnitudes deeper than the termite ridden books that it drives her to a deep despair. It is the part of the book that I wrestled with the most. The existential despair of what happened, how to carry on in the face of it, and what the path forward could possibly be.
Annabelle Beck is really only there as a plot device. The story is supposed to be hers but frankly she's completely auxiliary. It's almost as if Miller felt uncomfortable writing about exclusively Aboriginal characters and therefore put Annabelle in to make the book more appropriate coming from a white writer. She's his gateway into a world that's not his. Even though she's the protagonist, she becomes irrelevant because her claim to the land is fleeting compared to the indigenous millennias long guardianship over it. Her marriage break up becomes so trivial that it's forgotten. The revelation that her grandfather massacred Bo's ancestors essentially wipes the relevance of everything else in her life away. That horrible secret can never be expunged and it certainly leaves the reader feeling nothing but despair at the end of the novel. Bo seems determined to make everything work but it just doesn't feel like it ever could. It's hard to know what to think in the face of this revelation, even though you could feel it coming. It's a feeling that will be familiar to people around the world, how we deal with the guilt of our ancestors actions. We are not them but we have been shaped by them and their actions.
It's an exceptionally grim ending and I can understand why many would be disappointed having slogged there along such a slow meandering path. If you were left annoyed by the lack of resolution for Annabelle then I think this book wasn't for you. Unfortunately you won't know that until you hit the last sentence on the last page.
When confronting Aboriginal ideas and culture it's extremely important to consider time and what it means to a true custodian. The longest continuously extant culture in the world deals with time on a scale that is hard to describe to those that don't understand their way of life. It's something that you can feel Bo Rennie wrestling with throughout the book. He's a man of both worlds, he knows how to work the land as cattle country to survive in a European dominant society but he's also been educated in the traditional ways too.
The power of Bo's father and his natural talent of corralling stock shows the non-violent path that can merge those two paths. Bo has been struggling to replicate that his whole life. What makes it even harder is that his father's path resulted in him being broken by a system that better suits titles and deeds; liars and cheats. The silence that pervades his father's life and his time with Dougald is one way to deal with reconciliation and the life of a drover but it doesn't sit well with Bo. His Grandmother was also broken by that system and she even more than his father seemingly managed to integrate and thrive in the merging of European and Aboriginal culture. Bo is trying to revive her way of life.
I think it's also crucial to understand that the main character of this novel is actually the land itself. The people on it are transitory. Just as you can see the stories of all those from the generations before, Aboriginal and white, have turned to dust, you can also see the current generation will be forgotten and erased by the land in time too. Miller has similar skills to Cormac McCarthy in his ability to use imagery to tell the story. It seems he also believes that humans are image driven in their thoughts. It also seems he feels that the issues he is dealing with are in many ways too big for words.
The final showdown with Aunty Panya is great because throughout the story Bo Rennie's character has been built up as an Aboriginal man who has adhered to the old ways and understands his role as custodian of the land but also understands the way to make it work with Western influence. Not bowing down to the white people but continuing his purpose using their tools. Then you see all of this ripped apart like a thin film of tissue paper as Aunty Panya tells him he doesn't know anything, doesn't understand at all, and even worse has been fraternising with the enemy. The whole structure of his character collapses. It is a truly hopeless feeling.
All this time you've had the presence of Arner sitting there as a witness, a man who seems in many ways unshackled from time and the events happening around him. It's seemingly another path that one could take. Bo is trying to preserve his way of life and what he believes is right for his people, Les Marra thinks he's going to create a new future for his people by building a dam and submerging Bo's country and many people agree with him, Aunty Panya cares only for the past, Annabelle is lost in the space between her own incomplete memories and her foggy future, Trace and Matthew will forge ahead for love, all of them believing their way is the right way. Through all of this Arner sits and observes. He bears witness.
The mysterious stone is something many found frustrating but it's quite important because it demonstrates the true destruction wrought on Aboriginal culture by the Europeans. There is lost knowledge that has been stolen from them and they will never get back. Miller uses a very delicate touch to compare this complete annihilation of an oral tradition to the way the termites have turned the books to dust in the Ranna household. The way Annabelle reacts to the books shows how her upbringing has made her value the wrong things. The irony that the preservation of the Ranna station might prevent the dam where millennia of Aboriginal history couldn't is one of the more poignant points in the novel. Only at the very end of the novel does Annabelle realise that the hollowing out of the Aboriginal custodianship of the land through European influence is so many magnitudes deeper than the termite ridden books that it drives her to a deep despair. It is the part of the book that I wrestled with the most. The existential despair of what happened, how to carry on in the face of it, and what the path forward could possibly be.
Annabelle Beck is really only there as a plot device. The story is supposed to be hers but frankly she's completely auxiliary. It's almost as if Miller felt uncomfortable writing about exclusively Aboriginal characters and therefore put Annabelle in to make the book more appropriate coming from a white writer. She's his gateway into a world that's not his. Even though she's the protagonist, she becomes irrelevant because her claim to the land is fleeting compared to the indigenous millennias long guardianship over it. Her marriage break up becomes so trivial that it's forgotten. The revelation that her grandfather massacred Bo's ancestors essentially wipes the relevance of everything else in her life away. That horrible secret can never be expunged and it certainly leaves the reader feeling nothing but despair at the end of the novel. Bo seems determined to make everything work but it just doesn't feel like it ever could. It's hard to know what to think in the face of this revelation, even though you could feel it coming. It's a feeling that will be familiar to people around the world, how we deal with the guilt of our ancestors actions. We are not them but we have been shaped by them and their actions.
It's an exceptionally grim ending and I can understand why many would be disappointed having slogged there along such a slow meandering path. If you were left annoyed by the lack of resolution for Annabelle then I think this book wasn't for you. Unfortunately you won't know that until you hit the last sentence on the last page.
librarykath's review
3.0
A little slow to start (ok very slow to start) but once I got into it, a good solid read. Very lulling in it's language, I found myself falling into this kind of trance around Alex's descriptions of the countryside and the history of the characters and their families.
Raised a few questions about the relationships between the white and indigenous communities and what "ownership" actually means.
Great characters who were easy to like and follow.
Raised a few questions about the relationships between the white and indigenous communities and what "ownership" actually means.
Great characters who were easy to like and follow.
ohjoyce's review
4.0
A relatively insightful novel into the cultural spirit of Australia, as well as race relations. However the plot moves rather slowly and the symbolisms are occasionally convoluted and contrived. Still, an effort to be commended for, Australian literature is a genre yet still in its infancy and can only mature with more works in its name.
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