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The Plains

The Plains: Text Classics

Text Classics

Gerald Murnane

  • awardWinner, Patrick White Literary Award, 1999
  • Introduction by Wayne Macauley

    Twenty years ago, when I first arrived on the plains, I kept my eyes open. I looked for anything in the landscape that seemed to hint at some elaborate meaning behind appearances.

    There is no book in Australian literature like The Plains. In the two decades since its first publication, this haunting novel has earned its status as a classic. A nameless young man arrives on the plains and begins to document the strange and rich culture of the plains families. As his story unfolds, the novel becomes, in the words of Murray Bail, ‘a mirage of landscape, memory, love and literature itself’.

    Reviews online

    Why The Plains is Wayne Macauley’s favourite novel, Weekend Australian
    The case for The Plains as the great Austalian novel, The Conversation  
    Robyn Cresswell's staff pick for the Paris Review 
    Bomb Magazine 
    2SER: Australian Classics Book Club with Wayne Macauley)
    Literary Hub   

    Gerald Murnane
    About the Author

    Gerald Murnane was born in Melbourne in 1939. He has been a primary teacher, an editor and a university lecturer. His debut novel, Tamarisk Row (1974), was followed by ten other works of fiction, including The Plains and most recently Border Districts. In 1999 Murnane won the Patrick White Award and in 2009 he won the Melbourne Prize for...

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    Wayne Macauley
    About the Introducer

    Wayne Macauley is a highly acclaimed novelist whose works include Some Tests, Demons, The Cook, Caravan Story and Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe. He lives in Brunswick, Melbourne.

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    Extent:
    208pp
    Format:
    Paperback
    Text publication date:
    26 April 2012
    First published:
    1982
    ISBN:
    9781921922275
    AU Price:
    $14.95
    NZ Price:
    $17.99
    Australian
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    Praise for Gerald Murnane
    andThe Plains

    ‘Murnane, a genius, is a worthy heir to Beckett.’

    The Plains has that peculiar singularity that can make literature great.’

    ‘Widely regarded as Australia’s greatest living writer, Murnane has long cultivated an air of myth and geographical limit…One could fill a room with a conversation about him.’

    ‘Known for its sharp yet defamiliarizing take on the landscape and an aesthetic of purity historically associated with it, The Plains is uniformly described as a masterpiece of Australian literature. Look closer, though, and it’s a haunting nineteenth-century novel of colonial violence captured inside the machine’s test-pattern image—a distant, unassuming house on the plains.’

    The Plains is a bizarre masterpiece that can feel less like something you’ve read than something you’ve dreamed.’

    The Plains is a bright and inviting novel, full of humour yet without resort to slapstick. As it beckons you along its secrets keep receding.’

    ‘I’ve heard Murnane called an outsider artist, but I don’t think that’s quite right. Plenty of writers emerge as if out of nowhere (after steeping themselves in canonical authors), then proceed to become more and more their eccentric selves. It might be said, however, that Murnane qualifies as an outsider literary theorist.’

    ‘A strange, sui generis masterpiece.’

    Other editions ofThe Plains
    • The Plains
      ebook
      ISBN: 9781921921872
      26 April 2012
      Buy ebook