Homesickness
(MURRAY BAIL)
Thirteen Australians travel the world, visiting Africa, Britain, Ecuador,
the United States, and Russia. Their
reactions and interactions and backgrounds make them not atypical a tour group,
but the places they visit are strangely twisted, surreally commenting on their
own position and status, both as tourists and as Australians.
Particular inventiveness is displayed with museums. In Africa, a museum of Native Handicrafts
and a Museum of Pygmies have exhibits on the colonisers
rather than the colonised. In London a Museum of Corrugated Iron and a visit to a
genealogist reflect on Australian self-perception and national identity. In New York a visit to the Institution of Marriage brings to
a head some of the romantic entanglements within the group, after which a wild
animal safari in Central Park changes the mood
entirely. And in Moscow visits to an Institute of Gravity and Lenin''s mausoleum reflect on
the grotesqueries of Soviet Russia.
Bail gives his absurd and outrageous conceits form with sharp, vivid
details; and his humour, though pervasive, is biting and often dark. It''s a
little difficult initially, but Bail manages the large cast of characters
admirably, making all Thirteen tour group members distinctive. Homesickness
has almost no overall plot ? various plot elements never go anywhere ? but its
individual episodes have more than enough drive. The result is an intellectual
novel, but a clever, sparkling one.
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- Group-based Resources And Political Participation Among Asian Americans
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