David Malouf and the Event of Writing

ABSTRACT The David Malouf Collections at Canberra and Brisbane archive the manuscripts, correspondence, and diary entries of the noted Australian writer. Malouf’s authorship transforms these ordinary drafts and materials into finished works that are recognised and read internationally. The present paper attempts to indicate some nodes from the collections which bear traces of this metamorphosis of the commonplace into the novel. The paper is divided into three sections. The introductory part reflects on a recent study conducted on the manuscript collections of J. M. Coetzee. Through a close reading of Malouf’s Fly Away Peter, it argues that much like Coetzee, the former’s novels also figure the ‘writing event’ in their narrative in a manner that exceeds the various contexts of its production, reception, and exchange. The second segment of the paper pays particular attention to three novels of Malouf – Johnno, An Imaginary Life, and The Great World. It close-reads sections from these works to underline the significance of the way their published versions differ from their numerous drafts and re-drafts. The conclusion discusses the implications of such dissonance in terms of some current developments in the fields of ‘postcritical’ thinking, literary editing, and book history.