David Malouf’s novels have won him many prestigious literary prizes and a devoted readership worldwide since his first novel Johnno was published in 1975. His most recent, Ransom, published in 2009, won prizes too, and was particularly well received in the American press. It is a poignant recreation from Homer’s Iliad of King Priam’s attempt to obtain decent burial for his son Hector after the vengeful Achilles has dragged his body daily for ten days (because after each day’s sacrilege the gods have made it new) around the funeral pyre of his lover, Patroclus, whom Hector has slain in battle. The delicacy, firmness, pathos and lyricism of its writing can be savoured over and over again. One of Malouf’s early novels, Fly Away Peter (1982) still lives with me, and Ransom, published 27 years later, reminded me of it.
Fly Away Peter sets the lovely things of life against their terrible violation in war. It begins with an unforgettable experience of the pristine coast of South East Queensland, with its water, its bush, and above all, its bird life, especially the magical yearly presence of the migratory birds. Each of the three major characters involves us in a different way in the wonder of it all. With the enlistment of the two young men, the book moves to the battlefields of Europe and we engage with the horrors of war. Malouf, with originality and control, never slips into over-writing. In the trenches, too, we are reminded in detail after detail of the innocence and the goodness that is being destroyed. This section ends with a daring and poignant piece of magical realism before the novella finishes in Queensland with the surviving character touched by the enduring renewal of life.
Ransom’s narrator develops the distance and control with which the narrator of the earlier book observed human affairs into an almost godlike overview. The mastery of Malouf’s writing is astonishing – and deeply touching. Priam’s at first frantic loss and Troy’s dire plight evoke our sympathy but are recounted with a mature detachment. It is the terrible mystery of suffering that is being faced up to. The old man, daring to go out to rescue his son’s body accompanied only by his driver and armed only with his trust in goodness represents the best aspects of suffering humanity, and throughout the ride his dignity is as great as his vulnerability. And at the end, Achilles’ response to him is as moving as it is surprising.
