Reading though some old copies of The Bulletin here at work, I stumbled across an article about some new Australian novels (well, new for the August 23, 2005 issue of the magazine).

One thing struck me, which was the comment about one of the characters in Stephen Lacey's novel, Sandstone, which was: "Jack is one of those Australian characters, so numerous in our literature, who are in flight, whose world is always on the brink of disintegration..."

This is something I was talking about recently with a friend from overseas who visited and who had commented on Australian writing. For myself, I've always found that a lot of Australian novels and creative works feature some level of loss or disjointedness—Charades by Janet Turner Hospital, Eucalyptus by Murray Ball, Drylands by Thea Astley are some of the works that spring to mind. I think it's to do with our country and us being a young nation more than anything else.

We're still in an adolescent phase of writing in some respects. No, that doesn't mean that I think our writers aren't producing quality work that's of an adult standard. What I mean is that we're still young and finding ourselves as people. Australia is such an unusual country, too, that I don't think that given a thousand years we would have still figured it out.

There always feels to be a deep, silent watching to this country, like it knows you inside and out and understands that it has the power to decide when you'll become a part of the dust. We can't control Australia and its environment any more than we could squeeze mercury in our fist to try to hold it. Not that we can make it rest in the palms of our hands, either...