David Malouf is one of Australia’s most popular novelists, and also one of its most elusive. Drawing on the whole range of his work, Indyk presents Malouf as both a primitive and a romantic–a writer who turns to the natural world for the expression of desires which are proscribed or not recognized in the social realm. Indyk’s study takes the form of a long essay or meditation, which explores the hidden logic of Malouf’s art–as fiction, poetry, essay, drama, libretto–revealing an underlying technique which works through emblem and analogy, releasing energies that might be inhibited by more direct forms of expression. This emblematic technique allows Malouf to probe the dark sides of desire, its relationship to violence, savagery, and even death, while on the other hand, it underwrites his moments of poetic illumination, as he strives toward a visionary apprehension of unity and belonging.