''Tourmaline'' (1963) is the fourth novel by

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

writer

Randolph Stow Julian Randolph Stow (28 November 1935 – 29 May 2010) was an Australian-born writer, novelist and poet. Early life Born in Geraldton, Western Australia, Randolph Stow was the son of Mary Campbell Stow née Sewell and Cedric Ernest Stow, a ...

.Austlit - ''Tourmaline'' by Randolph Stow
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Story outline

Set in the fictional town of Tourmaline in outback

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

, the novel follows the arrival of Michael Random and the impact he has on the community. The town is slowly dying as a result of a combination of drought and the abandonment of its mines. Random preaches the word of God to the town's inhabitants and promises to find water, which stirs the townsfolk to life.

Critical reception

Reviewing the re-issue of the book by

Text Publishing Text Publishing is an independent Australian publisher of fiction and non-fiction, based in Melbourne, Victoria (Australia), Victoria. Company background Text Media was founded in Melbourne in 1990 by Diana Gribble and Eric Beecher, along wit ...

, Nicholas Rothwell in ''

The Australian ''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...

'' noted: "Alone among Stow’s books, ''Tourmaline'' gained a certain reputation with the European intelligentsia: its author was briefly seen as a pioneer of modern storytelling, alongside figures such as

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial pare ...

and

John Fowles John Robert Fowles (; 31 March 1926 – 5 November 2005) was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. Aft ...

. It depicted the same Australia that was becoming known from the paintings of

Sidney Nolan Sir Sidney Robert Nolan (22 April 191728 November 1992) was one of Australia's leading artists of the 20th century. Working in a wide variety of mediums, his oeuvre is among the most diverse and prolific in all of modern art. He is best known ...

and

Russell Drysdale Sir George Russell Drysdale (7 February 1912 – 29 June 1981), also known as Tass Drysdale, was an Australian artist. He won the prestigious Wynne Prize for ''Sofala'' in 1947, and represented Australia at the Venice Biennale in 1954. He was i ...

: a visual, sensory space." The critic David Fonteyn saw the work in allegorical terms: "''Tourmaline'' is an ecological allegory in which cultural revitalisation is posited due to an acceptance of, and engagement with, the natural environment despite the death drive that is contained within it. In the novel, the natural environment is figured as a living entity that is feared by the people in the town of Tourmaline."

Notes

* Epigraph: ''O gens de peu de poids dans la memoire de ces lieux'' ... (Eng: O ye of little weight in the memory of these places...) from the 1924 poem "Anabase" by

Saint-John Perse Alexis Leger (; 31 May 1887 – 20 September 1975), better known by his pseudonym Saint-John Perse (; also Saint-Leger Leger), was a French poet-diplomat, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative ...

* Dedication: For M.C.S. * Author's note: The action of this novel is to be imagined as taking place in the future. A first draft of Chapter 1 was published in

Meanjin ''Meanjin'' (), formerly ''Meanjin Papers'' and ''Meanjin Quarterly'', is an Australian literary magazine. The name is derived from the Turrbal word for the spike of land where the city of Brisbane is located. It was founded in 1940 in Brisbane ...

, No. 85 (1961). *

re-issued the novel in 2015 as part of their "Text Classics" series, with an introduction by

Gabrielle Carey Gabrielle Carey (born 10 January 1959) is an Australian writer noted for the teen novel, ''Puberty Blues'', which she co-wrote with Kathy Lette. This novel was the first teenage novel published in Australia that was written by teenagers. Carey h ...

.Text Publishing - ''Tourmaline'' - Randolph Stow
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tourmaline 1963 Australian novels Randolph Stow Novels set in Western Australia

Story outline

Critical reception

Notes

See also

References