The only books he wrote prior to Inland that I have not read and wished I had were his first two so-called autobiographical novels, Tamarisk Row and A Lifetime on Clouds, but Murnane repeats himself in every bit of his fiction and refers back to things he may have said in a previous fiction quite often so it wouldn’t surprise me in the coming pages of Inland to read about Catholicism, women’s breasts, drinking beer, masturbating, the writing of fiction long and short, landscapes, plains, prairies, plant life, trees, bushes, ponds, and hillsides among other things presumed and duly noted. My best frame of reference was to have read as much as I could of Murnane before diving into this one. It is important to note that before one begins to read a long story such as this it is best to have a good background and understanding of the working mind of Gerald Murnane, if that is even possible. Also included early on in this complete long fiction is a “writer of books” who comes maybe to visit the narrator who just happens to be the chief character, as well as farm servants, foremen, and overseers who all populate the farming estate of the Hungarian Alföld who in the beginning at least is telling us this tale. Gunnarsen who is a scientist one of which no one has ever seen. His editor living in South Dakota perhaps, a woman, Anne Kristaly Gunnarsen, and her husband Gunnar T. There are several characters at play here. But it all makes sense and begins escalating into quite a lively conversation, even if it happens to be happening just between himself. So many in fact that the common reader of this book may get a bit irritated with it within the first thirty pages. Inland is narrated by a man who I suppose is not in complete control of all his faculties.

Read on, Gunnarsen, and learn what kind of man I am in fact. I have been writing only to confuse you, Gunnarsen. “I have been writing about myself dreaming.

Inland by Gerald Murnane