Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Robert Dessaix on Adelaide—‘Where nothing ever happens…’

Robert Dessaix in his novel Corfu has these reflections on Australia’s ‘city of churches’:

“And I don’t come from Adelaide, except technically…”

“It’s a completely unremarkable city, a city where, apart from the odd axe-murder, nothing ever happens, or nothing that matters. It’s just a flat strip of land between the gulf and the hills where retired clergymen and hairdressers, presided over by the Anglican gentry, eke out their days mulching their gardens and putting on Brigadoon in church halls…”

“He talked to William about going home to Adelaide and William says:
‘But why Adelaide? You always said how boring it was, how you’d rather live in New Zealand than Adelaide.’”

Robert Dessaix, Corfu (A Novel) London: Scribner, 2001, 88, 225.

Image: Adelaide.