I love Gerald Murnane. The first thing I read by him was his own memoir, Something for the Pain, in which he tells the story of his life largely through a description of his beautiful semi-religious worship of racing colours. I then moved on to The Plains, which is a jewel-like fable that gently mocks the pretensions of those who come from the Western District of Victoria.
Everything Murnane writes has a mysterious element. His perspective is marvellously eccentric. It also seems to me that a stream of underlying amusement runs along beneath the surface solemnity of his work.
If you want to see if you like Murnane's writing, here is a link to Land Deal, a story I love by him. It reminds me a little of the story about dreams in Peter Carey's collection The Fat Man in History but Land Deal is richer. Murnane's work always seems more complex and interesting than that of his more famous fellow Australian colleague.
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