The Plains

by Gerald Murnane, Ben Lerner (Introduction)

Overview

This is the story of the families of the plains—obsessed with their land and history, their culture and mythology—and of the man who ventured into their world. First published in 1982, The Plains is a mesmerising work of startling originality.

This handsome new hardback edition is introduced by Ben Lerner, author of the internationally acclaimed novels Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04, and a work of criticism, The Hatred of Poetry.

'A distinguished, distinctive, unforgettable novel.' Shirley Hazzard

‘… a piece of imaginative writing so remarkably sustained that it is a subject for meditation rather than a mere reading … In the depths and surfaces of this extraordinary fable you will see your inner self eerily reflected again and again.’ Sydney Morning Herald

‘The Plains has that peculiar singularity that can make literature great.’ Ed Wright, Australian, Best Books of 2015

‘Murnane touches on foibles and philosophy, plays with the makings of a fable or allegory, and all the while toys with tone, moving easily from earnest to deadpan to lightly ironic, a meld of Buster Keaton, the Kafka of the short stories, and Swift in A Modest Proposal.…A provocative, delightful, diverting must-reread.’ STARRED Review, Kirkus Reviews

‘Known for its sharp yet defamiliarizing take on the landscape and an aesthetic of purity historically associated with it, The Plains is uniformly described as a masterpiece of Australian literature. Look closer, though, and it's a haunting nineteenth-century novel of colonial violence captured inside the machine's test-pattern image—a distant, unassuming house on the plains.’ BOMB

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781925410266
Publisher:	The Text Publishing Company
Publication date:	04/03/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Gerald Murnane was born in Coburg, a northern suburb of Melbourne, in 1939. He spent some of his childhood in country Victoria before returning to Melbourne in 1949 where he lived for the next sixty years. He has left Victoria only a handful of times and has never been on an aeroplane.

In 1957 Murnane began training for the Catholic priesthood but soon abandoned this in favour of becoming a primary-school teacher. He also taught at the Apprentice Jockeys’ School run by the Victoria Racing Club. In 1969 he graduated in arts from Melbourne University. He worked in education for a number of years and later became a teacher of creative writing. In 1966 Murnane married Catherine Lancaster. They had three sons.

His first novel, Tamarisk Row, was published in 1974, and was followed by nine other works of fiction. His most recent book is the memoir, Something for the Pain. He has also published a collection of essays, Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs (2005).

In 1999 Gerald Murnane won the Patrick White Award. In 2009 he won the Melbourne Prize for Literature. In the same year, after the death of his wife, Murnane moved to Goroke in the north-west of Victoria.

‘Widely regarded as Australia’s greatest living writer, Murnane has long cultivated an air of myth and geographical limit…One could fill a room with a conversation about him.’ Full Stop

Read an Excerpt

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.

Editorial Reviews

The Plains are a vast place inhabited by wealthy landowners whose prime obsession seems to be preserving history by ‘shaping from uneventful days in a flat landscape the substance of myth.’ A film-maker arrives to record aspects of their heritage, discovering symbols, stories and parables that transcend spiritual, political or cultural purposes; even the rugged patriarchy of their world is somehow illusory. Deeply mysterious yet grounded in familiar, everyday detail, this novel is an alchemical miracle, converting vision into pure narrative. A stunning achievement . . .”—Debra Adelaide, Sydney Morning Herald

From the Publisher