Great discussion. I was the person who asked whether you were familiar with Murnane in the Q and A, so it's awesome to see him covered on the channel. For me, The Plains is one of those books that really captures the universe within its pages. My rough summary of my thoughts on the themes (aside from the intersections between landscape and mindscape) is that it's about the delight and danger in indulging in perception (we all need to attempt to explore and reach an interior landscape like the plains, but we can also fall into a pit of aimless wandering). That's why I think it's such a universal novel: what else is more universal than perception itself? There's also a great dialogue and satire on the role of art in accessing reality throughout and how this can be disrupted by the ridiculous patronage system many artists must engage with.

I read Murnane's "The Plains" after I had watched Travel Through Stories' review of it here on youtube. It has become one of my favourite novels. It's the kind of writing exactly on my mental wavelength. Next I plan to read his "Inland" but have to wait until next February, when the new edition of it will be published by And Other Stories.

I'm a bit late to this video but would like to make a recommendation, When I dance mountains sing by Irene Sola. It opens with a passage from independent people and follows with a first chapter from the perspective of a storm cloud....

Like I guess a lot of people, I had never heard of Gerald Murnane. Thank you for putting him on the map for me (and many others). So many of your videos are treasure trove of rarely discussed subjects and authors.

Gerald Murnane is fantastic! Thanks for talking of him, love his writing. Cheers from Canada (and love your channel)

When I check my KZfaq notifications each day it's almost as if I'm peering into the library window to see who's on shift, and whenever I see behind the desk my favorite part-time librarian, Leaf by Leaf, I always pop in, because I know he has the wizardry to shake up my reading list in just the way I need it shaken.

wow, will order. thanks!

Stream System rules, will check out this one.

Agree. More Murnane content needed. More Murnane reading sorely needed.

One day we are going to need a book from you, about books, and the reading life.

Been meaning to read it forever >>"

A couple of things popped into my head regarding the final paragraph you read out. One was the phrase 'shooting in the dark' as a metaphor of any artist's endeavour, and something which I find, as an actor, musician, and writer, to be both daunting (can I convey what I want successfully) and thrilling (an adventure into the unknown). The other was the revealing what's behind the curtain (as in The Wizard of Oz), ie. that we may find that each of us, purely at the visual level from how our brains interpret light waves, see pretty much the same thing, with the real difference being how we respond to those images intellectually and emotionally to give them meaning, and it's being able to convey that to others that is the artist's task. I haven't read the book but am very much looking forward to, and thank for alerting us to this author.

I’ve been thinking for such a long time that I need to study the literature from my home country. So happy to find this writer not only from my home country but also from my home state, thanks to your recommendation. Cheers Chris!

Excellent presentation. Just started reading his collected short fiction, "Stream System." A fascinating writer. So wonderful to discover him.

The description of Murnanes writing "routine" (on typewriter) reminds me of Wendell Berry, whom I can greatly recommend. I'm eager to read some of Murnanes works now, thank you for yet another great video, Chris. Greetings from Austria!

Thank you for another excellent video!

Wow! Just read The Plains last week! Glad to see this incredible review of a wonderfully mysterious author.

Another fantastic video! What a delight to see this new review from you today. I was blown away reading this. Thank god that PaperBird put this one on my radar, and so happy to get your invaluable insight and analysis on this beautiful book. Speaking of PaperBird, you know what would be incredible? If you two collabed now and again. Imagine his editing overlaid on your breakdown/analysis. Or, like your discussion with BetterThanFood, just the two of you delving into the literary landscape together. I hope you and your family have a splendid Thanksgiving! Keep up the great work!

I loved this book. Ready to reread it. And other of his works.

I'm going to read this. Thanks!

When I see you so excited about a writer, I know it's got to be good. Always worked before... so I order The Plains. Thanks for the recommendations, i hate to say, I did not hear about Murnane before.

Where priests are trained: seminary. I know them well. The Times Magazine article was my introduction to Murnane. Fine choice!

A friend of mine is a friend of Murnane’s. They have had a years long written correspondence (old fashioned post of course) where they discuss the precision of the geography of Melbourne and Victoria described in his novels. Murnane is undoubtedly a genius. Would love to see a video on his Landscape with Landscape.

Hey Chris, hope all is well! Thanks for the recommendation. I just read his essay on long sentences, though truth be told I found it near laughably off-putting... His grammatical analysis is in fact fraught with errors, while the whole thing seems to have stemmed from a total incomprehension of Pynchon simply using a comma in place of a period (a technique I’m pretty sure he nicked from Kerouac) paired with a bizarre conviction that there is pretty much just no good reason for EVER deviating from conventional grammatical construction in fiction-which is, of course, utter insanity. Meanwhile I found all of his own sentences he gave as examples to be clunky, uninteresting, and arrhythmic as all hell. I guess they don’t call him ‘eccentric’ for nothing… But it’s always interesting to see how (and where) people draw their own personal lines of preference in distinguishing eccentricity from plain imbecility (such as how Murnane, rather imbecilely if you ask me, judges Pynchon’s use of the comma to be itself more imbecilic than eccentric)... That being said-I think I just needed somewhere to unload my frustration and confusion after reading his essay: so thank you, and, more so, my apologies!-your video has definitely made me want to give The Plains a try! The subject matter sounds like it would be right up my alley. And, all said and done, I love a good eccentric, being a bit of one myself. Definitely an interesting chap, whether or not I come to like his writing… Cheers! -Forest

I have never read Murnane - never even heard of him till today - but your love for the work is sending me to his novels. But in the meantime, I looked for his essay on the “long sentence” and was underwhelmed. Filled more with descriptions of what sentences are than what sentences do, Murnane couldn’t seem to catch my attention or strongly articulate the feelings of his own attention. (The essay, I would say, is a “film strip” of comments rather than anything that captures literary feeling.) And then you get silly stuff like this: “Kermode, in his careless attribution of a love of long sentences to an entity that he named ‘Pynchon’, betrayed his ignorance of Booth’s common-sense distinction between the flesh-and-blood Thomas Pynchon and the implied author of the texts that he put his name to. Kermode, like any other reader of Vineland, was free to guess what a man named Thomas Pynchon might love or not love, but any fondnesses inferred from any text had to be attributed to a being known only from his having composed it: a being not necessarily identical with a man known to his friends as Thomas Pynchon.” My years in grad school during the 90s taught me to run away from this sort of nonsense, although I can see why an author might find it appealing. It resonates with the the other moments of his essay where he slaps back at other attempts to get him to talk about himself, his art, or anything. (This is not bad, and I do like the “I write sentences” snark; his words remind me of Stein.) I am still going to try Murnane’s novels, but I will be stepping in the work a bit more gingerly than I might have before reading the essay. Thanks, as always, for the recommendation and the channel.

Love All the videos! 🩷🫶🏼🤍

Yeah thanks and love from India. It's a great book indeed. You are spot on!

Many thanks, Chris, for bringing Gerald Murnane to our attention. I'll definitely be picking up The Plains. I have to disagree with your interpretation of the scenario presented on page 25 (where light passes through a glass of dark beer and transmutes the colors of the two rings' stones). The light source is identified as "an electric globe behind me," not as the sun. By adjusting the position of his glass-holding hand, the narrator allows the "diffused aura" of the refracted light to pass through the beer and hit the stones of the rings on his left hand. It seems to me that that could happen only if he's holding the beer with his right hand, while his left hand, with the rings, is situated somewhere just beyond the glass. How else could the glass be between the light source and the stones while, at the same time, the narrator can see the stones? (Okay, I just thought of one possibility: he's holding the glass with his left hand, the rings are on the far side of the glass, but he can still see the stones because he's wearing the rings with the stones facing inward, on the palm side. Doesn't seem likely.) Finally, I don't think he's saying that the transmuted colors of the stones are being projected onto the wall behind him, but that their colors are transmuted because they're lying in the aura cast upon them by the refracted light. I loved the allusion to one of the Apostle Paul's most striking metaphors, "through a glass darkly." It's fun to think of Paul saying, "Now we see God through a glass of dark beer." P.S. I hope this comment doesn't seem too absurdly nit-picky. In fact, I thought your review was lovely. Has any artist ever managed to bring the vision inside his infinite, immaterial mind into limited, material existence?

Please correct me incase I'm way off here, but compared to Beckett (even his Unnamable) who seems to show the unavoidability of an extent of solipsism, but simultaneously seems to mock or criticise a succumbing to it (in any case showing the purgatory that it may lead to), this here all sounds like a manifesto for solipsism, especially if one puts the excerpts of the author's book alongside the details of his personal life... So while on the one hand this review piqued my interest in Murnane, on the other hand I'm trying to get away from overbearing solipsism in my reading and so now I'm not sure if I should delve into his work😅

Yea! How come they ain’t more Australian writers spoken of?! 📚 🇦🇺

It's Friday already? What a weird week.

Didn't know there was a real J. Henry Waugh out there.

Beckett?

Love the channel but your editing software is making you look like max headroom. A little space is not a bad thing

Read more Australian Literature, it's not even respected in it's own country(that's my impression living in Australia). Patrick White, you would love his works, read Voss.

Celebrating an Australian author because of Australia's cricket world cup win no doubt?

gm

came for the Aussie novel you promised to review (currently waiting for the copy I ordered to reach me), stayed for the Hurtson's T-Shirt. 🦘 🍐🐝