BOOK REVIEW The Wisdom of Stones by Greg Matthews (1994)
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia - Southern Spring of 1996

The following precis of the book "The Wisdom of Stones by Greg Matthews is to be found on the back cover of the HarperCollins paperpack publication:

When Englishman Clive Bagnall arrives in Darwin in 1939 to begin a new life on the land, he encounters more than he bargained for. His inherited cattle station, Redlands, turns out to be a crocodile infested, barren wasteland, and he is not even the sole owner of the property, finding it has been left jointly to him and his Australian cousin, Val, a redhead with a temper to match. And then there is Doug Farrands, a sometime oyster-opener and layabout who befriends the Englishman and feels obliged to instruct him in the ways of the territory.

But haunting Redlands and the three people who make it their life, is the spirit world of the Aborigines and their sacred remembering stones that seem to hold the key to people and events past and present. Against a backdrop of threatened invasion, violence and brutality, it is the mysterious stones and the bonds of friendship which endure the upheaval and tragedy of war.

When I first started reading "The Wisdom of Stones" I had that feeling that here was no ordinary story. Greg Matthews has interwoven a great many themes into this work, and has done an excellent job of it. As we shall see in the extract of the introductory chapter referenced below, perhaps the most fundamental thread is the weaving of the Dreamtime Lore of the Australian aboriginal peoples. However, we soon find that Greg Matthews is more ambitious, and the freeflowing writing style soon leads away to bring other threads of culture and of human vision and the nature of the human spirit.

To my way of interpretation these threads include:

• The character of the Australian outback, specifically that of the Northern Territory - the Territorian - woven from the account of the life of Doug Farrands and tells the story of tenacious survival in the face of a contrary environment - far from the streets and suburbia of city life.

• The tragedy of war on the lives of the civilians - particularly women and children - and the of the life and the death of the soldiers of both contending sides. Of honor and of enduring comradeship that rises above the measures of time.

• The right of individual and conscientious freedom in a country under martial law, called to arms and to ordered defence at the outbreak of war.

• The breaking free of the Australian culture from the traditional British culture, and the emergent independence of the Australian spirit in the face of much adversity and struggle.

• The bigotry of the general "civilised" populace concerning the claims of nativity to the land, and the human rights of, the Australian native aboriginal peoples - inclusive of their struggle to be recognised as an individual culture in the midst of a melting pot of cultures - an social environment which was especially true of the Territory in the pre WorldWar II years.

• The timelessness of the planetary region of the Earth's surface known as Terra Australis - or the Great South Land - or simply Australia. And especially that quality of timelessness which is thereby reflected in the natures of the peoples who know and live beneath the open skies of this great land.

I found this book to be both instructive and entertaining, and would recommend that the author presents a rich gathering of issues for his readers - issues which when taken separately are of great importance and interest - and when fashioned together by insightful literary crafting into the story - The Wisdom of Stones reflects and engenders the nature of a fine appreciation of life.

Peace

PRF Brown
BCSLS {Freshwater}
Mountain Man Graphics,
Newport Beach, Australia
Early in the Southern Spring of 1996

An extract from Chapter One
written by Greg Matthews (1994):

Had he not been blind, M'linga could have seen more songs than most men are accustomed to hearing. Below the rock escarpment where he sat, M'linga's country stretched for more journeyings than any man, even if he lived to be as old as M'linga, could ever hope to walk. All of its pathways could never be known by one man, nor all of the songs that made those places be sung again in a lifetime. A man who could not die might walk forever on a journey from one place to the next, in the endless walkabout that was each man's task in life, and even that deathless man could never know all of the places in existence, even though every place was within walking distance of the next place, which was easily crossed to reach the next, and the next. It could never be done, not even by an undying man.

This had been told to M'linga when he was young, and could see and walk for himself the extent of just that small piece of country belonging to the Pitjantjatiara. To visit and revisit the places made by song, long ago in the Dreamtime, was the purpose of a man. M'linga had visited those parts of the country made available to him by his strong legs and the years of his life, and had sung again the songs that made those places, sung them so many times he could feel the places still, though his eyes now were blind. There could be no forgetting, not while the songs remained in his head. M'linga had already passed on many songs to the younger men, in preparation for his own death. This was the thing for which he lived. When all of the songs were learned by others, and the places made by those songs perpetuated by younger throats, he could allow himself to die.

But there were things behind his eyes now that had never been sung, things for which there was no place, no song, and these things puzzled M'linga. He would speak of them when he understood why it was that the unsung things were entering his head. He sat by the escarpment's edge, feeling his beard stir in the hot wind from the desert. The unsung things were doubly strange, in that they concerned whitefellas. Every part of M'linga's naked skin felt the wind from his country, and its familiarity was a comfort to him in this time of puzzling things. M'linga did not like white- fellas; they were a songless breed of creature quite unlike true people, even though they possessed arms and legs and heads. Without songs to bind them to the place of their belonging, they could never be truly human. Whitefellas had no country of their own and so had come to M'linga's country to try and make it theirs, so ignorant were they of the songs that made such a thing impossible. Without the songs of creation and existence in their heads, the white- fellas would not last for long and soon would be swept away again, back to the songless place behind the sky where they had come from.

No, he had no liking for them, and so M'linga was ashamed at the presence behind his eyes of the whitefellas, two of them, and the whitefella woman too. One of these men was known to his tribe by blood, but the woman was not. The other whitefella man was far away but drawing closer, coming from the sky's far side on a whitefella ship as white as clouds.

The Author

• The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• Heart of the Country
• Little Red Rooster
• The Golden Flake Hydrant
• One True Thing
• Power in the Blood

The Wisdom of Stones

ISBN 0 7322 5073 0

BOOK REVIEW The Wisdom of Stones by Greg Matthews (1994)
Web Publication by Mountain Man Graphics, Australia - Southern Spring of 1996