Grassy Hill

Trojan Press, Ivanhoe, VIC. Softcover. Very Good Condition. This book begins and ends at Grassy Hill, in Cooktown, far north Queensland, Australia. At the start, a teacher is pressing her students to consider the nature of history, which they are inclined to see as something separate from themselves. Her immediate subject is James Cook, his ship Endeavour, and its crew, but the aboriginal people of the vast continent the Englishmen are ‘discovering’ slowly become visible in the narrative; and the narrative itself comes under question: to understand it, should we use the Anglo-Saxon notion of history, or the Italian concept of istoria? How different are these ideas of history and story, and how much the same? Where does one end and the other start? The book follows the lives of ten members of the original history class but as they encounter lovers, partners, children, in-laws, friends and social contacts it becomes clear that the ten people we are following are not so much case studies as representative of humanity at large. At the end, we watch as another of our boys – Old Boys – dies and his ashes are thrown to the winds on the same Grassy Hill from which Cook and his men considered the world – and their chances of getting home to England – back in 1770. The hill and the questions it poses remain. 517 pages. Inscription to previous owner on front endpaper. Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilogram. Category: Fiction; Australia; Fiction; Australian::Australian Fiction. Inventory No: 264681..