"White man always talking and never listening" [said Justin].
"I'm sorry," said Heriot humbly.
"Whatever you say to white man, he always got something else to say. Always got to be the last one."
"We call it conversation", Heriot said, and bit his lip as soon as the words were out.

A bleak, atmospheric work, meditating on the relationship between white and black in Australia, between colonists and those they sought to colonise. "We're all lost here", says Heriot, the protagonist. And Stow - although he spent his later life living in England - evidently felt that great sense of loss among this fierce, overpoweringly beautiful country. It's a work of great prose power, as all of Stow's works are. A fairly quick read and, more importantly for a work that is now past its 60th anniversary, still a fantastic contribution to the ongoing conversation about the coming of the British to this seemingly endless continent.

They rode in a silence relieved only by the rattle of stones from the horses' hoofs. Trees, grasses and water were still as death, and beyond them was nothing but rock. They passed a stretch of rock pitted and wrinkled like lava. How old is this country? Heriot wondered. But it's not old, it's just born, the sea has never been over it, it was created yesterday, dead as the moon. Let the sea some day come up and drown it and fish come swimming out of the rock-pigeons' holes. I will ride with my hair green and wild, through the canyons of the sea. ( )

I have only superlatives to describe Randolph Stow's writing. He understood, it seems, the deep gulf between aboriginal and settler perceptions of the intriguing mystery that is the desert regions of Western Australia.
This is a story of a missionary station manager (Heriot) who realises he is too old to pursue his calling. His response is to take a journey, accompanied by Justin, an aboriginal from the settlement. The walk to the coast and to the islands is one of suffering and expiation.
Heriot is loosely based on Ernest Gribble who ran (poorly, so) the Forest River Mission in WA. Gribble played a key role in inquiries that exposed the role of police in murdering Aboriginal persons in an incident known as the Forrest River massacre in 1926.
The book shows deep understanding and frankness about human frailty, aboriginal and white man. The story is told sparingly and with great beauty. The Miles Franklin Award winner of 1958.

Ok. It took me three goes to finish this book. Not because it was bad, but because it had so much potential, that every now and then I read something awful and had throw it, stamp and yell in disbelief. When I read the opening, I assumed I was in for an amazing read:

"A child dragged a stick along the corrugated iron wall of a hut, and Harriot woke and found the morning standing at his bed like a valet, holding out his daylight self to be put on again, his name, his age, his vague and wearing occupation."

The scenes with Harriot and Justin where the best. When the novel reflected back to the people of the mission, I could not care less. The book could have taken out those chapters.

Stow's prose is unbelievably good. His dialogue is portentous and sloppy. Too much tell and not enough show.

Like I said, if the scenes at the mission where cut out, and we only had Herriot's and Justin's scenes post going bush, this would have been a ripper. a 4 stars. ( )

Randoph Stow is one of the most interesting and powerful writers of Australian stories. This novel, published in 1958, skirts one of the worlds ancient cultures, and explores a totally different understanding and use of time. This novel is remarkable and valuable for readers who are searching to identify 'a meaning of life' in Australia. ( )

I read To the Islands for the Classics Challenge which I like to complete using all Australian titles. In this case, the book is also a Miles Franklin winner, taking out the prize in only the second year of the award and when Randolph Stow was only 22.

In some ways Stow’s novel reminded me of Graham Greene’s writing. There is the same interest in the ambivalent moral issues of the modern world, and the central character Stephen Heriot is a flawed hero, an Anglican missionary worn out by the oppressive climate and the ambiguous merit of his role in bringing ‘improvement’ to another culture. Stow shares Greene’s preoccupation with the internal lives of his characters and his economical prose never distracts from the issues at hand. His novel however is so quintessentially Australian that it could only have been written by someone who knew the country intimately. To the Islands is a masterpiece.

To read the rest of my review visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/to-the-islands-by-randolph-stow/ ( )