Woman of the Inner Sea
By Thomas Keneally
Doubleday, 277 pages, $21
In recent years, tourism has brought Australia closer to the Western Hemisphere. This new proximity has no doubt contributed to the popularity of the Australian novel, with its colorful idiom and visions of a romantic new frontier.
But the Australian novel perhaps more rightly owes its growing eminence to such native authors as Christina Stead, Kate Grenville and, above all, Thomas Keneally, undoubtedly Australia’s most versatile and prolific writer.
Not only does Keneally write widely (some 19 novels), but his works also cover a broad range of subjects. Though Australia has often served as a locus, it has scarcely been his only setting. In fact, so various are the places and people Keneally writes about, so variable is his style, that putting a label on his work is not easy.
Works range from biography to fiction, from epic adventure to melodrama. His Booker Prize-winning true story, “Schindler’s List” (1982), for example, recounts the heroic efforts of one German industrialist to save a slender yet significant number of potential victims from the Holocaust. By contrast, his other works include both “Asmara,” a tale of war and social upheaval in African Eritrea, and “Flying Hero Class,” a mini-drama that takes place within the narrow confines of a highjacked plane.
Set in Australia, his latest novel, “Woman of the Inner Sea,” strives to offer the reader something of everything that is Keneally: panorama, drama and humanitarianism. We are told that, like “Schindler’s List,” the book is based on real events (only proving once more that truth is indeed stranger than fiction). We are also told that this is an “Australian fable, a spiritual voyage of self-discovery. . . .”
But that is saying too much. “Woman of the Inner Sea” is pure romance. From one woman’s personal grief, the writer has constructed not epic tragedy but an intriguing melodrama that falters when it pretends to be something grander in scope.
The novel begins in and near Sydney. There we meet the heroine, Kate Gaffney-Kozinzki, a well-to-do young woman who has married into an entrepreneurial immigrant family. Kate has a “life plan”: She will marry, devote some years to motherhood and then return to the career she had started in the movie industry.But like many grand plans and modern marriages, the dream fails.
Kate’s husband is chronically unfaithful and therefore often away from their dream house in the suburbs. After several dark hints from the author, Kate’s fragile life, built around her children, is obliterated by a stunning catastrophe, the details of which are teasingly saved for a later chapter.
Suddenly alone, Kate, packs a few belongings and abruptly leaves for the outback, her motivations left vague. In the small town of Myambagh she inexplicably hides from family and friends, works as a barmaid and stuffs herself in order to “thicken” and die young “of a heart clogged by hefty protein.”
Just as the reader’s interest in Kate begins to flag, her adventures flourish. Soon she is deep into flood waters, unlikely liasons, confrontations with the enemy and new escapes across the bush.
No doubt these adventures are largely a pretext to introduce the panorama that is Australia. With Kate, the reader learns something about life in the outback, both as it once was and as it is still today. Interesting anecdotes on Australia’s history and mores, its terrain and wildlife, are provided in generous but palatable doses. For instance, the tale of Ned Kelly, the Australian Jesse James, is recounted; Australian climate and topography are explored; and the life cycle and habits of the kangaroo are detailed.
All of this lore is both well-documented and absorbing, but it is not the stuff of a great saga. No matter what the author aspires to, the story remains precisely what it is: a narrative of the personal problems of one unextraordinary woman.
Less than believable are the author’s hints that Kate embodies the Australian Earth Mother. Less than poetic are his comparisons of Kate’s flight to that of the “night-bounding” kangaroo. In fact, his suggestion that Kate and this marsupial are somehow spiritually connected and that the ‘roo is actually the “shadow of her shadow” is puzzling, if not downright mawkish.
Also problematic is the characterization of Kate, who comes off both as feigned and oddly inarticulate. Nor does the author’s explanation that she is the sort who has “few words . . . to play with” excuse her woodenness. More probably, Kate’s difficulty expressing herself says more about the author than the character, for Keneally is genuinely awkward inside a woman’s mind.
The novel’s end is similarly contrived. Bizarre coincidence and clever manipulation bring the heroine’s adventures to a melodramatic close punctuated by sweet revenge and just deserts. All of this, though entertaining, suggests a television mini-series rather than real tragedy.
“Woman of the Inner Sea” is not of the same caliber as other Keneally’s works. Readers who expect a book of social or moral significance, like “Schindler’s List,” will be disappointed. But those who are looking for an enjoyable adventure across the Australian bush may be pleased.
