The prevailing Australian mystique seems to be based on geographical space and the aboriginals. It draws talented Australian novelists away from the farms, and the temperate zones where the well-adapted giant sub-tropical cockneys disport themselves in surf-beached suburbs, towards the arid north-western interior where everything is, biologically speaking, older than anywhere else on the globe. Mr Stow, a most sensitive writer, is alert to these influences. To convey them in To the Islands he uses a most successful blend of narrative and allegory, telling parts of his story at different levels but without any symbolic confusion so that you are never in any doubt whether things are happening in the mind or in the outside world. (p. 22)

(Julian) Randolph Stow 1935– Photograph by Michael Scott, East Bergholt; courtesy of Randolph Stow

As a character, there may be rather more inconsistencies in [protagonist Stephen Heriot] than Mr Stow is able...