 First edition | |
| Author | Murray Bail |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Text Publishing |
Publication date | 1998 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 264 |
| ISBN | 1-875847-63-4 |
| OCLC | 39355076 |
| Preceded by | Holden's Performance |
| Followed by | The Pages |
Eucalyptus is a 1998 novel by Australian novelist Murray Bail. [1] The book won the 1999 Miles Franklin Award, the 1999 Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the 1999 ALS Gold Medal.
Eucalyptus tells the story of Ellen Holland, a young woman whose "speckled beauty" and unattainability become legend far beyond the rural western New South Wales town near the property where she grows up. Her protective father's obsession with collecting rare species of Eucalyptus trees leads him to propose a contest – the man who can correctly name all the species on his property shall win her hand in marriage.
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The novel contrasts a detailed, scientific classifying of Eucalyptus trees, with the story of Ellen told from a parodied fairy tale perspective. This fits well with Bail’s status as a writer of fiction and non-fiction.
The novel begins with a discussion of Australian culture “the poetic virtues which have their origins in the bush of being belted about by droughts, bushfires, smelly sheep and so on; and lets not forget the isolation, the exhausted shapeless women, the crude language, the always wide horizon, and the flies.” But concludes that: “it really doesn’t matter.” This sets a major theme for the novel to explore. The novel could easily be interpreted as a renegotiation of Australian identity. Bail at once glorifies Australian tradition and attacks the notion of “a sun burnt country”.
Ellen’s story begins with “Once upon a time.” This fairy tale beginning is furthered by markedly one-dimensional characters. Ellen’s beauty is renowned across states and oceans, yet apart from this the reader is given little else to go by. Likewise Holland, Ellen's father, a man who likes to plant trees. Mr. Cave is a brilliant, albeit boring, older man. Likewise the unnamed lover is a storyteller. These flat characters contrast against the scientifically intricate details of the Eucalypt trees.
Each short story accelerates the narrative frame and is analyzed within the scientific eucalypt theme. This contrast is well implemented, maintaining flow and cohesion in spite of the fragmented medium.
The reader is encouraged to guess ahead at what the story may contain. “There once was a man on a property outside a one horse town, who couldn’t come to a decision about his daughter. He then made an unexpected decision. Incredible. For a while people talked of little else”. This encourages a responder to expect a feminist reading where his daughter is empowered.
Not so, instead, he designs a test in which a potential suitor must identify every eucalypt growing on his property. Ellen remains disenchanted with the whole scheme, as countless suitors try and fail at this test. This is until Mr. Cave, a botanical genius arrives. Cave appears to be the only man on earth capable of success. Tragically enough just as Cave nears his goal, Ellen finds her own love elsewhere.
A film version of Eucalyptus was once in the works and was highly publicised in the media, set to star Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. [2] The film, whose budget was estimated sometimes at $15 million and sometimes at $25 million, [2] was reportedly shut down by production company Fox Searchlight because of disputes between Crowe and director Jocelyn Moorhouse.
Talks began in early 2004; the production was originally intended to star Geoffrey Rush, Bryce Dallas Howard and Crowe, to be directed by Moorhouse, written by her and Michelle Joyner and produced by Uberto Pasolini and Lynda House. Howard was reportedly dropped from the project because Crowe reportedly did not want to act with someone outside his home-country, and Kidman subsequently joined. [3] In early February 2005, Fox Searchlight announced that the film had been postponed to allow time for further work on the script. [4]
Filming was set to commence in Bellingen, New South Wales, in February 2005, but was cancelled because of "irreconcilable differences" between Crowe (who was also executive producer) and Moorhouse. Sets costing $6.4 million had been built at Bellingen, and a studio established at nearby Coffs Harbour, had to be abandoned, film crew numbering around 80 had to be paid off and property rentals around the town cancelled. [5] After rumours he would direct the project himself, Crowe was cited as preferring either Driving Miss Daisy director Bruce Beresford or Last Orders creator Fred Schepisi to helm the project. [2]
The Australian-British composer Sir Jonathan Mills had been working on an operatic treatment of Eucalyptus since 2013. [6] It had been commissioned in 2006 by Richard Hickox for Opera Australia. A concert version was presented at the 2024 Perth Festival, and staged that year by Michael Gow at the Brisbane Festival and in Melbourne. [7]
The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": The Daily Telegraph, The Times , The Independent , Sunday Telegraph , and The Spectator reviews under "Love It" and The Guardian , The Observer , and The Times Literary Supplement reviews under "Pretty Good" and The Sunday Times review under "Ok". [8] [9] [10] [11]
Nicole Mary Kidman is an American and Australian actress and producer. Known for her work in film and television productions across many genres, she has consistently ranked among the world's highest-paid actresses since the late 1990s. Her accolades include an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and six Golden Globe Awards. She became the first Australian actor to receive the AFI Life Achievement Award honor in 2024.
Russell Ira Crowe is a New Zealand-born actor, director and musician. He was born in Wellington, spending 10 years of his childhood in Australia and residing there permanently by age 21. His work on screen has earned him various accolades, including an Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a British Academy Film Award.
Eucalyptus is a genus of more than 700 species of flowering plants in the family Myrtaceae. Most species of Eucalyptus are trees, often mallees, and a few are shrubs. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including Corymbia and Angophora, they are commonly known as eucalypts or "gum trees". Plants in the genus Eucalyptus have bark that is either smooth, fibrous, hard, or stringy and leaves that have oil glands. The sepals and petals are fused to form a "cap" or operculum over the stamens, hence the name from Greek eû ("well") and kaluptós ("covered"). The fruit is a woody capsule commonly referred to as a "gumnut".
Murray Bail is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and non-fiction. In 1980 he shared the Age Book of the Year award for his novel Homesickness.
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Frank Thomas Moorhouse was an Australian writer who won major national prizes for the short story, the novel, the essay and for script writing. His work has been published in the United Kingdom, France and the United States, and translated into German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Serbian and Swedish.
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The Australian Literature Society Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature for "an outstanding literary work in the preceding calendar year." From 1928 to 1974 it was awarded by the Australian Literature Society, then from 1983 by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, when the two organisations were merged.
Jocelyn Denise Moorhouse is an Australian screenwriter and film director. She is best known for directing films Proof, How to Make an American Quilt, A Thousand Acres and The Dressmaker.
Eucalyptus oleosa, commonly known as the red mallee, glossy-leaved red mallee, acorn mallee, oil mallee or giant mallee, is a tree or mallee that is native to Australia. The leaves were once harvested for the production of cineole based eucalyptus oil. Eucalyptus cneorifolia is now the predominant strain used in production due to a higher oil content in new growth.
Eucalyptus nitens, commonly known as shining gum or silvertop, is a species of tall tree native to Victoria and eastern New South Wales. It has smooth greyish bark, sometimes with thin, rough bark near the base, lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds in groups of seven or nine, white flowers and cup-shaped, barrel-shaped or cylindrical fruit. It grows in wet forests and rainforest margins on fertile soils in cool, high-rainfall areas.
The Paperboy is a 2012 American crime drama thriller film co-written and directed by Lee Daniels and based on Pete Dexter's 1995 novel of the same name. The novel was inspired by a true story. It follows Miami reporter Ward Jansen who returns to his hometown in Florida to investigate a murder case involving a death row inmate. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, Nicole Kidman, David Oyelowo, John Cusack and Macy Gray.
American-born Australian actress and producer Nicole Kidman has appeared in numerous film and television projects, as well as in theatre productions. She made her film debut in the Australian drama Bush Christmas in 1983. Four years later, she starred in the television miniseries Bangkok Hilton, for which she received the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actress in a Television Drama. Her breakthrough role was as a married woman trapped on a yacht with a murderer in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. She followed this with her Hollywood debut opposite Tom Cruise in Tony Scott's auto-racing film Days of Thunder (1990). Her role as a homicidal weather forecaster in Gus Van Sant's crime comedy-drama To Die For garnered Kidman a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical in 1996. She worked with Cruise again on Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992) and Stanley Kubrick's erotic thriller Eyes Wide Shut in 1999.
The 2014 Perth Hills bushfire, sometimes referred to as the Parkerville fire, was a bushfire that burned from 12 January to 1 February and affected the Mundaring municipality of the Perth Hills in the Australian state of Western Australia. During a major run of the fire on the afternoon and evening of 12 January, fifty-seven houses and numerous non-residential buildings were completely destroyed, and a further six houses were damaged in the suburbs of Mount Helena, Stoneville, and Parkerville. Approximately 386 hectares of uncleared land and pasture—the majority on private property—were burned during the 21-day duration of the fire. None of the residential subdivisions impacted had been formally declared as being within a bushfire prone area.
Eucalyptus moderata, also known as redwood mallee, is a species of tree or a mallee that is endemic to the southwest of Western Australia. It has rough, hard, fibrous bark on some or all of the trunk, lance-shaped adult leaves, flower buds usually in groups of seven, pale yellow flowers and pendulous, urn-shaped fruit.
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