Ee kA Be About the Author David Malouf is an Australian writer who was born! and brought up in Brisbane. At twenty-four, after| completing his degree, and teaching for two years at the University of Queensland, Malouf went overseas to teach and write where he remained for ten years In England and Europe. Upon his return he taught at Sydney University, but in 1978 he became a full time! vier. He is third generation Lebanese on his father's side, and his mother is EnglishJewish, According to Malouf his childhood was typically Australian, incinding the influence of bi8 father's passion for football. His mother, however, instilled in Malouf a love of Janguage ‘and literature. His Lebanese| grandparents lived nearby and their stories and| culture also shaped the way Malouf grew up, Some of| Maloufs other works include: Johnne, An Imaginary] Life, Harland's Half Acre, Remembering Babylon, The| Great World and more recently, The Conversations atl Curlow Creek. He is also a poet and has written threc| opera librett. Fly Away Peter won the Fiction Award in| the 1982 Age Australian Book of the Year Awards. About the Book Fly Away Peter on the simpiest level is a story about! three people who develop a relationship with each| other, through their love of the wild bird life of the ‘Queensland swamps. Set during World Wer 1, the novel maps the profound effect war had on the lives of| all those it touched, ‘The three main characters, Jim| Saddler, Ashley Crowther and Imogen Harcourt, are| an unlikely trio to form a friendship as. their backgrounds and life experiences are vastly different. However, Malou?s profound understanding of human| instincts and desires weaves a story around the three, | capturing for the reader the essence of friendship, which transcends clase and gender. vim Saddier is an amateur ornithologist, His Knowledge and love for the birds of the swamp bring| him to the notice of Ashley Crowther whose family| ‘owns the land. Jim is given the task of recording the| bird life and in the process of doing this, he meeta| Imogen Harcourt, a photographer. The intervention of| the war sends Ashley and Jim over to Europe where| vim is confronted by the realities of trench warfare ‘and the ‘dark side of his head’ (p58). He has a violent altercation with Wizzer, a shell-shocked soldier, after ‘sn assault on the enemy's trenches goet wrong: ‘Bnemies like friends, told you who you were. ‘They faced one another with murder in their eyes and Jim was surprised by the black anger ‘he was possessed by and the dull savagery he sensed in the other man..Y (p63). Ashley comes home, but Jim does not return from the! war. The final section of the book is Imogen| mourning the waste of Jim Saddler's life as she sits and watches the surf and the board riders. id Malouf, (A, P| ‘Some Central Ideas ‘© ‘The importance and significance of order J+ ‘The notion of predators end fand the ways of eccing, both in the eye, im the mind's eye, appreciating that moment of intense awareness ‘The Main Characters Jim Saddler Maiouf explores the meaning of life particularly ‘through the experiences of Jim Saddler. In the first chapter Jim is saved by Ashley Crowther from a life of f. . . marriage, drink, the prospect of another thirty lyeare of dragging his boot over sawdust in the [Anglers' Arms . . . the sullenness and hard jawed resentment of months that were all Sundays . . . He }was made free of his own life’ (pS). Jim comes from jworking class etock, his father wae bitter and [downtrodden and could sce no reason why Jim would not have a similar ‘flat life that was". . . inevitable for the likes of us' (pS). Jim sees no resemblance between. Ihimself and his father and vehemently rejects the fnotion that his own life haa to be lice hie father’s. He has a passion for and an affinity with the wild birde of ithe swamp (the area today that we know as the Gold [Coast). He belongs so completely to the landscape that Ashley, although owner of the land, recognised JJim’s rights which * . . - lay in Jim's knowledge of levery biade of grass and drop of water in the swamp, lof every bird's foot that was set down there; in his fhaving a vision of the place... (p7)- AS well as this is J¥im's meeting with Imogen whose photographs add Janother perspective to his sense of the birds’ lives: ‘It was the sandpiper. Perfect. Every speckle, every stripe on the side where it had faded off into the white of the underbelly, the keen eye in the lifted head - he felt oddly moved to eee the same bird in this other dimension’ (p26-27). Jsim's Grst sighting of the dunlin in late November is significant in that it has flown from the Northern Hemisphere, and Imogen récognises it. Shortly after, jJim goes up in Bert's plane and the landecape and terrain that he sees below him is exactly as he had mapped it in his head. He wonders if this image is related to the one the birds carry in their tiny heads. Later, when Jim is in Europe he is like the duntin was. fin Australia ‘and his mind will fill in the gaps joining ‘together the familiar with the foreign to make the picture whole. Copyright © A+ Publishing 5961 2800 201 Copyright © A+ Publishing 3961 2509Fly Away Peter, by David Malouf. (A, PF- 4 Jim decides reluctantly to join up and go to war as|Tmogen Harcourt he ‘felt the ground tilting . . - if he didn't go . . . he/a¢ ashley discovered Jim, it was Jim who discovered would never understand, when it was over, why|Misy Harcourt, ‘Mise "Imogen Tlarcourt {pis}, his life and everything he had known were 80|simitarly to Asbley, Imogen Harcourt is important changed. ..' (p55) primarily in the light she sheds on Jim. His Grat Jim's experience of the war comes almost as al glimpse of her comes aa a shock as he realises that surprise as he '' . . . later discovered, you entered | they have both been focusing their attention on the the war through an ordinary looking gap in the|seme sandpiper, When Jim goes to Imogen’ howee hedge’ (p76). The stark contrasts, the paradise|he is struck by the dilapidated state where everything that he left behind in Australia, and the hellhole|scems to be crumbling into decay. ‘But the voice that now surrounds im heighten the sence of|which beckons bin inside gocmo to come from far displacement, The world Jin found himself in was| away and te seminiacent of va deep hallway leading unlike anything he had ever known or imagined. It|to cool, richly furnished rooms’ (p22). It is significant was sz if he bad taken a wong farang ao hie| that Mise Harcourt tama out to'be much mere than sleep, arrived at the dark side of his head, and got| Jim initially perceives from her outward appearance, stuck there’ (pS8). ‘The deeper they went the|- €fY skirt, voluminous and rather bedragsled, it topped by the black box wearing a sun-bonnet' (p20- ‘worse it got: In places where seepage was bad the| 2P° a sun-bonnet' (p20- uckboarda were a foot under water... The smell|20,Jn many ways imogen Harcourt puzzies Jim. mmell|Froiessionaism and knowledge, her fine photography tao got worse as they pushed further towards i Ie @ofessinaian and knowledge, ber ne photography vias. the smell of damp earthwalls and rotting| wa, Sughiorward, manne planks, of mud impregnated with gas, of decaying! + orpses that had fallen in eatlier batties.--"(B78).| 1¢ was moot Seatac ‘The suffering continues and Jim feels as if the war| Straight up at you like that, out of the centee oF will go on forever. Clancy is killed, and Eric has| their own lives, Pretty women. Wives, mothers, his lege shot off. Jim finds it impossible to offer] unmarried aunta had generally settled tore Eric any hope but in being confronted with the| comfortably into. the conventions than Mise violence and nihilism that is Wizzer, Jim struggles! Imogen Harcourt had; they tried harder to against the fear and despair. please’ (p24-25), ‘Sim dics and Malcuts metaphorical image of Clancy and Jim digging their way home continues |The three are, in a sense, kindred epirits united by the theme of life es part ofa continuum, This is [their love of the birds of the swamp and. Malouf further emphasized through megen's enonstiates how ter common Interest cuts across contemplation waves i [elas and gender. an Rah in the final chapter. ‘Her pain lay in the acute vision she had had of his sitting. no she od seen inn on. that frst Ashley Crowther day...’ (p191). It was that intense focus of his whole Ashley Crowther was a tall, inarticulate young) being, it's me, Jim Saddler, that struck her with rian of twenty-three, who looked at times aa if he| pret” (piaa). in the fel chentes anger ate ‘were stooping under the weight of his watch-chain | the beach ana watches the waves, She theees aboot and who stumbled not only over words butt over|the waste ‘of Ute ile, his, potential all hus tiog his own boots! (p5)."-Ashley is not well developed] towards that one cataciyomic meson of extanedany 20 a character in the novel and is important |But then she secs a youth "walking -'no running, primarily in his interaction with Jim. It is through |on the water. Moving fast over the surface...” (p132) Ashley that Jim is saved from the mundane| She has seen nothing Bas duliness that was hie father’s life, and the|like it, a surfer. The figs meanness and violence that such a life provoked Ashley bad been educated im “England and| returned to Australia to take possession of his| I family's considerable land holdings. He marries| { Julia Bell and settles dovn to the tally ie of the i { I Janded gentry. He recognises in Jim the eapacity| MOU: Vin» she to record ‘the light of the swampland and its|moaned silently. ewarming life’ (p4-5). Chapter 2 is important tolromemner® deep read carefully in coming to an understanding of| ire Gi) set! vei Ashley who is more than a ‘strange man with bio| waistcoat and his watch-chain, his spotted silk tie| and Pommie accent..." (p7). He is generous and| hhas a vision for hia land, not just a sense of ownership. He appreciates’ the life supported by|a photograph of this his land, the human and other, and in offering|new thing (p134). Jim the’ opportunity to record that life, Ashley makes a commitment to the future. ‘Copyright © Av Publishing 5961 2809 : Copight © At Publishing 5981 2609 202Sed avid , Malouf fiese published by Chatto & he ttle of Malouf’s novel comes from an old nursery chyme: “Two lice dicky birds ‘Siting on 2 wall One named Fest ‘The other named Paul. Fly away, Bete! Fly avay, Pall ‘Come back, Pete! Come back, Paul! Hy Icis inceresting, howeves that che title ‘given to tin the American publication {5 The Bread of Time to Come, line from Wallace Stevens’ poem, ‘The Man with the Blue Guitar,» small part of which Molouf uses as one ofthe epigrephs t the novel. The fll quotation, 25 well the words by G. K, Chesterton that form the other epigraph, direct che reader to Malouf's concerns and are well worth ‘euamining more closely “The novel (or novella, as it has been alled) has, a¢ its central character, Jim fret section of the book, i 0 him, is ‘whiere he, Ah xt of the sanctuary) and the Elfe there. Theirs isa slow-moving, Mic existence, unhampered, by FLY AWAY PETER Windus, 1982. Our copy: Penguin, 1983. Prepared by Prue Hansen ‘What can stand, he asked himself, what can ever stand against it?’ ‘demands from the world beyond, a wider... world from which Ashley and Imogen have Sea, “anc Whieh~isy-aeYets ely Ena by Jin Qver behind him, where all chis covampland drained into the Pacific, were ines hing sand held egether with parple- loweting pigweed and silvery scrub; then the ‘sf mils of i. You could walk for hours beside its hissing white and neve see a soul. Jase locks of gulls and pied oystercarchers flitting over the wer light, stopping, starting off gain; noc ac random but after tiny alinest transparent crabs, and leaving sharp, three toed prints. (p. 2) ‘This peaceful setting is in chesp con- trast to that in which Jim finds himself in the later part ofthe book when, after enlisting in the ermy, he is shipped over to Europe to the battlefields of World War L Here he is confronted with the noize and horror ofthe war and the life ‘and death in the trenches in Flanders: ‘The amell to got worse os they pushed further towards i Ie was the smell of damp carchwalls and rotting planks, of mud impregnated wich gas, of decaying corpses that hha fallen in ealier bates and been incor porated now ine theystem tel, ocesonal- Ty pushing outa hand or a booted foot, ll sagged and black, nor quite ingested; of tat droppings, and piss and che unwashed bodies ‘of the men chey were relieving, who also smelled like corpses. (P-78) ‘On one level the novel tli the story of Jim Saddler — a quiet, serious 20-year old at the beginning of the narrative, happy with the job Asbley Crowther has given him as guardian of the sanctuery, doing what he likes best, observing the diferent kinds ofbirds as they arcive from and depart for distant lands and keeping Getsled and mexieulous records of chem. “They were the days ofthe big migrations, chose let day August and ely September, tnd Jim spent long hours observing, and oti dower new ara: the fs ees Mis Hlercourcalled them — strange word, Ihewondeed whee sehad herd He never had. “ee martin fit, bur they cme only om the lelands and they came © breed great fcksofthem were suddenly there cnsnigh, already engaged in. remaking old. ness: dower and grey crowned knots, che various tatters once a Tone eenshank; hen shar tailed saepipers, wood sandipes rom the Balkans, whimbrel, ey oloves che Essen Caren parse sige, xkcd sf fom Siberig then much foe, cowards the urn ofthe ea, eek sandpizers a prarincole, the oceignonesinthesame lock wi ocale ‘ucclnly dingashabe Hefllad bok fe: Tok wih is sighting, aeflly noting the rumbers and dates of aval. "The eat sight of bit here gsi, fer oman months abeece inthe clear ound ths ase, with bi of local Indicape behind tt 2 grass tft or ede 0° at of sicks — that was che mall exitenene A ahattene FLY AWAY PETERich and wormie smelled ofall hat was rood, sind bis notadhewshehadexpecred | “Even here, in the thick of Te might be, Jim thought, wharhands were incended fo thisseady diginginotbeearh, | the fighting, there were ‘ts wings were meant for flying over the curve ofthe planet t another sewon. Gp. 27-29 | birds. The need to Unlike the nursery rhyme, Pete’ md | record their presence ‘Paul? do not both come back home to | | ‘Queensland. Ashley Crowther, though | imposed itself on him as akind of duty." wounded, survives. Imogen Harcourt, whom we se in the last chapter walking along the beach, mourning Jim's death, realises that although he is gone, what is important is that this was ‘2 presence) a presence ‘essential in every creature (p. 132). Ieisthis uniqueness that is captured anew for her in the vision ofthe yong halo ee ‘© destroy him. In chapter 15 Ashley arvels at ‘menis power to endure! (p. 109), the transformation from farmer and clerk and plamber to soldier and yet at the same time the civilian in chem sur viving: “You heard icin the individual tilt of his voice through even the most conventional order or response. It was he guarantee that they would, one day, ase co be soldiers and go back to being schoolteachers, mechanics, factory. not hold and could not be held. (pp. 133-34). Malouf repeatedly emphasises the value and importance af. in spite of ll ehe processes that can work “ou Teoh hands, ace-cource touts (p. 11). [is pethaps, because of this indestructible ‘quality in man and the awareness of co many worlds’ co-existing, the acknowledgement of life being mide up ‘ofa series of processes, that onecan look to the furure without total despair. Malouf does not deny the los, the aef created by the machinery of was, the violence that exists — pethage i all ‘of us ~ not too far fom the surface. In fact he nevee minimizes the fll horror of the ‘murderous machine} but rather emphasis the devastation itis capable ‘of creating. Jim saw that he had been living, til he edie Bere; in a state of “dangerous innocence. The world when Soa Rois Bath sides was quite other than a placid, slow-moving dream, without change of timate or colour and ath ime and place forall. He had been bin! (p.103). Jim senses a link between the violence he had seen in his father, ‘which was ‘ofa kind chat could last the world’ and ‘allowed nothing ¢o exist FLY AWAY PETER 3* Excellent reading on the novell ‘Text talk - Fly Away Peter for your consideration, gna the dmasizaive Landscape context, Fly Away Peter encourages us to thnk about how the world aroma us ie and 1 Te rato be: Through fim and the other characters, we consider how they aee their world and hew wean perception shapes thei Tim's joumey from the idylic Brishane to the bogay and bloody trenches of France sled sath life-changing experiences, cca death, Jim "moves" to another landscape where is able to sea “the maps" ofthe world differently. As writers, it is you ‘eflect upon what you readin Fly Away Peter aud write about bow your landscape influences and shapes who you are, Baris Matouts novela i important bocause of the way it describes the physical landscape of Brisbane, the bird sanctuary and war-r Europe. Through Maloof woting we ae transported back to atime in Australia whos hive ule ne relatively new and valt ‘aujuades were largely linked to the British Empire. se een speaks ofthe landscape a being pure aud untouched by man - where solace could be found “You could walk for hours t weet sting white and never soe a soul Just great flocks of gulls, and pied oysientchers iting over the ek fight, stopping, stat ‘unin; not at random but ater ay almost transparent crabs, and leaving sharp, thre-toed prints, Fate Malouf presents nature as full of energy aud vigout. If we think aboct im at this time, he too is innocent and vibrant in his y Parken cat and lifes experiences. Do you have an ideal plac where natareabouuds or where you fea ene oh serenity and jPecksps a favourite spot atthe beach, anearby park or perhaps a seeet cubby spot yon hd ss chan than Inter Imogen, Feci a sense of ier peace When inthis landscape, we ll have locos ‘hat make us Feel that sense of inner peace and calms, 1rate tps that when Jim enlists and arrives in Europe that Maus writing changes dramatically. insead of birds we get ms, instead of open, tropical abuadance We get cold and preyed. Inca of feodon and life we are presented with war, suffering and death. Jim is forced to inhabit a world thet is foreign to him, geographically and spisitually Death surrounds isa and the futility of war is marked by Malouts descriptions of what Jim experiences, “The trath bit him then with a fore that was greater evea than the breath from the cuianie! He Wied to exy out but 0 sound came. It was hammered right back into is lungs and he ‘hough hie might choke on it. Claney ind been blasted out of existence. It was Claacy’s blood thot fovered ‘him, and the strngo slime that was all over him had nothing to do with berag bom into ‘another life but was what hed been scattered when Clancy was turned inside out." Ma can be his own worst enemy if he forgets his place in the “bigger picture", Malouf reminds us {hat the only thing that is important is how we live ou lives within our "landscape! ‘A good example of this i the recent issue surrounding Ludian students being victims of bashings and assaults in Melbourne ‘What impre fhe Aas i bral violenes sending to counties oversea - especially Tadia? What does tis emate of vislence say sats ie sauazclion landscape and the supposed values we embrace? While each of us would like to tiak that Austale 6s fea see ‘country where the “air go forall" is entrenched in our philosophy, these ecent attacks would suggest otherwise, tha uber oversens, and to many Australians themselves, these recent events are a shameful blot ox out landscape aad who we are. Hes the steels of Melboume, is man fighting against man, in a senseless and bratal battle where no ous wine ao suffering extends be Physical pain, and where sears never heal Seen tr links to our word ia that it oveals that Living in a *hypuotised state* can bo dangerous. While tis importa to have @ sep ce aud identity, to lve in a landscape where we deny our social responsibility or focus on sel interest ie dectaceve Maer eae ‘hat balance inal things is essential - having a landscape around us that protects us while keeping us on our tees le Tondneneret eZiim baules death, mud and mts in France, he io able to juxtapose allthis with the innocence of back home. “But the sala were an species. And for him they were familiars of death, creatures of the underworld, as birds were of life and the air" Can we separate our physical landscape from our spititual or emotional oue? I dou't thi ‘ones around us, i We can, Being happy can come from having | ing by a sttcam, reading in our room, listening to our favourite music oa our iPods or cheering atthe footy. Those t Witrcroe eave schoo! for (he ls time, how will you relet upon your time at school, the friends you've mae, the teachers you wo Jat evan the gates tha have welcomed you for six years? Think about al these exporicuces as you tend Fly way Peer, Wis happes reanahpens to us all notin a literal sense but a an erotional and spiritual one. Jim's maps ae our: th gence of ilane inte tke weed having the right vantage point, ‘Karen Ford isa lecturer atthe Melbourne Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne