An Imaginary Life: The Dimensions of Self

Abstract

I propose in this paper to exercise the critic's prerogative (duty?) of articulating an artist's intuitions about his own work into a more formal and public discussion of its themes, structure, style, implication. Malouf's stress on exile, language, the perceiving self as fundamental aspects of his novel will remain basic elements in my own argument, as I seek to move personal response into the domain of public debate; his sense of An Imaginary Life as a watershed in his own development I shall translate into the claim that the novel is nothing less than one of the classics of our literature.