Eucalyptus

by Murray Bail | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0156007819 Global Overview for this book
Registered by over-the-moon of Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on 7/23/2004
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2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by over-the-moon from Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Friday, July 23, 2004
I remember being quite excited when I registered by 111th book. Eleventy-one!
222 and 333 went past without my noticing.
I have been anticipating 444 for quite a while, now.
These numbers attract me much more than boring 100 or 200 or 500. Don't like zeros.
So, this is my 444th book registered. It is going to another bookcrosser for a "special number" bookbox.
This is a NY Times "Notable Book of the Year". it is about an Australian who planted every kind of eucalyptus he could get his hands on. When suitors courted his beautiful daughter, he decided to set them a test: the one who could name all the different kinds of eucalyptus on his property would win her hand in marriage.
The cover of the book is a beautiful blue-green eucalyptus colour. I could not find any euc. leaves to put inside the pages*, so I have enclosed some gingko leaves from a favourite tree, and an edelweiss from my garden.
*added later: I did find a eucalyptus leaf, from the Turkish cemetery in Rhodes Town, kept in my old Rhodes photo album, so it has gone in there too.

Picture shows eucalyptus bark.

Journal Entry 2 by over-the-moon from Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Wednesday, July 28, 2004
At the front of the book, a eulogy (Seattle Times) proclaims "Magnificent. Eucalyptus is wholly in a class by itself..."
Here's what Murray Bail has to say about the word Magnificent:
"A fine example of the Flooded Gum (E. rudis) can be seen at the Botanic Gardens in Sydney, thirty paces back from the bookshop. It certainly has a towering grandeur. Magnificent comes to mind. Of course it does. Magnificent is to be avoided at all costs, above in all in describing a work of art, such as a Cézanne (the painter of pines), or the vulgarities of an opera house, or even the physique of a brown boxer[...]let alone the natural majesty of a gum tree. It really is a puffed-up term, a sign of impotence in the person poised with the pen, striving to convey...better for all concerned if it was returned for use alongside magnify, and left at that."
I will try and remember that advice, as "magnificent" is a word much overused in my job (editing travel guides).

Sometimes, sitting alone in my garden on summer afternoons, it is so quiet I can hear things growing - creaks, squeaks and shiverings that sound like plants pushing upwards. Reading Eucalyptus reminded me of that; it required intense quiet and concentration, it was like watching a tree grow.
The punctuation is strange, sentences wander off in unexpected directions. It is a botanical novel, describing part of the Australian landscape, and detailing many species of eucalyptus. I never knew there were so many, and that they were so diverse. It is a story of a strained relationship between father and daughter. It is also a love story, no, a story of courtship. And a story of stories, of "almost stories", each one entwined around a particular variety of eucalyptus. I kept wanting to highlight sentences, but refrained as the book is going to travel elsewhere. Here is one passage, which I came to just as I was beginning to wonder why Ellen, the daughter, did not rebel against her father's wishes:
"And Ellen suddenly wanted to march straight up and scream at her father, as if that would help. If only she was in Sydney. There she could disappear. Just then his cigarette smoke reached them under the bridge. It contained the essence of him, her father; crumpled, warm, a stubborn presence, even to the silver furrows ploughed in his hair."
I thought sometimes, that the author did not fully understand women. This passage for example:
"Ellen, though, she welcomed the privacy of dreams; in them she saw her strange feelings rendered still more strangely. At least she and he could float in a concentrated oneness; Ellen woke warm and wet, in grateful disbelief." (I thought wet dreams were reserved for the male of the species). But then, a few pages later, when Ellen wakes to find a man in her bedroom - "She wanted him to go, she wanted him to stay." To me, this is a very familiar, feminine feeling, half desire, half fear - on the brink of an affair.

I'm glad I found and read this book. I hope whoever gets it in Australia likes it too.

Journal Entry 3 by over-the-moon at RABK in Lausanne, By Mail/Post/Courier -- Controlled Releases on Thursday, July 29, 2004
Release planned for Friday, July 30, 2004 at RABK in Lausanne, By Post Controlled Releases.

by mail to australia

Journal Entry 4 by newk from Adelaide, South Australia Australia on Monday, August 16, 2004
It's here! Another addition to my "secret project" in honour of futurecat's 1000th book which I have for the time being.
Many thanks to silentm for this contribution. And for the lovely chocolates enclosed!! yummy yummy.

Journal Entry 5 by newk from Adelaide, South Australia Australia on Monday, March 7, 2005

Journal Entry 6 by newk at Daphne Street Little Library in Prospect, South Australia Australia on Friday, January 17, 2025

Released 4 wks ago (1/18/2025 UTC) at Daphne Street Little Library in Prospect, South Australia Australia

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