Australia Felix

Driving the camel loaded with books, southwest from Ballarat to the coast.

Nice country down that way. Green, loaded with crops at the start of spring. Fat merino sheep, contented herds of cows on their haunches dreaming the day away. Prosperous farmhouses and long driveways leading to mansions in the bush.

When Major Thomas Mitchell travelled through that part of the country in 1836 he called it 'Australia Felix', a term that's still in currency and which might be translated as 'Fortunate Australia', 'Favoured Australia' or even 'The Lucky Country' as Stephen Murray-Smith explained in his wonderful book about the Australian language, Right Words.

Murray-Smith included this passage from Mitchell, where he describes the western district of Victoria:

We traversed it in two directions with heavy carts, meeting no other obstruction than the softness of the rich soil; and, in returning, over flowery plains and green hills, fanned by the breezes of early spring. I named this region Australia Felix, the better to distinguish it from the parched deserts of the interior country, where we had wandered so unprofitably and so long.

The quote is from Mitchell's account of his journeys in Australia, Three Expeditions... , London 1839.

Booker Prize

I was caught on the hop when my sister-in-law offered to buy me a book for my birthday a few weeks back. What did I want? I really didn't know but said, 'Something off the Booker Prize list would be good.' She sent two books from the 2008 list: 'Sea of Poppies' by the Indian writer Amitav Ghosh and 'The Secret Scripture' by the Irish writer, Sebastian Barry.

Both books are on the longlist for the 2008 Man Booker prize. In all there are thirteen books on the longlist. The shortlist of five books will be announced in London on September 9.

I'd already read one of the books on the list for this year's prize. That's 'The Lost Dog' by Michelle de Kretser, the only Australian writer on the list. (Michelle is Sri Lankan born but she lives and works in Melbourne.) I loved her book; it contains some wonderful passages of writing and subtle insights about human behaviour; it's witty and also profound and I loved the descriptions of landscape especially urban landscapes around Melbourne. It's great to see 'The Lost Dog' receiving favourable attention with Booker readers and I hope it makes it onto the shortlist.

'Sea of Poppies' really turned me on. It revived my dreams of visiting Calcutta (now Kolkata) in India. The novel is the first part of a trilogy that Amitav Ghosh has planned. The Ibis Trilogy will tell the stories of a bunch of characters associated with a ship, a schooner called the Ibis, that sails to and from India in the years around 1840, at the time of the Opium Wars between England and China. The Ibis is tied up in these wars, in opium shipments and in the transport of indentured labourers and convicts.

One of the pleasures of reading this great rollicking and hair-raising historical novel is the language used. New words spring from the page, like this:'one ungainly gordower even had a choola going with a halwai frying up fresh jalebis'. Ghosh is describing a small vessel that has pulled up next to the Ibis as it takes on fresh provisions before it sails from India down the Bay of Bengal and on towards the the island of Mauitius off the east coast of the African continent. Ghosh has written elsewhere about the origins of some of the fabulous words he uses from Indian, Lascar and other languages.

'Sea of Poppies' fulfils one of my criteria for a good novel; it creates a whole other world full of characters I can believe in and places I can almost feel and smell and taste. Its language excites me; the history it portrays appalls me and educates me; its wit entertains me. I'm on the Ibis journey and I look forward to the next port of call.