Fly Away Peter - David Malouf

Question 1

“He had a…”

Answer 1

“…map of all this clearly in his head…” (P2)

Question 2

“He moved always on…”

Answer 2

“…these two levels, through these two worlds: he flat world of individual grassblades… and the long view in which all this part of the country was laid out…” (P2)

Question 3

“He felt his whole life change…”

Answer 3

“…and Jim was made.” (5)

Question 4

“What does it mean…”

Answer 4

“… Jim had wanted to ask, ‘the likes of us?’” (5)

Question 5

“There was in his father…”

Answer 5

“…a kind of savagery that Jim kept at arm’s length…” (6)

Question 6

“There was in Ashley…”

Answer 6

“…a quiet respect for things that Jim also respected.” (7)

Question 7

(Ashley) “He…”

Answer 7

“…approved of change.” (9)

Question 8

(Biplane) “He watched it out of the corner of his eye…”

Answer 8

“…and resented it’s bulk, the lack of purpose in its appearance and disappearance… and the noise it made, which was also a disturbance and new.” P2)

Question 9

(Jim, job) “He had been…”

Answer 9

“…waiting for so long for something like this to present itself.” (19)

Question 10

(Birds) “Completely…”

Answer 10

“…contained there in its small life.”

- individual among the many (21)

Question 11

(Imogen+Jim) “…they had, in all this landscape…”

Answer 11

“…and among all its creatures, been fixing their attention from different sides on the same spot and on the same small white-breasted body.” (22)
-individual among the many

Question 12

(Imogen) “She was…”

Answer 12

“…independent.” (26)

Question 13

“So they…”

Answer 13

“…became partners, all three.” (29)

Question 14

“He was awkward and rough looking…”

Answer 14

“…till they got on the boat. Then he was light, delicately balanced, and when it came to the birds, he could be poetic.” (33)

Question 15

“Europe, Jim…”

Answer 15

“…decided, must be a mad place.” (32)

Question 16

“At either end…”

Answer 16

“…of the boat they held a balance.” (35)

Question 17

“‘Why?’ He…”

Answer 17

“…asked in a last moment of innocence.” (37)

Question 18

“A new, and…”

Answer 18

“…more vivid light.”

Question 19

“He had been nursing…”

Answer 19

“…the beginning of a moustache.”

Question 20

“New views…”

Answer 20

“…of things didn’t interest him.” (51)

Question 21

“They had changed their…”

Answer 21

“…nature and become weapons.” (52)

Question 22

“It was all…”

Answer 22

“…familiar.” (54)

Question 23

“A new seriousness had…”

Answer 23

“…entered their lives.” (55)

Question 24

“He would spend his whole life…”

Answer 24

“…wondering what had happened, and looking into the eyes of others to find out.” (57)

Question 25

“Two parts…”

Answer 25

“…of his life.” (58)

Question 26

“Unlike anything…”

Answer 26

“…he had ever known or imagined.”

Question 27

“Dark side…”

Answer 27

“…of his head.” (59)

Question 28

“He came closer…”

Answer 28

“…to his father’s nature.” (64)

Question 29

“Jim would never have done it…”

Answer 29

“…alone; but with Clancy it seemed like an adventure.” (68)

Question 30

(Clancy) “Grow…”

Answer 30

“…up mate.” (73)

Question 31

Eric - “A…”

Answer 31

“Pale”, “sad youth”, “underage” (73)

Question 32

“The war seemed immediately…”

Answer 32

“…to have transformed them.” (80)

Question 33

(Rats) “Familiars of…”

Answer 33

“…death. Creatures of the underworld.” (80)

Question 34

“That was how the…”

Answer 34

“…war first touched him.” (87)

Question 35

(Eric) “I never learned…”

Answer 35

“…to ride a bike.” (87)

Question 36

Eric transformation -

Answer 36

“Child” -> “querulous old man”

Question 37

“Jim was a…”

Answer 37

“…veteran.” (99)

Question 38

“He had begun to feel…”

Answer 38

“…immeasurably old.” (104)

Question 39

“Jim saw that he had been…”

Answer 39

“…living, till he came here, in a state of dangerous innocence.” (107)

Question 40

“He had been…”

Answer 40

“…blind.” (107)

Question 41

“They were all…”

Answer 41

“…continuous.” (114)

Question 42

“The immense and murderous…”

Answer 42

“…machine… would require more and more blood to keep it running.” (106)

Question 43

(Ashley) “The war had remade…”

Answer 43

“…him, just as it had remade these others.” (117)

Question 44

Jim “taken on…”

Answer 44

“…the nature of a bird.” (122)

Question 45

“The map he had…”

Answer 45

“…carried had so immensely expanded.”

Question 46

“It might be what hands…”

Answer 46

“…were intended for, this steady digging on the earth, as wings were meant for flying over the curve of the planet to another season.” (136)

Question 47

(Imogen) “Maybe she would go…”

Answer 47

“…on from birds to waves.” (139)

Question 48

“Man is an…”

Answer 48

“…exception, whatever else he is. If it is not true that a divine creature fell, then we can only say that one of the animals went entirely off its head.” G. K Chesterton

Question 49

“Here is the bread…”

Answer 49

“…of time to come,/ here is an actual stone. The bread/ will be our bread, and the stone will be/ our bed and we shall sleep at night. We shall forget by day, except/ the moment when we choose to play/ the imagined pine, the imagined jay.” Wallace Stevens i