Accepting the Shadow: Personal & National Reconciliation in An Imaginary Life & Remembering Babylon

Abstract

Critics have usually and profitably considered both 'An Imaginary Life' and 'Remembering Babylon' from the viewpoint of post-colonial theory, although Philip Neilsen is quick to point out that 'An Imaginary Life' 'yields a great variety of readings'. The similarities between the two novels suggest that Malouf is examining similar preoccupations in each: both are deeply concerned with language and its construction of what, in our more unreflective moments, we may consider a separate world of nature; both end in a vision that transfigures the landscape and makes it a place of communion that transcends the limitations of language.