AustLit

Esutace argues that 'in calling attention to the way the pastoral is performed as a legitimizing ritual by the narrators of Bliss, Peter Carey invites readers to consider how its continued iteration in contempoary Australian discourse is essential to negotiations of national identity and contemporary Australian subjectivities. He invites readers to see beyond the narrative romanticizations of the bush to consider the psychological and ideological impulses behind Australian performances of the bush. And he highlights how the process of going bush - and narrating the journey - ... carry fairly significant territorial implications.'