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Grounded Visionary

The Mystic Fictions of Gerald Murnane

by Brendan McNamee (Author)
©2019 Monographs XII, 254 Pages

Summary

Grounded Visionary: The Mystic Fictions of Gerald Murnane is a reading of Australian writer Gerald Murnane’s fiction in the light of what is known as the Perennial Philosophy, a philosophical tradition that positions itself as the mystical foundation of all the world’s religions and spiritual systems. The essential tenet of that philosophy is that at a fundamental level all of life is a unity—consciousness and world are the same thing—and that it is possible, if extremely difficult, for the discriminating individual mind to experience this wholeness. Murnane’s work can be seen not to take its lead from writings in this philosophical tradition but rather to resonate with many of them through Murnane’s unique artistic expression of his experience of the world. The crux of the argument is that beneath their yearnings for landscapes and love, Murnane’s narrators and chief characters are all in search of the essential unity that the Perennial Philosophy postulates.
Taking its cue from Murnane’s self-description as a "technical writer," this book examines each of the author’s works in detail to reveal how structures and themes are seamlessly woven together to create artworks that shimmer with mystery while at the same time remaining thoroughly grounded in the actual.
Grounded Visionary is the first full-length study of Gerald Murnane’s work to tackle head-on his underlying mystical sensibility and is also the first to deal comprehensively with the author’s complete fictional output from Tamarisk Row to Border Districts. This book will be of interest to all lovers of modern literature and will be of special interest to students of Australian literature and those concerned with the interface between art and spirituality.

Table Of Contents

  • Cover
  • Title
  • Copyright
  • About the author
  • About the book
  • This eBook can be cited
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Abbreviations
  • Introduction
  • Chapter 1: The Infinite Sentence: Tamarisk Row
  • Chapter 2: Necessary Angels: A Season on Earth
  • Chapter 3: Hiding in Plain Sight: The Plains
  • Chapter 4: Six Authors in Search of a Character: Landscape with Landscape
  • Chapter 5: Find the Lady: Inland
  • Chapter 6: First, Love: Stream System
  • Chapter 7: “Where the Painted Places Ended”: Barley Patch
  • Chapter 8: To Literature, With Love: A History of Books
  • Chapter 9: Through a Glass, Darkly: A Million Windows
  • Chapter 10: Radiant Stains: Border Districts
  • Conclusion
  • Index

Brendan McNamee

Grounded Visionar

The Mystic Fictions of Gerald Murnane

image
PETER LANG

New York • Bern • Berlin

Brussels • Vienna • Oxford • Warsaw

Names: McNamee, Brendan,, author.

Title: Grounded visionary: the mystic fictions of Gerald Murnane / Brendan McNamee.

Description: New York: Peter Lang, 2019.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019000120 | ISBN 978-1-4331-6471-2 (hardback: alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4331-6472-9 (ebook pdf) | ISBN 978-1-4331-6473-6 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-4331-6474-3 (mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Murnane, Gerald, 1939– —Criticism and interpretation.

Murnane, Gerald, 1939– —Themes, motives.

Australian fiction—20th century—History and criticism.

Australian fiction—21st century—History and criticism. | Mysticism in literature.

Spirituality in literature. | Consciousness in literature.

Classification: LCC PR9619.3.M76 Z77 2019 | DDC 823/.914—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000120

DOI 10.3726/b14991

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.

© 2019 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006

www.peterlang.com

All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.

About the author

Brendan McNamee is an independent scholar with a PhD on the novels of John Banville from the University of Ulster. His previous publications include essays in academic journals, along with a short study entitled Mysticism in Robert Musil’s ‘The Man Without Qualities’.

About the book

Grounded Visionary: The Mystic Fictions of Gerald Murnane is a reading of Australian writer Gerald Murnane’s fiction in the light of what is known as the Perennial Philosophy, a philosophical tradition that positions itself as the mystical foundation of all the world’s religions and spiritual systems. The essential tenet of that philosophy is that at a fundamental level all of life is a unity—consciousness and world are the same thing—and that it is possible, if extremely difficult, for the discriminating individual mind to experience this wholeness. Murnane’s work can be seen not to take its lead from writings in this philosophical tradition but rather to resonate with many of them through Murnane’s unique artistic expression of his experience of the world. The crux of the argument is that beneath their yearnings for landscapes and love, Murnane’s narrators and chief characters are all in search of the essential unity that the Perennial Philosophy postulates.

Taking its cue from Murnane’s self-description as a “technical writer,” this book examines each of the author’s works in detail to reveal how structures and themes are seamlessly woven together to create artworks that shimmer with mystery while at the same time remaining thoroughly grounded in the actual.

Grounded Visionary is the first full-length study of Gerald Murnane’s work to tackle head-on his underlying mystical sensibility and is also the first to deal comprehensively with the author’s complete fictional output from Tamarisk Row to Border Districts. This book will be of interest to all lovers of modern literature and will be of special interest to students of Australian literature and those concerned with the interface between art and spirituality.

This eBook can be cited

This edition of the eBook can be cited. To enable this we have marked the start and end of a page. In cases where a word straddles a page break, the marker is placed inside the word at exactly the same position as in the physical book. This means that occasionally a word might be bifurcated by this marker.

Acknowledgments

The lines from Rilke in Chapter 10 are taken from William H. Gass’s Reading Rilke: Reflections on the Problems of Translation (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), and are used with permission of Penguin/Random House.

The epigraph to Chapter 9 is from Kevin Hart’s The Dark Gaze: Maurice Blanchot and the Sacred and is used with permission of University of Chicago Press. Copyright 2004 by Kevin Hart.

The epigraph to the Conclusion is from Ernst Cassirer’s Kant’s Life and Thought and is used with permission of Yale University Press.

The cover photograph is used with kind permission of Lucy Oliver. (www.meaningbydesign.co.uk)←ix | x→ ←x | xi→

Abbreviations

TR Tamarisk Row

ASoE A Season on Earth

TP The Plains

LwL Landscape with Landscape

I Inland

SS Stream System

BP Barley Patch

AHoB A History of Books

AMW A Million Windows

BD Border Districts

IYEL Invisible Yet Enduring Lilacs←xi | xii→ ←xii | 1→

Introduction

Gods and mortals: dying each other’s life, living each other’s death.

—Heraclitus

This book is a reading of Gerald Murnane’s work in the light of what is known as the Perennial Philosophy, the mystical foundation of all the world’s religions and spiritual systems. The essential tenet of that philosophy is that at a fundamental level all of life is a unity, consciousness and world are the same thing, and that it is possible, if extremely difficult, for the discriminating individual mind to experience this wholeness. The crux of my argument in this book is that beneath all their yearnings for landscapes and love, Murnane’s narrators and chief characters are all in search of this unity. Like the protagonist of Tamarisk Row, Clement Killeaton, their deepest desire is “to be inside a place that all other people see only from the outside” (153). This congruence of transcendence and immanence is known in mystical philosophy as the coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites, an impossible-to-imagine state where the principle of non-contradiction is both overcome and yet left intact. It is, this philosophy says, possible to be both inside a place and outside it at the same time.

Details

Pages
XII, 254
Year
2019
ISBN (PDF)
9781433164729
ISBN (ePUB)
9781433164736
ISBN (MOBI)
9781433164743
ISBN (Hardcover)
9781433164712
DOI
10.3726/b14991
Language
English
Publication date
2019 (September)
Published
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Oxford, Wien, 2019. XII, 254 pp.

Biographical notes

Brendan McNamee (Author)

Brendan McNamee is an independent scholar with a PhD on the novels of John Banville from the University of Ulster. His previous publications include essays in academic journals, along with a short study entitled Mysticism in Robert Musil’s ‘The Man Without Qualities’.

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268 pages