''An Imaginary Life'' is a 1978

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

written by

David Malouf David George Joseph Malouf (; born 20 March 1934) is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and Libretto, librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University ...

Story outline

It tells the story of the Roman

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso (; 20 March 43 BC – AD 17/18), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Augustan literature (ancient Rome), Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a younger contemporary of Virgil and Horace, with whom he i ...

, during his exile in Tomis. While there, Ovid lives with the natives, although he doesn't understand their language, and forms a bond with a wild boy who is found living wild in nature. The relationship between Ovid and the boy, at first one of protector and protected, becomes an alliance between two people in a foreign land. Ovid comes to Tomis enculturated with a Roman world view and through his attempts at teaching the boy language is able to free himself from the constrictions of Latin and the encompassing perception of reality that is his only barrier against transcendence. Ovid is continually searching for the Child and what he represents to him. He goes so far as to capture him in an attempt to learn from him, and to teach him language and conventions.

Critical reception

Reviewing the book in ''The Canberra Times'' Kevin Hart noted: "With writing of this sort, fiction that stretches the imagination far outside the confines of normal experience, the criterion for our judgment is not so much the extent of the imaginative flair displayed, but how the writer handles the problems caused by his extraordinary imagination. In this book all is worked out carefully, perhaps at times over-carefully, giving the impression that it is a superbly controlled exercise in style." "An Imaginary Life is, in part, about an individual journey from a state of being cut off and apart from the environment – of wishing to tame and exploit nature, of being totally entangled in language and culture – to a state of being in intimate contact with the untrained, wild things of the world. It is also about a poet, in thrall of civilisation, realising that there are other ways to live and experience; ways that are beautiful and fulfilling...Those themes – of belonging and exile, of how to relate to the environment and to those who are different to us – are core to the debate about what it means to be Australian today. An Imaginary Life does not provide a workable template for how to navigate the complexity of belonging and un-belonging, nor should it. It’s a novel not a policy document. It does, however, show us it is possible to imagine ways to do things differently, ways to live differently with each other and with nature. And once imagined, those other ways of living seem all the more possible."

Awards

* 1979 – winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Fiction

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Imaginary Life, An 1978 Australian novels Australian novellas Novels by David Malouf New South Wales Premier's Prize for Fiction Award-winning works Novels set in ancient Rome George Braziller books Chatto & Windus books Novels set in the 1st century Cultural depictions of Ovid