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This Water by Beverley Farmer

Beverley Farmer was born in Melbourne. She is o ne of Australia’s great prose stylists, and a pioneer of women’s writing, in her exploration of feminine concerns. While she is best known for her fiction, her other works include written essays, poetry, reviews and criticism. Her writing has appeared in several magazines, journals and newspapers, including Overland, Westerly, Meanjin, Island Magazine and The Bulletin. 1889191

This Water is the last work of fiction by Beverley Farmer before her death. It is a collection of five interwoven tales, three of them novellas. Each story has a woman at its centre: in each the women speak, act, think for themselves, in opposing or escaping from an oppressive authority.

One tale, set on the south coast of Victoria, is animated by the legend of the Great Silkie; another finds its rebellious princess in Lake Annaghmakerrig in Ireland; a third has Clytemnestra as its central figure, mourning the daughter sacrificed by her husband Agamemnon so that he could go to war with Troy – surely one of the great laments in Australian literature.

References to water and stone, ice and fire, light and darkness are woven throughout the collection, as are figures and images from myth and fairy tale. This makes the reader question what is real and what they believe in. This aspect is ever prevalent throughout Farmer’s work. 1889192