BOOK REVIEW
Banksia:
A Kangaroo’s Tale by Rob Simson
SYNOPSIS Despite the fantasy, this is a story about science and philosophy, about who we are and what geology can teach us. Sandy is a Darwinian figure endeavouring to make sense of what he, a grey kangaroo, can observe, giving things meaning and teasing out theories. For the lay reader the story could be an eye-opener to the truth about our existence; to the scientifically literate it is a journey in seeing creation through another set of eyes – kangaroo eyes.
T
HE story is woven through the landscape of the spectacular Banksia Peninsula. Think Tasmania in topography supporting the ecological diversity of a temperate coastal environment and you have a picture of this imaginary world. The map shows it to be joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus of shifting sands and mangrove marshland, hindering overland incursions, so despite a history of earlier aboriginal occupation and some attempts to establish mining and grazing enterprises during European times, the mythical Banksia remains without the presence of permanent habitation when our tale begins early in the year 2002. Sandy is a young grey kangaroo in one of several small mobs ruled by the domineering Buck. The young roo’s life is turned into turmoil in a series of unpredictable events following the terrorising experience of a dramatic meteorite strike on a hillside close by to the mob’s normally peaceful home range. Curiosity drives young Sandy to explore, not just the crater formed by the meteorite strike, but far and wide on the peninsula in his quest to know whatever there is to be known about his world. He is assisted, and at times hindered, by his cobber, Badger, his rock-wallaby friend, Tyler, and the annoyingly attractive though unpredictable female kangaroo, SaSa. A weird set of circumstances, bring Sandy into contact with a number of human bipeds, both friend and foe. One of the friendly bipeds is seventeen year-old Jason Worthy, whose intimate knowledge of the events of Sandy’s life make him the ideal first person story-teller in the second part of the tale. Jason has trouble with compulsive obsessions, undertaking his own relentless mission to learn more about the natural world of Banksia, and in particular, to find a trilobite fossil like or better preserved than the one his grandfather, himself a retired geologist, had once seen in the now forgotten Whitehouse collection of the 1930s. The two companions, macropod and human, form a trusting and beneficial partnership, taking on a journey of discovery, scientific finds and humiliating disappointments, through both the hops and strides that lead towards the inescapable and disturbing climax.
18 THE AUSTRALIAN ORIENTEER DECEMBER 2007
In composing this novel the author has broken down the artificial barrier between different genre, infusing a fantasy of animal characters and imaginary settings into a documentary-style of narrative, so the reader is left wondering as to what in the end is real and what is unreal about existence. At one point the story reads: “Sandy thought back to his dream experiences…… Perhaps he himself was no more than another creature’s imagination. Such thoughts made him giddy and he had to pinch himself in order to concentrate on what was tangible.” And when Sandy finds a trilobite fragment in a meteorite crater just as a fierce bushfire is about to overrun himself and Badger: “Sandy’s heat exhausted brain made no sense of the find. He didn’t even think it was for real. His mind had become a sea of vague impressions – scents, sounds, apparitions, hallucinations. It was his memory playing tricks. It was his past infusing the present. It was this conundrum again. How to know dreams from reality?”
About the author WELL known Queensland orienteer, Rob Simson, has found time to produce a novel which should have wide appeal to members of the orienteering community from teenagers to veterans. After a professional career in geographical and outdoor education, Rob Simson continues his passionate interest in landscape aesthetics, geomorphology and environmental ecology, and these passions have provided the themes for his engaging story, Banksia – a kangaroo’s tale. Rob started orienteering in Queensland in 1975 and is a foundation member of the Toohey Forest Orienteering Club in the southern suburbs of Brisbane. He has been committed to the sport ever since and still contributes in a substantial way as a mapper, competitor, event official and a coach of up-and-coming juniors. Rob believes his greatest achievement in Orienteering has been successfully lobbying to have the annual Australian Schools Orienteering Championships established as a national carnival under the joint banner of School Sport Australia and Orienteering Australia. As the national secretary for School Orienteering from 1989-1999 he was able to promote the importance of the event and has seen it grow in the quality and depth of the performances of participants and in its national overall prestige. In Rob’s novel, there is no surprise that the story is told with maps, drawn with OCAD software, as well as illustrations to supplement the text as the characters, both animal and human, explore the imaginary world of the Banksia Peninsula. The book should have wide appeal to all who love the Australian outdoors and can be purchased for $24.95 plus postage directly from Rob by email to robinsimson@powerup.com.au. It is also available through the Boolarong Press website.
