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Notes
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Epigraph: with an host of furious fancies whereof I am commaunder, with a burning speare, & a horse of aire, to the wildernesse I wander. By a knight of ghostes & shadowes, I sumon'd am to Tourney. ten leagues beyond the wide worlds end mee thinke it is noe journey. yet will I sing, & c: Mad Tom o' Bedlam's Ballad (Anon.)
Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many Cares and the slavery of Home, man feels once more happy. The blood flows with the fast circulation of childhood ... Afresh dawns the morn of life ... - Richard Burton, Journal entry, 2nd December 1856.
Our lives were wild, romantic, and solemn. - Isabel Burton, on their stay in Damascus.
To know how to free oneself is nothing; the arduous thing is to know what to do with one's freedom. - Andre Gide, The Immoralist
I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my proper woe.- Byron
-Herman Melville , The Confidence Man
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Textual Encounters of the Bird Kind : Dal Stivens and the Night Parrot
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 19 December vol. 38 no. 3 2023;'So often literature provides us with metaphors and allusions to enrich our lives, though sometimes, just ever so occasionally, an event occurs in the outside world that offers up an intriguing analogy to revive a text that has been forgotten. Despite winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1970, A Horse of Air and its author, Dal Stivens, have faced an extinction not dissimilar to the object of the novel’s allegorical search: the Night Parrot. The rediscovery of the latter in 2013 in far Western Queensland presents an intriguing analogy for the revitalisation of the former’s important work. Last definitively seen alive in the 1870s, the Night Parrot remained for over one hundred years alluring yet unfindable, akin to a flying thylacine, forever fluttering beyond reach: it was the ‘white whale of the bird-watching world’ (Carvan); the ‘avian nut that refuses to crack’ (Olsen 1). Likewise, although Dal Stivens was once one of Australia’s most visible and prolific (albeit enigmatic) writers, since the 1987 republication of A Horse of Air, and his subsequent death in 1997, both the author and his novel have slowly receded into the obscurity of the remote interior. Despite inspiring writers, poets, filmmakers and naturalists alike, Stivens’s influential depiction of the Night Parrot remains critically and popularly underappreciated. This paper proposes to use the rediscovery of the Night Parrot in 2013 as the impetus to revive Stivens’s finest work by examining his textual encounter with this inscrutable bird figure.' (Publication abstract)
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Museum Mentality
Who Killed Australian Literature?
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20-21 October 2012; (p. 8-9) -
Literature in the Arid Zone
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007; (p. 70-92) This chapter surveys and assesses from an ecocentric perspective some representative literary portrayals of the Australian deserts. Generally, it contrasts works that portray the desert as an alien, hostile, and undifferentiated void with works that recognise and value the biological particularities of specific desert places. It explores the literature of three dominant cultural orientations to the deserts: pastoralism, mining, and traversal. It concludes with a consideration of several multi-voiced and/or multi-genred bioregionally informed works that suggests fruitful directions for more ecocentric literary approaches. (abstract taken from The Littoral Zone) -
Untitled
1989
single work
review
— Appears in: The Good Reading Guide 1989; (p. 248)
— Review of A Horse of Air 1970 single work novel -
Current Trends
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , March no. 106 1987; (p. 80-82)
— Review of Warm Bodies 1986 single work novel ; The Adventures of Christian Rosy Cross 1986 single work novel ; Night Animals 1986 selected work short story ; A Horse of Air 1970 single work novel ; Love Child 1986 single work novel ; The Beast of Heaven 1984 single work novel
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Current Trends
1987
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , March no. 106 1987; (p. 80-82)
— Review of Warm Bodies 1986 single work novel ; The Adventures of Christian Rosy Cross 1986 single work novel ; Night Animals 1986 selected work short story ; A Horse of Air 1970 single work novel ; Love Child 1986 single work novel ; The Beast of Heaven 1984 single work novel -
New Novels
1971
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , Winter vol. 10 no. 1971; (p. 152-153)
— Review of Man Alone 1971 single work novel ; A Horse of Air 1970 single work novel -
Moby Dinkum
1970
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 12 December vol. 92 no. 4734 1970; (p. 59)
— Review of A Horse of Air 1970 single work novel -
Untitled
1971
single work
review
— Appears in: The Daily Telegraph , 27 March 1971; (p. 52)
— Review of A Horse of Air 1970 single work novel -
Untitled
1971
single work
review
— Appears in: Listener , 29 April 1971; (p. 559)
— Review of A Horse of Air 1970 single work novel -
Literature in the Arid Zone
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007; (p. 70-92) This chapter surveys and assesses from an ecocentric perspective some representative literary portrayals of the Australian deserts. Generally, it contrasts works that portray the desert as an alien, hostile, and undifferentiated void with works that recognise and value the biological particularities of specific desert places. It explores the literature of three dominant cultural orientations to the deserts: pastoralism, mining, and traversal. It concludes with a consideration of several multi-voiced and/or multi-genred bioregionally informed works that suggests fruitful directions for more ecocentric literary approaches. (abstract taken from The Littoral Zone) -
Museum Mentality
Who Killed Australian Literature?
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20-21 October 2012; (p. 8-9) -
Dal Stivens is Bored with His Prize Book
1971
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Australian , 25 March 1971; (p. 3) -
Indulgence
1978
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Studies in the Recent Australian Novel 1978; (p. 194-224) -
Textual Encounters of the Bird Kind : Dal Stivens and the Night Parrot
2023
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , 19 December vol. 38 no. 3 2023;'So often literature provides us with metaphors and allusions to enrich our lives, though sometimes, just ever so occasionally, an event occurs in the outside world that offers up an intriguing analogy to revive a text that has been forgotten. Despite winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1970, A Horse of Air and its author, Dal Stivens, have faced an extinction not dissimilar to the object of the novel’s allegorical search: the Night Parrot. The rediscovery of the latter in 2013 in far Western Queensland presents an intriguing analogy for the revitalisation of the former’s important work. Last definitively seen alive in the 1870s, the Night Parrot remained for over one hundred years alluring yet unfindable, akin to a flying thylacine, forever fluttering beyond reach: it was the ‘white whale of the bird-watching world’ (Carvan); the ‘avian nut that refuses to crack’ (Olsen 1). Likewise, although Dal Stivens was once one of Australia’s most visible and prolific (albeit enigmatic) writers, since the 1987 republication of A Horse of Air, and his subsequent death in 1997, both the author and his novel have slowly receded into the obscurity of the remote interior. Despite inspiring writers, poets, filmmakers and naturalists alike, Stivens’s influential depiction of the Night Parrot remains critically and popularly underappreciated. This paper proposes to use the rediscovery of the Night Parrot in 2013 as the impetus to revive Stivens’s finest work by examining his textual encounter with this inscrutable bird figure.' (Publication abstract)
Awards
- 1970 winner Miles Franklin Literary Award
- Sydney, New South Wales,
- Alice Springs, Southern Northern Territory, Northern Territory,