The setting is the north Australian frontier in the 19th century. Into a small, xenophobic community of Scottish immigrants stumbles a white boy, hardly even recognizable as human. The boy, one Gemmy Fairley, says “Do not shoot, I am a B-b-british object,” and thus begins the story. Gemmy is a castaway who was rescued by aborigines and has survived for several years in the wilderness until this contact. Having fallen overboard when he was very young, he cannot read or write and can now only recall a few English words. But he is a catalyst to all who meet him. For some, he is a threat, for others a treasury of botanical and zoological information, for others still a harmless and helpless visitor. For all, his presence is that of an alien other—one who sees them, communicates with them, thinks about them, and perhaps judges them.

Malouf’s writing is magical. The story unfolds as meaning dictates, not according to chronology, the same incident sometime receiving multiple treatments from different perspectives. Flashbacks and forays in other spatial or temporal directions help define the landscape of transformation at the settlement. The McIvors, at whose farm Gemmy first appeared, take him in but soon find themselves at odds with their neighbors when the community’s fear of the unknown landscape comes to be directed at Gemmy himself.

Throughout, the pages are filled with startling insights and memorable images making each paragraph a delight. I especially loved the passages describing how some characters became able to see, really see, the world they had lived in and struggled to subdue for so many sweat-blind years. It’s a novel of emerging consciousness told with grace and charm and compassion. I recommend it highly. ( )

I read this for a class on British Lit Post-WWII. It's one of those books that I know I wouldn't have picked up off a shelf on my own, but I enjoyed it. Malouf uses a lot of imagery to convey the emotions in both characters and the community as they cope in their own ways with Gemmy. A very interesting story about a white man who is lost overboard a ship as a child, and raised by the aborigines until he comes upon a settlement of whites. Definitely an intriguing look at race (he is known among the settlers as the "black-white man"), community, and identity. ( )

This is a novel filled with strong characterizations, an interesting narrative told in several voices, and written in poetic prose. Yet I was only lukewarm about it until the final chapter. It was there that Malouf braided his strands together and presented me with a coherent picture. Though it's subtle, he compares the natural, gentle world of the Aborigine--Jerusalem--with the Babylon of the European settlement with all its complications of human nature, including aggression, duplicity, and bigotry. It's not so much a fall from grace, though Gemmy does just that, as it is a fall into grace by members of the white community as they come to recognize how well and naturally the Aborigines fit into the environment. He sees the Aborigines as belonging to the land and being a part of it, much as Grenville did in The Secret River, and his novel, too, is concerned in part with the loss of Eden. The novel's about the opposition of the natural world with that of civilization. Much of the novel focuses on words and their power, and on naming. Words are the products of and stand for civilization. Their dissolving in the redeeming rain of the penultimate chapter is a return to grace. Though it wasn't as dense as I'd expected, it's a very well-written novel with something interesting to say about the interface between the primitive and modern societies. ( )

Remembering Babylon is the story of Gemmy - washed up on the Australian coast as a boy after a life of harshness that is hard to imagine, he is taken in by group of Aborigines. Sixteen years later, he makes himself known to the white community of northern Queensland, where he causes the community to examine not only it's attitude towards what is `civilised', but also causes them to look inwards upon themselves.

This is a story about frontiers - the physical frontier of the small community that Gemmy joins; the frontier of the new state of Queensland; and the frontier between civilised and primitive. There is some beautiful work in this book, especially in its examination of small community dynamics, and coming of age. But I feel that Malouf starts threads that he doesn't bother to finish - the ambiguous characters of Mrs. Hutchence and Leona are introduced with promises of an exotic past, yet we never get to know them. George the school teacher is developed, only to be left out of the second half of the story. While Malouf manages to pack a lot of punch into a short tale, I feel that perhaps just a little be of expansion would have made this an even better book. But I will admit that I got a kick out of reading a story set in my home state of Queensland - it is nice to see that there is some Australian historical fiction set somewhere other than the Southern States! ( )