The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea by Randolph Stow

In 1959 he traveled to Papua New Guinea as a cadet patrol officer, based mainly in the Trobriand Islands, where he contracted malaria. After completing his undergraduate studies, Stow worked as a storeman at the Forrest River mission near Wyndham before returning to study anthropology and linguistics at the University of Sydney in 1958. He had a natural flair for assimilating new languages, also learning Dutch, Indonesian, and Russian. Following his education at school in Perth, Stow enrolled to study first Law, then French and English at the University of Western Australia. Both sides of the author's family were fifth-generation Australians with English roots, originating from Suffolk and Essex. Stow was born in Geraldton in Western Australia, where the trees are 'crippled and stooped by the southerly' (Stow, The Merry-Go-Round 16). Similarly, Stow worked with a gramophone beside him, though never claimed to draw on particular pieces in quite the same manner as White.

Patrick White exploited recorded music as a stimulus in his writing, speaking on a number of occasions of using musical works as a structural aid in his writing: a recording of one of Bartok's violin concertos helped him to find the tight ending for Vbss, for example (White 141). The result is that music in performance has a strong presence in his writings, from domestic gatherings to country music, Christian worship and indigenous rituals. John Passion in Aldeburgh (Papers, letter to mother, 29 April 1980), hillbilly sessions in the Kimberleys, and squeezies at Koogareena. He attended many musical events, embracing such diverse occasions as Bach's St. There are numerous references to his musical background across his surviving letters, which give a sense of his perspective, from his consideration of performances of Mozart in Fremantle in 1830 (Stow, Papers, letter to sister, 19 December 1980) to comments on his own abilities: 'I realized I've always played the piano as if it were a harpsichord' (Papers, letter to mother, 21 July 1962). He listened widely, mainly to pieces from the Western classical tradition, yet also appreciated the power of a traditional song. Stow was a keyboard player, and therefore understood the theoretical workings of music. Pipers, hymns, and drums reverberate through his words, while clocks tick their way across his output, with 'small determined feet, like a Lilliputian sentry on patrol' (161). He researched myth and folklore, from aboriginal legends to English folk tales and Scottish songs, and this interest is reflected in his novels. Just as the author describes Shakespeare as having 'words for every emotion' (Stow, A Haunted Land 41), so has Stow a song for every situation, with specific pieces of music used to locate fiction in time and place. Music resonates through the works of Randolph Stow (1935-2010), with landscape, sounds, and words entwined across his elegant and lyrical output.

The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea by Randolph Stow