Provocatively calm: on David Malouf as essayist

Abstract

This article examines the essays of David Malouf, many of which have been recently collected in three thematic volumes: A First Place (2014), The Writing Life (2014) and Being There (2015). My starting point is to argue that Malouf’s most important essays are politically charged. As a writer-activist he posits distinctive, sometimes controversial, positions, arguing strongly and passionately for alternative ways of thinking about Australia and the world, and indeed alternative ways for human beings to move through, and participate in, the world. However, Malouf is no firebrand: the tone of his essays is relentlessly calm; he brings together the emphatic and the empathetic, and he still tries to convince the reader. This article focuses on the political implications of Malouf’s calm but opinionated approach to his essays, as well as on how Malouf sets out to persuade readers. Image of David Malouf CC by Attribution. Photo by Samuel Wiki 2019