The Great World : A novel

Rating:
Summary: Great story and great storytelling
Review: David Malouf is a masterful storyteller. His multiple award winning novel, "The Great World", is a coming-of-age tale of lost innocence of two lads (Digger and Vic) whose separate childhoods in the outbacks of Australia and their shared experiences as interns in the Second World War helped shape the course of their future together. It's difficult to characterise the relationship these two men have with each other. To call it friendship would be to simultaneously overstate and understate the position. They were never really buddies - hell, Digger didn't even like Vic - but fate had different ideas and kept intervening at critical moments to draw them together whenever their lives took separate turns after the war. Of the two, Vic is the more colourful and vividly drawn character. The early rejection of his natural father - a weak and sorry piece of low life - and his obsessive need for self determination provide more than a clue to our impression of him as a steely hearted "user" (of Digger, his adoptive family, etc) of family and friends for his own ends. The sad irony is that Vic is as much a victim as the people he uses and only his wife, Ellie, is privileged and burdened by knowledge of the truth when she catches a glimpse of his real self in the dark. More disappointment follows when his son Greg turns out to be a sloganeering liberal. Digger, on the other hand, is arguably the novel's moral centre but as a character, he seems curiously underwritten. His part is that of the moon to Vic's sun. He possesses a vulnerability that is simply incandescent. Even Jenny, his retarded sister, sees through Vic, but Digger remains trusting and accepting to the end. But "The Great World" is far from a two man show. There are loads more characters that Malouf creates who are truly memorable. Mac, their war time mate, may have been given limited script space, but his spirit lives on long after he has been written out. It's also a wonderfully uplifting moment for the reader when Pa and Ma, Vic's adoptive parents, find their true vocation in life as poet and businesswoman, respectively. Malouf is a classic writer in the best of the old fashioned tradition. He knows how to tell a story and keep you enthralled from start to finish. His prose is warm, accessible and true. Reading "The Great World" may not change your life but it will show you what it is to be human. A great novel. I highly recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Beautifully written, poignant novel
Review: Malouf is a master storyteller! He writes vivid, sensual, evocative novels, and this is one of his best. Very cinematic and emotional. I've loaned my copy of this book to several people who've never read Malouf before, and they each loved it and were deeply affected by the subject matter.

Rating:
Summary: Takes His Time
Review: Mr. Malouf is a gifted communicator, creator, and conjuror. I am even tempted to use literary alchemist for he does not just take words and arrange them, he selects words, assembles them with care and thought, and truly creates writing that is altogether new. This holds true whether he is dealing in pure fiction, or fiction that is historically based. The books that result from his efforts are almost uniformly excellent, and at there best incorporate the various types of writing he has such a wonderful grasp of. For Mr. Malouf is a Novelist, a Poet, and a Librettist, each an accomplishment, when combined extraordinary.

I have one of his novels left to read, and having come this far into his work I recommend them all without condition. "The Great World", is different from the previous works I have read and commented upon, and this is due primarily to its length. I once read that a movie is an epic if it takes its time. If that is the criterion here, then this work certainly qualifies. If you have read any of his shorter works, and have been amazed with the scope he can cover, the illusion of time and length he conveys, imagine it tripled or quadrupled, and you will get an idea of the panorama of lifetimes this work relates.

To narrow the comments on this work to an observation or two is unfair. There are just so much and so many players that are important. However to focus on Vic and Digger and the lifetime's experiences they share, takes a good deal of the book into account. Vic is at once an enigma and a cliché. This is a man who will continue to removes cookies after being caught in the act, and then risk his life to save that of the friend whose jar he had plundered. He is an exploiter of human friendship a businessman of questionable ethics he is faithful, faithless. He is a montage of all that is meant to be human. Superficially he is in control, beneath the veneer, he is simply human wreckage.

Digger is the friend you would like to have, a man that Vic feels he justifiably targets and exploits, but I never felt that Digger was the person who was deluding himself. Even "simple" Jenny always knew what Vic was. Vic was accommodated by Digger when others who would meet him instantly were put off. He was his silent apologist, his passive defender, not because he believed Vic to be good, merely in need of pity.

There are many events in the book that are important, but one is critical. It is one of those moments when a person finds out what they are or are not capable of. As a solitary experience it can be painful, when it involves another it can be shattering. Vic has this experience while a POW with Digger and others, and it governs his life forever. His time as a POW finalizes who Vic is, while others integrate it as an episode of their life.

Mr. Malouf has written a remarkable study of men in captivity, men who spend the majority of the War as prisoners without the opportunity to prove themselves, defend their Country, or earn the right to say, "I was there". This study of human nature alone makes the book worthwhile, but as I mentioned it is one of many human explorations Mr. Malouf takes the reader upon.

For anyone who enjoys excellent writing, Mr. Malouf will greatly enhance your reading experiences, even with topics you might not normally tend to choose. He is certainly an Author who will never disappoint you.