Autumn Laing (50 page)
But why fiction? Why
not
cultural history or biography? My only answer can be that my interest is in the currency
of the intimate lives of ‘us’, and neither the historian nor the biographer can safely deal in such a currency. Private intimacy is of necessity a language requiring something more than textual and eye-witness sources. One has to make it up. And this is what I most enjoy doing—dwelling among the liberties of the imaginative arena of make-believe. Writing novels. Doing fiction. Making it up. The inner life is where my interest lies and for this I have to pretend to understand, to empathise to the best of my abilities, with my characters. Our motives may remain opaque to us even in our most lucid moments; confused, changeable, impenetrable, and interesting only when complex and irreducible. And what interests me is motivation, shadows forever shifting their ground in the partly conscious spaces from where our hopes and fears for ourselves arise, and for those we love and cherish—and equally our hatreds for those we love and our wish at times to see them destroyed. Without this enduring interest there can be no energy for the work, no inspiration to visit the tangled webs of the interior life. Vivid moments of destructive hatred that we reserve for our intimates. Dangerous moments when we are not ourselves. Absurd and irrational behaviours driven by the almost hallucinatory power of lust. Or when we are too much ourselves. It is these private shadow grounds of contradiction and elaboration beyond fact and outward appearance that interest me. Fiction is the only mode with which we can approach this ground in others. As with all modes of writing, we are at liberty to do it well—in which case our readers are convinced and willingly enter into the illusion with us—or to do it badly—in which case they are repelled and abandon us.
ALEX MILLER
is the author of
The Ancestor Game
and
Journey to the Stone Country
, both winners of the prestigious Miles Franklin Literary Award;
Conditions of Faith
, nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; and most recently,
Lovesong
, winner of the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction.
Autumn Laing
is Miller’s tenth novel.
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‘With
Lovesong
, one of our finest novelists has written perhaps his finest book …
Lovesong
explores, with compassionate attentiveness, the essential solitariness of people. Miller’s prose is plain, lucid, yet full of plangent resonance.’
—
Age
‘Miller’s brilliant, moving novel captures exactly that sense of a storybuilt life—wonderful and terrifying in equal measure, stirring and abysmal, a world in which both heaven and earth remain present, yet stubbornly out of reach.’
—
Sunday Age
‘Alex Miller’s novel
Lovesong
is a limpid and elegant study of the psychology of love and intimacy. The characterisation is captivating and the framing metafictional narrative skilfully constructed.’
—
Australian Book Review
‘Lovesong
is a ravishing, psychologically compelling work from one of our best …’
—
Courier Mail
‘Lovesong
is another triumph: lyrical, soothing and compelling. Miller enriches human fragility with literary beauty …’
—
Newcastle Herald
‘The intertwining stories are told with gentleness, some humour, some tragedy and much sweetness. Miller is that rare writer who engages the intellect and the emotions simultaneously, with a creeping effect.’
—
Bookseller & Publisher
‘With exceptional skill, Miller records the ebb and flow of emotion …
Lovesong
is a poignant tale of infidelity; but it is more than that. It is a manifesto for the novel, a tribute to the human rite of fiction with the novelist officiating.’
—
Australian Literary Review
Praise for
Landscape of Farewell
‘The latest novel by the Australian master, so admired by other writers, and a work of subtle genius.’
—
SEBASTIAN BARRY
‘
Landscape of Farewell
is a triumph.’
—
HILARY MCPHEE
‘Alex Miller is a wonderful writer, one that Australia has been keeping secret from the rest of us for too long.’
—
JOHN BANVILLE
‘
Landscape of Farewell
has a rare level of wisdom and profundity. Few writers since Joseph Conrad have had so fine an appreciation of the equivocations of the individual conscience and their relationship to the long processes of history … [It is] a very human story, passionately told.’
—
Australian Book Review
‘As readers of his previous novels—
The Ancestor Game
,
Prochownik’s Dream
,
Journey to the Stone Country
—will know, Miller is keenly interested in inner lives.
Landscape of Farewell
continues his own quest, and in doing so, speaks to his reader at the deepest of levels. He juggles philosophical balls adroitly in prose pitched to an emotional perfection. Every action, every comma, is loaded with meaning. As one expects from the best fiction, the novel transforms the reader’s own inner life. Twice winner of the Miles Franklin Award, it is only a matter of time before Miller wins a Nobel. No Australian has written at this pitch since Patrick White. Indeed, some critics are comparing him with Joseph Conrad.’
—
Daily News
, NEW ZEALAND
‘Assured and intense … truly gripping … This is a thoroughly engrossing piece of writing about the process of making art, a revelatory transformation in fact.’
—
Australian Bookseller & Publisher
‘With this searing, honest and exhilarating study of the inner life of an artist, Alex Miller has created another masterpiece.’
—
Good Reading
‘
Prochownik’s Dream
is an absorbing and satisfying novel, distinguished by Miller’s enviable ability to evoke the appearance and texture of paintings in the often unyielding medium of words.’
—
ANDREW RIEMER
,
Sydney Morning Herald
‘Miller is a master storyteller.’
—
The Monthly
‘A beautiful novel of ideas which never eclipse the characters.’
—
Age
Praise for
Journey to the Stone Country
‘The most impressive and satisfying novel of recent years. It gave me all the kinds of pleasure a reader can hope for.’
—
TIM WINTON
‘A terrific tale of love and redemption that captivates from the first line.’
—
NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE, AUTHOR OF
The Dancer Upstairs
‘Miller’s fiction has a mystifying power that is always far more than the sum of its parts … his footsteps—softly, deftly, steadily—take you places you may not have been, and their sound resonates for a long time.’
—
ANDREA STRETTON
,
Sydney Morning Herald
‘This is an amazing book. The reader can’t help but offer up a prayerful thank you: Thank you, God, that human beings still have the audacity to write like this.’
—
Washington Post
‘I think we shall see few finer or richer novels this year … a singular achievement.’
—
ANDREW RIEMER
,
Australian Book Review
‘A truly significant addition to our literature.’
—
Australian
‘My private acid test of a literary work is whether, having read it, it lingers in my mind afterward.
Conditions of Faith
fulfils that criterion; I am still thinking about Emily.’
—
COLLEEN MCCULLOCH
‘A wonderful novel of stunning intricacy and great beauty.’
—
MICHAEL ONDAATJE
‘Extraordinary fictional portraits of China and Australia.’
—
New York Times Book Review
‘A major new novel of grand design and rich texture, a vast canvas of time and space, its gaze outward yet its vision intimate and intellectually abundant.’
—
Age
‘Like Patrick White, Miller uses the painter to portray the ambivalence of art and the artist. In
The Sitters
is the brooding genius of light. Its presence is made manifest in Miller’s supple, painterly prose which layers words into textured moments.’
—
SIMON HUGHES
,
Sunday Age
‘
The Tivington Nott
abounds in symbols to stir the subconscious. It is a rich study of place, both elegant and urgent.’
‘An extraordinarily gripping novel.’
—
Melbourne Times
‘Altogether brilliant. This man knows his hunting country.’
—
Somerset County Gazette
‘In a virtuoso exhibition, Miller’s control never once falters.’
—
Canberra Times
Lovesong
Landscape of Farewell
Prochownik’s Dream
Journey to the Stone Country
Conditions of Faith
The Sitters
The Ancestor Game
The Tivington Nott
Watching the Climbers on the Mountain
Autumn Laing
Copyright © Alex Miller 2011.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 978-1-443-41180-6
Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Originally published in Australia in 2011 by Allen & Unwin.
FIRST CANADIAN EDITION
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events have evolved from the author’s imagination.
p. 223: The English translation of Rilke’s poem ‘Autumn Day’ is from
The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
, edited and translated by Stephen Mitchell, Vintage International Edition, 1989, p. 11.
p. 358: The quotation from Leichhardt’s
Journal
is from the Corkwood Press facsimile edition of
Ludwig Leichhardt’s Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia
, 1996, p. 188.
pp. 386–7: The quotation is from Canto 1 of Dante’s
Paradiso
, translated by John D. Sinclair, revised edition, John Lane, 1948.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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ISBN 978-1-44341-178-3
Illustrations: Maria Sibylla Merian
RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
