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y separately published work icon Watching the Climbers on the Mountain single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1988... 1988 Watching the Climbers on the Mountain
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

''His beauty and aloofness disturbed the equilibrium of the Rankin family.The stockman for a long time offered a resistance to the efforts of the members of the family to involve him in their lives. He moved about in their familiar world, observing it with unfamiliar eyes; and quietly, industriously he slowly rearranged it.'

'Ward Rankin had not wanted to be tied to the station; he'd imagined a life of travel and experience but there was no-one else. When his mother died, it came to him - owner and manager, now in his fifties, a frustrated man. Ida, his young wife, sees a solution to her own discontent in her growing feelings for the young English stockman Robert Crofts, whose arrival on the station changes their lives forever.

'Set in the remote Central Highlands of Queensland against a backdrop of heat, torrential rain and the strange and lonely landscape, this is a novel of passion, suspense, reinvention and revenge, watched over by the solitary presence of Mt Mooloolong.' (Publication summary)
 

Notes

  • Dedication: For Stephanie and Ross.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sydney, New South Wales,: Pan , 1988 .
      image of person or book cover 7600901045802072820.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 224p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 July 2012
      ISBN: 033027113X
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Atlantic Books ,       2017 .
      image of person or book cover 7699657343361307991.jpg
      This image has been sourced from online.
      Extent: 135p.
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 January 2017
      ISBN: 9781925576139
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Other Formats

  • Sound recording.
  • Large print.
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Works about this Work

Author Snaffles Danger Money Jason Steger , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Age , 8 November 2012; (p. 3)
Love, Land and Passion Stephen Saunders , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Sunday Canberra Times , 30 September 2012; (p. 26)
— Review of Watching the Climbers on the Mountain Alex Miller , 1988 single work novel
Personal Perspectives on the Central Queensland Novels Anita Heiss , Elizabeth Hatte , Frank Budby , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 139-155) 'This chapter is a transcript of a panel session chaired by Anita Heiss at the Sydney symposium, The Novels of Alex Miller, on 13-14 May 2011. The participants were Lix Hatte (Northern Archaelogy Consulting), Colin McLennan (Elder, Jangga) (not present) and Frank Budby (Elder, Barada)'. (139)
Alex Miller : Migrant Writer Ingeborg van Teeseling , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 66-77) 'Alex Miller, a two-time winner of the Miles Franklin Literary Award, as written ten novels, all of them featuring protagonists who are outsiders, often in more ways than one. In most, if not all of them, Miller's narrators grapple with personal and societal questions of alienation. Miller's books offer sophisticated literary investigations into issues relating to the 'ownership' of place and landscape, the impossibility of an uncomplicated identity after migration, the role of history, and the nature of belonging and home. Critical reviews of his work have, over time, acknowledged this presence of migrant themes, but the connection between the migrancy of the writer and the content of his work has hardly ever been noted clearly. In fact, the Oxford Literary History of Australia categorises Miller, a little mystifyingly, as a 'non-migrant Australian writer' (Lever, 325). My argument here is that this is not just factually false, but that reading Miller's work as unproblematically Australian takes the sting out of what he is trying to say, and not just about the migrant experience but about Australia as well.' (Author's introduction 66)
'My Memory has a Mind of Its Own' : Watching the Climbers on the Mountain and The Tivington Nott Peter Pierce , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 55-65) 'Not long ago, Alex Miller remarked at a literary event (my witness is a bookseller from Launceston) that 'My memory has a mind of its own'. What might this mean? Perhaps a memory that is truant, given to reinvention, but also set free. Another implication might concern the double insecurity of memory: the tenuousness of our hold on what we can recollect from the past, and the uncertain hold that memory gives us on our present. In any event, that remark by Miller began and then informs this discussion of the first two novels that he wrote, works that draw closely on some salient events of his youth. They are Watching the Climbers on the Mountain (1988) and The Tivington Nott (1989)...' (From author's introduction 55)
Love, Land and Passion Stephen Saunders , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: Sunday Canberra Times , 30 September 2012; (p. 26)
— Review of Watching the Climbers on the Mountain Alex Miller , 1988 single work novel
Mills and Boon Meets the Colonial Potboiler Greg Flynn , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 19-20 November 1988; (p. 9)
— Review of Pioneers on Parade 1939 single work novel ; Watching the Climbers on the Mountain Alex Miller , 1988 single work novel ; Now and Then, Amen Jon Cleary , 1988 single work novel
Eclectic Mix, Even for One of Catholic Tastes Nancy Keesing , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 17 September 1988; (p. 78)
— Review of The Motorcycle Cafe Matthew Condon , 1988 single work novel ; That Fierce Virgin Gerard Windsor , 1988 single work novel ; Watching the Climbers on the Mountain Alex Miller , 1988 single work novel
Tragedy Boils From Simmering Passions Katharine England , 1989 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser Magazine , 7 January 1989; (p. 11)
— Review of A Life of Days Robert Hillman , 1988 single work novel ; Watching the Climbers on the Mountain Alex Miller , 1988 single work novel
Peaks and Troughs of New Fiction Howard Willis , 1988 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 15 October 1988; (p. 15)
— Review of Watching the Climbers on the Mountain Alex Miller , 1988 single work novel ; The Beloved Mountain Peter Skrzynecki , 1988 single work novel
The Solitariness of Alex Miller Peter Pierce , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , May vol. 21 no. 3 2004; (p. 299-311) The article presents an overview of Alex Miller's literary career and development as a writer and examines his six novels published to date.
y separately published work icon Literary Migrations : White, English-Speaking Migrant Writers in Australia Ingeborg van Teeseling , Wollongong : 2011 Z1860612 2011 single work thesis 'In this thesis, I am arguing that [a] false core/periphery binary has made a particular group of migrants ,-those who are white and have migrated from English-speaking countries - invisible - invisible as migrants, that is. For the writers within this group, this leads to a critical blindness in relation to their work and place within Australian national literature. As a critic, however, I look at the work of Ruth Park, Alex Miller and John Mateer and see it is profoundly influenced by their migrant experience. More often than not they write about themes that are typical of migrant writing: alienation, identity, belonging, home, being in-between cultures, history. For a more appropriate, complete appreciation of their work, this thesis argues that it is imperative to go back to the beginning and return the 'default setting' of migrant to its literal meaning.' [From the author's abstract]
Disestablished Worlds : An Introduction to the Novels of Alex Miller Robert Dixon , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 1-28)
The Mask of Fiction : A Memoir Alex Miller , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 29-41) 'I've been asked for a memoir for this occasion yet I am uncomfortable writing directly about myself. I prefer the mask of fiction. In this preference it is self-deception I fear most, for who but the self-deceived would claim to be able to write with moral detachment about themselves? I am also cautious of the fate of WB Yeats, the poet, of whom Richard Ellmann wrote, 'The autobiographical muse enticed him only to betray him, abandoning him to ultimate perplexity as to the meaning of his experiences' (Yeats, 2). Memoir does not offer us a sure means for contacting the deeper dualities of the self. For his journey to the heart of darkness, fiction is a more certain, if more oblique , way.' (Author's introduction)
'My Memory has a Mind of Its Own' : Watching the Climbers on the Mountain and The Tivington Nott Peter Pierce , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Novels of Alex Miller : An Introduction 2012; (p. 55-65) 'Not long ago, Alex Miller remarked at a literary event (my witness is a bookseller from Launceston) that 'My memory has a mind of its own'. What might this mean? Perhaps a memory that is truant, given to reinvention, but also set free. Another implication might concern the double insecurity of memory: the tenuousness of our hold on what we can recollect from the past, and the uncertain hold that memory gives us on our present. In any event, that remark by Miller began and then informs this discussion of the first two novels that he wrote, works that draw closely on some salient events of his youth. They are Watching the Climbers on the Mountain (1988) and The Tivington Nott (1989)...' (From author's introduction 55)
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (15)
Last amended 9 Mar 2020 16:22:25
Subjects:
  • Bush,
  • Mount Mooloolong, Augathella - Tambo - Blackall area, South West Queensland, Queensland,
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