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.

THE 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. 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.

Banksia: A Kangaroo’s Tale

Review by Fiona Calabro

RIGHT from the start, this story of a grey kangaroo, and an imaginary peninsula off the Australian east coast, is deeply engaging. Sandy explores his world, as a young, developing animal, making sense of it by naming things, and one can’t help but be reminded of one’s own childhood explorations, particularly if lucky enough to have access to bushland. The reader shares in Sandy’s thrills, trials, and journeys, as he learns to relate to the world around him. As he develops relationships, we are reminded of our own, with other humans, and also animals. The author uses an intriguing combination of observation and imagination to create this vivid and challenging tale. In the course of the book, all of life’s milestones and major relationships are explored and discussed. While the book does become fantasy to some extent, as Sandy is unusually intelligent and communicative, the main relevance of this stratagem is to make us reconsider our assumptions about animal and human consciousness, to think again about the continuum between them, and about what an animal might perceive, feel, and think. It also provides a compelling storyline, as we are searching to know and understand Sandy better and ourselves at the same time. In the second part of the book, the narrator becomes Jason, a young student interested in geology, who develops a strong relationship with Sandy. Life on the peninsula is full of action and events, often with harsh consequences for the inhabitants. The characters are described with relish, and owe more than a little to the life and experience of the author. The inter-reaction between the peninsula and the “bipeds” who live close by, particularly after a meteor strike, allows for a fascinating depiction of man’s effect on nature, coping with change, and the damage that humans can cause by trying to control the earth for their own ends. Banksia has many different visitors, from those who want to goggle at the meteor strike, scientists who wish to study it, others to exploit the opportunities commercially, still others who wish to steal or tame the animals, to controlling bureaucrats who are also fearful, inflexible, and unwilling to make decisions. Far from being an inert and unresisting canvas, Banksia and its inhabitants often fight back against these intrusions!

Banksia – a kangaroo’s tale

by R P Simson

available from Boolarong Press

www.boolarongpress.com.au

or direct from the author for

$24.95 plus postage

Rob Simson 11 Pandanus Street Sunnybank Qld 4109

Ph. 07-33454527 robinsimson@powerup.com.au What makes the book unique and tremendously appealing is the fact that it is written by a geographer, and the observations and interpretations of the natural life of the peninsula are richly and intensively described and recorded. The story of the kangaroo and his friends, including, eventually, human ones, allows for a philosophy of life to be presented in miniature. The animals and plants are closely related with the earth itself, depending on the rocks and soils beneath for their very nature, and these relationships allow for a wonderful complexity of life forms, developed after aeons of history. Banksia, a geological paradise with tremendous variety, and indeed representative outcrops of most geological ages, allows for a stunning microcosm of varied habitat, and its description becomes a vivid and wonderful scientific tour. We are even given finely detailed maps and illustrations so that we can understand the peninsula fully. The book is clearly based on a lifetime of thought, observation and study. In a recent issue of the Guardian Weekly, (3/8/07) Madeleine Bunting described a new genre of writing which is putting centre stage the interconnectedness between human beings and the wilderness. People, often cut off from natural surroundings in large cities, crave to know “the bush” better. However, if our attention is drawn to it, a bustling, varied, natural world can be observed right under our noses. In books such as Mark Cocker’s Crow Country, the author writes a tremendously detailed description of the life of crows in England, going to great lengths to find and study rookeries. The reader will never look at crows quite the same way again. The appeal of such books is that we can enrich our lives and understand ourselves better by heeding and observing nature, and experiencing the thrill of getting to know it in more depth and detail. Sandy could be the next grey kangaroo you spot, and Banksia could be Moreton or Fraser Island. Richard Dawkins, in Unweaving the Rainbow, begs for poets and scientists to cross the divide which traditionally but unnecessarily exists between them. He wishes for poets to obtain inspiration from science, and scientists to be able to write in a manner which inspires people to love and respect scientific learning and discovery. Surely Rob Simson achieves the combination Dawkins is looking for.

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