‘Are We the Future of the Past?’ : Gothic Pasts, Gothic Futures, and Imaginary Lives
Abstract
‘Peter Otto’s essay … argues that the novel’s temporal frame, and its evocation of a species of Gothicism, challenges conventional periodisation’ (p.4). The author argues that ‘the space of engagement conjured by our … slow reading of An Imaginary Life , offers an important allegory of the situation of white Australians. Read in these terms, it suggests just how important it might be for white Australians, temporarily, to resist the urge to belong, and that they might not want to become the ‘final man’, the ‘white aborigine’, that their own past has dreamed’ (p.100).
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Published 1 October 2011 in Volume 26 No. 3-4. Subjects: Medievalism, Modernity, David Malouf.
Cite as: Otto, Peter. ‘‘Are We the Future of the Past?’ : Gothic Pasts, Gothic Futures, and Imaginary Lives.’ Australian Literary Studies, vol. 26, no. 3-4 - , 2011, doi: 10.20314/als.a6b3591381.