far-reaching plains. If ever I had wished to visit the wider world, I would have had to plan my route so that I could travel first through the foreground and then through the middle ground mentioned above.
I look often across my mind in a westerly or a north-westerly direction, but I am not unable to see in my mind what might lie behind me. I am not unable to see in a subdued light, as though they lie beyond not sea but coloured glass, the islands of Tasmania and New Zealand.
Once only, I dared to step off the solid land that comprises my nearer view of the world. I travelled across water from Melbourne to Tasmania in order to accept an invitation to a gathering of writers. On the night before I left Melbourne, I was unable to sleep. On the day of my departure from solid land, I began to drink beer. When I arrived on the boat or ship or vessel or whatever it was called, I was drunk, and I remained so during most of my time in Tasmania. I recall hardly anything of the landscape that I passed through while I was conveyed by motor-car from Devonport to Launceston and then, twenty-four hours later, back to Devonport. All this happened more than twenty years ago, but I still regret that I did not see the midlands of Tasmania.
For several years before my visit to Tasmania, I had corresponded with a young man who lived with his wife in a rented cottage in a small town in a district that he called the Midlands. (He never failed to use an upper-case “M” in his letters.) The man had been, some years before, a student in my fiction-writing classes and was still writing fiction in his rented cottage, which, so he claimed in his letters to me, was at the very heart of the Midlands. I had seen a few photographs of lakes and seashores and mountains in Tasmania before I had begun writing letters to my former student, but I had never seen in any photograph any landscape such as he described in one of his letters to me. When I read in that letter that he had travelled on a day of sunshine and cold breezes to a place out of sight of his rented cottage and had looked all around him at the silent, level land and had lost all sense that he lived on a large island surrounded by the Southern Ocean, I had supposed that my friend was reporting not an actual experience but something imagined. (As a teacher of fiction-writing, I had always been ready to believe that some of my students had been possessed of imagination, although I was never comfortable when the word came up in discussions.)
As for New Zealand, I had never supposed that I could travel thither, but if ever I had been able to get aboard a tramp-steamer that could take me and my cargo of beer from Melbourne to Dunedin or to Christchurch, I would have wanted only to look at the Canterbury Plains before I found a ship that would take me back across the Tasman Sea. A student of mine during the late 1980s, a young woman, had written in a piece of fiction a few paragraphs about the landscape around her birthplace, which was a town named Geraldine. If I were to report in this piece of fiction my feelings towards the young woman, some readers might suppose that I had fallen in love with the young woman. In fact, during the years when I was a teacher of fiction-writing I felt towards many a female student of mine what I felt towards the young woman from Geraldine. I would begin to feel thus while I was reading one or another piece of fiction written by the woman in question. In the presence of the woman, I would feel hardly otherwise than I felt towards any other student of mine. At all times, I did my best to ensure that my admired female students would not divine my feelings towards them. At all times too, I did my best not to treat any admired student more favourably than I treated my other students. And yet, whenever I was reading certain passages of fiction written by the admired student I became anxious on her account. I wanted no sadness or anxiety to be visited on her. I wanted the
I look often across my mind in a westerly or a north-westerly direction, but I am not unable to see in my mind what might lie behind me. I am not unable to see in a subdued light, as though they lie beyond not sea but coloured glass, the islands of Tasmania and New Zealand.
Once only, I dared to step off the solid land that comprises my nearer view of the world. I travelled across water from Melbourne to Tasmania in order to accept an invitation to a gathering of writers. On the night before I left Melbourne, I was unable to sleep. On the day of my departure from solid land, I began to drink beer. When I arrived on the boat or ship or vessel or whatever it was called, I was drunk, and I remained so during most of my time in Tasmania. I recall hardly anything of the landscape that I passed through while I was conveyed by motor-car from Devonport to Launceston and then, twenty-four hours later, back to Devonport. All this happened more than twenty years ago, but I still regret that I did not see the midlands of Tasmania.
For several years before my visit to Tasmania, I had corresponded with a young man who lived with his wife in a rented cottage in a small town in a district that he called the Midlands. (He never failed to use an upper-case “M” in his letters.) The man had been, some years before, a student in my fiction-writing classes and was still writing fiction in his rented cottage, which, so he claimed in his letters to me, was at the very heart of the Midlands. I had seen a few photographs of lakes and seashores and mountains in Tasmania before I had begun writing letters to my former student, but I had never seen in any photograph any landscape such as he described in one of his letters to me. When I read in that letter that he had travelled on a day of sunshine and cold breezes to a place out of sight of his rented cottage and had looked all around him at the silent, level land and had lost all sense that he lived on a large island surrounded by the Southern Ocean, I had supposed that my friend was reporting not an actual experience but something imagined. (As a teacher of fiction-writing, I had always been ready to believe that some of my students had been possessed of imagination, although I was never comfortable when the word came up in discussions.)
As for New Zealand, I had never supposed that I could travel thither, but if ever I had been able to get aboard a tramp-steamer that could take me and my cargo of beer from Melbourne to Dunedin or to Christchurch, I would have wanted only to look at the Canterbury Plains before I found a ship that would take me back across the Tasman Sea. A student of mine during the late 1980s, a young woman, had written in a piece of fiction a few paragraphs about the landscape around her birthplace, which was a town named Geraldine. If I were to report in this piece of fiction my feelings towards the young woman, some readers might suppose that I had fallen in love with the young woman. In fact, during the years when I was a teacher of fiction-writing I felt towards many a female student of mine what I felt towards the young woman from Geraldine. I would begin to feel thus while I was reading one or another piece of fiction written by the woman in question. In the presence of the woman, I would feel hardly otherwise than I felt towards any other student of mine. At all times, I did my best to ensure that my admired female students would not divine my feelings towards them. At all times too, I did my best not to treat any admired student more favourably than I treated my other students. And yet, whenever I was reading certain passages of fiction written by the admired student I became anxious on her account. I wanted no sadness or anxiety to be visited on her. I wanted the
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