Corfu

Robert Dessaix seems to be one of those Australian authors whose work is greatly admired in certain literary circles and unheard of in others. I have a feeling his books may be a bit heavy for the average reader - since Dessaix's background is in classical and Russian literature, these influences invariably spill over into his fiction as well. This novel, as the title suggests, is set largely on the Greek island of Corfu. A young Australian actor, attracted by an advertisement for a house available for rent while the occupant is travelling, goes to live on the island for a couple of months, knowing no one and nothing about the owner of the house he finds himself living in. Gradually, the pieces of the narrative are assembled as the central character (we never learn his name) meets friends and neighbours of the house's absent owner and begins to discover something of the identity of the mysterious writer whose house he is borrowing. Several parallels between their lives begin to emerge - both are gay men with a strong interest in literature and the performing arts, and both have been disappointed in love. The story meanders its way back and forth between Corfu, London, Lesbos and Adelaide, revealing coincidences, relationships gone wrong, and mutual acquaintances. Dessaix covers several themes in this compelling novel: ideas of travel, journeying and, particularly, coming home; trying to conjour an extraordinary life out of ordinary circumstances and landscapes; and the timeless search for love and happiness. Then there are also the literary and scholarly references sprinkled liberally throughout the text: to Homer, Cicero, Sappho, Chekhov, to name a few. I confess that my knowledge of classical literature and Russian playwrights is flimsy at best, and while these references occasionally felt a bit overdone, for the most part I enjoyed them. Robert Dessaix seemlessly slips them into the narrative, and most of the characters are perfectly at home in discussing the works of these writers - this is not just name-dropping on Dessaix's part. I don't think it matters greatly if you don't know much about them either, although the less patient reader might find it tedious. I was happy to wait and see where he was headed in his exploration of the ideas, and for the most part I was rewarded. I especially liked the way the main character is struck by a realisation about the character he's portraying in one Chekhov play: "What I mean is this: 'Three Sisters' wasn't a play about dispossession, hope and despair, or lives petering out in failure and death - or not just about those things - it was about people bending the straight lines of their lives into triangles, trying (as we all do, it dawned on me) to make a space in which to play with their deeper desires. In other words, I don't sneak off at night with the doctor to gamble just to get away from my vapid, baby-talking wife, but to give my life a different shape, to stop it turning into a one-way ride i