Reviewed by Rod McLary
A common theme of Robbie Arnott’s two earlier novels – The Rain Heron and Limberlost – is the interrelation between humans and nature, their connectedness. This theme continues in Dusk where nature or the natural environment dominates the foreground of the novel to the extent that the humans seem to be interlopers not very successfully imposing themselves on it.
Early in the novel, the theme is realised viscerally when one of the protagonists – Iris – ‘felt a freeing, lung-emptying openness that bounced off the hard stone, that waved through the thick mounds of tufted grass, threaded through the gnarled tress, fell down the chalky textures of the small tors’ [5]. And through the narrative, the theme is returned to time and time again to remind the characters as much as the reader that the natural environment is the master.
Iris and Floyd Renshaw are twins eking out a barely subsistence living from working as they can across this unforgiving landscape. Where the action takes place is never made explicit; and in one sense, it is of little import. The significance of the landscape and the traversing of it by the characters is prime. Similarly, it is not made explicit when the action takes place although it may be near the end of the eighteenth-century as Iris and Floyd’s parents were transported to this country from England as fifteen-year-olds because of their transgressions there. Their subsequent life is hard and relies more on petty thieving than hard work. Iris and Floyd often bore the brunt of this hardscrabble existence to the extent that they are relieved when their parents drown in a flood-swollen river.
Even though the narrative which follows centres on both Iris and Floyd, it is Iris who is the key protagonist and it is she who is telling the story and sharing her thoughts and emotions; and it is through her eyes that we experience the landscape, the other characters and the betrayals to which both she and Floyd are subjected.
About half-way through the narrative, the eponymous Dusk appears. Dusk is a female puma originally imported with other pumas from Patagonia some years previously to help with controlling the population explosion of deer – themselves imported to make the settlers feel more at home in this strange and forbidding landscape. It is the age-old story: import one exotic species to control the population of another exotic species. And it is consistent with the underlying theme of the novel – the respect due to the natural environment which is not always offered.
Iris and Floyd reluctantly, driven by their need for money, join the hunt for Dusk and the subsequent bounty offered by the settlers for her death. Along the way though, they meet a Patagonian who, while also seeking Dusk and contrary to the settlers, is wanting only to capture her and return her to Patagonia. Iris and Floyd decide to join him – a decision which places them in violent opposition to the local settlers who want Dusk killed. It is their decision which ultimately leads to a deadly confrontation with the settlers and the conclusion of the narrative.
Dusk is a finely crafted book – beautifully written and immersed in the natural environment. Iris and Floyd are sensitively drawn and, as their backstory is revealed, the reader can only empathise with their day-to-day struggle to exist and their unshakeable bond with each other. But it is the natural environment which is at the heart of this novel; and as the author says ‘But once they reached the plateau the truth of this country was revealed to them’ [2].
Robbie Arnott has twice won the Age Book of the Year [for The Rain Heron and Limberlost]. He is one of the finest emerging writers in Australia.
Dusk
[2024]
by Robbie Arnott
Picador Australia
ISBN 978 1 76156 094 1
$34.99; 252pp