First read of 2019--David Malouf

On the spur of the moment, this morning I picked up David Malouf's A Spirit of Play, his Boyer lectures from 1998, about what makes Australia Australia. I started reading it a few weeks ago (actually my second read--I first read it soon after I bought it, and thought it wonderful then) but put it down and didn't get back to it till this morning.

Well, I still think it's wonderful. I don't want to quote it endlessly, although the book is worth quoting, but for example, on whether we should try to stand alone or emphasise our own identity:

But the belief that we must make a choice is an illusion, and so, I'd suggest, if we are to be whole, is the possibility of choosing. It is our complex fate to be children of two worlds, to have two sources of being, two sides to our head. The desire for something simpler is a temptation to be less than we are.

Our answer on every occasion when we are offered the false choice between this and that, should be, "Thank you, I'll take both".

I think a good deal of what Malouf has to say could be applied to other societies that originated as colonies.

I think perhaps the problem with modern Australia is that, false or not, the choice isn't even being offered...