Fly Away Peter
David Malouf is one of Australia's most interesting modern writers. His work is demanding because it does much more than tell stories: it asks you to think about important, complex issues. Fly Away Peter, one of his most stimulating novels, does this exactly. The events of the narrative are quite straightforward. What they all mean is not.
First, it's important to pay close attention to the detail of the text. Work through these short answer questions about Fly Away Peter, before going on to the discussion and suggested responses that follow.
Text Response - Short Answer Questions
1 Throughout the first few chapters, nature is constantly described. Look particularly at pp. 2 and 7 of Chapter 1. What view of nature is Malouf evoking? How does it make you feel? Is it 'good' or 'bad'?
2 The three major characters (Jim, Ashley and Imogen), introduced in Chapters 13, share an interest in nature the thing that brings them together. They also share certain qualities. How would you describe these characters? Are they appealing or not?
3 Increasingly, the book focuses on the 'mystery' of the migratory birds, and of life itself, (pp. 20, 21, 27). 'This is it; this is the moment when we see into the creature's unique life…its own brief huddle of heat and energy…' The idea that they could be so fragile, tiny, yet so magically alive, is cause for amazement and rejoicing in Jim and Imogen. What idea or theme is being expressed here? What wonder are we being shown?
4 Read the passage on p. 32 which speaks of Ashley's claim on the birds. How important are human beings in the larger scheme of things? Are they truly dominant or just part of a bigger picture?
5 How is the war portrayed on p. 36? What contrast is arising here between the migrations of animals and the mass movements of people?
6 Jim’s methodical keeping of The Book (p. 44) shows a very human quality. What is it?
7 The analogy between birds and aeroplanes (in Ch. 8) is very revealing. Why? Does Jim end up, after his first flight, believing in the superiority of humans?
8 Jim’s father and Imogen react very differently to news of his enlistment in the army. Why and which one seems more like the view shared by the author?
9 Wizzer, like Jim's father, represents something different from the pleasant qualities of the other major characters (see pp. 634). What is wrong with him?
10 How do the men use their final leave before the battle (Ch. 11) and what qualities does it bring out in them?
11 The true nature of war is shown dramatically in Chapter 12. What impressions are you left with?
12 The death of Clancy (p. 82) is profoundly significant to Jim, and expresses something vital about the nature of human life. What do you see it meaning?
13 What is so pathetic and so important about Eric's question to Jim (p. 85)? What is the terrible answer implied by Malouf, though never stated?
14 In the episode of the shell hole (pp. 92~3), Jim almost becomes like Wizzer. What is he struggling with, and how does he emerge from the crisis?
15 What does the discovery of the mammoth (pp. 989) argue about the nature of life on earth?
16 Jim's memory of his dead brother (p. 103) and of the tormented bird (p. 104) merge into a profoundly bleak view of life. How would you express what he fears at this point?
17 Jim finally returns to his old cataloguing of birds (p. 106). What does this show about how he has dealt with his crisis of faith?
18 As he charges with the other soldiers towards the enemy lines, he has a vision of the whole scene (p. 117). This vision is terribly important because it also sums up one of Malouf s vital ideas in the novel. What does Jim finally understand?
19 How do you feel about Jim’s final delirious dream the resurrected Clancy, the digging? It is clearly symbolic. Of what?
20 The last important image of the book is the surfer whom Imogen sees at the beach. More symbolism, and a crucial summing up of the book's major preoccupation. What does she understand? What do you make of it?
Notes
What a strange book it is. So simple birds, soldiers, a surfer yet so profound. Malouf is novelist of ideas. His most consistent interest is in the meaning of things. In this novel he asks no less a question than: What is the meaning of life?
In the prefatory quote (from Chesterton) he signals the scope of his subject: 'Man is an exception…’ The novel will be about what man is. Angel or animal? Good or bad? Innocent or insanely dangerous? And what is the value of human life, given its brevity and certain extinction?
The novel could be divided into three segments:
Chapters 18, which might be called the paradise section;
Chapters 9~17,. the hell section; and
Chapter 18, the metaphor of the wave.
In these 'movements' of meaning, Malouf explores the different aspects of human life and identity.
In the first chapters, the images are joyous ones: sunlight, water, birds, fertile eternal nature. Music and birdlife, especially, suggest the sweetness of life. How easy it is with such images to accept that the world is good. Yet even in this 'happy' section, there are dark chords: the brutal father, the aeroplane, the war, the crowds.
With Jim's entry into the war, things turn very gloomy. Instead of the paradisal images, we have hellish ones: dead bodies, blood, rats, mud. The music of the early chapters gives way to the harsh clamour of war; the birds become rats; the gentle Queensland sun is replaced by the satanic glow of exploding earth. Horror is heaped on horror, and with Jim, we almost sink into a trough of despair. We agree with him that 'he had been living, till he came here, in a state of dangerous innocence' (p. 103). Innocence because he had believed that all was cheerful and good, whereas life contains also depravity and evil. Like the ancients building their pyramids in a startling display of cunning, humans are today capable of showing the same ingenuity in systematically murdering millions of their kind. This vaunted intelligence which seems to set us, godlike, above the dumb animals has two sides. It can be positive (music, sanctuaries, photos, The Book) or negative (explosives, trenches, war). The simple territorial arrangements of the birds, and their benign migrations, look very good alongside the murderous battles of humans and their fatal migrations.
And yet this is not just another war book. Malouf does not rub our noses in human misery and leave it at that. For the novel has one last section, the final chapter, which like a concerto (with its bright and happy movement, its dark and melancholy movement) finishes on a positive note. What do we see? A grieving woman yes. The death of the main character must be acknowledged. Death is sad. It is the part of human experience that we must put into our picture of things if we are to truly understand. But it is not all. For her grief is suddenly interrupted when she sees the figure of the surfer, and the marvel of what he represents: 'the balance, the still dancing on the surface, the brief etching of his body against the sky' (p. 133). A metaphor for life itself, vulnerable, soon gone, but wonderful while it lasts. And thus the novel's great central idea blossoms: life is to be celebrated it is the only thing we have, and it is a miracle. People may be good or bad (depending, Malouf hints, on how close to nature or how far away they get); they may be clever (like Ashley) or dull (like Jim); they may do brilliant things or just exist on a physical level. But ultimately the essence of life is something we share with all living creatures:
That is what life meant, a unique presence, and it was essential in every creature.... A life wasn't for anything. It simply was. (p. 132)
This is a very serious novel an agnostic intellectual scrutiny of human identity. It concedes the good, regrets the bad, and strips our pretence down to what we finally are. You may not agree with Malouf, but it is a book to really think about.
Here are some possible extended responses to Fly Away Peter.
Text Responses – Extended Answer Questions
Expository
1 Take one of the key passages from the novel, such as those listed below, and write a detailed analysis of it. Make clear not only what it means, but why it is significant in the scheme of meanings that Malouf creates.
· A few days later ... by the harshness of his own sobs.' (pp. 847)
· Jim saw that he had been living ... It was annihilating. It was all.' (pp. 1034)
· 'He saw it all . . . so immensely expanded.' (p. 117)
· She watched the waves build ... surprised and hurt her.' (pp. 1324)
2 One critic dismissed Fly Away Peter as a peculiar, if nicely written, book about birdwatching and the First World War. He couldn't see the point of it at all. What about you?
3 This is possibly the bestknown work of a major Australian writer. All David Malouf's other books are readily available, and most are easily read. Make a study of one or two others (such as The Great World, An Imaginary Life or Child's Play) and perhaps you might wish to consult some critical notes on his work. Then write your own profile of his work, as you know it.
4 Speaker A: It's a silly book. I can't believe in the characters, and there's practically no plot.
Speaker B: You're right about character and plot, but that doesn't make it silly. It's got plenty to offer.
Finish this critical dialogue, after full discussion, as you see fit.
Oral
5 Imogen's version. Carefully script Imogen Harcourt's account of the major events, then read it aloud to the class. What was her perspective?
6 'Everything changed. The past would not hold and could not be held.' This comment, from the final scene of the book, expresses something central in Malouf's view of existence. Give a tutorial in which you take this fragment as a theme and explain to the class, with brief quotations, what the author does with it.
7 Dramatise one of the key scenes from the novel. For example: the agreement between Ashley and Jim, Christmas at the estaminet, Jim and Wizzer in the shell hole, Jim and Eric at the hospital, Jim's last delirium. You may need to invent extra dialogue to flesh it out, basing this carefully on what the text suggests. With whatever scenesetting effects and costume arrangements you can manage, perform it for the class.
Creative
8 Jim's story. If Jim had written in TheBook not only the names of birds but also key observations about What happened to him, from the time he was employed by Ashley till the day he died, how would it read?
9 If you were given the job of producing a film version of Fly Away Peter, what problems would it present to you? For example: how would you cast it, what would you leave out, what extra explanatory scenes or dialogue might you want to put in, would you stick to the order of the novel? In short, how would you make it meaningful on the big screen?
10 Ashley and Imogen speak about Jim and the war, after it's all over. What do they say?