Bookshelf: David Malouf

So, you know how it says "and more" up there? Well it's time for more; I'm going to flex my literary muscles a bit and lay some fiction on the lot of you. I'm starting a new series of reviews to go with Essential Listening, Help Me I Hate and Best Acts You Never Heard; Bookshelf. In each Bookshelf I'll be talking about one of my favorite novels, commenting on the plot, history and just what it is that I like so much about it. That catch is, I'm only going to talk about Novels, no Epics, Anthologies, Biographies, Non-Fiction, Poetry or whatever, just Novels. 

To start with, I'll be looking at An Imaginary Life by David Malouf. 

An Imaginary Life looks at a possible life for the Roman poet Ovid after his exile (an actual historical occurrence that is well worth looking at), the novel was first published in 1978, but manages to be contemporary and striking nearly 40 years later. Ovid, after his exile, has found shelter with a primitive tribe of barbarians far beyond the Imperial frontier, he is still alive, but has lost the most important part of his life, language, he can communicate his basic needs to his hosts, but no one around him is able to learn Latin. Much of the conflict of the first part of the novel comes from the struggle between primitive hunter-gatherer existence and the loftier pursuits of art and culture.
Drawing upon the universal myth of the "feral child", Ovid encounters a child in the wilderness that he identifies with a similar figure of imagination from his childhood. After reclaiming the child from the wilderness, Ovid begins to impart his knowledge and teachings to the child, attempting to instill in him more Roman values. In this, the latter part of the novel deals with something of a nature versus nurture conflict as well as expanding upon the ire between Ovid and his hosts, who increasingly see him as unable to provide for himself. 
 I won't expand upon the plot any further for fear of ruining the magnificent ending, but there is more to discuss. David Malouf's prose is lyrical and profoundly naturalist, evoking a great, unbound wilderness that is at once totally alien yet inexorably intertwined with the nature of humanity. There is a similar theme of a "return to the earth" that runs through several of Malouf's novels that is not an overly Romantic, Pantheistic idealized nature, but instead more of an embracing of humanity's part in the wider scheme of the universal order of predator and prey. 

An Imaginary Life is not an "easy" read, the text is steeped in symbolism and there are few passages that are overtly literal in their meaning. However, the language is familiar and approachable for most; almost anyone should be able to read An Imaginary Life in its entirety in a reasonable amount of time. This is easily one of my favorite novels and well worth your time if you feel like something a little bit different. 

Hat Guy