Gerald Murnane
The experience of reading The Plains by Gerald Murnane is similar to viewing a shifting mirage or experiencing a dream: the more you try to snag it, the more it fades out of reach.
In terms of plot, very little happens. The first-person narrator arrives in the central plains of Australia to gather research for his film project entitled The Interior. He comes armed with folders and notebooks to record impressions and conversations that will eventually go into his script. As he listens to the conversations of plainsmen, he develops an understanding of their view of history; their attitudes toward those who espouse differing views about the relationship between inner and outer Australia; their relationship to the land and those who presume to capture its essence through their artistic and/or literary endeavors.
The narrator is convinced of his ability to present a view of the Plains that no one has ever seen before, to “unearth some elaborate meaning behind appearances.” He is invited to stay with a wealthy plainsman to conduct his research. He makes use of his patron’s extensive library. He records conversations and observations, is self-reflective, and explains his thought processes in elaborate detail. He engages in lengthy philosophical ruminations. At the end of twenty years, what he has to show for his efforts is a blank screen.
To claim this novel is bizarre is an understatement. It is a novel that must be experienced. Just as the landscape of the Plains defies definition, just as the horizon light separating land from sky is hazy and eludes delineation, the novel eschews attempts to pin it down. It is Kafkaesque in the sense that one enters a world where everything is a blur, where what is real is called into question, where nothing is clear, where conversations hint at meanings, and where the layer of truth that presumably permeates the whole experience is impenetrable.
What is Murnane doing? Is he writing an allegory? Do the Plains serve as metaphor? And if so, is Murnane suggesting the essence of reality is elusive and all attempts to snare meaning out of it are bound to fail? Do we invent our own meaning and project it on to the world around us? Should our quest for meaning be inward, not outward? Murnane does not give us clear answers. Instead, he gives us a novel which lends itself to multiple layers of interpretation and whose meaning is as elusive as the meaning of the Plains.
Murnane’s prose is mesmerizing. He writes in long, complete sentences that convey complex thoughts. There is little dialogue and little action. Nothing happens in the conventional sense of plot development. His approach is never direct, always oblique, always at an angle. Somehow, he transports the reader to a mythical, dream-like realm to glimpse an amorphous shape on a shimmering horizon which continues to elude our grasp. How he achieves this effect is a mystery; but that he does achieve it testifies to his consummate skill as an artist.
Some readers will hate this novel due to its elusive nature; others will love its suffusion of an intangible quality that resonates deep within the psyche. In either case, the novel is bound to leave an impression.