The Voyage by Murray Bail is published in hardback by MacLehose Press, priced £12 (ebook £7.87). Available now.
Winner of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Australian Murray Bail's latest novel is about piano inventor and manufacturer Frank Delage taking the long way home, travelling from Europe to Australia on the ship Romance.
Meandering through the Mediterranean, he reflects on his time in Vienna, a chance encounter with the affluent Amalia von Schalla and his altogether foreign experience.
The novel is exceptional in its ability to convey a sense of 'being foreign'. The relationships that are formed with the Von Schalla family are unconventional, as are the feelings of exploring and being explored by others in an unknown land.
Bail's The Voyage requires commitment from the reader; lacking a set storyline and structure, it weaves in and out of the European zeitgeist, present time on the ship, and nostalgia of Australian landscapes.
If you allow for this, and follow Delage's flow of thoughts and ideas - it is almost therapeutic to read.
6/10
(Review by Lynley Myers)
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