Back to Bool Bool

A great portion of the book is devoted to the reactions of Freda and Dick to this country after an absence of many years. The poet in Dick is depressed by the absence of trees in Hyde Park, Sydney, the invasion of human habitations on the shores of the harbour, and the general departure from the spirit of the bush as he knew it in his younger days. The social critic in Freda rebels at the in flow; of undesirable immigrants to Australia, and the reconstruction here of all the unwanted sordidness of the old world.

Australia, she maintains, should be kept until the world is sufficiently educated to make of it a model continent. We hear less of the opinions of the Major-General and Austra, they being too successful and busy to be critical. On landing we are introduced to the Mazere family and later to others who have followed the fashion and migrated from Bool Bool to the city, there to live in an endless round of social sacrifice. This part of the book very carefully reveals the provincialism of suburban life. The author deftly peels off the veneer and shows us just where we are and what we are.