Welcome back to Book Club on 2SER.
Today, we have "The Bell of the World" by Gregory Day.
Gregory Day is a writer, poet and musician. I loved his last novel A Sand Archive and so am excited to be bringing you Greg’s latest, The Bell of the World
In The Bell of the World Sarah Hutchison journeys to Ngangahook, a bush property near Geelong. Ngangahook is run by her Uncle Ferny and Sarah is there to rediscover herself after drifting from her days in an English boarding school.
Surrounded by nature, Sarah the world as distinct from the trappings of ‘society’. Ngangahook attracts the unconventional and Sarh begins to infuse her poetry and music with elements plucked from her surroundings.
As the coterie of like minded souls at Ngangahook grows, so too does the world surrounding it. How long can Sarah and her uncle hold out against a world that seeks to civilize them and destroy the natural world they protect?
As I delved into the pages of "The Bell of the World," I found myself drawn into the expansive scope of Sarah's journey. The majority of the narrative unfolds during the early years of Australia's Federation but Day’s narrative is concerned with the entirety of so-called Australia’s history and white Australia’s struggles to reconcile itself to the land it overtook.
Gregory Day brings this era to life as a creative era of development, highlighting its significance in shaping the country's identity. Against this we have the destructive impulse of the civilising force represented in the ‘bell’ that the townsfolk would have hung in their rural outpost.
While the bells toll would bring time and structure into their daily lives it would sound out the natural call of life that has resonated through the region for thousands of years; Sarah’s Bell of the World.
Building on the themes from his previous work, "A Sand Archive," Day continues to examine the relationship between humanity and nature. In "The Bell of the World," the tension between Ngangahook and the encroaching modern world represents the struggle to preserve and appreciate nature amidst relentless progress and societal pressures.
This struggle is not simply anm environmental concern. Rather it represents a severing of our human nature from the world around it. Sarah and Ferny strive to live with the land and move away from a sense of human exceptionalism while the town clings to its separateness as a kind of talisman against what it views as wild and unforgiving.
Day’s treatment of this tension dives into the human impulse to create art and offers up fascinating ideas of this creative process.
Ferny's is shown to be infatuated with Joseph Furphy's novel, "Such is Life." The novel is a talisman for Ferny with its evocative capturing of Australian life, and when it wears out is rebound in a most surprising way that was reminiscent to me of modern sample culture and remixing of ideas and influences.
Another fascinating element is Sarah's modification of the piano at Ngangahook, using found natural elements. The resulting songs become a blend of ephemeral sounds and representations of their world. This raises questions about the possibility of creating art that remains wild and natural, or whether our very presence adulterates nature.
In the midst of the growing unrest in the region, the bell becomes a focal point of the town’s feelings about Sarah, Fernny, and Joe's unconventional living arrangements. There's an undercurrent of cultural clash, that mirrors our modern sense of tension and unease at things we don’t want to understand.
