Limberlost in Aussie Readers

Apr 29, 2023 PattyMacDotComma rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites-adult, fiction, kindle, aa-ce, australian-author, historical-fiction, aa

5★
“Ned was thirty. When would the natural competence of other men come to him? He knew he had worth.”

This is the only book I’ve read by Tasmanian author Robbie Arnott, but I’m lining up the rest now. At the moment, he sits with fellow Tasmanian Richard Flanagan and Western Australian Tim Winton in my mental library of authors for their sense of place and character.

In this book Arnott takes Ned West from his Tasmanian childhood in the 1940s right through to young adulthood, marriage, and the end ...more

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Oct 31, 2022 Kim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: act-library, australian-author, fiction, libby, 2022-aus-release, 2023-mf-longlist

A tale that I thought I knew of those Australians living at home, eking out a living from the land during WW2. Of a boy shooting and skinning rabbits for money, of boats, of wildlife and native forests. Of waiting to see if young men return home. But this is made fresh by the quality of the author's writing.
I'd been getting a bit tired of child narrators but I think Ned is my favourite of all the child narrators I've read this year.
Very different to his previous two books that involved a lot o ...more

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Aug 14, 2022 Lyndon rated it it was amazing

Robbie Arnott’s much-anticipated third novel, Limberlost, feels recognisably steeped in the writer’s usual literary preoccupations, with a couple of significant points of difference. Following 2018’s Flames and 2020’s The Rain Heron, Limberlost feels less self-consciously clever, less busy, less ambitious, but entirely more honest. If Arnott’s previous two offerings have been a stage performance, Limberlost feels more like having a beer at the pub with a friend.

The novel tells the story of Ned Robbie Arnott’s much-anticipated third novel, Limberlost, feels recognisably steeped in the writer’s usual literary preoccupations, with a couple of significant points of difference. Following 2018’s Flames and 2020’s The Rain Heron, Limberlost feels less self-consciously clever, less busy, less ambitious, but entirely more honest. If Arnott’s previous two offerings have been a stage performance, Limberlost feels more like having a beer at the pub with a friend.

The novel tells the story of Ned West, a young man who lives on his family orchard in northern Tasmania’s Tamar Valley. Ned is trying to help keep the West world together while his brothers are at war, but beneath this preoccupation he has a secret: a longing for the freedom he has only ever found on the open water. Spanning decades, Limberlost explores the human relationship to land and sea, the power of the natural world to captivate, delight and terrify, and the ties of the human heart. It is simple, lyrical and utterly sublime.

There are, of course, the usual hallmarks that we might now come to expect from a Robbie Arnott novel: characters bounce back and forth across the geography of Tasmania with chaotic abandon, their relationships with animals reveal both the tenderness and savagery of humanity and the natural world, and there are lots and lots of gum trees. Crucially, Arnott’s virtuosic construction of the written word remains very much intact. The deceptively simple musicality of his language sounds with a pitch just as resonant as it has been in anything else he has written so far, and the result is a novel that is similarly unforgettable.

Limberlost is ultimately a tale about family, ambition and memory. Impressively, it does not suffer from Arnott’s commitment to step away from the broader mythology evident in his wider oeuvre. The depth of connection created between the reader, Ned, and all who surround the orchard of Limberlost is as profound as the portrayal of any of the broad cast of characters in Flames, and his protagonist’s relationship with an injured quoll is as moving as anything that occurs between the humans of The Rain Heron and its titular mythical creature. It is impossible not to admire the way in which Arnott continues to reinvent himself. With each novel so far, he takes a few steps in a new direction—always with the unmistakable hallmarks and expression that have helped make him so beloved as a Tasmanian novelist, but also with something fresh each time. In Limberlost we recognise a writer who is not afraid to get his hands dirty, to keep himself grounded, and whose evolving literary style mirrors the novel’s themes of finding joy and satisfaction in simplicity. His work has a freshness that has always been uniquely modern, but this book’s messages and thematic underpinnings ultimately return us to a life that is much simpler; where we look to the forests, the waves and human connection.

If there was ever any doubt, with Limberlost Arnott undeniably secures his position as the most significant Tasmanian novelist of his generation. As he proves himself a cut above, it is both ironic and perfect that his writing reminds us that the only things that really matter are not those that separate us, but those that bring us together: nature, love, and blood. ...more

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May 27, 2025 Bree T rated it it was amazing

Shelves: library-reads, australian, historical-fiction, nature, coming-of-age

I picked up 2 of Robbie Arnott’s books from my local library after seeing my friend Lauren rave about them. I decided to read this one first as it was published first and absolutely loved it.

This is a stunningly beautiful story, written simply from the point of view of Ned, a young teen beginning over a summer. His two older brothers are off at war in two separate places. Ned occasionally gets letters from one, who is yet to really see any action but the other, who is somewhere in the Pacific, h I picked up 2 of Robbie Arnott’s books from my local library after seeing my friend Lauren rave about them. I decided to read this one first as it was published first and absolutely loved it.

This is a stunningly beautiful story, written simply from the point of view of Ned, a young teen beginning over a summer. His two older brothers are off at war in two separate places. Ned occasionally gets letters from one, who is yet to really see any action but the other, who is somewhere in the Pacific, has not been heard from. It hangs over the family – Ned, their widowed father and their older sister, who has returned to the family apple farm in Tasmania.

Ned spends a lot of time shooting rabbits to sell their pelts, which are then used to make hats I think, for the Army. He dreams of buying a small boat and sailing it on the open sea. It’s almost more than a dream, more like a compulsion he has. He’s willing to work hard and save his money. At the same time he’s negotiating not just the stress the war is bringing to his family but also changing friendships, girls, just the whole growing up experience. Interspersed within the story are snapshots of other time periods from Ned’s life, from when he is an adult working on ‘the mainland’ as well as when he’s married with children and an apple orchard of his own.

I read this straight after a Tim Winton book, which was an interesting experience. In some ways, I felt some similarity in the spare writing, the coming of age style narrative, even though the two books were vastly different. There was such a quietness to this writing, the style of the story and it was so easy to sink into.

The descriptions of the natural world are so wonderful – I haven’t been to Tasmania but this made me feel like I was there. Like I could imagine this childhood in the apple orchard, the chores that Ned has to complete before his days are his own. He works towards his goal of getting a boat and finds a few people in the local area that are willing to lend him a hand to achieve his dream. His dad, a man of few words but who seems to understand his son better than he lets on, and more than Ned realises, also helps him in certain ways. You can see the weight of having two sons overseas fighting in this far away war on the father’s shoulders, in his every interaction. It’s beautifully shown without ever being explicitly discussed, through Ned’s eyes but in a way where he doesn’t even particularly understand what he’s seeing sometimes, but the reader does.

Ned is such an interesting character, he seems like he’s relatively quiet as well, in a way that is similar to his father. He thinks about his brothers a lot, wondering who taught him things or who was the one that did something kind for him when they were out on an adventure once. He sees parts of them in many things and they’re constantly on his mind. He also has a bit of an interesting relationship with his older sister too, a strong and definitely forthright woman that Ned definitely wants to impress or make her feel like he’s grown up and acting in a way that she expects. When she chastises Ned for something, he undertakes a lot of action in order to fix the problem.

There were a few moments in this that quietly devastated me, for different reasons. And many moments where I felt joy as well, it was honestly, a book that got me to feel so much. On every page, there was something, it was building to these moments. It worked so well, it had me so enamoured with Ned and his journey with the boat….and the way that it all ended for him.

We move back and forth in Ned’s life, getting to know him as he grows up, makes choices, gets married, has children and builds a life with his wife on a new farm. But it isn’t until the very end that the book answers a question for the reader and the journey to get there was one that I loved going on. This was such a wonderful story, the writing really got to me. It’s my sort of quiet story that is just many slices of a life, building a whole and I definitely added everything Robbie Arnott has ever written to my TBR after finishing this.
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Feb 04, 2023 Averil rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2023

This is a gentle but compelling read. The main narrator, Ned, recalls a summer in Tasmania when he, as a young man, is missing his older brothers, who are away fighting in the war. He spends his days and dreams in nature.
The narrative occasionally jumps forward to later times and the present, but we spend nearly the whole book in Ned's teenage brain, wandering around their apple orchard and pining for a future on the water.
Our relationship with nature is a critical theme, but the author also da ...more

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Dec 11, 2024 Kerry rated it really liked it

This took me a bit of time to get into. I had to take a break and return to it but I’m glad I did. I think I found the recurring dead animal imagery in the beginning of the book a bit hard to deal with. This was much less prevalent in the second half. In the this was a very well written story set in a part of the world I know really well. The constant time shifts in the narrative came together well in the end and it was a novel that was well worth persevering with. I will read more of Robbie Arn ...more

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Oct 13, 2024 Jim Rimmer rated it really liked it

Being from the island by origin I'm a big fan of Tasmanian writing yet somehow I'd missed the emergence of Robbie Arnott entirely.

Better late then never.

I found Limberlost incredibly evocative and worthy of all the accolades it has been showered with. Almost goes without saying that I already got a copy of Dusk, Arnott's follow up, sitting in my 'to be read' pile. ...more

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