If you haven’t caught up with the David Malouf Symposium yet, then please take a look at the following article (click on the image) which will also take you to the Registration page:
This photo was taken last week on the day that David Malouf came and visited the Clemente Mission Australia students in Surry Hills. They are are studying David’s prize-winning novel Remembering Babylon which dares to argue that the people in our community that we ostracise may be able to teach us a great deal about what it means to be human. I hope you can make it to the Symposium (click on the image for all the details).
Michael Griffith: Home Page- Literature and Life Summer 2023 
It was only after the great man’s visit came to an end and he had left that the devil’s advocate in me came to the fore. Was Jock’s epiphany in reality what they call a ‘breakdown’ because as every well brought up scot would know that a guest should introduce his friends to his host which of course Gemmy did not. If Jock, in his black mood, was a stickler for convention his heightened perception in viewing the green tips etc might be symptomatic of some psychiatric condition brought on by his outrage at this disregard for good manners?
Good question Michael…. but within our emotionally straight-jacketed society any manifestation that is slightly out of the ordinary – especially experiencing heightened perceptions- is considered suspect. I remember in my own life as a young man I was questioned by the police when I went with a friend to watch the sun rise from Mrs Macquarie’s chair….. that has always left a bad taste for me. So the answer to your question is definitely yes: it can be regarded as a psychiatric condition, i.e. a condition when the soul, the psyche, experiences a new affluence of experience. I am sure we can have a long discussion about this Michael- but thanks for the question.
Michael
It was just that I began to worry that Jock might have flipped it when he recognized that he was different from other men What is that oft quoted quote about not being as other men?