Synopses & Reviews
Review
The Blue Plateau conveys a deep sense, rooted in the very syntax of a lush prose about an austere land, that there can be no meaningful division between nature and culture, between humans and all the other life that interdepends with us, not in the backcountry of southeastern Australia, nor anywhere else." Orion
Review
"Tredinnick's snapshots convey an intuitive, emotional heft. The author is also a crack natural historian who knows a brumby from a bullock, out there in the scribbly gum and hanging swamps. Tredinnick may not have been born in one of the valleys' huts, but you would never know it from his elemental intimacy." Kirkus
Review
"Tredinnick's book requires patience; readers may find themselves in a temporal thicket as several pasts mingle with an elusive present. Absorbed slowly, as a pastoral 'landscape of loss' and 'experiment in seeing and listening,' the book richly rewards that patience." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Tredinnick’s mission in this strikingly beautiful testimony to the power of place is to convey the texture and ambiance of the Blue Plateau, and his spangled sentences glide like creeks around mighty eucalyptus, humble homes, and rough terrain marked by his neighbors’ stories of hard work, deprivation, stoicism, miraculous survival, and tragic death. . . . In this exquisite meshing of landscape and language, Tredinnick gives voice to the spirit of a place where longing and change are writ large." Booklist
Synopsis
Located in the Blue Mountains southwest of Sydney, the Blue Plateau is a contrary collection of canyons and creeks, cow paddocks and eucalyptus forests, the first people and ranchers. This book reveals the plateau through its inhabitants: the Gundungurra people who were there first and still remain; the Maxwell family, who tried, but failed, to tame the land; the affable, impoverished, often drunken ranchers and firefighters; and the author himself, a poet trying to insinuate his citified self into a rugged landscape defined by drought, fire, and scarcity. Like the works of Peter Mathiessen, Barry Lopez, and William Least Heat-Moon, The Blue Plateau is a deep examination of place that transcends genre, incorporating poetry, peoples history, ecology, mythology, and memoir to reveal how humanity and nature intertwine to create a home. Elegiac and intimately composed, this vivid portrait of a rugged wilds expands readers sense of the place they call home.
Synopsis
At the farthest extent of Australia's Blue Mountains, on the threshold of the country's arid interior, the Blue Plateau reveals the vagaries of a hanging climate: the droughts last longer, the seasons change less, and the wildfires burn hotter and more often. In The Blue Plateau, Mark Tredinnick tries to learn what it means to fall in love with a home that is falling away.
A landscape memoir in the richest sense, Tredinnick's story reveals as much about this contrary collection of canyons and ancient rivers, cow paddocks and wild eucalyptus forests as it does about the myriad generations who struggled to remain in the valley they loved. It captures the essence of a wilderness beyond subjugation, the spirit of a people just barely beyond defeat. Charting a lithology of indigenous presence, faltering settlers, failing ranches, floods, tragedy, and joy that the place constantly warps and erodes, The Blue Plateau reminds us that, though we may change the landscape around us, it works at us inexorably, with wind and water, heat and cold, altering who and what we are.
The result is an intimate and illuminating portrayal of tenacity, love, grief, and belonging. In the tradition of James Galvin, William Least Heat-Moon, and Annie Dillard, Tredinnick plumbs the depths of people's relationship to a world in transition.
About the Author
In collaboration with authors such as Barry Lopez, Michael Pollan, and Richard Nelson, Mark Tredinnick has produced numerous anthologies, guest-edited literary journals, and presided at international conferences on writing and the environment. His honors include the Newcastle Poetry Prize, the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize, the Calibre Essay Prize, the Blake Poetry Prize, and the Wildcare Nature Writing Prize. His credits include two books on writing: The Little Red Writing Book -- published in the U.S. and U.K. as Writing Well (Cambridge, 2008) -- and The Little Green Grammar Book; and two books on environmental literature: The Land's Wild Music (Trinity, 2005), and A Place on Earth, (Counterpoint, 2005). He lives in Burradoo, Australia.