The Well-dressed Explorer

Queensland author Thea Astley's The Well Dressed Explorer has been an interesting read after coming off a well-respected French classic. As I wrote in my review of that “The premise consisted of a lot I would like” but in the end I found the writing so ponderous that it distracted from the story. Thea's novel, on the other hand, consisted of a premise that if explained to me with little to no knowledge of the ability of the writer I would have dismissed out of hand as just a mere melodrama.

In truth it is much more than that, it is a very good and worthy winner of the 1962 Miles Franklin award that tells the life story of one George Brewster who from the beginning to the very end of his trite life has little to offer other than his hackneyed turns of phrase, vapid observations and his pettiness and self-pity. In his life he surrounded himself with those that fell into this banal world with utter ease, be that his priest, his wife, the many women folk met along the way and even his work colleagues.

As with the previous novels I have read by Thea I can do nothing more than praise her extraordinary ability to write a turn of phrase that has one cringing for the protagonists who come under the cutting satire of her acidic pen. Her observational skills of, I presume, her own middle class world was remarkably good. In truth the dull lives of a comfortable Australia consisting of the faux who spoke a pretentious language that was not part of the vernacular of the vast majority of the people of those times is bitterly exposed and it takes a very good writer to make the uninspiring individual seem a little bit colourful. With that it is hard to imagine a book such as this getting much traction nowadays and I suspect that Thea Astley will be little read into the future. With that this is recommended to those with an interest in Australian Literature from the past. They should enjoy it.