![]() ![]() What is the meaning of life? What is the distinction between instinct and conscious thought and purpose? Through this little tale of a boy and a poet Malouf presents his musings on a much grander topic, that of evolution and mankind’s purpose. ![]() ![]() The moon rode high over the reeds, its face halved by a line of cloud like a lidded eye – my own eye, half-waking, and open like an owl’s eye, half-closed on the dark. His sentences are flowing and seamless, conjuring up haunting mood and imagery with unique similes. ![]() David Malouf’s novella An Imaginary Life was described as an arresting and lyrical work by the Wall Street Journal. Ovid becomes obsessed with a wild boy believed to have been brought up by deer, devoting his time to teaching him language, seeking to make the boy civilised. He does not understand their language, nor do they understand his – he considers the people he lives with ‘natives’ and the tribes that attack the town of Tomis ‘savages’. Ovid had lived a life of mischief and excess prior to his exile in a backwater called Tomis. The story is set in the time of the Roman Empire with the protagonist and narrating character the Roman poet Ovid. In An Imaginary Life author David Malouf tells a very big story in very few words. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |