Remembering Babylon: David malouf To what extent does this novel interrogate the place of non-Aboriginals in Aboriginal/ Australian history?

Remembering Babylon

A feeling that pervades Remembering Babylon is a great sense of guilt in colonial morality. Malouf represents the colonial process as one that rejects the natural order of the world and subsequently passes up great opportunity for enrichment and knowledge.

Malouf interrogates white Australia as a people who have traditionally punished themselves through their unwillingness to adapt to their environment and embrace a culture that has successfully tapped into the “earthy sweetness…minerals and underground secrets…” (p119) that make Australia unique and beautiful. He accuses the European settlers, in the words of Frazer, as clinging to their “wheat and lamb and bottled cucumbers.” (p119) This of course does not simply refer to the European diet of the body, but also our diet of the mind. Gemmy represents an uncertain, but exciting cultural space that symbolises the fusing of two worlds. The author certainly concedes that, for a short time traditional...