Dal Stivens (1911–1997)

As soon as I started reading this, I thought of Robert Edeson’s The Weaver Fish, which I recently read and reviewed. A Horse of Air has a similar cheeky narrative style: the author jocularly undercuts his own narrative so that the reader doesn’t know what to believe. It’s very entertaining.

Dal Stivens (1911-1997) seems to have begun his writing career in journalism, writing articles and short stories for a variety of journals and moving on to complete five novels, short story collections, a children’s book and some non-fiction. (See Middlemiss and Wikipedia for more information and the names of his titles). His legacy includes the foundation of the Australian Society of Authors (of which I am a grateful member) and was influential in the establishment of the Public Lending Right (of which I am a grateful recipient in its offshoot the Educational Lending Right). But despite winning the Miles Franklin Award for A Horse of Air in 1970, he’s not an author who’s widely known, which is why he received the Patrick White Award in 1981. He gets a mention in Geordie Williamson’s The Burning Library, but perhaps because his books are out of print and even A Horse of Air is impossible to find, there are only two reviews at GoodReads, neither of which might inspire anyone to mount a search. Which is a pity because this book is seriously good fun. I would really like to own a copy but even second-hand copies are scarce, so I’ve had to make do with a library copy. And they won’t let me renew it.

(This library copy has one of those old-fashioned date due slips in the back, and it shows that this book has been borrowed two-to-three times a year, every year, since at least 2000. It’s been to Tongala, Rutherglen, Echuca, Rochester, and Kyabram. It’s in ok condition, but how much longer can it last? Somebody needs to reissue this book in a new edition!)

Anyway, the novel purports to be the narrative of one Harry Craddock and his search for the rare Night Parrot in Central Australia*. The blurb tells us that he’s a millionaire, an ornithologist, an idealist and a buffoon. However, as we learn from the very first chapter, Craddock is in a mental hospital and it’s his psychiatrist who’s suggested that he write this narrative, to ‘get to the bottom of things’. Soon we see footnotes from Craddock’s purported editor, rebutting some of what Craddock says, and indeed this un-named editor – although a partisan of Craddock’s – has, in the Preface, alerted the reader to the fact that this is an ‘unorthodox’ autobiography and that the psychiatrist has objected most forcefully to its publication . Then there are comments from the psychiatrist, and ‘Tolstoyan’ excerpts from Craddock’s wife’s diary. Who and what shall we believe? When we see a casual reference to a shooting of someone called R.H. at Parramatta, which might have some bearing on Craddock’s incarceration, we know that we are in for an interesting time. Is he really a manic-depressive as he tells us, frantically following one obsessive interest after another and sending his narrative off on all sorts of weird tangents, or is he a murderer trying to evade justice with a plea of insanity? (The death penalty was still technically legal when this book was written – though not necessarily for murder – in all states except Qld).

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2014/05/07/a-horse-of-air-by-dal-stivens/… (meer)

A very enjoyable book. Harry Craddock leads an expedition to central Australia to look for the night parrot, which hasn't been seen for fifty years. Amongst the themes and concerns of the narrator are the survival of species, the state of Australian native fauna and flora, and even speculation that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere may warm the earth to an uninhabitable degree. Like Voss, the narrator goes out into the Australian wilderness and finds nothing. The action is told from several viewpoints, the narrator, although in a mental hospital seems totally sane and the notion of reality shifts again and again.… (meer)