I don’t know why I am, as a novelist, so attracted to the stories of the past. It might be a case of symbiosis. Because I was an Australian of a particular time and place, I yearned to know the world, to travel and adventure abroad. In my travels, I met a man who never wished to leave his own shore, who would have dwelt contently in the archives that can be found in the Boston–Washington–New York corridor. That man loves history. Because of me, he travels the world. Because of him, I travel the past. Moral, if any: it’s fun to sleep with foreigners, but be warned — this can change your life.
And now, as I make my home in literature, in a particular genre of fiction that explores the places in the deep well that the burning paper has left unilluminated, I think of that mathematician, and her search for a more perfect description of the world’s swoops and curves. What can I know, after all, that is true about these people who lived and died so long ago; lived and died, as Henry James asserts, with a consciousness different from ours, a consciousness formed when more than half the things that make our world did not yet exist for them?
But I believe that consciousness isn’t shaped by things. You can move the furniture about as much as you like; the emotions of the people in the room will not change. Consciousness is shaped by fear and joy, hatred and tenderness. This is what I know: they loved, as I love. And that is as good a starting point as any.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Geraldine Brooks was born and raised in Sydney. As a foreign correspondent she covered crises in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans, and authored two works of non-fiction, Nine Parts of Desire and Foreign Correspondence, before turning to fiction. Her novels Year of Wonders and People of the Book were international bestsellers, and her second novel, March, won the Pulitzer Prize. Her most recent novel, Caleb’s Crossing, was published in 2011. She currently lives on the island of Martha’s Vineyard with her husband and two sons.
COPYRIGHT
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First published in Australia in 2011
This edition published in 2011
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Copyright © Geraldine Brooks 2011
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Print data:
Brooks, Geraldine, 1955–
The idea of home / Geraldine Brooks.
ISBN: 978 0 7333 3025 4 (pbk.)
ISBN: 978 0 7304 9766 0 (epub)
Speeches, addresses, etc., Australian.
Radio addresses, debates, etc.
Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
A825.3
Cover design by Priscilla Nielsen
The Idea of Home Page 6