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Tourmaline
Tourmaline is an isolated Western Australian mining town - a place of heat and dust, as allegorical as it is real. Out of the desert staggers a young diviner, Michael Random, offering salvation to this parched town. The once comatose community is indeed stirred to life, by hate as much as by love, and its people find salvation neither in water nor gold.
221 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1963
11 people are currently reading
379 people want to read
About the author
Randolph Stow
22 books37 followersBorn in Geraldton, Western Australia, Randolph Stow attended Geraldton Primary and High schools, Guildford Grammar School, the University of Western Australia, and the University of Sydney. During his undergraduate years in Western Australia he wrote two novels and a collection of poetry, which were published in London by Macdonald & Co. He taught English Literature at the University of Adelaide, the University of Western Australia and the University of Leeds.
He also worked on an Aboriginal mission in the Kimberley, which he used as background for his third novel To the Islands. Stow further worked as an assistant to an anthropologist, Charles Julius, and cadet patrol officer in the Trobriand Islands. In the Trobriands he suffered a mental and physical breakdown that led to his repatriation to Australia. Twenty years later, he used these last experiences in his novel Visitants.
Stow's first visit to England took place in 1960, after which he returned several times to Australia. Tourmaline, his fourth novel, was completed in Leeds in 1962. In 1964 and 1965 he travelled in North America on a Harkness Fellowship, including a sojourn in Aztec, New Mexico, during which he wrote one of his best known novels, The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea. While living in Perth (WA) in 1966 he wrote his popular children's book Midnite.
From 1969 to 1981 he lived at East Bergholt in Suffolk in England, his ancestral county, and he used traditional tales from that area to inform his novel The Girl Green as Elderflower. The last decades of his life he spent in nearby Harwich, the setting for his final novel The Suburbs of Hell. He last visited Australia in 1974.
His novel To the Islands won the Miles Franklin Award for 1958.[1] He was awarded the Patrick White Award in 1979. As well as producing fiction, poetry, and numerous book reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, he also wrote libretti for musical theatre works by Peter Maxwell Davies.
A considerable number of Randolph Stow's poems are listed in the State Library of Western Australia online catalogue[2] with indications where they have been anthologised.
He also worked on an Aboriginal mission in the Kimberley, which he used as background for his third novel To the Islands. Stow further worked as an assistant to an anthropologist, Charles Julius, and cadet patrol officer in the Trobriand Islands. In the Trobriands he suffered a mental and physical breakdown that led to his repatriation to Australia. Twenty years later, he used these last experiences in his novel Visitants.
Stow's first visit to England took place in 1960, after which he returned several times to Australia. Tourmaline, his fourth novel, was completed in Leeds in 1962. In 1964 and 1965 he travelled in North America on a Harkness Fellowship, including a sojourn in Aztec, New Mexico, during which he wrote one of his best known novels, The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea. While living in Perth (WA) in 1966 he wrote his popular children's book Midnite.
From 1969 to 1981 he lived at East Bergholt in Suffolk in England, his ancestral county, and he used traditional tales from that area to inform his novel The Girl Green as Elderflower. The last decades of his life he spent in nearby Harwich, the setting for his final novel The Suburbs of Hell. He last visited Australia in 1974.
His novel To the Islands won the Miles Franklin Award for 1958.[1] He was awarded the Patrick White Award in 1979. As well as producing fiction, poetry, and numerous book reviews for The Times Literary Supplement, he also wrote libretti for musical theatre works by Peter Maxwell Davies.
A considerable number of Randolph Stow's poems are listed in the State Library of Western Australia online catalogue[2] with indications where they have been anthologised.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
May 17, 2023
Tourmaline is a modernistic and darkly poetic tale…
Tourmaline of the novel isn’t a precious stone… It is a name of the place…
It used to prosper when there was gold… Now it is a dying town… There is no water…
One day a truck brings in a badly sunburnt young man who is unconscious… When the stranger comes to he tells that he is a dowser… And the diviner promises to find water… The newcomer is an oddball…
The diviner finds gold… He also claims that when he was dying God did talk to him so he begins to preach in the ruins of the church…
Earth, air, water are lifegivers and fire is a destroyer.
Tourmaline of the novel isn’t a precious stone… It is a name of the place…
I say we have a bitter heritage, but that is not to run it down. Tourmaline is the estate, and if I call it heritage I do not mean that we are free in it. More truly we are tenants; tenants of shanties rented from the wind, tenants of the sunstruck miles…
It is not a ghost town. It simply lies in a coma. This may never end.
It used to prosper when there was gold… Now it is a dying town… There is no water…
One day a truck brings in a badly sunburnt young man who is unconscious… When the stranger comes to he tells that he is a dowser… And the diviner promises to find water… The newcomer is an oddball…
After a whole morning in his company I was beginning to find him in many ways oppressive; so very remote, at times not altogether human. And yet, at other times, especially when he laughed, I could see nothing in him but a charming and candid boy, to whom my soft old heart warmed in an instant. He was confusing. I could not fathom him.
The diviner finds gold… He also claims that when he was dying God did talk to him so he begins to preach in the ruins of the church…
The diviner turned at the altar; burning.
The singing stopped. Only the bell went on, clanging and clanging.
Before the altar. The flame of him. The blaze of his yearning.
He leaned against the altar, his elbows on it. And the brightness then – all muscles and tendons taut. He looked at no one; he saw nothing, only the dancing flame outside the door.
‘God is near,’ he said.
A voice like a far bell.
‘O God,’ he said, ‘O God, remember me. I work for your people. Remember me.’
The bell clashed on. He was crying. In the firelight his tears were like blood.
Earth, air, water are lifegivers and fire is a destroyer.
October 29, 2024
CRITIQUE:
Original Review
I remember this novel for its crystalline pure and perfect prose. I would once have placed it in my top ten Australian novels.
Perspectives on Style
I can't say that my view has changed that much since I first read this novel, probably some time in the mid-1970's.
I think I had just immersed myself in a number of Patrick White novels, following his receipt of the Nobel Prize.
While I enjoyed Patrick White's writing at the time, I was conscious of Randolph Stow's relative lack of adornment in style.
While this perception remains true, I wouldn't say now that his style is crystalline (as I meant by that term at the time).
My view now is shaped by a comparison of Stow's novel with the works of other authors like David Ireland and Gerald Murnane (all of whom share the publisher, Text Publishing).
David Ireland's early novels were indebted to social realism, whereas Gerald Murnane's novels (particularly "The Plains") owed much more to metaphysics.
"Tourmaline" has elements of, and seems to transcend, both styles. Of course, we should recognise that it was written almost 20 years before Murnane's novel, and almost a decade before Ireland's "The Unknown Industrial Prisoner".
Randolph Stow photographed in Essex, England, 1985
Transcendence of the Real
The novel is set in the fictitious titular town. It's a former mining town, probably in Western Australia, which has declined since the collapse of gold mining, and the disappearance of its water supply.
A few hundred people have continued to live there in the hope that living conditions will improve. Everybody else has deserted this desert landscape.
One day, a stranger is found injured and unconscious on the outskirts of town. He turns out to be a water diviner, who, once he recovers, offers to find a water supply for its residents.
He is most often referred to as "the diviner", although his name is Michael (Mike) Random. (1) Perhaps in tribute to his divine occupation, the residents think of him as a messiah.
Narration by the Law
The unnamed narrator is a policeman whose main task is to manage both order and the town's gaol. The townsfolk refer to him as "the Law". The novel is his testament (or gospel) about the coming of the diviner.
Although the Law keeps the peace, the residents hope that the diviner will be able to break the drought and unite the population in material (and spiritual) prosperity.
The Divine Autocrat
The diviner establishes himself as a Christ-like leader or autocrat, perhaps because "someone had to take charge".
When he departs, he must be replaced by someone else, because "he left a gap...and the organisation was there...That - power - is worth having."
The legacy of the diviner is perhaps to create an opening for another autocrat to establish a cult-like society in the Antipodean wilderness. It's hard to sense whether the next diviner will be a messiah or a villain (or both), whether he will precipitate salvation or damnation.
Whatever changes might have occurred in my views, I would still place this work in my top ten Australian novels. It deserves a greater readership and recognition than it has so far received.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Stow was known to his family and friends as "Mick", which is also the title of his biography.
VERSE:
Generous Endowment
[Mostly In the Words of Randolph Stow]
This is my tribute and testament
About the time God came to town,
Promising us water, heaven-sent;
Though this is not to run him down.
Fire Fight in the Blue Hills
[In the Words of Randolph Stow]
Deep, deep blue,
Like the darkest sea,
Strewn with white
Conflagration.
In the red light
There was something
Ancient, pathetic, ludicrous,
About those black shapes,
Those traditional words.
Ahead, the red road
Ran straight as a fence,
Through the boundless
And stone-littered
Wilderness,
Towards the blue hills
Piled on the horizon
Like storm-clouds.
The call of a bugle
In the early morning.
In the cool, in the blue dawn,
Ringing as if in great forests.
I went out to
The veranda,
To the table beside
The kitchen door,
Where an enamel
Basin stood;
And pouring into this
A little reddish water
I washed myself,
The small dawn breeze
Cool on my wet skin.
It is for this I live
Nowadays,
For the pleasures
Of my senses;
A voice, a scent of leaves,
A breeze on
My dripping body.
SOUNDTRACK:
Original Review
I remember this novel for its crystalline pure and perfect prose. I would once have placed it in my top ten Australian novels.
Perspectives on Style
I can't say that my view has changed that much since I first read this novel, probably some time in the mid-1970's.
I think I had just immersed myself in a number of Patrick White novels, following his receipt of the Nobel Prize.
While I enjoyed Patrick White's writing at the time, I was conscious of Randolph Stow's relative lack of adornment in style.
While this perception remains true, I wouldn't say now that his style is crystalline (as I meant by that term at the time).
My view now is shaped by a comparison of Stow's novel with the works of other authors like David Ireland and Gerald Murnane (all of whom share the publisher, Text Publishing).
David Ireland's early novels were indebted to social realism, whereas Gerald Murnane's novels (particularly "The Plains") owed much more to metaphysics.
"Tourmaline" has elements of, and seems to transcend, both styles. Of course, we should recognise that it was written almost 20 years before Murnane's novel, and almost a decade before Ireland's "The Unknown Industrial Prisoner".
Randolph Stow photographed in Essex, England, 1985
Transcendence of the Real
The novel is set in the fictitious titular town. It's a former mining town, probably in Western Australia, which has declined since the collapse of gold mining, and the disappearance of its water supply.
A few hundred people have continued to live there in the hope that living conditions will improve. Everybody else has deserted this desert landscape.
One day, a stranger is found injured and unconscious on the outskirts of town. He turns out to be a water diviner, who, once he recovers, offers to find a water supply for its residents.
He is most often referred to as "the diviner", although his name is Michael (Mike) Random. (1) Perhaps in tribute to his divine occupation, the residents think of him as a messiah.
Narration by the Law
The unnamed narrator is a policeman whose main task is to manage both order and the town's gaol. The townsfolk refer to him as "the Law". The novel is his testament (or gospel) about the coming of the diviner.
Although the Law keeps the peace, the residents hope that the diviner will be able to break the drought and unite the population in material (and spiritual) prosperity.
The Divine Autocrat
The diviner establishes himself as a Christ-like leader or autocrat, perhaps because "someone had to take charge".
When he departs, he must be replaced by someone else, because "he left a gap...and the organisation was there...That - power - is worth having."
The legacy of the diviner is perhaps to create an opening for another autocrat to establish a cult-like society in the Antipodean wilderness. It's hard to sense whether the next diviner will be a messiah or a villain (or both), whether he will precipitate salvation or damnation.
Whatever changes might have occurred in my views, I would still place this work in my top ten Australian novels. It deserves a greater readership and recognition than it has so far received.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) Stow was known to his family and friends as "Mick", which is also the title of his biography.
VERSE:
Generous Endowment
[Mostly In the Words of Randolph Stow]
This is my tribute and testament
About the time God came to town,
Promising us water, heaven-sent;
Though this is not to run him down.
Fire Fight in the Blue Hills
[In the Words of Randolph Stow]
Deep, deep blue,
Like the darkest sea,
Strewn with white
Conflagration.
In the red light
There was something
Ancient, pathetic, ludicrous,
About those black shapes,
Those traditional words.
Ahead, the red road
Ran straight as a fence,
Through the boundless
And stone-littered
Wilderness,
Towards the blue hills
Piled on the horizon
Like storm-clouds.
The call of a bugle
In the early morning.
In the cool, in the blue dawn,
Ringing as if in great forests.
I went out to
The veranda,
To the table beside
The kitchen door,
Where an enamel
Basin stood;
And pouring into this
A little reddish water
I washed myself,
The small dawn breeze
Cool on my wet skin.
It is for this I live
Nowadays,
For the pleasures
Of my senses;
A voice, a scent of leaves,
A breeze on
My dripping body.
SOUNDTRACK:
June 27, 2020
I found this book utterly amazing!
Randolph Stow was an Australian born author of whom I have somehow never heard before and whose books I have obviously never read. So, basically, I came to Tourmaline cold knowing nothing about it except I found it on a sale table and liked the description on the back cover. Reading it was a bit like having fireworks going of in my brain, the writing was absolutely amazing and it was all the more engrossing because having not heard anything about the book I was completely unprepared for it's unique mesmerising beauty.
Tourmaline is a tiny almost abandoned town somewhere in the deserts of Australia, (the book never actually names West Australia, that I noticed, but we can assume). There are a mere handful pf people living in what used to be a gold mining town and a couple of people still overcome the overwhelming inertia of their lives to mine enough gold to go to the pub with. A truck with supplies for the pub and store comes once a month and other than that, no one comes to Tourmaline and no one leaves.
Until one day someone new does come; on his way into town the truck driver finds a man, with such bad sunburn he is close to death and the town people take him in. This new person is almost a vortex of interest to the inhabitants, especially when they find out he is a diviner.
Because this town and this Australia have a dystopian element to them. It is not just a dry desert, it is somehow a world without water and Tourmaline is as inflamed by the idea of water as early settlers were by the idea of gold. Here, the younger people don't even remember vegetation, it has been so long since rain. The aridity of Tourmaline is almost it's own character it is so pervasive, so uncompromising and so harsh!
The characters, including the aridity, are the main beauty of the novel because while it is all fiction anyone who has lived in a small town will find the people who inhabit the pages of this book entirely believable. They are brilliantly written, each character it's own little multifaceted gem of writing, unique and unforgettable. The interactions and the obsessions of the town are also entirely believable, the hopelessness of a town with no future and no real purpose, the interactions between the characters all of whom are in the grip of a kind of hopelessness that, somehow, I never felt depressing to read about.
The writing was so evocative, rich and beautiful... That is probably why I could never find myself depressed while reading this book. This has been my year of reading 'the classics' and I have read quite a few that have an enormously high international profile, but I can honestly say that this book, in every way, is a rival for the best of them.
The plot revolves around the diviner and his affect on the town, and the only point where I was less than completely impressed with the story was the point where I though the plot was going down the standard 'religion will save you' route. I actually put the book down for a while, I was so disappointed but I was so wrong. Far from treading where others have gone before, the author uses this plot device to take us into a journey of the human heart with stark views on desire and the need to believe in something, even when you know the thing you believe in is not true.
Well, I should stop raving about this book, I could go on for ages. While reading it I also saw just how much of Australian literature, classic and modern both, has followed elements of this book. Whether knowing or unknowing I am not sure, but some of my favourite Australian books definitely derive form this, brilliant novel.
Randolph Stow was an Australian born author of whom I have somehow never heard before and whose books I have obviously never read. So, basically, I came to Tourmaline cold knowing nothing about it except I found it on a sale table and liked the description on the back cover. Reading it was a bit like having fireworks going of in my brain, the writing was absolutely amazing and it was all the more engrossing because having not heard anything about the book I was completely unprepared for it's unique mesmerising beauty.
Tourmaline is a tiny almost abandoned town somewhere in the deserts of Australia, (the book never actually names West Australia, that I noticed, but we can assume). There are a mere handful pf people living in what used to be a gold mining town and a couple of people still overcome the overwhelming inertia of their lives to mine enough gold to go to the pub with. A truck with supplies for the pub and store comes once a month and other than that, no one comes to Tourmaline and no one leaves.
Until one day someone new does come; on his way into town the truck driver finds a man, with such bad sunburn he is close to death and the town people take him in. This new person is almost a vortex of interest to the inhabitants, especially when they find out he is a diviner.
Because this town and this Australia have a dystopian element to them. It is not just a dry desert, it is somehow a world without water and Tourmaline is as inflamed by the idea of water as early settlers were by the idea of gold. Here, the younger people don't even remember vegetation, it has been so long since rain. The aridity of Tourmaline is almost it's own character it is so pervasive, so uncompromising and so harsh!
The characters, including the aridity, are the main beauty of the novel because while it is all fiction anyone who has lived in a small town will find the people who inhabit the pages of this book entirely believable. They are brilliantly written, each character it's own little multifaceted gem of writing, unique and unforgettable. The interactions and the obsessions of the town are also entirely believable, the hopelessness of a town with no future and no real purpose, the interactions between the characters all of whom are in the grip of a kind of hopelessness that, somehow, I never felt depressing to read about.
The writing was so evocative, rich and beautiful... That is probably why I could never find myself depressed while reading this book. This has been my year of reading 'the classics' and I have read quite a few that have an enormously high international profile, but I can honestly say that this book, in every way, is a rival for the best of them.
The plot revolves around the diviner and his affect on the town, and the only point where I was less than completely impressed with the story was the point where I though the plot was going down the standard 'religion will save you' route. I actually put the book down for a while, I was so disappointed but I was so wrong. Far from treading where others have gone before, the author uses this plot device to take us into a journey of the human heart with stark views on desire and the need to believe in something, even when you know the thing you believe in is not true.
Well, I should stop raving about this book, I could go on for ages. While reading it I also saw just how much of Australian literature, classic and modern both, has followed elements of this book. Whether knowing or unknowing I am not sure, but some of my favourite Australian books definitely derive form this, brilliant novel.
September 18, 2014
I give this book five stars to designate its importance in the history of the Australian novel, which began with the Miles Franklin Awards and Patrick White’s Voss, a work which stands so high it is still technically unsurpassed more than fifty years later. But Voss was followed by To The Islands by Randolph Stow. So, in Miles Franklin Award chronology, Stow is the second, the one after White.
Tourmaline didn’t get a Miles Franklin Award but its themes flow through the subsequent body of the Australian novel like a Holy Ghost. Often misunderstood as a religious parable or allegory, Tourmaline is more of a desperate reaching out for meaning. Reaching down into a well of culture which is still not deep enough to nurture its artists with any generosity. This has been the dilemma facing the Australian novel throughout its brief history. A dilemma which is echoed over and over again through the voices of Gerald Murnane (The Plains), Wayne Macauley (Blueprints for a Barbed Wire Canoe) , Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda), Danny Fahey (The Tree Singer), or Nick Cave (And The Ass Saw The Angel). We see it in the Mad Max movies: there is an innocence in the voice, and the voices, but a deep power in the landscaping. And Tourmaline is probably the most powerful and innocent of them all. The legacy of Tourmaline is most likely not known by many of those who carry it on because the book has been out of print for a long time (oh, what little faith the Australian publishing world has in its classic novels). Nevertheless the disciples and children it has nurtured have fostered their own disciples and children, forging its own trunk from the still green gum-tree of Australian literature.
I read Tourmaline in 5th form at High School. It was one of those books on the reading list that I bought because it was on the reading list but that we never studied in class, but that I read anyway. Two other books that came to me that way were Gulliver’s Travels and Crime and Punishment (so it was probably the best educational methodology I ever had). I remember Tourmaline as something deeply poetic and mysterious and I’ve been wanting to reread it for decades, always looking for a copy in the second hand bookshops on my trips back to Australia. Finally was able to get a copy through a second hand bookseller on line. Ironically from the USA. Thank you Betterworldbooks.
Tourmaline didn’t get a Miles Franklin Award but its themes flow through the subsequent body of the Australian novel like a Holy Ghost. Often misunderstood as a religious parable or allegory, Tourmaline is more of a desperate reaching out for meaning. Reaching down into a well of culture which is still not deep enough to nurture its artists with any generosity. This has been the dilemma facing the Australian novel throughout its brief history. A dilemma which is echoed over and over again through the voices of Gerald Murnane (The Plains), Wayne Macauley (Blueprints for a Barbed Wire Canoe) , Peter Carey (Oscar and Lucinda), Danny Fahey (The Tree Singer), or Nick Cave (And The Ass Saw The Angel). We see it in the Mad Max movies: there is an innocence in the voice, and the voices, but a deep power in the landscaping. And Tourmaline is probably the most powerful and innocent of them all. The legacy of Tourmaline is most likely not known by many of those who carry it on because the book has been out of print for a long time (oh, what little faith the Australian publishing world has in its classic novels). Nevertheless the disciples and children it has nurtured have fostered their own disciples and children, forging its own trunk from the still green gum-tree of Australian literature.
I read Tourmaline in 5th form at High School. It was one of those books on the reading list that I bought because it was on the reading list but that we never studied in class, but that I read anyway. Two other books that came to me that way were Gulliver’s Travels and Crime and Punishment (so it was probably the best educational methodology I ever had). I remember Tourmaline as something deeply poetic and mysterious and I’ve been wanting to reread it for decades, always looking for a copy in the second hand bookshops on my trips back to Australia. Finally was able to get a copy through a second hand bookseller on line. Ironically from the USA. Thank you Betterworldbooks.
March 8, 2023
it’s post-apocalyptic. it’s gothic. it’s allegorical to the extreme. it’s saturated with religious symbolism. it has some of the most beautiful prose in all of australian literature. what more could you want ?!?
August 12, 2022
As I have remarked elsewhere, it is a mystery to me why Stow is not better known. Some of his works have been in print for about sixty years, yet none of them have ever been translated. I doubt anyone well-read in Australian literature would disagree that he is one of the best writers we have produced.
Although I grew up in rural Victoria (Tourmaline is set in Western Australia), aspects of this novel are territory familiar to me. As a child I spent many of my summers on my grandfather’s farm. His water supply was rainwater tanks, and in dry years that water was severely rationed, going through several uses before it made it to my grandmother’s daphne. Personal washing was a rubdown with a damp cloth. And like the people of Tourmaline, my grandfather was very interested in that great Australian bit of hocus-pocus – water divining.
Tourmaline is a novel about the way things fall apart, the cascade of stuff going wrong.
Although I grew up in rural Victoria (Tourmaline is set in Western Australia), aspects of this novel are territory familiar to me. As a child I spent many of my summers on my grandfather’s farm. His water supply was rainwater tanks, and in dry years that water was severely rationed, going through several uses before it made it to my grandmother’s daphne. Personal washing was a rubdown with a damp cloth. And like the people of Tourmaline, my grandfather was very interested in that great Australian bit of hocus-pocus – water divining.
Tourmaline is a novel about the way things fall apart, the cascade of stuff going wrong.
January 12, 2016
There's a certain irony in a water diviner almost dying of thirst! Michael Random comes to the parched Western Australian outback town of Tourmaline after being rescued near death on the roadside outside town.
A stranger coming to the dying and desolate town is a rare thing so, after Random is nursed back to health, the whole town wants to claim some form of ownership over this man.
Once the residents find out he is a water diviner, he takes on a messianic quality in their minds, and they form a cult of worship in the desperate hope that he can bring water and life to their stark existence.
Random establishes himself in the town's church as the voice of God, and recruits the whole town, with a very few exceptions, as his disciples and attendants.
Even the Law, the old man who is the narrator of this story, puts aside his doubts and cynicisms to come on board.
Random becomes increasingly aloof and mystical, and yet the folk of Tourmaline continue to believe in him, because they have nothing else to believe in.
Full of irascible characters, male and female, white and indigenous, this is a tale of violence, drunkenness and wanton love, that also contains some deep wisdom in a parable of man's willingness to defer responsibility for the future to others.
The language of the book is notably poetic, as might be expected from Stow, who was a prolific poet, and the colours and forms of the desolate desert landscape are evocatively described.
Ultimately, this is an apocalyptic tale based around a spiritual but hopeless vision.
To a certain extent, Tourmaline reminded me of Thea Astley's Drylands, which is set in a similarly parched and dying town in outback Queensland. Of the two, I certainly prefer Drylands the better.
Nevertheless, Stow was a fine Australian writer, and Tourmaline, while not recognised as his best work, is a fine piece of fiction worthy of greater attention.
A stranger coming to the dying and desolate town is a rare thing so, after Random is nursed back to health, the whole town wants to claim some form of ownership over this man.
Once the residents find out he is a water diviner, he takes on a messianic quality in their minds, and they form a cult of worship in the desperate hope that he can bring water and life to their stark existence.
Random establishes himself in the town's church as the voice of God, and recruits the whole town, with a very few exceptions, as his disciples and attendants.
Even the Law, the old man who is the narrator of this story, puts aside his doubts and cynicisms to come on board.
Random becomes increasingly aloof and mystical, and yet the folk of Tourmaline continue to believe in him, because they have nothing else to believe in.
Full of irascible characters, male and female, white and indigenous, this is a tale of violence, drunkenness and wanton love, that also contains some deep wisdom in a parable of man's willingness to defer responsibility for the future to others.
The language of the book is notably poetic, as might be expected from Stow, who was a prolific poet, and the colours and forms of the desolate desert landscape are evocatively described.
Ultimately, this is an apocalyptic tale based around a spiritual but hopeless vision.
To a certain extent, Tourmaline reminded me of Thea Astley's Drylands, which is set in a similarly parched and dying town in outback Queensland. Of the two, I certainly prefer Drylands the better.
Nevertheless, Stow was a fine Australian writer, and Tourmaline, while not recognised as his best work, is a fine piece of fiction worthy of greater attention.
September 26, 2019
I think this novel has some impressive writing and deals with big important issues like isolation, loneliness, invasion/conquest and how a community can have and lose its soul but ultimately I struggled.
This novel is set in a visceral oppressive landscape without any joy and (I felt) few redeeming qualities of character or place.
It was hard going and very heavy on the religious symbolism. These themes were similar to some from To The Islands, a book I really enjoyed, but that book had a visually stunning backdrop and also a glimmer of hope.
It definitely has currency in the contemporary environment as Tourlamine is a fictional town that was once bountiful and has now become a place without water. This is certainly topical in Australia and perhaps this makes it all the more depressing to read.
I listened to the audio of this book and there is a short reflection at the end discussing the text. This was extremely helpful and did mention that this is considered one of Stow’s least understood novels.
This novel is set in a visceral oppressive landscape without any joy and (I felt) few redeeming qualities of character or place.
It was hard going and very heavy on the religious symbolism. These themes were similar to some from To The Islands, a book I really enjoyed, but that book had a visually stunning backdrop and also a glimmer of hope.
It definitely has currency in the contemporary environment as Tourlamine is a fictional town that was once bountiful and has now become a place without water. This is certainly topical in Australia and perhaps this makes it all the more depressing to read.
I listened to the audio of this book and there is a short reflection at the end discussing the text. This was extremely helpful and did mention that this is considered one of Stow’s least understood novels.
September 15, 2024
thank u university for being a built in bookclub xx
May 17, 2016
I read this because RS is one of Tim Winton's favourite authors. It's a beautifully written book I think but not an easy read. I can see why Tim loves his writing and how it has influenced him. Recommneded but take your time over it.
October 5, 2015
A stranger is rescued from near death. He is the water diviner – known as the Diviner. He says his name is Michael. He seems to have a suicidal urge. What leads him to this point, we are still left wondering. A tormented soul who seeks to revive Tourmaline from its near death.
Enormously rewarding prose. So many wry and astute observations. Nothing is obvious and laboured. It flows.
It contains a similar story of exile, as in To the Islands. There is a fatalistic edge throughout.
All the characters are well drawn if evasive in nature. The landscape is raw and savage as the outback is. Tourmaline is a place time forgot.
Themes that resonate – the bell, the crumbling church with bonfire, the ruined pub in stages of decay.
The insight in the following passage is profound. p 186.
But don’t we all? Hate ourselves? In different degrees.
The theme is there of seeking redemption or atonement.
But what sins committed by the diviner we are not privy to. Does he have a mental illness?
The narrator is perhaps the hardest to pin down. There is no name, just an old man. A man who remembers Tourmaline in good times, with water and hope.
The book is a lament for Tourmaline – symbol of Australia. The harsh land that gives nothing – as sung by Byrne.
I was there in this story and I suspect Randolph was imbedded in the Diviner. As he later became an exile himself.
I read this book because I heard it was being made into a film. I will be very interested in the casting – particularly of the Diviner, Kestrel and the narrator. But all characters played a part.
An Australian Classic.
Enormously rewarding prose. So many wry and astute observations. Nothing is obvious and laboured. It flows.
It contains a similar story of exile, as in To the Islands. There is a fatalistic edge throughout.
All the characters are well drawn if evasive in nature. The landscape is raw and savage as the outback is. Tourmaline is a place time forgot.
Themes that resonate – the bell, the crumbling church with bonfire, the ruined pub in stages of decay.
The insight in the following passage is profound. p 186.
But don’t we all? Hate ourselves? In different degrees.
The theme is there of seeking redemption or atonement.
But what sins committed by the diviner we are not privy to. Does he have a mental illness?
The narrator is perhaps the hardest to pin down. There is no name, just an old man. A man who remembers Tourmaline in good times, with water and hope.
The book is a lament for Tourmaline – symbol of Australia. The harsh land that gives nothing – as sung by Byrne.
I was there in this story and I suspect Randolph was imbedded in the Diviner. As he later became an exile himself.
I read this book because I heard it was being made into a film. I will be very interested in the casting – particularly of the Diviner, Kestrel and the narrator. But all characters played a part.
An Australian Classic.
July 21, 2021
This book is almost impossible to describe. Think Camus meets Mad Max. Think charismatic and puritanical Christianity in a pub brawl with Daoism in the Australian outback. Think heat and lust and incessantly ringing bells. Water and gold, drought and lack. An angel with the devil's face. Narrated by an old man who is called The Law, Tourmaline is weird and confounding, and has burned itself into my brain.
June 30, 2024
*** 4.5 stars ***
As a rule, I’m not into Australian outback fiction (especially in film). I don’t relate to its myths or its tropes, and stereotypes of the genre give me the cringes. But there are exceptions, and this novel is one of them.
The town of Tourmaline lies deep in the Western Australian desert. Once a prosperous mining town, it is now a physical and spiritual ruin. Its inhabitants are beset with lassitude, a malaise hangs over the place, and it seems only a matter of time before the desert sands and heat will consume it entirely.
Into this atmosphere of despair comes Michael Random, dumped there one scorching day by the monthly truck run. Having attempted the walk to Tourmaline, he is on the point of death. Yet within minutes he is the focal point of the town’s few inhabitants. At first, this is simply because he represents something different. But before he has even recovered, Random announces that he is a water diviner. And water – the town has long since lost interest in gold – is what they really want.
Random promises them water, but with it, also his own brand of salvation. Soon, the salvation part at least is flowing. Or so it seems. Maybe he has just cast a spell on them. In any case, most of the town are drawn into his orbit. Some become ardent followers, others are repulsed. Yes, there are biblical and Christ-like allusions here. What is undeniable is his intensity, his single minded zeal, and his magnetism. “God is near” he declares to the town, gathered as a single, believing entity in the once abandoned church. Only a few dare to oppose him.
Encompassed by this central story, smaller and more personal dramas play out, but all are connected to the question of loyalty. Do you believe him, or not? Relationships are put to the test. The embittered publican Kes loathes Michael from the moment he lays eyes on him; his young indigenous wife Deborah, is immediately attracted. The storeowner, Tom, is Random’s spiritual opposite, a Quaker/Taoist antithesis to the diviner’s prophetic fire. Tom’s philosophy of quietude and non-action proves to be a poor match. “Words can’t cope” he said. And he added, rather bitterly, “Your prophet knows how to cut the truth to fit the language. You don’t get much truth, of course, but it’s well-tailored”.
Going back to the Australian thing. Stow does this really well, and there are scenes which capture a wry, beer soaked humour that could only grow on this continent. That said, there is also something unworldly about Tourmaline. There is hardly a reference to the rest of the country. Apart from “taking place in the future”, the precise era is undisclosed. And just as a single road leads in and out of the town, Tourmaline seems as connected to historical, mid-20th century Australia as a dream is connected to waking consciousness. As such, the novel works at a fundamentally existential or metaphysical level. And that’s, I think, why I liked it. Maybe it’s also why others have dismissed it (for example, as “The Waste Land with a few more bar scenes”).
I had never read any Randolph Stow novels before, and this was the only one I was interested in based on the premise. I wasn’t disappointed and will probably try another, one day. The writing is superb, in a sparce kind of way, so I feel confident his other novels will be worth reading, regardless of their subject matter.
As a rule, I’m not into Australian outback fiction (especially in film). I don’t relate to its myths or its tropes, and stereotypes of the genre give me the cringes. But there are exceptions, and this novel is one of them.
The town of Tourmaline lies deep in the Western Australian desert. Once a prosperous mining town, it is now a physical and spiritual ruin. Its inhabitants are beset with lassitude, a malaise hangs over the place, and it seems only a matter of time before the desert sands and heat will consume it entirely.
Into this atmosphere of despair comes Michael Random, dumped there one scorching day by the monthly truck run. Having attempted the walk to Tourmaline, he is on the point of death. Yet within minutes he is the focal point of the town’s few inhabitants. At first, this is simply because he represents something different. But before he has even recovered, Random announces that he is a water diviner. And water – the town has long since lost interest in gold – is what they really want.
Random promises them water, but with it, also his own brand of salvation. Soon, the salvation part at least is flowing. Or so it seems. Maybe he has just cast a spell on them. In any case, most of the town are drawn into his orbit. Some become ardent followers, others are repulsed. Yes, there are biblical and Christ-like allusions here. What is undeniable is his intensity, his single minded zeal, and his magnetism. “God is near” he declares to the town, gathered as a single, believing entity in the once abandoned church. Only a few dare to oppose him.
Encompassed by this central story, smaller and more personal dramas play out, but all are connected to the question of loyalty. Do you believe him, or not? Relationships are put to the test. The embittered publican Kes loathes Michael from the moment he lays eyes on him; his young indigenous wife Deborah, is immediately attracted. The storeowner, Tom, is Random’s spiritual opposite, a Quaker/Taoist antithesis to the diviner’s prophetic fire. Tom’s philosophy of quietude and non-action proves to be a poor match. “Words can’t cope” he said. And he added, rather bitterly, “Your prophet knows how to cut the truth to fit the language. You don’t get much truth, of course, but it’s well-tailored”.
Going back to the Australian thing. Stow does this really well, and there are scenes which capture a wry, beer soaked humour that could only grow on this continent. That said, there is also something unworldly about Tourmaline. There is hardly a reference to the rest of the country. Apart from “taking place in the future”, the precise era is undisclosed. And just as a single road leads in and out of the town, Tourmaline seems as connected to historical, mid-20th century Australia as a dream is connected to waking consciousness. As such, the novel works at a fundamentally existential or metaphysical level. And that’s, I think, why I liked it. Maybe it’s also why others have dismissed it (for example, as “The Waste Land with a few more bar scenes”).
I had never read any Randolph Stow novels before, and this was the only one I was interested in based on the premise. I wasn’t disappointed and will probably try another, one day. The writing is superb, in a sparce kind of way, so I feel confident his other novels will be worth reading, regardless of their subject matter.
January 24, 2017
At times, in the early morning, you would call this a gentle country. The new light softens it, tones flow a little, away from the stark forms. It is at dawn that the sons of Tourmaline feel for their heritage. Grey of dead wood, grey-green of leaves, set off a soil bright and tender, the tint of blood in water. Those are the colours of Tourmaline. There is a fourth, to the far west, the deep blue of hills barely climbing the horizon. But that is the colour of distance, and no part of Tourmaline, belonging more to the sky.
It is not the same country at five in the afternoon. That is the hardest time, when all the heat of the day rises, and every pebble glares, wounding the eyes, shortening the breath...
‘Intense and extraordinary.’
Spectator
Brilliantly evocative…disturbing.’
Meanjin
‘Atmospheric…There is no denying its power.’
Guardian
‘It is a rare pleasure for those of us who are already fans to have these works at our disposal…[Stow was] the most talented and celebrated Australian author of the post-White generation.’
Monthly
‘It should be taken as no commentary on contemporary Oz Lit that I choose Text’s fistful of Randolph Stow reissues for my local favourite(s) during 2015. Their appearance reminds us that a gentle, wise, wounded, and immensely talented poet in prose once lived among us.’
Geordie Williamson, Australian Book Review, Books of the Year 2015
It is not the same country at five in the afternoon. That is the hardest time, when all the heat of the day rises, and every pebble glares, wounding the eyes, shortening the breath...
‘Intense and extraordinary.’
Spectator
Brilliantly evocative…disturbing.’
Meanjin
‘Atmospheric…There is no denying its power.’
Guardian
‘It is a rare pleasure for those of us who are already fans to have these works at our disposal…[Stow was] the most talented and celebrated Australian author of the post-White generation.’
Monthly
‘It should be taken as no commentary on contemporary Oz Lit that I choose Text’s fistful of Randolph Stow reissues for my local favourite(s) during 2015. Their appearance reminds us that a gentle, wise, wounded, and immensely talented poet in prose once lived among us.’
Geordie Williamson, Australian Book Review, Books of the Year 2015
January 19, 2024
Tourmaline by Geraldton born Randolph Stow. Every line is exquisite poetry; every sentence imbued with meaning. As the back cover of my copy states, it is ‘a complex spiritual parable and an enduring apocalyptic vision’. I stumbled across it in an old communal bookshelf and it blew my mind. Why have I never heard of it before? Why wasn’t this studied at school? Why is Randolph Stow not revered as one of our great writers? Is this Australian tall poppy syndrome and cultural cringe at work?
It’s a beautiful, profound book - one of those books where it seems the author is channeling a divine force and God is speaking through them. I’m not a Christian or a God botherer, but I yearn for a sense of something greater - a guiding force - a benevolent super presence, and this book nourished that yearning.
A near dead water diviner arrives mysteriously at a mythical, broken, waterless Australian town, and brings with him a sense of the divine. The people of the town nurse him back to life and he in turn brings them hope that he could be their saviour. Is he the messiah or a charlatan? Does it really matter? Because we all need to believe and we all need hope.
It’s a beautiful, profound book - one of those books where it seems the author is channeling a divine force and God is speaking through them. I’m not a Christian or a God botherer, but I yearn for a sense of something greater - a guiding force - a benevolent super presence, and this book nourished that yearning.
A near dead water diviner arrives mysteriously at a mythical, broken, waterless Australian town, and brings with him a sense of the divine. The people of the town nurse him back to life and he in turn brings them hope that he could be their saviour. Is he the messiah or a charlatan? Does it really matter? Because we all need to believe and we all need hope.
January 26, 2016
It seems Randolph Stow was once a staple read of the WA education system and, according to my wife, was generally considered fairly stodgy and mundane. Nothing could be further from the truth but I seem to remember not finding Ruth Park all that stimulating at age sixteen.
I'm not sure if Tim Winton was influenced by Stow but I was often reminded of him through Stow's descriptions of outback WA and its characters. I was not aware until now of Stow's talent and his existential approach, an exciting discovery for me at least.
The first half of the book is a treat, thereafter it loses its way for awhile with the diviner showing his true colours only to regain itself in the last few chapters.
I'm not sure if Tim Winton was influenced by Stow but I was often reminded of him through Stow's descriptions of outback WA and its characters. I was not aware until now of Stow's talent and his existential approach, an exciting discovery for me at least.
The first half of the book is a treat, thereafter it loses its way for awhile with the diviner showing his true colours only to regain itself in the last few chapters.
September 25, 2020
The first line of this book is a favourite of mine: "I say we have a bitter heritage, but that is not to run it down."
I don't think Stow is known by many members of my generation, which I think is a shame. Well, I don't think he's for everyone. His prose must already have been amorphous and tricky even then; his intentions sometimes obscure; his themes specific and psychological. But, gee whiz, I enjoy him. There's something of Joseph Conrad in Stow's vision of man trying to fight nature armed only with culture and religion, neither of which he can be fully certain of. Transpose this to the dusty red of the Australian outback, and you have something most intriguing.
I don't think Stow is known by many members of my generation, which I think is a shame. Well, I don't think he's for everyone. His prose must already have been amorphous and tricky even then; his intentions sometimes obscure; his themes specific and psychological. But, gee whiz, I enjoy him. There's something of Joseph Conrad in Stow's vision of man trying to fight nature armed only with culture and religion, neither of which he can be fully certain of. Transpose this to the dusty red of the Australian outback, and you have something most intriguing.
August 3, 2018
Brilliant. I rediscovered Randolph Stowe after reading something else and he is now an author I am working through. Scary because I don't know for sure how long his books will be available. Its an important piece of Australian fiction that pinpoints in painful intensity the hot and lonely heart of Australia and the cultural and intellectual torment of both those who arrived to take over and those who have been there all along.
February 4, 2017
a strange divine wind
amongst mines huts & the pub
dry, dust to red dust
lost winding road, deep
creases of faces stuck there
no more maps, oh god
amongst mines huts & the pub
dry, dust to red dust
lost winding road, deep
creases of faces stuck there
no more maps, oh god
July 24, 2017
Loved this book. A masterpiece arises from the Australian dust.
September 10, 2023
now what on earth just happened? i think i have forgotten how to comprehend words.
January 30, 2022
I wondered about the title, Tourmaline; a semi-precious mineral used as a bridge to the spiritual. I also learnt a new word plangent (sound with a mournful tone) and if nothing else, this word serves as an appropriate summary of a book I didn’t like at all. I read it because a friend said she liked Randolph Stow’s writing. This copy was in my bookshelf. Perhaps coincidently, this same friend had previously lent me a dystopian book in a setting when water dried up which I couldn’t finish. So, perhaps this dusty, dried-out, depressing tale was in the same vein. Stow’s assortment of lame characters are barely alive, poorly conceived and more like cut-outs. Worse, their dialogue is confusing, aimless, repetitive, and obscure - as is the novel. The Christian-religious motifs were a turn-off for me even if they came to nothing and perhaps this was the point. There was no pleasure anywhere in this book just misery, disenchantment, failure, and obscurity. Just for a moment, when the narrator gives a form of ANZAC address about the pointlessness of death, my interest was piqued. I quote it here because it sums up the plangent tone of the novel…
Once it was said that they died for us. But we’ve never truly known what they died for. Some for us, some for God, some for themselves. Most for no one, for nothing, not understanding, not even asking. p.149
December 31, 2016
I enjoyed this, both the story on the surface and the layers or shards that change as you look at the book from different angles. I didn't move me as deeply as I might have hoped, however. Perhaps because Tourmaline isn't my Australia, even as I can understand that it was Stow's. The narrative feels driven by a cultural cringe view of Australia, a country rumoured to be a paradise once, but now a desert wasteland, populated by the naive constantly looking to others for leadership, and unable to nurture their own singular souls. The crime of Australia, Stow seems to say, is to cede responsibility. But this outback monoculture, isolated from the world, has little to do with the complex multicultural society I live in. Aside from the war memorial, tho, now that was bitterly close to the bone.
But still, the book was worth reading. Stow bestows such respect and affection upon his characters that it always possible to see their POV, even when he is actively condemning it. His love of Australian slang comes through the dialogue, and the invocation of the desert, of WA, is masterfully done.
But still, the book was worth reading. Stow bestows such respect and affection upon his characters that it always possible to see their POV, even when he is actively condemning it. His love of Australian slang comes through the dialogue, and the invocation of the desert, of WA, is masterfully done.
September 26, 2024
The eerie illustrated cover and the synopsis of an enigmatic would-be prophet taking advantage of a worn down, post-apocalyptic shell of a town of broken hopefuls gave me the impression this would be a reading experience that evoked unease, maybe even dread. A nice precursor to full on horror and gothic choices for October. Sadly, while the atmosphere of devastation in the prose is convincing on a physical, emotional and spiritual level, and the flawed older narrator is likable, the storytelling is ultimately anticlimactic about its own premise. The diviner is pretty unsure of himself from the start and doesn’t start abusing his influence until the last twenty pages, so that by the time the gullible citizens have realized a dupe the book was over. No rise in action, no major conflict, no resounding consequences or high contrast arcs. I also was not a fan of the abrupt, unannounced epilogue of the end of humanity or at least humanity as far as Tourmaline’s “law” was aware.
December 15, 2019
This Australian novel reads like a parable or fable. A stranger comes into this parched dying town and promises to find water. The town starts to put their belief in this stranger, called the "diviner" and people begin to change. Are the changes for the better? Who is this stranger?
The writing is impressive and you are often trying to determine the underlying biblical stories because there are many references to God and Lucifer but I really can't. It seems more like a story of the power of people's belief in things good or bad and does it really change anything at all.
I'm not smart enough to fully dissect this book but it is certainly a compelling read.
The writing is impressive and you are often trying to determine the underlying biblical stories because there are many references to God and Lucifer but I really can't. It seems more like a story of the power of people's belief in things good or bad and does it really change anything at all.
I'm not smart enough to fully dissect this book but it is certainly a compelling read.
January 20, 2026
Randolph Stow describes the town of Tourmaline not as dead, but in a coma that it may never wake up from. But I tend to think of these places as stillborn.
The book is front loaded with magnetic, evocative, stark imagery “skeletal obeslisks of headless windmills” that put me so deeply in a sense of place that I finished this in one sitting. The middle section, while compulsive, feels more like a melodrama or stage play but it concludes in such a profoundly odd and psychedelic way that all is forgiven.
Like looking at the facets of an expertly cut gemstone.
The book is front loaded with magnetic, evocative, stark imagery “skeletal obeslisks of headless windmills” that put me so deeply in a sense of place that I finished this in one sitting. The middle section, while compulsive, feels more like a melodrama or stage play but it concludes in such a profoundly odd and psychedelic way that all is forgiven.
Like looking at the facets of an expertly cut gemstone.
March 5, 2024
“Dear God, my gold, my darling” - what lurks in the hearts of men in this country, who’s arrival seemed to condemn it to fire and ruin, desperate for that drop of nectar to heal the fall.
Australian Gothic at its finest, which means it must be read as an allegory that is also descriptive of how it feels to be here.
Australian Gothic at its finest, which means it must be read as an allegory that is also descriptive of how it feels to be here.
July 26, 2017
A strange and sometimes beautiful book. I hated most of the characters, which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I often didn't care much about them either. The descriptive passages moved me far more than the plot points.
October 15, 2017
From Fred
Better than To the Islands. More interesting story. Set in WA hot dry and very dusty. Once a thriving town now just hanging on due to lack of water. The deviner comes along finds gold but not water.
A deep and meaningful tale about ???
Better than To the Islands. More interesting story. Set in WA hot dry and very dusty. Once a thriving town now just hanging on due to lack of water. The deviner comes along finds gold but not water.
A deep and meaningful tale about ???
September 27, 2017
I really didn't like this book at all. I liked the atmosphere and I loved Humphrey Bower's reading but I didn't like the characters, didn't believe the story, and have no idea what the point was.
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