The Voyage (Murray Bail, Text)

Murray Bail has been masterfully reinventing his writing for more than 30 years in short fiction, novels, criticism and art history. In The Voyage, his first novel in three years, it’s fair to say he has pushed the boundaries of his fiction further than ever. This is a short, but complex, novel: a double narrative wrapped around the voyage of Frank Delage, a Sydney piano manufacturer, to Vienna, cradle of classical music, to sell his revolutionary design of piano. We’re part of a bigger, more complex voyage, as Delage’s musings on the long, slow return boat journey home reveal, and it’s in the ramifications of that journey that the novel’s focus strengthens. Because the ‘voyage’ is no less than the meeting point between old world and new, old ideas and creative innovation from new ones (the Viennese music critic rejects Delage’s piano for its lack of imperfection). It’s also about the relationship between the writer and the reader (Bail more than once brings our attention to the grievances of the unappreciated artist in an increasingly commoditised culture). The Voyage is a challenging, extremely idiosyncratic novel, and it’s not for everyone, but it rewards anybody seriously interested in the worth of art in our world.

David Gaunt is the co-owner of Gleebooks in Sydney

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews