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Quicksilver
Six essays exploring the connections between old world Europe, aboriginal Australia, religion, meaning and the power of the sacred.Beginning in contemplation of a lizard in the outback, Quicksilver moves to the Russia of Tolstoy and Gorky, and on to other lands and times, bringing into play universal questions about the essential nature of the human condition. Rothwell’s fascination is Australia’s silent, timeless and mysterious desert heart.Rothwell's writing has the ability to make esoteric subjects immediate and compelling. These six essays showcase his extraordinary breadth and depth, and his intimate grasp of history, religion and art.
- GenresNonfiction
Mass Market Paperback
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About the author
Nicolas Rothwell
18 books13 followersNicolas Rothwell is the award-winning author of Wings of the Kite-Hawk; The Red Highway, Journeys to the Interior and Another Country. He is the northern correspondent for The Australian.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 23, 2016
5★
This is a set of essays covering an eclectic mix of topics, some interwoven, some overlapping. Rothwell is knowledgeable and articulate about both ancient Australian culture and olde worlde (I mean that with affection) European culture. He writes about the Australian desert and Aboriginal culture, and in the next breath, he’s talking about Russian writers and philosophers, discussing their works and their struggles with the State.
When he was travelling alone through the Western Australian bush in the Pilbara, he stopped and walked to the Oakover River. Standing at the edge of a ravine, he spotted a big perentie lizard and was instantly reminded of an anecdote about Tolstoy meeting a Black Sea gecko in Yalta. He quotes Maxim Gorky’s description:
“Leo Tolstoy once asked a lizard in a low voice: ‘Are you happy, eh?’ The lizard was sunning itself on a rock in the bushes along the road, and Tolstoy stood facing it with his hands stuck into his leather belt. And looking around carefully, that great man confessed to the lizard: ‘I’m not . . ’”
Rothwell muses on a man confiding in an animal that can’t reply and asks us “Does the work of nature hear us, or see or heed what lies within us—or does it merely set a frame around us, a strange, distant frame that draws all our secrets out?”
Later, he’s travelling with two men from the remote desert community of Karilywara who wanted to head west. “They had the desire; I had the Toyota four-wheel-drive, already in a state of near collapse after a series of imprudent transits down the back tracks of the Gibson Desert. I also had a broken arm . . . ”
Imprudent transits indeed! Sounds like an accident waiting to happen, doesn’t it? He was ready to stop at dark but they weren’t. He believed, like many Westerners, that old desert men fear the dark and want to hide in their swags. But when he asked why these two weren’t afraid of the spirits, they said that THEY were both spirits!
“ ‘You know that..’
‘I do?
‘Yes’ they both said, very firmly. ‘YUWAI! We control the water, the rain and the fire—they’re ours. You know all that.’”
When they got to their destination, a rock hole filled with water that was shining with stars, and a shooting star traced across the sky, the two men began to sing in “old, high language, a chant that went on, rising and sinking . . . singing with all their might.”
He had never heard them mention the stars or the sky or whether they might be sacred, “though they are sacred in every culture where men look up at the great silence of the overarching night. They are the screen where we most clearly see the scale of the cosmos, and the slightness of our world . . . ”
Later he discusses the new school of writers, as he calls it, that has formed to try to recover the true history of Australia “the idea of place, in the idea of the Australian bush and ways of charting it, knowing it, matching it with words.” He mentions scientist writers, biologists, historians, and those who have formed what he calls a camp of writers whom he can picture around a campfire in this “republic of landscape letters.”
Blainey, Rolls, Gammage, and so many others. They are teaching us what we should have learned several generations ago.
And then there’s the art! His background is Australian and Czech with extended time living and studying in Europe, spending boyhood summers in the High Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. While in school near Lausanne, Switzerland, he discovered a museum with the “Collection de l’Art Brut”, an assemblage of ‘outsider’ works gathered up by the French painter Jean Dubuffet over several decades.”
Brut is raw or rough in French (or “dry” for champagne, but that’s another conversation entirely), and this art was all of that. It was scarcely considered art, but looking back, he says that this may have been the beginning of his interest in outsiders, non-conformists and pioneers. There was everything on show from sculptures to driftwood.
He finds it interesting that while art critics seemed to value Aboriginal art, they was pretty dismissive of the ‘outsider art’. But in 2013, in Cairns, there was an exhibition, Renegades, of such a wild mix, including Aboriginal works, that stirred his passion such that he followed more trails, leading to artworks produced in asylums and by people suffering mental illness, which he also discusses at length. Outsiders are great!
Enough. Read it. It really is a most remarkable look at the world.
Have a look at Renegades, while you’re at it. It's remarkable as well. http://www.renegades.org.au/
I have quoted from a NetGalley preview copy, so some may have changed in the final publication.
This is a set of essays covering an eclectic mix of topics, some interwoven, some overlapping. Rothwell is knowledgeable and articulate about both ancient Australian culture and olde worlde (I mean that with affection) European culture. He writes about the Australian desert and Aboriginal culture, and in the next breath, he’s talking about Russian writers and philosophers, discussing their works and their struggles with the State.
When he was travelling alone through the Western Australian bush in the Pilbara, he stopped and walked to the Oakover River. Standing at the edge of a ravine, he spotted a big perentie lizard and was instantly reminded of an anecdote about Tolstoy meeting a Black Sea gecko in Yalta. He quotes Maxim Gorky’s description:
“Leo Tolstoy once asked a lizard in a low voice: ‘Are you happy, eh?’ The lizard was sunning itself on a rock in the bushes along the road, and Tolstoy stood facing it with his hands stuck into his leather belt. And looking around carefully, that great man confessed to the lizard: ‘I’m not . . ’”
Rothwell muses on a man confiding in an animal that can’t reply and asks us “Does the work of nature hear us, or see or heed what lies within us—or does it merely set a frame around us, a strange, distant frame that draws all our secrets out?”
Later, he’s travelling with two men from the remote desert community of Karilywara who wanted to head west. “They had the desire; I had the Toyota four-wheel-drive, already in a state of near collapse after a series of imprudent transits down the back tracks of the Gibson Desert. I also had a broken arm . . . ”
Imprudent transits indeed! Sounds like an accident waiting to happen, doesn’t it? He was ready to stop at dark but they weren’t. He believed, like many Westerners, that old desert men fear the dark and want to hide in their swags. But when he asked why these two weren’t afraid of the spirits, they said that THEY were both spirits!
“ ‘You know that..’
‘I do?
‘Yes’ they both said, very firmly. ‘YUWAI! We control the water, the rain and the fire—they’re ours. You know all that.’”
When they got to their destination, a rock hole filled with water that was shining with stars, and a shooting star traced across the sky, the two men began to sing in “old, high language, a chant that went on, rising and sinking . . . singing with all their might.”
He had never heard them mention the stars or the sky or whether they might be sacred, “though they are sacred in every culture where men look up at the great silence of the overarching night. They are the screen where we most clearly see the scale of the cosmos, and the slightness of our world . . . ”
Later he discusses the new school of writers, as he calls it, that has formed to try to recover the true history of Australia “the idea of place, in the idea of the Australian bush and ways of charting it, knowing it, matching it with words.” He mentions scientist writers, biologists, historians, and those who have formed what he calls a camp of writers whom he can picture around a campfire in this “republic of landscape letters.”
Blainey, Rolls, Gammage, and so many others. They are teaching us what we should have learned several generations ago.
And then there’s the art! His background is Australian and Czech with extended time living and studying in Europe, spending boyhood summers in the High Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. While in school near Lausanne, Switzerland, he discovered a museum with the “Collection de l’Art Brut”, an assemblage of ‘outsider’ works gathered up by the French painter Jean Dubuffet over several decades.”
Brut is raw or rough in French (or “dry” for champagne, but that’s another conversation entirely), and this art was all of that. It was scarcely considered art, but looking back, he says that this may have been the beginning of his interest in outsiders, non-conformists and pioneers. There was everything on show from sculptures to driftwood.
He finds it interesting that while art critics seemed to value Aboriginal art, they was pretty dismissive of the ‘outsider art’. But in 2013, in Cairns, there was an exhibition, Renegades, of such a wild mix, including Aboriginal works, that stirred his passion such that he followed more trails, leading to artworks produced in asylums and by people suffering mental illness, which he also discusses at length. Outsiders are great!
Enough. Read it. It really is a most remarkable look at the world.
Have a look at Renegades, while you’re at it. It's remarkable as well. http://www.renegades.org.au/
I have quoted from a NetGalley preview copy, so some may have changed in the final publication.
May 24, 2019
Nicolas Rothwell has been an intriguing and delicate force in the literary world of Australia for quite some time now - as a journalist he has provided us with long-form articles and essays that lead us to re-think our relationship with the country and its indigenous inhabitants, and to perhaps question things we think we know. Quicksilver continues that project.
Rothwell spent his childhood in Europe and could certainly be categorized as a sophisticate in his knowledge of European literature and art. He has also spent many years living and and travelling through the remote North and West of Australia, and spending time with the indigenous inhabitants of the land.
Quicksilver is a grouping of six essays that investigate the colliding of Europe and Australia: how Europe affected Australia, but also how Australia affected Europe. The book is also an extended study of the meaning of art and literature, whether civilization imbues such activities with added lustre, and in fact whether it is not the countryside and nature itself that is transcendent for humankind, rather than the man-made arts.
Rothwell, through his erudition and travel, has discovered some interesting links that show us man's humanity and quest for answers are similar the world over: the similarities, for example, between the Jewish millenarist group the Frankists and the Kurangara cult that flourished in the Kimberley. Both arose in response to dislocation of community, and both came to the conclusion that to discover the true meaning of life the current way of life had to be destroyed through sin. Rothwell then links this idea to the beginnings of the Desert Art movement at Papunya, where the portrayal of secret stories and rites became another way of radicially shifting Aboriginal beliefs and lifestyle.
Several of the essays are meditations on language, and how we use that to describe the country, and how the experiences of those travelling colour what they see or experience. Rothwell particularly looks at the writing of the early explorers, and how they wrestled with language and thinking from Europe to try and describe such a new and alien place. They brought with them their own prejudices and experiences: "the drama-courting Edward Eyre; the vision-haunted Charles Sturt, that schoolfellow of Lord Byron; the Camoes-translating, Sophocles-quoting Thomas Mitchell;". In the end the interior reduces all to silence.
And here we come upon one of the subjects Rothwell approaches in these writings - the constant attempt to control the Australian interior by man, and the indifference of the country to man's impingement.
As with all the points that Rothwell makes in this book, he does not directly state what he thinks. He brings together evidence, from Tolstoy to Art Brut, from Sakharov to Eric Rolls to illustrate connexions and actualities: as he writes "Rather than seeking to provide some sweeping, all-defining set of answers to these questions, my aim is to edge towards them, to move into their foothills, and look up towards their heights". That ineffable truth, the one that Rothwell has been seeking in the Centre, is, like the quicksilver of the title, always slipping away when just within reach, so he is approaching these big questions "slant-wise, stealthily,".
This is a book to get you thinking about Australia, particularly the interior, in new and strange ways. Thankfully Rothwell has signposted his journey throughout the book as to how he has got to where he is, so while there is no bibliography, there are plenty of tomes that he mentions that have now become required reading for me.
Yet another little gem of a book about Australia. Worth Reading
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
Rothwell spent his childhood in Europe and could certainly be categorized as a sophisticate in his knowledge of European literature and art. He has also spent many years living and and travelling through the remote North and West of Australia, and spending time with the indigenous inhabitants of the land.
Quicksilver is a grouping of six essays that investigate the colliding of Europe and Australia: how Europe affected Australia, but also how Australia affected Europe. The book is also an extended study of the meaning of art and literature, whether civilization imbues such activities with added lustre, and in fact whether it is not the countryside and nature itself that is transcendent for humankind, rather than the man-made arts.
Rothwell, through his erudition and travel, has discovered some interesting links that show us man's humanity and quest for answers are similar the world over: the similarities, for example, between the Jewish millenarist group the Frankists and the Kurangara cult that flourished in the Kimberley. Both arose in response to dislocation of community, and both came to the conclusion that to discover the true meaning of life the current way of life had to be destroyed through sin. Rothwell then links this idea to the beginnings of the Desert Art movement at Papunya, where the portrayal of secret stories and rites became another way of radicially shifting Aboriginal beliefs and lifestyle.
Several of the essays are meditations on language, and how we use that to describe the country, and how the experiences of those travelling colour what they see or experience. Rothwell particularly looks at the writing of the early explorers, and how they wrestled with language and thinking from Europe to try and describe such a new and alien place. They brought with them their own prejudices and experiences: "the drama-courting Edward Eyre; the vision-haunted Charles Sturt, that schoolfellow of Lord Byron; the Camoes-translating, Sophocles-quoting Thomas Mitchell;". In the end the interior reduces all to silence.
And here we come upon one of the subjects Rothwell approaches in these writings - the constant attempt to control the Australian interior by man, and the indifference of the country to man's impingement.
As with all the points that Rothwell makes in this book, he does not directly state what he thinks. He brings together evidence, from Tolstoy to Art Brut, from Sakharov to Eric Rolls to illustrate connexions and actualities: as he writes "Rather than seeking to provide some sweeping, all-defining set of answers to these questions, my aim is to edge towards them, to move into their foothills, and look up towards their heights". That ineffable truth, the one that Rothwell has been seeking in the Centre, is, like the quicksilver of the title, always slipping away when just within reach, so he is approaching these big questions "slant-wise, stealthily,".
This is a book to get you thinking about Australia, particularly the interior, in new and strange ways. Thankfully Rothwell has signposted his journey throughout the book as to how he has got to where he is, so while there is no bibliography, there are plenty of tomes that he mentions that have now become required reading for me.
Yet another little gem of a book about Australia. Worth Reading
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
March 19, 2018
I really enjoyed Nicolas Rothwell’s analysis
…of Australian culture and identity in this collection of essays.
Short Listed for Multicultural NSW Award 2018
(New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Australia)
Review
…of Australian culture and identity in this collection of essays.
Short Listed for Multicultural NSW Award 2018
(New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, Australia)
Review
December 31, 2017
dude likes to wax poetic about colonialism, boring
October 16, 2020
Sun spotted vision is not a filter
January 22, 2017
A few days ago, I wandered into the local shopping centre (mall if you like). It's a place I like to avoid with all the cars, mostly underground parking (I'm a little claustrophobic),and it's all bright lights and emptiness, with the exception of the people (customers, I suppose) who are an extremely diverse ethnic mix, which I enjoy encountering.
Anyway, I found a bookshop that hadn't been there before. Bookshops are a rare occurrence on my side of town ,and so walked in to see what I could find. If people like me don't buy books there, then it'll go away.
This book, by Nicolas Rothwell, was displayed on a shelf. I knew of Rothwell, although not as a book author. He used to contribute interesting pieces on Aboriginal culture for Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper and I could never work out why he was there in that the content of the rest of that publication largely lacked depth and objectivity. As the book demonstrates, Rothwell isn't an indigenous man and the book explains a bit of his background and interest.
It's a slim book of essays, more accurately described as "reveries" (somewhere in between dreaming and reality and a term used in early psychoanalysis) in which he ranges over experiences and events in central Europe, Russia and Siberia, and various places in Australia, particularly the Western desert areas and the Pilbara. There are apparent diversions on music, art and writers, woven in and out of the story he tells; on the fly-leaf this is described as topics "from near and far, old worlds and new, the sacred and sublime" and i can't put it any better than that. In a way it's about ways of seeing. His encounters with aboriginal people and their culture in myth, landscape and art are truly fascinating.
A theme of the book is different ways of seeing, from the landscape in front of you , or, more pertinently, around you, where words are superfluous, to the use and limits of categories. To me, it's beautifully written, the words taking you seamlessly from one situation to another and engaging you in quiet thought and reflection. Actually, I think this should be read in silence, or at least in a quiet spot somewhere where you can experience the local rustling of leaves and call of birds. It may be an advantage to at least know something, however little, about the topics, as I accidentally did, but it may not make any difference, for all I know.
This is one of the most interesting books I have ever read.
Anyway, I found a bookshop that hadn't been there before. Bookshops are a rare occurrence on my side of town ,and so walked in to see what I could find. If people like me don't buy books there, then it'll go away.
This book, by Nicolas Rothwell, was displayed on a shelf. I knew of Rothwell, although not as a book author. He used to contribute interesting pieces on Aboriginal culture for Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper and I could never work out why he was there in that the content of the rest of that publication largely lacked depth and objectivity. As the book demonstrates, Rothwell isn't an indigenous man and the book explains a bit of his background and interest.
It's a slim book of essays, more accurately described as "reveries" (somewhere in between dreaming and reality and a term used in early psychoanalysis) in which he ranges over experiences and events in central Europe, Russia and Siberia, and various places in Australia, particularly the Western desert areas and the Pilbara. There are apparent diversions on music, art and writers, woven in and out of the story he tells; on the fly-leaf this is described as topics "from near and far, old worlds and new, the sacred and sublime" and i can't put it any better than that. In a way it's about ways of seeing. His encounters with aboriginal people and their culture in myth, landscape and art are truly fascinating.
A theme of the book is different ways of seeing, from the landscape in front of you , or, more pertinently, around you, where words are superfluous, to the use and limits of categories. To me, it's beautifully written, the words taking you seamlessly from one situation to another and engaging you in quiet thought and reflection. Actually, I think this should be read in silence, or at least in a quiet spot somewhere where you can experience the local rustling of leaves and call of birds. It may be an advantage to at least know something, however little, about the topics, as I accidentally did, but it may not make any difference, for all I know.
This is one of the most interesting books I have ever read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews