I am certain inside every English teacher is a failed novel. I had long ago resigned myself to the fact that no novel shall ever come out of my brain, having no patience to write anything more focussed than a few paragraphs for an online journal. And still I harbour a belief that one day I will pen the Great Australian Novel, mythical beast that it may be. I picture that it won’t be capital-T The Great Australian Novel, but A Great Australian Novel, a worthy addition to such a canon.
Assuming I can overcome such a hurdle as never being able to finish any project I ever start, I actually have my grand idea for such a novel, one that somehow combines the rough Australian landscape with friendship and loyalties and long lonely highways and being on the run. I do envision the word “unforgiving” being located in the blurb. I don’t think I’ll provide you with any more details lest someone who is more disciplined at writing steal my ideas and finish it for me.
And yet there are more hurdles. I am not exactly the most knowledgeable citizen when it comes to the Australian outback, nor country town way of life. There are international tourists who have more of a working knowledge that I do. I can’t set this story anywhere else – the landscape makes the story. I may have travelled briefly through the outback (and Lightning Ridge doesn’t count) but I have not stayed long enough to be able to turn my country town characters into more than just caricatures.
And I can’t write about the city instead, I can’t. I can’t capture its rhythms, and if I try I come across as some off-centre hipster wannabe. Nick Earls and Kimberley Starr captured Brisbane with a far smarter eye than I could.
I am reading my challenger at the moment. Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet and I are having a long and rambling love affair. It is widely touted as The Great Australian Novel, and my descriptions here would only turn me into a two-bit hack reviewer. I wish I could just eat up this novel and somehow absorb a fraction of the Something that this book has.
