Let us take the bull by the horns:
[Gerald Murnane] is without question both the most original and most significant Australian author of the last fifty years, and the best writer Australia has produced since Christina Stead. (Stinson 104)
One cannot help but ask what Murnane himself might make of this claim On the one hand, he would surely find it flattering: who would not? To have one’s work hailed as even more significant than that of – to take but a few of the usual suspects – Alexis Wright, Patrick White, Helen Garner and David Malouf is no mean feat. And this is to exclude the poets from consideration, though Stinson’s terms (‘author’ and ‘writer’, in lieu of the narrower ‘novelist’) notably do not. What about another Wright – Judith? Or Oodgeroo Noonuccal? Les Murray? Lionel Fogarty? John Kinsella? To declare it is so with nary an instance of…