Journeys to the Interior

by Nicolas Rothwell

Australia's centre and north are a world apart from its big coastal cities. Here one finds unique natural wonders, visionary art, original thinkers and, sometimes, distilled despair and death. In Journeys to the Interior, Nicolas Rothwell travels deep into the northern realm, combining the storytelling flair and persistence of a journalist with the imagination of an artist. Following on from the acclaimed Another Country, this book contains haunting and perceptive portraits, of, among others, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Ian Fairweather, Noel Pearson and Galarrwuy Yunupingu. There are explorations of the natural world of pythons, desert oaks and magpie geese. And there are wonderful introductions to the art and artists that bring the northern landscape to life and transform it, whether through painting, dance or photography.

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Nicolas Rothwell is the award-winning author of Wings of the Kite-Hawk; The Red Highway, Journeys to the Interior and Another Country. He is the northern correspondent for The Australian.

Reviews

[An · Rating 5 out of 5]

6/5

[Betty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting ideas in this book.

[Harrowagenda21 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have actually met the author once at Darwin airport, and I thought his 'Wings of the Kite-Hawk' (a book of fiction and fact about extraordinary people, events and landscapes in northern Australia) was fantastic. I have been reading 'Journeys' in another part of Australia and getting more and more frustrated. The first issue is the prose. At times, Rothwell is a brilliant writer. His is a highly literate man who fetched up in northern Australia after a largely journalist career, and he sees the landscape and the people (often from a 4WD expedition) with an outsider's eye, nonetheless attuned to nuance. But the book has no narrative or connection - some parts are reprints of journalist contributions,others are his own extended ruminations. Thus we have sentences that twist and turn, and intentionally divert: "Let me, at this point divert from the track I have been following, which has led us, in a slightly mazy fashion,from the idea of the Australian landscape and the inland right back to the mind's structure, and to ways of catching and describing country in thoughts and words." (p45) This is typical - not staying on track. It is annoying.

Next, is the issue of comprehensibility to the ley reader. Rothwell really wants us to learn about, and to like, some of the art objects, painters, and landscapes he describes. But the scant photos at section intros are not helpful. The chapter about photography in the north, "Colonial Eyes", has no images. I have no idea what Paul Foelsche or Baldwin Spencer photographed, and neither would anybody without a knowledge of Aboriginal portraits - the descriptions of their work assume too much. There is a chapter on the art of Ian Fairweather, clearly an eccentric and brilliant artist who resided for some years in northern Australia - but I had to look up his art on the internet.

Even the shimmering Oenpelli python lacks a photo, but merits a chapter.
So in sum, the book is uneven, with some amazing passages and a lot of journalistic material repackaged in the volume. The publishers needed to have spent the money to get at least a smattering on copyrighted images to accompany the text. Without them, the reader is drifting.