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Songlines and Fault Lines: Epic Walks of the Red Centre
Visitors to the Red Centre come looking for the real Australia. What they find is both beautiful and wilderness, desire, an ancient philosophy of home, and the confusing countenance of the Australian frontier, a meeting place of black and white, ancient and modern.
Songlines and Fault Lines explores the stories of six epic walks that shaped a a journey of Aboriginal Dreamtime ancestors; John Stuart’s south–north trek across the continent; anthropologist TGH Strehlow’s childhood journey down the Finke River; conservationist Arthur Groom’s reimagining of the country’s heart as tourist play-ground; Bruce Chatwin’s seminal travel text about the Centre, and Eleanor Hogan’s portrait of Alice Springs, a troubled town.
Retracing the legendary pathways and stories of the Australian centre, Glenn Morrison finds new answers to age-old queries.
Songlines and Fault Lines explores the stories of six epic walks that shaped a a journey of Aboriginal Dreamtime ancestors; John Stuart’s south–north trek across the continent; anthropologist TGH Strehlow’s childhood journey down the Finke River; conservationist Arthur Groom’s reimagining of the country’s heart as tourist play-ground; Bruce Chatwin’s seminal travel text about the Centre, and Eleanor Hogan’s portrait of Alice Springs, a troubled town.
Retracing the legendary pathways and stories of the Australian centre, Glenn Morrison finds new answers to age-old queries.
223 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 31, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 11, 2018
I think this book needs a different title. It should have been something like Frontier Faultlines or Politics of Space and Place in The Red Centre, or Black, White and Red: A Conflicted Canvas In The Red Centre.
Why am I obsessing over a new title? Well I feel that the songlines part of the book is deeply underdeveloped and it's position in the title is misleading. It's there to lure people in and probably because the author has a personal interest in songlines but other than the first section on Marlpwenge the book barely touches on songlines at all. Rather it obsesses over the concept of a frontier and the clash of cultures. It waxes lyrical about walking, flaneurs and the link between ambulation and thought but other than citing well known thinkers and figures from the past it does nothing to analyse the ideas.
If you haven't read any of the works the book talks about you'd be far better placed to read those instead. Especially Strelow's Journey to Horseshoe Bend and Chatwin's Songlines. This book greatly diminishes those two works choosing the most inconsequential quotes to highlight and while there is a little bit of contextual understanding applied, all of the magic of the original texts is completely lost.
It definitely feels like Morrison tried to form a book out of six essays as opposed to a few unified ideas. The links between them rest solely on geographical similarity and a chronological convenience. As for walks of the Red Centre, the use of maps to show journeys these authors took was a good idea but became pointless because for many of the sections you never really follow them along those journeys anyway. The action is also far too focused on Alice Springs because that is where the author himself spent the most time and also where the political and cultural faultline is most obvious.
The promise of crossing the deep time of ancient songlines with the modern faultlines of race and culture was what made me buy the book on the spot. I should have know better, the songlines are sacred to aboriginals and they will never really reveal their full meaning or power anyway. The information that is filtered to outsiders is largely watered down and lacks a lot of its profound beauty. But even with these limitations the possibility of crossing these oral geographical maps and laws of survival with modern science and western understanding is such a promising topic. Even just examining how various bore holes and peaks hold significance to all parties would have been enough.
Morrison came close at times. He shows quite clearly how western civilisation changed from seeing the red centre as terra nullius to a possible resource to be exploited, then to an untameable malevolent wilderness, to a piece of nature to be preserved and appreciated and lastly to an unknowable area with such a complex array of people, cultures and needs it makes you just want to return to your air conditioned terrace in inner west Sydney.
Abandoning the songlines concept Morrison works much harder at the concepts of a frontier, the clash of cultures, and where the problems in current interaction lie. However, the way Morrison signs off with a deep sort of regret is troubling, he expresses a the idea that many people believe white writers need to vacate the spaces of indigenous narrative and you can sense that was partly why the songlines component of the tale was underdeveloped and avoided. It seems Morrison was wrestling with his own demons about his duty as an author, objectivity and how much he could say and investigate without pontificating. Unfortunately this battle with himself has ended with a bowl of soggy Weet-bix.
Why am I obsessing over a new title? Well I feel that the songlines part of the book is deeply underdeveloped and it's position in the title is misleading. It's there to lure people in and probably because the author has a personal interest in songlines but other than the first section on Marlpwenge the book barely touches on songlines at all. Rather it obsesses over the concept of a frontier and the clash of cultures. It waxes lyrical about walking, flaneurs and the link between ambulation and thought but other than citing well known thinkers and figures from the past it does nothing to analyse the ideas.
If you haven't read any of the works the book talks about you'd be far better placed to read those instead. Especially Strelow's Journey to Horseshoe Bend and Chatwin's Songlines. This book greatly diminishes those two works choosing the most inconsequential quotes to highlight and while there is a little bit of contextual understanding applied, all of the magic of the original texts is completely lost.
It definitely feels like Morrison tried to form a book out of six essays as opposed to a few unified ideas. The links between them rest solely on geographical similarity and a chronological convenience. As for walks of the Red Centre, the use of maps to show journeys these authors took was a good idea but became pointless because for many of the sections you never really follow them along those journeys anyway. The action is also far too focused on Alice Springs because that is where the author himself spent the most time and also where the political and cultural faultline is most obvious.
The promise of crossing the deep time of ancient songlines with the modern faultlines of race and culture was what made me buy the book on the spot. I should have know better, the songlines are sacred to aboriginals and they will never really reveal their full meaning or power anyway. The information that is filtered to outsiders is largely watered down and lacks a lot of its profound beauty. But even with these limitations the possibility of crossing these oral geographical maps and laws of survival with modern science and western understanding is such a promising topic. Even just examining how various bore holes and peaks hold significance to all parties would have been enough.
Morrison came close at times. He shows quite clearly how western civilisation changed from seeing the red centre as terra nullius to a possible resource to be exploited, then to an untameable malevolent wilderness, to a piece of nature to be preserved and appreciated and lastly to an unknowable area with such a complex array of people, cultures and needs it makes you just want to return to your air conditioned terrace in inner west Sydney.
Abandoning the songlines concept Morrison works much harder at the concepts of a frontier, the clash of cultures, and where the problems in current interaction lie. However, the way Morrison signs off with a deep sort of regret is troubling, he expresses a the idea that many people believe white writers need to vacate the spaces of indigenous narrative and you can sense that was partly why the songlines component of the tale was underdeveloped and avoided. It seems Morrison was wrestling with his own demons about his duty as an author, objectivity and how much he could say and investigate without pontificating. Unfortunately this battle with himself has ended with a bowl of soggy Weet-bix.
February 3, 2021
I am a long distance walker so I thought this book looked fantastic. Sadly I was wrong. It was dead boring. And vaguely racist. Definitely it did nothing to impress the fact that Aboriginals have been living in and improving Australia for tens of thousands of years. That the Dreamtime and Songlines are inherently connected to the people and that so far white people have really done nothing to respect or protect this. I doubt Morrison is personally racist but many of his comments certainly come off that way.
Just some examples:
“But the line’s construction sparked a period of frontier conflict across the Centre in which as many as a thousand Aboriginals were shot and numerous whites speared.” P54 this makes it sound like an even fight which it was not. More than a thousand Aboriginals were killed (men, women and children), their homes destroyed and their children stolen. The whites in comparison were hardly effected, a handful of injuries and deaths to white men. Hardly an even chance.
“While the missions have been widely criticised for persuading an ancient culture to Christianity, many Arrernte would not have lived but for their efforts.” P59. They lived for 60,000 years without Christian missionaries, to belittle them with this reference just makes me mad. And who were they requiring protection from? Oh, white Christians. Queue eye roll.
“...for thousands of years Aboriginal people had established their own equivalent of wilderness areas...” p95. Tens of thousands of years. It might be a small point but it’s just once again devaluing the sheer impressiveness of the indigenous community to not only survive but to thrive.
“The recent ‘handback’ to Aboriginal groups of the ownership and management of large tracks of Central Australia...” p103 Now I might be getting a little bit picky but what’s with the quotation marks around handback? Is it not a handback? White people stole these lands from the indigenous people and then a couple hundred years later gave them back. Seems like a handback to me.
“It is there, say the Eastern Arrernte, that giant caterpillars, the so-called Creation Ancestors, rose from the earth to create the world...” p161. So-called? So-called? How is this version of events any less likely than a guy with a beard sitting in the clouds creating the world in six days? Again, I don’t think Morrison is purposely trying to be offensive, he clearly has a lot of time for aboriginals but maybe not so much time for their culture and religion.
Just some examples:
“But the line’s construction sparked a period of frontier conflict across the Centre in which as many as a thousand Aboriginals were shot and numerous whites speared.” P54 this makes it sound like an even fight which it was not. More than a thousand Aboriginals were killed (men, women and children), their homes destroyed and their children stolen. The whites in comparison were hardly effected, a handful of injuries and deaths to white men. Hardly an even chance.
“While the missions have been widely criticised for persuading an ancient culture to Christianity, many Arrernte would not have lived but for their efforts.” P59. They lived for 60,000 years without Christian missionaries, to belittle them with this reference just makes me mad. And who were they requiring protection from? Oh, white Christians. Queue eye roll.
“...for thousands of years Aboriginal people had established their own equivalent of wilderness areas...” p95. Tens of thousands of years. It might be a small point but it’s just once again devaluing the sheer impressiveness of the indigenous community to not only survive but to thrive.
“The recent ‘handback’ to Aboriginal groups of the ownership and management of large tracks of Central Australia...” p103 Now I might be getting a little bit picky but what’s with the quotation marks around handback? Is it not a handback? White people stole these lands from the indigenous people and then a couple hundred years later gave them back. Seems like a handback to me.
“It is there, say the Eastern Arrernte, that giant caterpillars, the so-called Creation Ancestors, rose from the earth to create the world...” p161. So-called? So-called? How is this version of events any less likely than a guy with a beard sitting in the clouds creating the world in six days? Again, I don’t think Morrison is purposely trying to be offensive, he clearly has a lot of time for aboriginals but maybe not so much time for their culture and religion.
March 31, 2022
As my rating shows, I loved this book, but I understand the disappointment of anyone reading this as a walking guide.
For those walkers, however, who want to understand the cultural context of their journey - this is a brilliant book, (especially as the country can have a profound and somewhat unexpected impact on one.)
Each chapter covers one layer of history and perspective:
Chapter 1 covers Indigenous heritage through the DreamTime journey of Aboriginal Ancestor Marlpwenge.
Chapter 2 describes the experience of the early white explorers, notablely John McDouall Stuart.
Chapter 3 describes the work of missionaries and especially and final journey of Ted Strehlow
Chapter 4 introduces Arthur Groom, called the father of Australian conservation.
Chapter 5 deals with Bruce Chatwin and his book Songlines
Chapter 6 discusses Eleanor Hogan's book on Alice Springs
The Epilogue reflects on all this and draws some really interesting conclusions. It also introduces Australian explorer Ernest Favenc, of whom I was previously unaware, however, his reflections on the haunting beauty of the Centre resonated strongly with me.
For those walkers, however, who want to understand the cultural context of their journey - this is a brilliant book, (especially as the country can have a profound and somewhat unexpected impact on one.)
Each chapter covers one layer of history and perspective:
Chapter 1 covers Indigenous heritage through the DreamTime journey of Aboriginal Ancestor Marlpwenge.
Chapter 2 describes the experience of the early white explorers, notablely John McDouall Stuart.
Chapter 3 describes the work of missionaries and especially and final journey of Ted Strehlow
Chapter 4 introduces Arthur Groom, called the father of Australian conservation.
Chapter 5 deals with Bruce Chatwin and his book Songlines
Chapter 6 discusses Eleanor Hogan's book on Alice Springs
The Epilogue reflects on all this and draws some really interesting conclusions. It also introduces Australian explorer Ernest Favenc, of whom I was previously unaware, however, his reflections on the haunting beauty of the Centre resonated strongly with me.
April 26, 2024
I've always loved walking. But I've only recently come to appreciate it as a creative act; a way of expressing a kind of personal geography, or writing subjective experience onto a landscape. My reading of Songlines and Faultlines coincided with this revelation, so the book definitely left an impression even if it's more concerned with the politics of walking - as opposed to the art of it, as I hoped.
Rather than focusing on the walks themselves, Morrison uses these famous outback journeys as metaphors for fraught postcolonial relationships between First Nations Australians and white invaders, and settler vs. indigenous understandings of the outback (i.e. 'wilderness to be dominated' vs. 'home'). Thoughtful and well researched, even if the book overall left me wanting a more freeform and less anthropological treatment of the same subject. Bonus points for including a comprehensive reading list of Australian Walking Literature which I hope to dive into in more detail.
Rather than focusing on the walks themselves, Morrison uses these famous outback journeys as metaphors for fraught postcolonial relationships between First Nations Australians and white invaders, and settler vs. indigenous understandings of the outback (i.e. 'wilderness to be dominated' vs. 'home'). Thoughtful and well researched, even if the book overall left me wanting a more freeform and less anthropological treatment of the same subject. Bonus points for including a comprehensive reading list of Australian Walking Literature which I hope to dive into in more detail.
June 11, 2020
This was probably a 2 and a half star from me and a number of times I nearly thought it would be a did not finish. Whilst the book contains interesting information and I learned things I hadn’t known I think I would have been better reading some of the books that are referenced rather than this one.
October 14, 2018
Songlines and Fault lines is an intriguing and challenging work for a number of reasons. Morrison sets out - like one would at the beginning of a long walk - with a plan, a map, and some strategies for the path ahead. The book is also obliquely circular by design, its origins speaking of cultural practices and rituals of Aboriginal clans of central and South Australian mainland. It ends with a call for deeper and more considered engagement with those cultures, whilst recognising the need for respect and a need to speak from a deep place within ourselves in order to build stronger bridges across the cultural divide.
The six chapters touch on distinct phases of engagement since the colonisation and appropriation (most often by force) of Aboriginal land. The ideas that sit beneath each chapter are significant, but the narratives themselves are constructed as one does with a walk: one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. On these walks - and via Morrison's flinty and accessible prose - we are taken through lands and ideas unfamiliar to many. Long and difficult paths set amongst stunning beauty, but country that also conceals, and threatens those who either disrespect it, or fail to gauge its immense power.
We travel alongside Aboriginal storytellers, early white explorers, well-intentioned missionaries and romantic conservationists, not to mention the formidable intellect of Bruce Chatwin, and others. In each journey Morrison attempts to engage by locating us time and again in the prevailing discourses. Themes like the power of Empire, the romantic view of the noble savage, the politics of assimilation, and the subsequent backlash and rejection of colonial practices and policies all feature.
Each walk sets out to wrestle with these distinct, yet overlapping themes. The previous review of this book on this website seems conflicted, or unsettled by the author's attempts to place well recognised cultural and philosophical ideas in front of a popular audience, and why that is so seems a mystery to me. There's little doubt that Britain didn't just bring rabbits and plough horses to Australia. They brought the might of the British Empire, its writers and its ideas and its own determination to impose them, and within that contested world we live, now, as much as then.
There's a need for works such as this in our current literary environment, and why I think that comes down largely to the lack of rancour in its pages. Morrison's quest doesn't seem to involve taking prisoners; rather he wishes to point to the ways certain approaches and mindsets in the complex world of Aboriginal and Anglo relations have led us to be prisoners of our own ways of thinking.
The six chapters touch on distinct phases of engagement since the colonisation and appropriation (most often by force) of Aboriginal land. The ideas that sit beneath each chapter are significant, but the narratives themselves are constructed as one does with a walk: one step at a time, one foot in front of the other. On these walks - and via Morrison's flinty and accessible prose - we are taken through lands and ideas unfamiliar to many. Long and difficult paths set amongst stunning beauty, but country that also conceals, and threatens those who either disrespect it, or fail to gauge its immense power.
We travel alongside Aboriginal storytellers, early white explorers, well-intentioned missionaries and romantic conservationists, not to mention the formidable intellect of Bruce Chatwin, and others. In each journey Morrison attempts to engage by locating us time and again in the prevailing discourses. Themes like the power of Empire, the romantic view of the noble savage, the politics of assimilation, and the subsequent backlash and rejection of colonial practices and policies all feature.
Each walk sets out to wrestle with these distinct, yet overlapping themes. The previous review of this book on this website seems conflicted, or unsettled by the author's attempts to place well recognised cultural and philosophical ideas in front of a popular audience, and why that is so seems a mystery to me. There's little doubt that Britain didn't just bring rabbits and plough horses to Australia. They brought the might of the British Empire, its writers and its ideas and its own determination to impose them, and within that contested world we live, now, as much as then.
There's a need for works such as this in our current literary environment, and why I think that comes down largely to the lack of rancour in its pages. Morrison's quest doesn't seem to involve taking prisoners; rather he wishes to point to the ways certain approaches and mindsets in the complex world of Aboriginal and Anglo relations have led us to be prisoners of our own ways of thinking.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews