Peter Goldsworthy is one of the big names of the Australian Literary Scene, however, it’s difficult for someone not subscribed to the major magazines to find any comment about his latest book – Three Dog Night. I just could not find any reviews at all through a search on google (as opposed to ‘The Bride Stripped Bare’). So it makes me wonder whether this is a book that has really hit the ground, or if it remains up in the more elite circles. I can’t say I know, not having any insider knowledge of the Australian literary scene – it’s just a hunch. But one thing is for sure, being the chair of the Australian Literature Council and a mate of Les Murray (among many other premium tickets to the scene), a book by Peter Goldsworthy is not something the elite in Australian literary circles are going to ignore.

The novel concerns itself with the story of a psychiatrist called Martin who returns to Adelaide after ten years working with his wife Lucy, with whom he is ‘obsessively’ in love. He introduces her to his old friend Felix, and that’s when things start to go wrong. Felix, a once brilliant man and surgeon has gone a bit off after working in aboriginal communities, and he drags both Martin and Lucy into a confrontation of soul and death. No doubt the critics will love this book, but I can just imagine the things for which they praise it – the lyricism of the text, the grand evocations provoked by the Australian scenery and the poetic ambiguity. These, unsurprisingly, are not aspects I found particularly admiring. I found the prose, at times, to be somewhat trite, the verbose descriptions of the Australian scenery I thought detracted from the substance of the novel – and poetic ambiguity shits me at the best of times. This said (though I will discuss these in more detail below), there is no doubting that this is a fine novel and worth the read.

Its central theme, as I understood it, is the struggle between the rational and irrational and the attempt by the former to make sense of the latter. The chief symbol of this struggle is the ultimate betrayal of Martin by his wife – the inexplicable manner in which she does it; but Goldsworthy employs a number of elements to reinforce it. There is the fact that Martin himself is Psychiatrist who has devoted his life to the account of the irrational; the way Goldsworthy explores the relationship between Martin and Lucy (also a Psychiatrist), through their exclusive approaches to the profession (Lucy is somewhat more moderate in her beliefs in contrast to Martin’s rigid, rationalistic, reductionist perspective); also the manner in which Felix ridicules the ‘Prof’, even while Martin is trying to diagnose Felix’s situation. The ways Goldsworthy brings this struggle to the fore are too numerous to mention, and I’ll leave it to the reader to delight in their multiplicity.

By far the best aspect of this novel is the way in which Goldsworthy relates Martin’s own internal struggle against irrationality. He renders it so accurately that it literally had my heart pounding. Having been in a situation of doubting a partner, I found myself floored to find myself so mirrored in these pages. The fears are cast as the irrational – the things which don’t meet the standards of rigorous evidence. The rational, by claiming the judgments of the irrational are not supported by the evidence required for knowledge tries to put the fears out of mind. Thus does Martin try to retain the belief in his wife. Somewhat artificially, however, the focus shifts from this to the poetic journey into the Australian interior which forms the last part of the book. Having agreed to travel with Felix on this journey, Lucy then invites Martin along, claiming that she needs him with her. How she thought having her husband around when she was fucking his best friend would be helpful is somewhat a mystery – but Goldsworthy was determined, no doubt, to get his tragic, romantic ending in the desert.

The rational is given short change in this novel. It pulls Martin from the truth and is the agent of his self-deception, it suffers ridicule and critique from Felix and Lucy and ultimately we see Martin renounce it himself, giving up on a lifetime of belief, in the hope that this will somehow gain him his Lucy back.

It’s a pessimistic conclusion to a very pessimistic book. As I see it – there was no way for Martin to win. On the one hand, the irrational is presented as a kind of ultimate guide to truth (the means by which he was to discern Lucy’s betrayal (think of the magical lizard on his shoulder)); on the other hand it is the thing for which Lucy seems to openly resent him (insofar as she accuses him of being an emotional child, and resents him for not presenting a non-selfish rational composure in the face of her betrayal), and is what drives Martin to his final, devastating crime.

It’s a romantic conclusion, and I have seen it’s like so many times that it has become too trite for me to appreciate it. I thought for a while, given the enormous subtlty in analysis, that Goldsworthy would aim for something beyond this – that for once an author would go beyond the dialectic which argues for and against the ultimate irreducibility of the human soul – but he doesn’t. And I fear, once I delve deeper into Australian contemporary literature, that there will be more of this to come.

I have never been inclined to wallow in the depths of romantic despair as the ending of this book does. As skillful as it is – I refuse (perhaps stubbornly) to accept it. Lucy, as I see, is not an inexplicable mystery, a victim of the world as the romantic would see it (this is certainly how she sees herself, and how Martin sees her as well); she’s someone that deserves to be discarded as far as I am concerned.

To make the comparison again (see my review of ‘The Bride Stripped Bare) with Madame Bovary – if this story is to be retold in its various forms in a modern context, then it must make some sort of a case (note I am not saying rational here) for the romantic rebellion. What real aspect of life does any rational account leave out? And does the narrative make this apparent? Or are the narrative choices ultimately so farfetched that we are happy to be left as disbelievers? In the end I make the judgment that this novel falls into the farfetched category – Flaubert’s does not.

The psychological analysis had me, and for a while I believed my mind was going to be laid waste by this novel. The further into the desert it goes, however, the more farfetched it becomes and the less I cared.

Mind you, I am sincere when I say he is good with his craft – and it is well worth the read for this reason. And if you’re a romantic (in that pessimistic sense of romanticism, not the pop culture feel good version) at heart, you’ll enjoy it.