Monday, May 28, 2012
Terra incognita
Bryson begins the book with the observation that we know almost nothing about Australia, that all manner of interesting and crazy thing happens there (prime ministers vanishing into the surf) or can be found there (deadly critters galore), and yet we never hear a word. Two questions: (1) What's the most interesting/surprising thing you discovered about Australia in the book? and (2) Did the book alter your preconception of the country?
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That was interesting to me, but I never would have thought, really, that we were ignoring Australia any more than we ignore the rest of the world. We have Crocodile Dundee and the Crocodile Hunter and Men at Work, so Australia is at least (sort of) on our pop-culture radar. But Bryson convinced me, I guess, that having our cartoony version of Australia isn't the same as actually knowing what's going on there. It really surprised me how few American tourists they get there.
The most surprising/interesting thing to me was all the stuff about how they STILL don't know what all is out there. Vast stretches of land haven't been surveyed or even explored. That's pretty amazing to me. Even now, with all our advanced technology, we can't manage to scope out Australia without resorting to drinking urine? So no one knows if there are undiscovered species of plants and animals (and there probably are) or unknown mineral deposits or whatever. It seems contrary to human nature to have such a vast unexplored wilderness just sitting there.
Oh yeah, great observation. I had no idea either that so much of Australia was unexplored. How strange that people would discover this or that — an animal or plant or mineral — and then lose sight of it, unable to find it again in the vastness of the country.
I had never heard of those enormous earthworms! I found myself googling a lot of things because I desperately wanted to see what he was describing, like the jacaranda trees all over Sydney (remember those from "Stones for Ibarra," that novel we read set in Mexico?).
I also didn't realize just HOW horrific the whites were to the Aborigines. For some reason, I had this notion that Australians were a tad kinder to their native population than we were to ours (which isn't saying much), but I don't think that's true.
Yeah, I was surprised by that, too. I realized I know almost nothing about the Aborigines and what the European settling of Australia was like. Sounds like it was at least as bad as in America. And I was totally shocked to hear the openly racist comments people were making to Bryson even now about the Aborigines.
And the giant worms! I'd never heard of those either. Totally bizarre. I was always fascinated by Australian animals when I was a kid.
Oh, that reminds me — and sorry to keep talking about Robyn Davidson; I just liked her book — when Davidson crossed the desert with her camels, this Aborigine elder accompanied her for a period. He had one Adidas shoe for men and one tiny women's shoe. (She ended up buying him a matching pair of shoes and socks and a rifle.) She was worried he wouldn't be able to keep up because he was so old, but he could walk circles around her, and he knew what stuff you could eat in the desert, and he made her promise to never cut a kangaroo, especially its tail. Apparently when Aborigines eat kangaroos they cook the entire thing in a fire without butchering it or even skinning it. So fascinating.
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