Deep in The Reality Crisis: Individuation, 'Mytho-Realism' and Surrealistic Traces in Terry Dowling's Tom Rynosseros Cycle

“DEEP IN THE REALITY CRISIS”:
INDIVIDUATION, ‘MYTHO-REALISM’ AND SURREALISTIC TRACES
IN TERRY DOWLING’S TOM RYNOSSEROS CYCLE”
A thesis/creative work submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the award of the degree
BACHELOR OF CREATIVE ARTS (HONOURS)
From
UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG
By
Leigh Blackmore
SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & CREATIVE WRITING
2009
Deep in the Reality Crisis Page 1 of 102

ABSTRACT
This thesis recognises and illuminates under-examined key themes and
primordial images (archetypes in the Jungian sense) in the rich subtext of Terry
Dowling’s Rynosseros cycle (4 vols).
Terry Dowling’s four-volume Rynosseros cycle is a complex, multi-levelled
fantastic narrative of linked stories positioned in a realm identified as a far-future
Australia, centring on the quest of the protagonist, Tom Tyson, to regain his identity
after being imprisoned in the Madhouse (a place of punishment constructed by the
Ab’O, a race controlling this Australia through the use of ‘hi-tech’). Dowling employs
the varied persons and settings of Tyson’s quest to examine themes of a ‘Reality
Crisis’ integral to events in the worlds of both Tyson and the reader.
The key theoretical axes of my analysis will be the Jungian approach to
literature (archetypal criticism) and the Surrealist approach to creativity. Individuation
is a term arising from Jungian psychology. C.J. Jung’s and Joseph Campbell’s
theories regarding individual psychological development have been highly influential
since mid-twentieth century in providing a theoretical framework for understanding,
inter alia, subtextual elements of literature and story. Jung and Campbell utilised the
term ‘monomyth’ to encapsulate the ‘heroic journey,’ one of many recurrent,
underlying, universal motifs discernible throughout literature, and analogous to the
life-journey of the individual psyche.
In this thesis I take cues from Jung and post-Jungian critics and analysts such
as Campbell, James Hillman, David Tacey, Andrew Samuels and others to coin the
term ‘mytho-realism,’ arguing that Terry Dowling’s Tom Rynosseros cycle
consciously utilises transpersonal mythic motifs (such as monomyth variants) to
achieve specific didactic/realistic aims. To this end, I apply Jung’s and Campbell’s

theories in regard to ‘monomyth’ and the concepts of ‘persona, ‘archetype’,
‘individuation’. These are applied to specific stories from Dowling’s four-book cycle.
‘Surrealism’ 1 is a complex of artistic and psychological attitudes to creativity
and to modes of artistic perception characterised by such ideas as ‘the marvellous,’
‘the oneiric’, and the ‘disjunctive image’. Surrealism uses dreamlike imagery, poetic
language and the enigmatic in its artistic and literary manifestations. The theories of
Andre Breton, Georges Bataille and Michel Foucault, and the writings of J.G. Ballard,
assist in contextualising this examination of Dowling’s story-cycle.
Further, I will demonstrate how, via imbuing his lead character with complex
mythic overtones and grounding his narrative technique in ‘mytho-realism,’ Dowling
employs Jungian tropes, alongside ‘heterotopias’ and the Surrealist ‘marvellous’ in
the Rynosseros cycle to lead readers into a sense of ‘resacralisation,’ (that is, a
restoring of our relationship to the sacred). Through selective close readings, this
thesis contends that Dowling’s work, although connected to speculative fiction, is
firmly situated within traditions of Surrealist discourse and of Jungian literature.

DECLARATION
“I certify that this thesis/creative submission is entirely my own work except where I
have given full documented references to the work of others and that the material
contained in this thesis/creative submission has not been submitted for formal
assessment in any formal course”
[Signature]

“It is time to come back to the self-evident facts that we should never have
forgotten: literature has to do with human existence. It is a discourse oriented
toward – let us not be intimidated by the ponderous words – truth and
morality…Literature would be nothing at all if it did not allow us to reach a
better understanding of life.”
-- Tzvetan Todorov, Literature and Its Theorists (1988)
“Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras –dire stories of Celaeno and the
Harpies—may reproduce themselves in the brain of superstition—but they
were there before. They are transcripts, types – the archetypes are in us, and
eternal.”
--Charles Lamb, “Witches and Other Night Fears”
(quoted in H.P. Lovecraft, (1963 corrected 11th printing)
The Dunwich Horror and Others,
ed S.T. Joshi. Arkham House, Sauk City, WI).

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Part I: “Deep in the Reality Crisis: Individuation, “Mytho-realism” and
Surrealistic Traces in Terry Dowling’s Tom Rynosseros Cycle.”
List of Illustrations 9
Acknowledgements 10
Chapter 1. Introduction 11
The Academy’s Treatment of Speculative Fiction & Dowling as ‘Imagier’ 11
Themes of Race and Indigineity in the Rynosseros Cycle 13
Limitations 16
Literature Survey 17
Critical Gaps in Existing Scholarship 21
Chapter 2. Background to Jungian Theory & Archetypal Criticism 22
Individuation: Self and Shadow 22
Archetypes and The Heroic Journey 23
Jungian Myth in Popular Culture 25
The Monomyth and Archetypal Criticism 25
Chapter 3. Jungian Mytho-Realism in the Rynosseros Cycle 28
Jungian Archetypes in the Rynosseros Cycle 28
Departure in the Rynosseros Cycle 30
Initiation in the Rynosseros Cycle 31
Return in the Rynosseros Cycle 32
Chapter 4. Background to Surrealist Theory 34
Surrealism in Popular Culture 35
Bataille, Surrealism and the ‘Absence of Myth’ 37

Foucault, Surrealism and the Heterotopia as ‘Visual Non-Sequitur’ 38
Chapter 5. Surrealist Traces in the Tom Rynosseros Cycle 40
Influence of J.G. Ballard’s Surrealism on Dowling 40
Narrative Discontinuity in Surrealism and Dowling 43
Chapter 6. Deep in the Reality Crisis: Dowling’s Conception of the
“Reality Crisis” 45
Dowling’s Response to the ‘Reality Crisis’ as ‘Mytho-realism’ 46
Dowling’s Use of the Heterotopia and Inquietude 47
Case Studies 49
Introduction 49
Close Reading 1: The Departure Stage of the Monomyth: “The Final Voyage
of Captain Gelise” (Aurealis 9, 1992; Twilight Beach) and “The Leopard”
(Twilight Beach): . 49
Surrealist Imagery in “The Final Voyage of Captain Gelise” 49
Mytho-realism in “The Final Voyage of Captain Gelise” 51
Mytho-realism in “The Leopard”: 52
The Anima Topos in “The Leopard” 54
Scarbo as the Mythic Messenger in “The Leopard” 56
Close Reading 2: The Initiation Stage of the Monomyth: “Nights at Totem
Rule” (Twilight Beach): 58
Acts of Naming 58
Mythopoetic Landscape and Painterly Observation 59
Jouissance: Further Surrealist Traces 61
Mytho-realism: Maze, Mandala, Garden and the Oneiric 63
Anima and Persona Topoi in “Nights at Totem Rule” 66

Close Reading 3: The Return Stage of the Monomyth: “Sewing Whole Cloth”
(Rynemonn): 68
Conclusion: Resacralisation & Re-enchantment in the Rynosseros Cycle 70
Endnotes 72
Works Cited & Consulted for “Deep in the Reality Crisis” 80
Primary Bibliography (Terry Dowling) 80
Secondary Bibliography (Other Works Cited or Consulted). 83

List of Illustrations
1: Blue God by Margi Curtis (1995) 2
2: Terry Dowling 4
3: Tom Tyson by Nick Stathopoulos (2007) 4
4: Sleep by Salvador Dali (1937) 4
5: Metamorphosis of Narcissus by Salvador Dali (1937) 5
6: Rynosseros Cycle book covers 11
7. The Fool of the Tarot (from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck) 30
8. Cover of Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader (2009) 40
8: J.G. Ballard book covers featuring Surrealist paintings 41
9: Europe After the Rain II by Max Ernst (1940-42) 52
10: La Venus Endormie by Paul Delvaux (1944) 61
Permissions
“Blue God” by permission of the artist, Margi Curtis. Photograph of Terry Dowling
by Kerri Larkin, by permission of Terry Dowling. Tom Tyson and Rynosseros Cycle
book covers by permission of the artist, Nick Stathopoulos.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to acknowledge the overall assistance, support and patience of
Margi Curtis and Graham Wykes. Without them this thesis and my course of tertiary
study would not have been possible. In particular, Margi made some perceptive and
invaluable suggestions regarding my Creative Project.
For the critical thesis, I wish to acknowledge my supervisor, Dr Catherine
Fargher, whose clear thinking, practical advice and continual encouragement greatly
assisted in completing the project; Dr Joshua Lobb, and Dr Shady Cosgrove (Faculty
of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong), from both of whom I have learned
much; Terry Dowling, for all his writings, and for Solstices past; Dr Van Ikin (Dept of
English, University of Western Australia) for moral support; Dr Jonathan Marshall
(Research Fellow (ARC QEII), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University
of Technology, Sydney) for advice on Jungian theorists; the C. G. Jung Society of
Sydney and their librarian Lucy Davey, for access to their library; and Richard Scott
for his invaluable online concordance to the Rynosseros stories.
I would also like to acknowledge the general inspiration of the work of US
literary critic S.T. Joshi.

Leigh Blackmore
Catherine Fargher
CREA401
Chapter 1. Introduction:
The Academy’s Treatment of Speculative Fiction and Dowling as

‘Imagier’
That all fiction (even that purporting to be ‘realist’) is fantasy is self-evident.
Writers are paid liars; literature’s entire history, however based in Aristotle’s mimetic
theory, is founded deeply in pure imagination. Story is always constructed of elements
more or less mythic, but the novel of manners and the kitchen-sink realist novel are as
much constructed fables as the science fiction space opera or the supernatural
romance.
Any artificial distinction, then, between ‘realist’ and ‘speculative/fantastic’
fiction is erroneous. Science fiction2 (hereinafter abbreviated as SF) needs no
apologist; it is thematically rich, stylistically sophisticated, and capable of exploring
the entire human condition. It has its own profound critics, from Darko Suvin3 and
Tzvetan Todorov 4 to S.T. Joshi 5 to John Clute6, and its own long-running theoretical
journals such as Foundation (Science Fiction Foundation, University of Liverpool)
and Extrapolation (University of Texas, Brownsville).
Yet the ‘Academy’ (which I define, per common usage, as meaning academe,
or higher education in general) persistently deprecates most SF, except where
fantastic or extrapolative subject matter is deemed acceptable via grounding in
‘accepted’ literary modes such as ‘allegory’ or ‘magic realism.’ 7 Feminist fantasist

Ursula K. Le Guin long ago decried mainstream’ fiction’s tendency to ‘ghettoise’
fantasy and speculative literature, commenting: “Phillip K. Dick deserves to be placed
on the shelf next to Dickens.” (LeGuin, 1975), her point being that a given writer’s
quality should not be arbitrarily determined upon the basis of genre.
While the Academy acknowledges some writers who worked primarily in this
genre (for instance, Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells, Jorge Luis Borges) tertiary literary
courses generally disdain or devalue by omission many other writers of equal mastery
– Stanislaw Lem, Ursula Le Guin, Jack Vance, J.G. Ballard, Harlan Ellison, James
Tiptree Jr. and numerous others, whose work ranks with that of V. S. Naipaul, Iris
Murdoch, William Golding, Salman Rushdie, M. John Harrison, Margaret Atwood, J.
M. Coetzee, James Kelman and other great prose writers of our time.
SF is not alone as a marginalised subgenre. The Academy’s humanities
curriculae continue to be unconscionably Eurocentric and patriarchal, primarily
valorising dead white males – their works comprising ‘the Western Canon.’8 SF, like
any other legitimate literary genre, should be judged, not by its worst examples, but
by its best.
Terry Dowling (born in Sydney, 1947) is a writer whose work merits
in-depth critical study. Like the American writer Harlan Ellison, who resists the
labelling of his work as SF, preferring to call himself simply a writer, Dowling, whose
work is consistently marked by his interest in powerful life-affirming cultural images,
considers himself an “imagier” – a French term for ‘one who imagines’ – or simply as
a fantasist. (Murray, 1984: 30). Dowling has stated “The word ‘fantasist’… reminds
us of an important process in creation, puts the emphasis on the right faculty. So too
with ‘imagier’, a term traditionally associated with those Surrealist painters intent on
pursuing Surrealist illusionism.” (Eidolon editors, 1991: 2)

Dowling holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Western
Australia, an MA (Hons) in English Literature and a BA (Hons) in English Literature,
Archaeology and Ancient History, both from the University of Sydney. In the decade
in which he published his first stories (1982-1992), he won the Ditmar award eleven
times – more often than any other living Australian writer. 9
An apt summary of Dowling’s Rynosseros cycle is provided by Gary
Westfahl:
His Tom Rynosseros stories, collected in Rynosseros (1990), Blue Tyson

(1992), and Twilight Beach (1993), picture Australia in the distant future with
a vast inland sea, ruled by Aborigines who control both ritual magic and high
technology. The role of cities and suburbs is not minimised, but the stories still
dwell on the distances and deserts of Australia, traversed by landships pulled
by huge kites. (Westfahl, 2005: 66).
A fourth Tyson volume, Rynemonn, appeared in 2007, after the publication of
Westfahl’s reference volume.
Themes of Race & Indigineity in the Rynosseros Cycle
A full socio-political analysis of Dowling’s themes relating to indigineity,
which are integral to the Rynosseros cycle, may well be justified. While this theme is
peripheral to my interests here; it is nevertheless worth briefly outlining Dowling’s
approach to indigineity as some have seen it as problematic.
The problematic concern arises from Dowling’s coinage of the term ‘Ab’O’
for the Aborigines ruling his futuristic Australia. There is no consensus on whether
the word ‘Abo’ (distinct, in any case, from the title ‘Ab’O’) is derogatory. An Internet
word-search for ‘abo’ produces such definitions as: “a dark-skinned member of a race
10
of people living in Australia when Europeans arrived.” An online dictionary has
various definitions including: “Slang for Aboriginal, native to the Australian
continent” and “An extremely pejorative word for an indigenous Australian - an

11
aborigine.” In an online discussion of the question ‘Is Abo a derogatory term
towards Aboriginals?’, some opine the term is definitely derogatory; others conclude
some people use the term simply as a contraction or a term of endearment for
Aborigines.12According to a “list of Ethnic slurs” at Wikipedia, “the term ‘Abo’” was
simply an informal term for "Aborigine", and was in fact used by Aboriginal people
themselves until it started to be considered offensive in the 1950s.13
Mudrooroo cogently points out: “the words ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Aborigine’ are
used by the invaders to designate Australia’s indigenous people. “…Indigenous
people…prefer their own words.’’ (Mudrooroo, 1994: 1). The full word ‘Aboriginal’
is “but an ideological construction which is a part of the historical process of the
naming of the Other in Australia.” (Mudrooroo, 1996: 7).
It is important to emphasise that Dowling deliberately sets up racial tensions in
his story cycle within an ‘inverted’ scenario in order to negotiate constructions of
white/black power status in our current Australia, thus enabling a powerful statement
on black/white relations. Dowling’s spelling of the word as ‘Ab’O’ indicates it is
intended as a contraction rather than a derogatory term. In the cycle, Dowling
deliberately reverses the social roles of Aborigines and Whites. As Ikin notes, there is:
“a challenging reversal of present-day Australian conditions: in Rynosseros,

it is the inland, not the coastline, that is the nerve-centre of change and vitality,
and the Aboriginal heritage is linked with technology, not nature (for the
Ab’Os are genetically altered Aborigines whose primary allegiance is not to
the Land but to the haldanes, which are energy-vectors used to tap psychic
power. (Ikin, 1996: 266).
Ikin’s view makes it clear the Rynosseros cycle does not denigrate Aborigines;
on the contrary, Dowling (like all speculative writers) extrapolates from current
circumstances to possible future outcomes.

In Tom’s world, the Ab’O rule the country. No longer disempowered and
impoverished as they are currently, the Nationals (whites) must abide by protocols
and tribal rulings established by the Ab’O. This scenario also utilises both satire and
parody – postmodern strategies. 14 Far from being derogatory, Dowling’s conferring of
the name ‘Ab’O’ on his race of ruling blacks functions as an ironic emblem of
reversal, endowing them with a dignified honour which is constantly reinforced
throughout the Tyson sequence.
Dowling’s approach to indigineity has certain commonalities with Jung’s, as
outlined by Australian Jungian David Tacey:
“In his intriguing essay ‘Mind and Earth”, Jung writes:
Certain Australian Aborigines assert that one cannot conquer foreign soil,
because in it there dwell strange ancestor-spirits who reincarnate themselves in
the newborn. … The foreign land assimilates its conqueror…In Australia,
where land and Aboriginality are fused; this means…white Australians,
virtually in spite of themselves, are slowly aboriginalised in their
unconsciousness. (Tacey, 1998: 134-35).
Similarly, critic and academic Dr Van Ikin has written of Dowling’s Tyson
stories:
From the perspective of our times, this is an Australia in which a form of

reconciliation has been achieved between Indigenous and white Australians. It
is important to stress that terms like ‘reconciliation’ are never used within the
series… Nevertheless, any reader familiar with Australian society over the last
two decades (or more) could hardly fail to note the nature and significance of
the changes in Dowling’s future world. (Ikin, 2001: 12)
Dowling’s use of these varied inversions in the current ‘order of things’ (in
Foucault’s memorable phrase) – the ‘Tribation’, or political installation of Ab'O
power – is not simplistically black vs white; the real ‘enemy’ in the stories is
factionalism of the tribes and the ‘Haldane order’. Hence, any alleged ‘racism’ in
Dowling is diversionary.

Dowling’s usage of Clever Men and Aboriginal ritual magic in the Rynosseros
cycle demonstrates his deep knowledge of koori lore. Contextually, Dowling’s
treatment of indigineity in these stories is sensitive and insightful, his tales unafraid of
confronting troubling issues around racial protocols, encouraging the reader to remain
highly sensitive to cultural and racial difference.
Limitations
It is possible to identify other themes and subtexts in Dowling; I have not felt
obligated to cover them all.
One theme, for instance, which might be fruitfully analysed, is Artificial
Intelligence and biotechnologies. (Dowling, as a SF writer, takes such themes almost
for granted, seamlessly integrating them into his Tyson stories). Dowling’s work
might be studied as an exemplar of discourse around emergent technologies including
biotechnology and human enhancement. One could, for example, take Donna
15
Haraway’s classic text, “Manifesto for Cyborgs” as the basis for examining the
Rynosseros cycle in terms of postmodernist and posthumanist themes including the
bodily mortality and materiality, or examine the cycle in terms of Fukuyama’s
writings on our posthuman future. One might conceivably even argue for Dowling’s
overall fictional project as an extropian one. 16
Apart from my principal themes – Jungian and Surrealist traces in Dowling – I
can here only gesture towards ways in which other hands might further explore
17
Dowling’s Rynosseros cycle. Additionally, space limitations preclude covering the
entire the Rynosseros cycle (forty stories plus linking pieces). Despite being restricted
here to only three close readings, I will demonstrate by extension the prevalence of
Jungian/Mytho-realist and Surrealist themes throughout the cycle.

Literature Survey
Criticism of Dowling’s work occupies sources ranging from SF magazines to
scholarly papers. Dowling himself is an acute literary theoretician; interviews with
him provide important critical keys to his work.
Dowling has been seen primarily by other critics as a genre SF/fantasy writer.
In general, SF is the literature of things that might someday be possible, making it
primarily a literature of ideas; fantasy is the literature of things inherently implausible.
Dowling’s work straddles the boundary between these genres. He has usually been
read as exemplifying SF’s concern with ‘future history’, and world-building, though
critics including Ikin focus on his ‘utopian’ concerns. (Ikin, 2001). Dowling has also
often been viewed as humanist, baroque prose stylist, and practitioner of ‘literary
fantasy’. Dowling’s early critics stress his influences. Critic Peter Nicholls, for
example, likened Dowling’s work to: “two of the great SF masters, Cordwainer Smith
and Jack Vance.” (Nicholls, 1990: 35), though admitting elsewhere Dowling “later
developed an individual voice.” (Nicholls, 1993: 193). American critic Ed Bryant
adds “this is “no rip-off, though… Dowling takes the ball from Ballard and then
extends a magnificent field-run through symbol, parched imagery, and splendidly
baroque word-play.” (Bryant, 1992: 56).
Dowling has occasionally been read in relation to racial issues, his handling of
which concerns some critics. Writer Jose Borghino flatly asserts: “yet again
Aboriginality is being exoticised as the White race’s ‘Other. … they are constructed
as genetically aberrant. This is the subtlest form of racism.” (Quoted in Blackford et
al, 1999: 169, note 10). However, such a reading has been widely refuted, for
example, by Australian SF historians Russell Blackford, Dr Van Ikin & Sean

McMullen, who consider “it is more enlightened to view Dowling’s scenario as a
semi-utopian extrapolation of current Australian racial tensions…” (Blackford et al,
1999: 166). Ikin reinforces this elsewhere, writing that the Rynosseros cycle “breaks
down the monolithic unalterableness of the present by offering a cleverly plausible
alternative vision.” (Ikin, 1996: 266). Prof Brian Attebery (Prof of English, Idaho
State University) views the sequence as offering “sophisticated narrative techniques,
memorable images, and troubling themes” (Attebery, 2005: 59).
Critic and editor Bill Congreve exposes Dowling’s concern with Artificial
Intelligence (‘AI’) in the Rynosseros cycle; the implications of cloning; matters of
honour; and the nature of sentience – themes entailing Dowling have introduced “ a
very complex world – socially, physically and culturally. ”(Congreve, 1992: 56-57).
Congreve elsewhere highlights Dowling’s commitment to ‘mythic’ themes,
commenting on the “the weight of history and myth that Dowling draws on in his
writing.” (Congreve, 1994: 21). Australian academic and novelist Gillian Polack also
refers to the ‘mythic’ undercurrent of his typical futur[istic] stories (Polack, 3).
Some critics have read Dowling as primarily concerned with the nature of
consciousness (human and machine):
Thematically the work of Terry Dowling, in particular, extends the cyberspace

of neuromancers Pat Cadogan, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling to an
imaginative future Australia where the human/technology interface fuses
Koori psychic technology with communication satellites in a sparse landscape
populated by organicised artificial intelligences. In many ways what Dowling
achieves in his three novels answers Donna Haraway's call for the collapse of
binary categories between nature and humans, and for more ‘transgressive
boundaries’ where “people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals
and machines, not afraid of permanent partial identities and contradictory
standpoints. (McKie, 1993: 3)
(As noted under Limitations, a wider analysis of Dowling’s work in relation to

Haraway’s is conceivable).

For critic Sean McMullen, Dowling’s language use is central: “his sprawling,
Baroque worldscapes are largely driven by language… [Dowling] is the linguistic
jeweller of Australian speculative fiction, and his stories are glittering, intricate
mechanisms of words.” (McMullen, 1991: 85). Dowling’s revelling in language’s
richness and textures are uncommon in an increasingly subliterate era; his techniques
offering a considerable challenge even to the literate reader.
McMullen also calls Dowling’s work “engaging yet dauntingly erudite”
(McMullen, 1991: 86). His erudition is not always admired. Novelist & critic Paul
Collins called Dowling’s linked story collection An Intimate Knowledge of the Night
“…painfully contrived and self congratulatory…” and asserted of Dowling’s Tyson
stories: “many readers find these stories at best impenetrable and at worst obtuse.”
18
(Collins, 1998: 54-55). The pejorative use of ‘surrealistic’ in the MUP
Encyclopedia entry suggests an unfamiliarity with, or resistance to, literature utilising
non-linear narrative. Leading critics, including highly regarded Canadian/British critic
John Clute, believe these opinions “a knife in a belljar” (Clute, “Response to Russell
Blackford”, 1988: 13)
Nicholls was first, and almost alone, in reading Dowling along Surrealist lines,
referring to Dowling’s “idiosyncratic but vivid between-the-lines style” and his
“oblique surrealism” (Nicholls, 1993:351) though Colin Steele comments that the
Rynosseros cycle “has to be viewed, like J.G. Ballard’s Vermilion Sands, as a series of
elliptical images of an exotic and bizarre society, in which Tyson tries to rediscover
himself, rather than as a coherent narrative.” (Steele, 1993: 52).
Associate Prof. Norman Talbot (English Dept, the University of Newcastle
NSW; deceased) reads Dowling as a ‘magical realist’, referring to his “cool
suggestiveness – rare in contemporary fiction” and Dowling’s “witty and various

logics.” Talbot also detects Surrealist traces in the story “The Echoes” which he calls
“a surrealist romance.” (Talbot, 1995:8). Similarly, Dr Van Ikin observes Dowling’s
“fascinating layer[s] of metafictionality” (Ikin, 1995: 24).
Several critics expose themes of plurality in Dowling: “The multiple names by
which the character is known in the story (Tom Rynosseros, Tom Tyson, Tom
O’Bedlam, Blue Tyson)…carefully reflect the effect of kaleidoscopic fragmentation,
deconstructing the unity of Tom into multiple components.” (Blackford et al,
1999:185). Ikin, too, holds that his “central concern is with wonder and pluralities” –
“carefully-crafted scenes of spectacle, but…always underpinned by a tolerant
awareness of cultural difference. In a land that has often feared and mistrusted
otherness, Dowling’s stories treat the unusual as a source of wonder and potential new
knowledge, not a cause for fear.” (Ikin, 1996: 267).
Ikin and McMullen assess Dowling’s more recent career, asserting that
Dowling’s linked story collection Rynosseros (1990) “formed the first instalment of a
consistent vision of a future Australia in which European and Aboriginal cultures
peacefully co-exist”, praising Dowling’s “lyrical prose” and “the detailed mythology,
technology, geography and anthropological speculations” to be found in subsequent
volumes of the series (Ikin & McMullen, 2005: 345-6).

Critical gaps in the existing scholarship
There are obvious gaps in critical approaches to Dowling. Some critics hint at
his mythic levels, yet no critic has ventured a specifically Jungian reading. The
multilayered mythic subtext of his Tyson stories, and his explicit avowal of
inspiration from Jung’s writings, lends itself ideally to this reading. 19 Likewise, while
some critics touch on Surrealistic style in Dowling, none has yet explored the many
Surrealist ‘traces’ in his work. 20
In this thesis I explore ways in which Dowling enriches SF, addressing these
critical oversights through closely reading selected stories and utilising key theorists
including Jung, Breton, Campbell, Tacey, Bataille and Foucault.

Chapter 2: Background to Jungian Theory and Archetypal Criticism
Individuation: Self and Shadow
Jungian theory’s theoretical framework is applicable to many fields of
endeavour, including the illumination of literature. C.G. Jung’s analytical psychology
is an essentially narrative delineation of the human psyche’s contours. As critic John
Clute points out, this “has proved enormously suggestive for writers of fantasy.”
(Clute and Grant, 1999: 526).
Essentially, Jung’s theories concern a process which can be summed up as the
integration of ‘Self” and ‘Shadow’. Wilmer notes “Shadow is the name of the
archetype of the alter ego…it is both personal and nonpersonal, both I and not-I…we
first know the shadow as the personal unconscious, all we abhor, deny and repress.”
(Wilmer, 1987: 96)
Jungian theory conceives the individual’s psyche as undertaking a journey
upwards into wholeness, a concept integral to the process. As Golden writes, “the
symbol of the journey is one of the most prominent ways in which we are able to see
meaning in and to make sense of the various contexts our lives…’Journey’ thus
becomes a symbol, a metaphor for the process of encountering new experience,
exploring new worlds, whether that act leads to sheer enjoyment or to new
realizations or improved conditions for the individual.” (Golden, 1995: 4). For Saxby
and Winch, “Mythology and folklore abound in journeys that are quests, beset with
difficulties and disasters, and often complicated by many detours and deviations. Such
is the journey of life.” (Saxby and Winch, 1997: 180). O’Neill defines the related
concept of the ‘collective unconscious’ as follows: “The collective unconscious may

be regarded as the matrix from which the archetypes may emerge.” (O’Neill, 1979:
171).
The “Shadow” is the hidden or repressed self which must be recuperated in
order for the personality to become whole. In fantasy and SF, shadow figures are
found throughout the history of Gothic fantasy, nineteenth century supernatural
fiction (significantly in the works of authors such as E.T.A. Hoffman, Sheridan Le
Fanu and Robert Louis Stevenson, whose Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
(1886) is perhaps the most famous single tale constructed around the conflict between
public and repressed self).
As Clute puts it:
the conscious surface structure of the mind or ego coats (or depending on the
metaphor) orbits a central inner self, which is allied to the ‘collective
unconscious.’ In turn, the dark, profound, beckoning, populous ‘collective
unconscious’ registers on the self, through the agency of protean but persistent
images, whose shape is determined by a kind of imploring conversation
between the ego/self and the larger inner world.” (Clute and Grant, 1999:
526).
O’Neill clarifies individuation thus: “…the key to wholeness is the acceptance
of essentially “evil” impulses of the shadow. But the shadow is not necessarily evil,
merely less sophisticated; and in any case is part of the whole picture.” (O’Neill,
1979: 32). Likewise, Jung said “…the shadow belongs to the wholeness of the
personality: the strong man must somewhere be weak, somewhere the clever man
must be stupid… (Jung, CW 10: 261, quoted in Wilmer, 1987: 71).
Archetypes and The Heroic Journey
Archetypes are “…a hypothetical construct posited by Jung to explain the
manifestation of ‘archetypal images,’, i.e. all images that appear in dreams and

fantasies that bear a striking similarity to universal motifs found in religion, myths,
legends, etc.” (Young-Eisendrath, 1998: 315 )
Tom Tyson exemplifies a more specific archetype – the Hero. Heroes are, say
Clute and Grant, “the most common protagonists of fantasy, which draws much of its
mythopoeic strength from taproot texts in which the values of a heroic age are taken
more or less for granted, and which as an escapist genre derives much of its emotional
appeal from the sense of identification with a strong individual.” (Clute and Grant,
1999: 464). Tyson, as hero, also typifies the Self, of which Wilmer comments: “The
Self appears in dream, myths, and fairy tales as the king, the hero, the prophet, the
saviour…it is the total union of opposites. The Self is a united duality as Tao and
yang and yin.” (Wilmer, 1987: 81). We are told specifically in Rynemonn: “Tom is
both Everyman and No Man” (Dowling, 2007, Rynemonn, 136), a clue to Tyson’s
role as hero also representing the reader’s potential inner experience.
The American comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell, whose book The
Hero With a Thousand Faces (1949) is a Jungian approach to the heroic quest, states
this quest amplifies the initiation rituals found worldwide in varying cultures. He says
these rituals generally have three stages – departure, initiation and return. Campbell
summarises this process as: “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day
into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a
decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the
power to bestow boons on his fellow man.” (Campbell, 1949: 23) 21.

Jungian Myth in Popular Culture
Dowling’s work can be seen as participating in a Jungian discourse which has
filtered widely into public consciousness. O’Neill considers that “the impact of
Jungian theory is considerable – more in art and literature than in psychology – “
(O’Neill, 1979: 3). Some obvious manifestations of Jung’s ideas in the collective
psyche include books with a strongly Jungian outlook such as Robert Bly’s Iron John,
Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run with the Wolves, Robertson Davies’s novels
22
and Robert Holdstock’s acclaimed ‘Ryhope Woods’ sequence which are dense with
Jungian imagery and subtext; and movies such as George Lucas’ Star Wars series
(partly inspired by Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces). Many other fantasy
novels including Terry Dowling’s Rynosseros cycle focus on the “Hero”, and his
journey, which supply a variant of the Jungian/Campbellian ‘monomyth’.
The Monomyth and Archetypal Criticism
According to Golden, myth is “a story, a pattern, a paradigm, a provisional
construct to express or to deal with something too vast, too complex, or too opaque to
be treated by any other means…A myth is…of the nature of an intuition arising
spontaneously within the psyche as in a dream, a fantasy, or an act of the
imagination.” (Golden, 1995: 6-7).
The ‘monomyth’ is a term devised by Joseph Campbell (1904-1987) in his
The Hero With a Thousand Faces to designate the single “shape-shifting yet
marvellously constant story” at the heart of the “mythological hero narrative.”
(Campbell, 1949: 2). Campbell, borrowing from James Joyce, names the ‘story of
stories’ the ‘monomyth’ and shows us its two levels: the microcosmic level

(individual life represented by the hero), and the macrocosmic level (the entire
cosmos, the total context in which the individual lives).
As in other fantasies, where a hero or heroine adventures in a semi-imaginary
world rife with magic and the supernatural, the Rynosseros cycle constitutes ‘heroic
fantasy.’ Nominally SF, the tales feature a futuristic setting extrapolated from our
current Australia, and high technology such as sophisticated communications,
artificial intelligences and highly developed weapons; but simultaneously they are
fantasy, for the tropes employed are mythic. The reader is drawn into a richly detailed
narrative centred on Tom Tyson’s journey, its grander narrative concerning racial
interplay. Like the work of Tolkien and his ilk, the Tyson tales succeed as timeless
quest tales. There are hard travelling, strange portents, conflicts with strange foes,
revelations, and a sense of pure story.
Campbell has pointed out the ways in which, for instance, novelists such as
Thomas Mann and James Joyce can be read on a deep mythological level. He writes:
“I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life
experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our own
innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive…myths
are clues to the spiritual potentialities of human life.” (Campbell, 1988: 5).
Jungian literary theory has produced a school called “archetypal literary
criticism” which dates to the work of Bodkin (Bodkin, 1934), though its
anthropological roots may lie in J.G. Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1890), which
focusses on the omnipresence in cultural mythology of the death-rebirth myth, and in
Otto Rank’s The Myth of the Birth of the Hero (1909), both of which influenced
Jospeh Campbell. Distinguished Canadian critic Northrop Frye also utilised
archetypal criticism throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. I am here primarily interested

in work of Carl Jung and his successors, which concentrates on ‘primordial images’ or
‘archetypes’ in the unconscious mind. Dawson writes “Just as analytical psychology
was evolved in order to explore the possible significance of individual experience, so
Jungian literary criticism seeks to explore the possible psychological implications of a
literary text.” (Dawson, in Young-Eisendrath, 1998: 256) and that “to inquire into the
possible psychological implications of a literary text is to consider its ‘surface
structure’ (i.e. the story told) as a projected representation of a ‘deep
structure.”(Dawson, 1998: 256). This thesis will in effect enquire into the ‘deep
structure’ of Dowling’s narrative.
The universality of Jungian mythic archetypes in story holds great relevance
for Dowling’s approach to his fiction, as he states in interview: “The work of the
finest artists is universal in reference and relevance; it’s the universality of any art
form that matters – what it adds to the global song for the race.” (Eidolon editors,
1991: 1).

Chapter 3: Jungian Mytho-Realism in the Rynosseros Cycle
Jungian Archetypes in the Rynosseros Cycle
C.G. Jung’s psychological theories treat the individual psyche’s development
through a process termed “Individuation”, and through developmental sub-stages such
as ‘Persona’, ‘Shadow’, and “Anima’ which lead ultimately to an integrated,
‘individuated’ Self. A study such as Lorelei Cederstrom’s Jungian Archetypes in
Twentieth Century Womens’ Fiction amply demonstrates the usefulness of Jungian
theory in unpacking literature’s psychological and spiritual dimensions. (Cederstrom,
2002).
The symbolic structure of Dowling’s work is deeply rooted in concepts found
in Jungian theory. I assert that the Rynosseros cycle, like many fantasy-based stories,
is one in which the characters, settings and events denote the reader’s (as well as the
protagonist’s) inner concerns. While as Dawson has pointed out, “mythic patterns are
not static, but evolving structures” (Dawson, 1998: 261), literature’s governing
archetypal patterns are often strikingly similar – this is the basis of Campbell’s
assertion of the ‘monomyth.’
As already discussed, one key archetypal process is the heroic quest – found in
innumerable myths and fairy stories worldwide – and which also forms the underlying
structure of many fantasy stories (and indeed, of many stories per se). In archetypal
criticism, the heroic quest symbolically reflects crucial aspects of the psychological
inner journey known as individuation. Jung posits that the hero motif arises in
fantasies and dreams, usually whenever strong self identity and consciousness are
required. (Jung, 1990: 206-07) Individuation (from Latin: ‘principium
individuationis’) is “The process leading to a more conscious awareness of one’s

specific individuality, including a recognition of both one’s strengths and one’s
limitations. Jung describes this process as emerging in middle and later adulthood…
(continuing) as an awakening to one’s own divided nature (conscious and
unconscious) and the ultimate acceptance of that nature.” (Young-Eisendrath, 1998:
317).
The search for the Self is the psyche’s final goal according to Jung, and is the
Rynosserros cycle’s deep theme. According to O’Neill, “The process by which the
Self is realized in life is called individuation…To ensure Self-realization…the
unconscious complex must be accepted, not stifled and repressed. Note that the
objective is not the shadow’s destruction, but …its recognition, since the shadow is a
necessary part of the whole.” (O’Neill, 1979: 370.)
This concept may be encountered in writers from Nietzsche and Freud, to the
contemporary French philosopher Bernard Stiegler; however, I am here focussing on
Jung’s usage of ‘individuation’ as a process of psychological differentiation and
consolidation by which unconscious and conscious are melded, thus transforming and
making whole the individual’s psyche.
Tom Tyson, then, in the Rynosseros cycle, is the hero – able to encounter the
forces of the unconscious, its labyrinths, threats and enemies, without being overcome
and losing his individual identity. In the Rynosseros cycle, Tom has already lost his
memory as the cycle begins, his quest being largely to regain it. This is congruent
with his search for psychological individuation – Tyson’s adventures echo standard
patterns of the heroic journey as outlined by Joseph Campbell, and closely fit the
archetypal pattern of the mythic hero. As Tyson assembles clues about himself and his
past, he continually gains in emotional/psychological strength and aptitude, and his
encounters with various mentors and enemies assist him to travel through the stages

of individuation towards his ultimate goal he is able to incorporate his ‘Shadow’,
which in these tales depends on the confusion as to whether he is actually human or
may be a tribal ‘construct’ – an Artificial Intelligence created by the Ab’O. Tom’s
ultimate goal also involves a wider mission, to uphold the honour and psychic
wholeness represented by his personal journey for the whole Nation.
Departure in the Rynosseros Cycle.
The Departure stage in the typical mythic story structure represents an
undifferentiated state, in which the hero’s identity has not yet emerged from the
collectivity of society or the family. In the typical stage of this ritualistic/archetypal
mythic story structure, the person undergoing the initiation leaves or is taken from
their familiar surroundings.
The first stage, or stage of Departure, in the Tom Tyson stories, relates to his
departure from the Madhouse. He was imprisoned there by the Ab’O, who took his
memories for some transgression which remains obscure both to Tom and to the
reader. The Madhouse represents the undifferentiated consciousness, with all its
chaotic and unresolved contents.
Tom, both pre- and post-Madhouse, is the subject of a symbolical examination
of what it means to gain an authentic sense of self – this is the journey of
individuation.
In his journey’s early stage, Tom is an innocent, an example of the Parsifal-like
Fool.23. In the Tyson stories, the Departure stage has already partly occurred
previous to the cycle’s events, when Tom has been imprisoned in the
Madhouse, But the Departure stage continues when he is released from the
Madhouse to find his way in the world. In the typical myth structure, the inner

state of the beginning is interrupted, often by a messenger arriving. This
messenger may take the form of a stranger, an animal or incident which offers
the potential hero a hint of a different world. In “The Leopard,” discussed in
Case Studies below, we see how Tyson’s emergence from the Madhouse into
the sheltered world he shares with the woman Julia-Cori is disrupted by the
arrival of Scarbo, an old sailor who offers Tom tickets to the ship lotteries and
thus helps initiate Tom’s journey into the wider world.
Initiation in the Rynosseros Cycle
In the mythic story structure’s typical second stage, the person or character
undergoes an initiation ritual which significantly changes his world view. For Tom,
his initiation comes in the story “Colouring the Captains” (not studied here) in which
he receives the colour Blue and is initiated into a select brotherhood (sic) of sandship
captains permitted to cross the Australia’s interior.
Having crossed a threshold, the hero enters a challenging marvellous world
which represents the differing psychological contents which must be intuitively
grasped and understood in order to face a final, great challenge.
Commonly, in this realm of initiation, the hero confronts an enemy, rescues
some beloved person, or retrieves a special or magical object. Battling and slaying the
enemy symbolises the struggle with the Shadow, which must be encompassed by the
conscious mind so the individual (hero) may progress. Tyson undergoes such
initiatory adventures throughout the Rynosseros cycle.
The initiation stage of the Rynosseros cycle could be said to consist of most of
the stories included. For Tom Tyson, this process has many sub-stages. In almost
every story, Tom encounters other characters and forces which, through various trials,
add to his sum knowledge of his world, the forces which conspired to imprison him,

and of the psychic powers he carries which can potentially alter this situation for
himself and others
Throughout this stage, Tom typically has strenuous encounters with forces
readable as representing his unconscious contents – inner turmoils, fantasies and
projections – and which function as ongoing or sub-initiations. The close readings
provided here are merely examples of these encounters, which could be multiplied by
examining all forty stories of the cycle.
Return in the Rynosseros Cycle
In the third stage of the typical mythic story structure, the initiated person who
has been initiated returns home, but with a new role. This often follows the discovery
of a “treasure” which symbolises the “gold” of the true or inner self – the interior
treasure which has been taken from the unconscious and integrated successfully to
make the personality whole.
For Tom Tyson, his journey’s Return stage takes place in the cycle’s last
story, “Sewing Whole Cloth” (see Close Reading 5 below). This represents a
triumphant transformation for Tom – his new healed and transformed inner self – ,
grounded in all he has experienced. The new order in Tom symbolises the new order
in the land. His victory over himself has revitalised not only himself, but indirectly,
the world he inhabits; he has vanquished the forces which threatened his world, in this
case the future Australia where the balance of power between Ab’O and Nationals is
fraught with difficulties.
This cycle of departure, initiation and return sums up the inner process of
confronting the unconscious, and integrating or incorporating the previously unknown
or hidden psychological contents – the process of individuation and psychological

wholeness. The heroic quest narrative, of which the Rynosseros cycle is an example,
represents symbolically ways in which the unconscious deals with unconscious
contents.

Chapter 4: Background to Surrealist Theory
Surrealism is a literary, artistic, philosophical and aesthetic movement which
dates from the “Manifeste du Surrealisme” (1924; expanded 1929) by Andre Breton
(1896-1966) where a revolutionary art is promulgated which was intended to subsume
bourgeois rationalism and traditional realism. According to Benet, it “sought a reality
above or within the surface reality, usually through efforts to suspend the discipline of
conscious or logical reason, aesthetics, or morality in order to allow for the expression
of subconscious thought or feeling.” (Benet, 1985: 947-48).
The movement drew on the pre-WWI Dada movement, Freudian theory and
the work of artists such as Giorgio di Chirico (1888-1978). White notes: “Surrealism,
of all the avant-garde movements, had the most pronounced international reception of
all the European avant-gardes” and also comments on “the enormous impact of
surrealism in cultural realms of broad circulation, such as design and advertising.”
(White, 2007: 2, 3). Surrealism and modern critical theory have often occupied the
same critical space, as exemplified by French theorist Jacques Lacan’s early work
appearance alongside that of Surrealist painter Salvador Dali in the Surrealist journal
Minotaure. 24
Lacan associated with Surrealist artists including Andre Breton, Georges
Bataille, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso; his interest in Surrealism predated his
interest in psychoanalysis.
According to Gary Westfahl, Surrealism “celebrated dream imagery and the
putative ‘truth’ of the unconscious, achieving its characteristic effects through the
apparently irrational and unmotivated juxtaposition of realistic and fantastic images.”
(Clute and Grant, 1999: 910). Westfahl considers: “Its deliberate randomness – which
included ‘automatic’ writing or drawing and ‘found’ objects or poems – generally sets

Surrealism apart from more traditional modes of fantasy, although the term itself is
often appropriated to describe any number of works using incongruous image
patterns, or mixing fantasy with reality (as in ‘magic realism’.)” (Clute and Grant,
1999: 910).
Surrealism in Popular Culture
The movement has survived better in poetry, the theatre and cinema than in
literature; nevertheless a tradition of Surrealistic works can be traced to the present
day. The cross-fertilisation of SF and Surrealism occurs often. For instance, White
points out: “novelists such as H.G. Wells and Jules Verne portrayed the Pacific as a
surreal place of uncharted islands, subterranean worlds, ruined temples and
unheimlich creatures; cinema and literature depicted the Pacific [including Australia –
my insertion] as an unheimlich and surreal space.” (White: 6) 25.
In particular, several SF and fantasy authors have drawn on Surrealist imagery
as a technique of estrangement – for instance, J.G. Ballard, discussed in more detail
below. 26
Cultural theorist Fredric Jameson perceives a parallel between some aspects of
SF and Surrealism, remarking on John Campbell’s unique role as editor of SF’s

27
‘Golden Age’. SF magazine Astounding Stories offers “some distant analogies…
with the activity of the manifesto-producing leader of the vanguard cultural group –
Breton and the surrealists, for instance.” (Jameson, 2005: 315) Jameson “is tempted to
wonder what kind of Science Fiction might have emerged from the inaugural
surrealist phrase, “un homme coupe en deux par la fenetre.” (“There is a man cut in
27
two by the window”). (Jameson, 2005: 317). I contend Dowling participates in this
ongoing discourse by utilising Surrealist ‘traces’ – references and imagery – in his

Rynosseros cycle; that he has, in fact, created the type of SF that Jameson wonders
about. (The similarity of title between Jameson’s study and a collection of Dowling’s
best stories, Antique Futures, is worth noting.)
In SF there is a considerable symbolist and Surrealist tradition. J.G. Ballard’s
idea of ‘inner space,’ interest in psychology, and avowed influence from the Surrealist
painters has, since the 1960’s, brought Surrealist techniques and concerns into SF,
with a flow-on effect to writers such as M. John Harrison and Thomas M. Disch. 28
Surrealism’s theoretical framework is tied closely to what Franklin Rosemont
calls “its intimate and even inseparable relationship to the theory and practice of
proletarian emancipation.” (Rosemont, ‘Foreword,’ in Breton, 1978: xv). Dowling’s
revolutionary agenda is not precisely identical to that of the original Surrealist
movement.
Dowling is, however, deeply concerned with quality of life, and with the fact
that capitalism’s endurance makes this quality increasingly miserable. His proposal of
a “Reality Crisis” afflicting Western civilisation and his utilisation of Surrealist tropes
put him in philosophical agreement with Rosemont’s statement that Surrealism is “an
unrelenting revolt against a civilisation that reduces all human aspirations to market
values, religious impostures, universal boredom and misery” and that Surrealism
“aims to free the imagination from the mechanisms of psychic and social repression,
so that the inspiration and exaltation heretofore regarded as the exclusive domain of
poets and artists will be acknowledged as the common property of all.” (Rosemont, in
Breton, 1978: 1).

Bataille, Surrealism and the ‘Absence of Myth’
The respected theorist Georges Bataille had a relationship with Surrealism
whose ambivalence has sometimes caused him to be regarded as one of its enemies.
(Richardson, ‘Introduction,’ in Bataille, 1994: 1). Bataille thought Surrealism
admirable “as the embodiment of a principle of refusal and revolt” (Richardson, in
Bataille, 1994: 3). Patrick Waldberg called Bataille “the black surrealist of
catastrophe”, saying “he exalts in a mysticism of unhope, in which consciousness of
human absurdity is the source of an hilarious joy.” (Quoted by Richardson, in
Bataille, 1994: 6).
Bataille’s “The Absence of Myth,” an important text appearing in the 1947
Surrealist exhibition catalogue, defines one of his central preoccupations. Having in
the late 1930s developed an interest in myth through Acephale and the College of
Sociology, “both of which were based on investigations that would try to reinvigorate
myth in contemporary society,” Bataille realised: “although contemporary society was
not without myth, it had denied the very basis of ancient myth, founded on a
mediation between mankind and the natural world through which the cohesion (and
necessity) of society would be affirmed.” (Richardson, in Bataille, 1994: 13).
Furthermore, “Any modern conception of myth needed, on the contrary, to begin with
a concept of its absence.”
For Bataille, this absence of myth was merely one aspect of a more
generalised ‘absence’. It also meant the ‘absence of the sacred.’ (Richardson, in
Bataille, 1994: 13). Dowling’s concern with the “Reality Crisis” may be paralleled
with Bataille’s concern with the ‘absence of myth’ in modern society. Bataille’s
analysis touches on the Marxist notion of alienation; Dowling, like J.G. Ballard, has
preferred to couch his fictional analysis of the problem in psychological terms

(perhaps drawing on the work of personality theorist Silvan Solomon Tomkins) as
“loss of affect” or “desensitisation to reality” but his attitude is essentially akin to
Bataille’s29. Dowling has also been prescient with regard to the attitudes of
contemporary French philosopher Bernard Stiegler, who has written extensively on
the damage caused by consumerism and late capitalism to the potential for healthy
psychic and collective individuation30.
Commenting on his attitude, Dowling says:
In many ways I find myself instinctively continuing something very close to

what the Surrealists sought in the early decades of the century: an overhauling of
perception, a challenging of assumptions and conventions, an attempt to undermine
and then re-make the commonplace… It's needed more now than ever, given the
saturation of information…and a general desensitisation to reality. I see the best
fantastic literature as being enriching, challenging and subversive …using these
things to re-energise our lives, to send the message: pay attention, notice what is, to
reintroduce us to things as fundamental as cause and effect and what it means to
belong (Ikin & Paulsen, 1999: 25)
It would seem that Dowling is working within a well-established Surrealist
discourse. He has Ballard’s painterly eye, and draws on the emotional significance of
deserted landscapes. ‘Properties’ or described objects – the ‘belltrees’, the ‘corio
houses’, and so on – become Surrealistic trademarks of Dowling’s work.
Foucault, Surrealism, and the Heterotopia as ‘Visual Non Sequitur’
French theoretician Michel Foucault, extensively influenced by Surrealism ,
wrote penetratingly of Surrealist author Raymond Rousell, and composed highly
original essays on Georges Bataille (a Surrealist in the 1920s), whose collected works
he edited. Foucault was also intensely interested in the work of Surrealist painter Rene
Magritte, with whom he corresponded; this led him to produce his essay ‘Ceci n’est
pas une pipe’ (Foucault, 1983). Magritte also read Foucault’s work, in particular his
famous les Mots et les choses, known in English as The Order of Things.

Foucault has been called “the surrealist of truth” because his writings establish
“contradictory juxtapositions thereby making the ‘games of truth’ appear as they are –
fictionalised games influencing and directing our social practices while masquerading
as naturally independent entities that both precede and supercede our lived
experience.” (McKerrow, 1990: 2).
McKerrow links this notion with Surrealism: “As an art form, surrealism
possesses an uncommon power of rhetorical description in its displacement of
experienced reality… The creation of what might be called ‘visual non-sequiturs’, or
in Foucault’s language, ‘heterotopias’…[calls] into question the normality of human
experience, to ‘dissolve our myths’ (McKerrow, 1990: 1).
The disjunctive image was a key Surrealist icon. The Surrealists were
famously inspired by the Comte du Lauteamont’s praise for the image “as beautiful
as…the fortuitous encounter upon an operating table of a sewing machine and an
umbrella.” (Isidore Ducasse, ‘Comte du Lautreamont’, Les Chants de Maldoror;
quoted by Harkness in Foucault, 1983: 2).
In Les Mots et les choses, Foucault writes of the ‘visual non sequiturs’ which
were favoured by the Surrealists, dubbing them ‘heterotopias’: “Heterotopias are
disturbing, probably because they secretly undermine language, because they make it
impossible to name this and that, because they shatter or tangle common names…
(Foucault, 1970: 48).
This notion of the ‘heterotopia’ is closely allied to the notion of ‘inquietude’, a
French word meaning an uneasiness, a disquiet, something unsettling. The Surrealists
also wished to make reality oneiric, prizing dreams for their quality of ‘inquietude.’

Chapter 5: Surrealist Traces in the Rynosseros Cycle
Dowling has openly acknowledged the décor of Surrealist imagery as an
important influence on his own work. For instance, he acknowledges “the artwork of
the Surrealists (notably Dali, Delvaux, Magritte, Ernst, de Chirico)” (Dowling, 2009,
“The How and Why”). 31
Dowling’s continuing devotion to Surrealist imagery is shown by the selection
of renowned French Surrealist painter Paul Delvaux’s painting La Vénus Endormie
for his latest collection Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader (2009).
Influence of J.G. Ballard’s Surrealism on Dowling
While Surrealism formed a discrete historical movement whose heyday lay
between 1930s-1940s, certain practitioners continue the discourse. As Dowling notes:
My master's thesis, Beguiled into Crisis: J.G.Ballard and the Surrealist Novel,
focused on Surrealism as an ongoing and evolving form and on its connection
with today's literature of the fantastic, particularly those forms labelled science
fiction, fantasy, horror and what gets called magic realism, particularly in
connection with the work of Ballard. (Ikin & Paulsen, 1999: 26).
Dowling’s thesis suggested that J.G. Ballard was one of the few major writers
to have revitalised the novel in English, and that Ballard had made the English novel
“once again an effective and, more to the point, representative instrument for
examining the nature of reality...” (Dowling, 1979: 69).
Surrealist literary discourse is transmitted in Dowling’s work via his interest in
both the Surrealist painters and in previous litterateurs whose works utilise Surrealist
tropes as a primary motive force, amongst them Alain–Fournier’s Le grand meaulnes
(1913) and John Fowles’ The Magus (1966). Foremost, however, is J.G. Ballard

(1930-2009). Like Ballard, Dowling has a strongly visual approach to writing, often
using actual Surrealist paintings as models and tone-settings.
Several of Ballard’s works pay homage to Surrealist tenets. For instance, the
densely allusionistic The Atrocity Exhibition (1979) frequently cites Surrealist
artworks by Dali, Magritte, Ernst, and Duchamp. The Drought (1978) is written
‘within’ Yves Tanguy’s ‘Jours de Lenteur’; The Drowned World (1965) involves the
metaphysical spaces of de Chirico’s vertiginous town squares; the character
Strangman directs action according to his recovered Paul Delvaux painting. Luckhurst
points out that the test-crash mannequins peppering Atrocity, Crash and “The
Terminal Beach” (title story of the eponymous collection) “have a link to the set of
female mannequins for the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition”, tracing the
inspirational line back through Freud’s essay ‘The Uncanny’ to E.T.A. Hoffman’s
classic story “The Sand Man” (Luckhurst, 1998: 109). The stories in Ballard’s
Vermilion Sands, with their streets of psychotropic houses, strange cloud sculptures,
dial-a-poem computers and evocative desert landscapes, transmit an explicitly
Surrealist literary vision, prefiguring tropes made afresh in Dowling’s Rynosseros
cycle. Ballard’s explicit debt to Surrealism is seen in the use of Magritte’s painting La
Meditation as the cover of the 1992 Phoenix edition of Vermilion Sands, by a Max
Ernst painting on the cover of The Crystal World (Panther edition) and so on.
The name of Dowling’s locale ‘Twilight Beach’ is also echoic of Ballard’s
story “The Terminal Beach.” Yet Twilight Beach in Dowling, although a resort town,
is not filled with the perverse personalities which interested Ballard. Nor does it seem
that Dowling, like Ballard, believes “the only truly alien planet is earth.” While
Dowling has rarely set his tales off-world (his Bradburyesque uses of Mars are

perhaps the only exception), having found plenty of strangeness on Earth, Dowling’s
aesthetic seems to differ fundamentally from Ballard’s; rather than looking at
abnormal psychology, he seeks to awaken the reader to the marvellous nature of
reality.
Ballard, discussing the Surrealist impulse, states: “what uniquely
characterises this fusion of the outer world of reality and the inner space of the psyche
(which I have termed ‘inner space’) is its redemptive and therapeutic power. To move
through these landscapes is a journey of return to one’s innermost being” (Ballard,
“The Coming of the Unconscious”, 1960, quoted in 1996: 84). For Ballard,
Surrealism’s “emphasis on the irrational and perverse, on the significance of
apparently random associations…was a complete mythology of the psyche which
could be used for the exploration of the inner reality of our lives.” (Ballard, 1996: 85).
Likewise, I contend that Tom Tyson’s journey across future Australia in the
Rynosseros cycle is essentially a journey inward, one advocated by both Surrealists
and Jungians – an uncanny traversal into the human psyche via which Tyson engages
in the individuation process.
Dowling has been transparent about his borrowings and inspirations from the
Surrealists, pointing out that they too borrowed from other artists: “Take Ernst’s
collages, for instance, or Dali’s homages to Vermeer. Never consciously copy, but
don’t be afraid to be what your inspirational sources have collectively made you.”
(Eidolon editors, 1991:4).
Narrative Discontinuity in Surrealism and Dowling
Another typical Surrealistic trope, especially in literature, is a deliberate
narrative discontinuity. While narrative non-linearity also derives from Modernism,

Hubert comments of literary works by Breton and Ernst: “narrative continuity is
totally subverted for the sake of perilous forays from the banality and corruption of
everyday existence into the world of the marvellous.” (Hubert, 1988: 256). I assert
that Dowling’s Tyson stories display some narrative discontinuity. People, places, and
things are introduced or hinted at without being fully explained. Tom’s own journey,
and its sequence, are given achronologically; the reader must grasp at clues,
references and connections in the overarching narrative to piece together what
actually happens for Tyson.
While Dowling’s stylistic approach is not overly obscure or fragmented in its
actual prose (his plots generally have a beginning, a middle and an end) along the way
he treats us conceptions so unfamiliar to us as to strike us as ‘Surrealistic.’ Dowling
also promotes understanding of immanence in the world, leading him to present his
fictional future Australia as both marvellous and real.
Surrealism, then, flavours his work without ever transforming it into delirious
but indecipherable fantasy. Tyson’s world has rules, interior logic; but his journey is
simultaneously supplied with marvellous objects, wondrous places, and so on.
Simultaneously, and this is where I argue for Dowling as a “Mytho-realist”, the world
of Tom Tyson is grounded in vividly imagined settings replete with mythic
resonances.

Chapter 6: Deep in the Reality Crisis: Dowling’s Conception of the
‘Reality Crisis’.
Dowling’s master’s thesis introduces the concept of two ‘Reality Crises’. He
suggests Surrealism was a response to what he terms the ‘First Reality Crisis’ in
human affairs. Dowling has explained this concept as founded in the restoration of
ways for dealing with “non-rationalistic” means of approaching the human condition:
There was a major realisation at the end of the 19th century that European
civilisation was too rigorously rational…that humanity was isolated from its
inner dynamic forces. Some thinkers and observers found there was a crisis in
the basic perception of what human was, in the very processing of what we
were, and saw that our senses alone were not enough to provide a full idea of
self as we related to the universe. With Freud and psychoanalysis, the
Surrealists and the likes of Carl Jung, amidst all the social and political
ferment of the age, this changed. Proportion was restored in a dynamic and
most exciting backlash.” (Ikin & Paulsen, 1999: 24)
He then claims that a “Second Reality Crisis” (in many ways the opposite of
the first) was presently occurring, with writers like Ballard and Philip K. Dick tracing
its form and progress. In interviews, Dowling presents a trenchant analysis of the
“Second Reality Crisis” in which he sees Western civilisation currently enmeshed:
The second crisis is marked by the alienation of the individual from

phenomenal reality….We're deep in the second crisis - casualties of having
too many facts, too many manufactured, consumerised realities, of…truth
being the first casualty of self-interest, and that being seen as an appropriate
ethical stance…of living in an age (perhaps the first in history ever to do so)
where we finally accept that we cannot hope to predict the future, can only
allow that there will be exponential change, can only shuffle the paradigms to
keep us open-minded, bright-eyed and alert to possibility.…We need our
paradigm shufflers, our eloquent generalists, explainers and diligent
storytellers - our possibility-modelling fantasists - more than ever. (Ikin &
Paulsen, 1999: 24).
I assert that Dowling is one of these ‘possibility-modelling fantasists’ and that
the Rynosseros cycle performs the type of diligent storytelling that he believes is
needed to counter the effects of the Reality crisis he defines. The Rynosseros cycle

does indeed address what Dowling calls ‘the alienation of the individual from
phenomenal reality’. His attitudes in this series bear strong similarity with those
expressed by Jungian thinker David Tacey, who writes: “Ironically, our secular
‘humanism’ has made us less than human, because a large part of the mystery of
being human includes the needs and desires of that within which is other than human,
that inside us which is archetypal, nonrational, and religious” (Tacey, 1998: 2-3).
Dowling’s work supports not the rationalistic and ego-building values of Western
culture, but embraces the archetypal and elemental realm which Tacey considers so
vital.
Dowling’s Response to the ‘Reality Crisis’ as ‘Mytho-realism’.
I have coined the term ‘mytho-realism’ to describe Dowling’s fictional
approach in his Rynosseros cycle, founded in Jungian-derived mythic resonances.
While the Hero and the Journey are fundamental tropes of much fantasy literature,
Dowling consciously and strategically utilises them to an extent rarely seen
elsewhere.
The “realism” component of “mytho-realism” stresses Dowling’s didactic
purpose; he conscientiously endows his fictions with both Jungian and Surrealist
elements which deepen the narrative in order to perform the process of
‘resacralisation.’ This didactic emphasis distinguishes my term ‘Mytho-realism’ from
the term ‘magic realism’ whose exemplars do not necessarily carry such an emphasis.
Dowling has stated that “the Information Revolution and subsequent Reality Crisis
[are]…so integral to events in Tom's world.” (Eidolon editors, 1993, 2.)
Dowling is not necessarily pursuing in his work a purely political subversion.
But the fact that the Surrealists originally advocated Communism does not detract

from Dowling’s ability to utilise poetic Surrealist heterotopias (startling imagery) in
the service of spiritual and intellectual freedom. He seeks for his readers a re-
awakening to the possibilities inherent in life: a “resacralisation” 32. Tacey writes: “…
a mythopoetic revival is needed before our socio-political life can move forward. The
archaic dreaming soul, which is buried beneath the busyness of contemporary white
rationality…is what we must integrate, not by way of consuming Aboriginality itself,
but by way of cracking open our own consciousness to find the deeper, primal layers
buried there, waiting to be released into life.” (Tacey, 1998: 12).
In implementing this fictionally, Dowling aligns himself philosophically with
Tacey, who posits in relation to ‘resacralisation’: “What this imaginal vision means
for the Australian psyche is far-reaching indeed. It points to the possibility of finding
a middle way between Western mechanistic perception and Aboriginal metaphysical
perception.” (Tacey, 1998: 159) and that “It is only by remythologising our Western
psyche that we can begin to understand – and therefore to appreciate – the
mythologically-based Aboriginal psyche.” (Tacey, 1998: 175).
Dowling’s Use of the Heterotopia and Inquietude
Dowling consistently utilises moments of intense seeing, drawing on
Surrealist notions of the ‘heterotopic’ disjunctive image, inquietude, and the oneiric
(dream-like) to denote possibilities that “pry us loose from our complacency and
hopefully re-sensitise us to the commonplace.” (quoted in Ikin & Paulsen, 1999: 21).
Dowling uses the heterotopia both as a general underlying motif in the
Rynosseros cycle (for instance, the incongruous image of the sandship – a vessel
which sails not on water but on land) and as a specific strategy in particular stories

(see Close Readings below); a strategy closely linking his work to both Surrealism
and Foucault’s “surrealism of truth.”
To adduce another parallel with Foucault and Dowling’s work – Foucault, as
Frederic Jameson comments, “elaborated Sartre’s view of the marginalised other as
the locus of evil into an investigation of the policing operations inherent in the
opposition of good and evil, and the institutionalisation of the norm over the abnormal
and the exception.” (Jameson, 2005: 58). In the Rynosseros cycle, Tom Tyson’s crime
(for which he is imprisoned in the Madhouse) is never made explicit; it precedes the
narrative. But a crucial thematic of the whole story arc is the policing of tribal
protocols, implying that perhaps Tom was confined for being ‘abnormal’ and
‘exceptional’ – thus, the Ab’O are seeking to institutionalise the normal (in their
world) in Foucault’s sense.
As Harkness points out, “the mystical, Platonic identification of words with …
essences… is what many of Magritte’s canvases vigorously assault.” (Foucault, 1983:
7). This statement can also be applied to the project of the other Surrealist painters
and writers, and their heirs. Dowling’s Rynosseros stories can be (pace Ikin, 2001,
who classifies them as utopias) be classified as heterotopias in Foucault’s sense, since
they consistently utilise startling and disorienting effects in imagery, setting and
characterisation to vigorously assault the identification of words with the essences of
things.
Additionally, as in the paintings of Magritte and other Surrealists, Dowling’s
imaginal fictive spaces deploy images partly familiar, but whose recognisability is
immediately subverted, rendering them mutable via the use of ‘impossible’,
‘irrational’, or ‘senseless’ conjunctions (see Close Readings below).

CASE STUDIES
Introduction
In the following case studies I will examine three stories from the Rynosseros
cycle which have been chosen to illustrate successive stages in Joseph Campbell’s
Jungian ‘monomyth’ or heroic journey. In addition to demonstrating how these tales
illustrate the Departure, Initiation and Return stages of the monomyth, I will analyse
specific Mytho-realist and Surrealistic images, tropes and devices in each story,
illuminating the way in which these devices permeate Dowling’s work.
Close Reading 1
The Departure Stage of the Monomyth: “The Final Voyage of Captain
Gelise” and “The Leopard”:
These stories are found in Twilight Beach, the Rynosseros cycle’s third
volume. Their interconnected narrative reveals much about Tom Tyson’s early days
immediately after his release from the Madhouse. Since they are closely linked, I will
examine them together.
Surrealist Imagery in “The Final Voyage of Captain Gelise”
The brief tale “The Final Voyage of Captain Gelise” opens as an old ship
comes out of “that strange stony land once called Kakadu before it all changed and
the northern deserts ran on to the sea” (Dowling, 2003: 155). The vessel, Aljurr, was
once a ‘menage ship.’ crewed by ‘man-made teratons’ – animal-like creatures also
known as “Exotics” – including “androspars and pisars, more to the point a rhinoton”
– Dowling playing with suitably bizarre Surrealistic imagery.

But the captain, Talas Gelise, is human – an Ab’O – and is voyaging with
Tyson. Gelise has “a brow almost teratonic in the way it overshadowed the rest of his
face, as if he himself were a menage experiment gone wrong.” (Dowling, 2003: 156).
He has a forehead sensor mote whose function is partly obscure: “Tom had asked
about the small tech piece and received no answer. Possibly he took it for tribal, there
for penalty confirmation; perhaps he suspected otherwise.” (Dowling, 2003: 157).
The crewmen on Aljurr are armed tribesmen, guarding Gelise, who is
undergoing tribal ostracisation. Aljurr exemplifies the central incongruous and
disjunctive imagery of the series – as a ship which sails on the sand, it is a palpable
example of Surrealist imagery in this story.
Tom’s speculates Gelise “…has broken a blood contract to the menage sects,
has barely escaped being sung.” (Dowling, 2003: 158) Gelise tells Tom of a belltree
which knows Tom’s story; naturally Tom anxiously wishes to receive its knowledge.
Gelise and Tom disembark Gelise is going to be sent into the desert with a bodyboat;
to die.
In the story’s conclusion, narrated by the belltree itself, Tom asks for his story.
Although “there are things I am not allowed to say…Madhouse ruling. Haldanian
order. But more: there are inhibitors. Left from the early days.” (Dowling, 2003: 163),
the belltree promises “A first story. It will confirm memories which are true…Before
you got Blue and Rynosseros” (Dowling, 2003: 163).
It asks Tom what he saw in the desert. Tom says he left Gelise, by agreement,
to die his honourable death. But also that the vast open desert “ was covered with the
remains of bodyboats, other craft, all with their long-dead occupants – fifty, a
hundred, two hundred of them, scattered as far as the eye could see.” This is an
unexpected, pivotal, startlingly disorienting image – a ‘heterotopia’ – which rivals in

effect many Surrealist ‘visual non sequiturs’ (in Foucault’s phrase – see Chapter 4
above) Intended to disconcert the reader, it does so. Dowling’s purpose here is to
rouse the reader, making them aware of the possibilities for strangely vital new
conjunctions and visions.
Mytho-realism in “The Final Voyage of Captain Gelise”
Gelise tells of Charles Sturt, from ‘National” (white) history, his search for a
true inland sea, and how Sturt, who took a boat but found only desert, had come here
“following a quest into his psyche” (Dowling, 2003: 159), clearly signposting this
story too as rooted in Jungian tropes.
Gelise says he will sail this desert sea, Tom warns him he will die. Tom,
intending to return, sets homing tech so he again find the crucial belltree, whose name
he knows – Lone Star Stone. Tyson says he once wore its sensor, which symbolises
the ‘third eye’ (associated in Eastern traditions with inner visions and clairvoyance).
This is readable in Jungian terms as the ‘psychic insight into Self’ required to
continue the Individuating journey.
Gelise claims his forehead sensor is ménage; Tom disbelieves him. Gelise then
confesses that the belltree opened itself and he took its sensor from within, an act
which probably played a part in Gelise’s ostracism. The belltree is a Pyrran Eidect,
“allowed to have familiars.” (Dowling, 2003: 161). Gelise believes in the “mythical”
inland sea.
At the story’s climax Tom asks Gelise to give him the sensor to trade back to
the belltree for part of his own story. Gelise gives it to him. As they crest the dune, the
sensor shatters in Tom’s hand. We then get the Surrealistic, heterotopic image of
sand-strewn bodyboats (discussed above) before Tom is told his story by the belltree.

Mytho-realism in “The Leopard”:
The ‘Leopard” is the tale the belltree promised at the end of “The Final
Voyage of Captain Gelise”. Relating Tom’s first days out of the Madhouse, it is
divided into three voices – a woman’s, Tom’s, and a belltree’s. The woman Julia-Cori
is commercially cultivates ‘specia’, quasi-sentient stands of “land-coral” which Tom
calls a “garden of living stone” (Dowling, 2003: 176) on a beach below an old
observatory. The “veils and fossil corridors” of the specia brakes echo the weirdly-
textured rocks in Surrealist paintings such as Max Ernst’s Europe After the Rain II.
Tom has come (as others before him) from the Madhouse at Cape Bedlam,
further up the coast: “another observatory, in a way, for looking inwards.” (Dowling,
2003: 168). Julia-Cori has a star-shaped birthmark on her left cheek. The Star has
manifold symbolism according to Jungian theory: “As sun and moon stand in the
psyche for conscious and unconscious, the crystal star is evocative of the primordial
image of the Self, binder and transcender. “ (O’Neill, 1979: 78).
Tom, confused, helpless, doesn’t remember even his name. Julia-Cori offers
Tom, (repeatedly referred to throughout this story as “the madman,”) shelter.
(Dowling, 2003: 170, 172, 173). Wanting to call him “Mad John,” she also senses a
secret name for him, “The Leopard.” Tom, released only that morning, believes he
abode in the Madhouse for fifty years – obviously impossible, for he only looks about
thirty.
Emotionally wounded, her birthmark stigmatic, Julia-Cori trusts him to touch
it. He asks about a ship; she says there is Ishmael 33. Next day, she takes him to the
tribal “heresy ship, no longer consecrated.” (Dowling, 2003: 172). Tom’s sensor
mote is referred to: “the madman followed her, sunlight glinting on the mote set on
his forehead like a third eye.”

Tech onboard ship still operates; Julia-Cori shows how the fighting ship can
make ghosts of itself – enantiomorphs. Dowling utilises here the Jungian term
meaning ‘running contrariwise’ -- “this business of everything turning into its
opposite.” (Wilmer, 1987: 112). He also repeats here the startling, heterotopic image
of abandoned vessels on the flat desert sand which we saw in “Captain Gelise” as the
multiple ghost-ships appear.
Julia-Cori refers to Tom as “a triptych of demented magi – Mad John, Tom
O’Bedlam, Jack of Fools.” Tom is fascinated by her star – one of his three crucial
images: “A face, a ship, a – “He reached up, still meeting her gaze, brushed fingers
against her cheek. “A star. All I have. That and talking darkness…tech. Dream
machines.” (Dowling, 2003: 174). She realises it is her star, not herself, that he wants.
She tells him she knows a belltree, wants Tom to promise he’ll return if he leaves her.
Here her story ends.
Part two repeats the events through Tom’s eyes, telling us more of the
Madhouse: “The dream…was the only thing he’d ever known, ever been…all he had,
that is, apart from the memory of a whispering darkness like a creation dark, intimate
and all-knowing, and the three parts of this permanent deja-vu: a ship, a star, a
woman’s face, dark and set with a triangle of golden lace at the forehead.: (2003,
176).
Dowling shows Tom as innocent here, experiencing the world anew: “He felt
the first wind he ever remembered, the first sunshine, had the smell of sun on stone,
the smell and sound of sea like an infinite, exquisite conundrum, what it was like to
put one foot after another….” (Dowling, 2003, 176). Significantly, “it wasn’t just the
learning; there was the recognition, discovering that he already knew these things he
did not remember seeing before.” 34

His first sight of Julia-Cori shows Tom her forehead mote, just like his, and a
star (which he sees as “made in blood”) on her left cheek. Significantly, she has no
golden lace triangle, and is not Ab’O – therefore doesn’t completely fit his image of
the woman he seeks – but he is nevertheless entranced. Tom refers to someone called
Tartalen who is his father “but wasn’t.” (Dowling, 2003: 177). He remembers
Tartalen conducting him to the Madhouse door, searches “for his true name on
Tartalen’s lips, or there in the fields of inner darkness he dreaded…” (Dowling, 2003,
178).
The symbolic nature of red as representing the life-force (the energy that
sustains and permeates the universe) is a fundamental topos in Dowling’s Mytho-
realistic oeuvre. Some faint memories remain: “he remembered red, pulsing deep holy
red. Dialect of the dream machines, the fabric of his world, the colour when you lifted
up the darkness. Perfect blood star for that blood-red darkness. From it. Made from
it.” (Dowling, 2003: 178)
Though Julia-Cori is ‘his’ face, she “would in time bring him the last” – that
is, the ship.” (Dowling, 2003: 178) Tom lays claim to her ship, Ishmael. Visiting it
awakens more memories; three ghost-ships, and three anthropomorphic ghost-pairs
replicating the couples’ bodies. But there is something more: “something from out of
his haunted night, on the furthest ship, a figure standing in the bow, a dark-skinned
woman in a desert robe, her forehead glinting with a golden shape, what could only be
an inverted triangle.” (Dowling, 2003: 179) – leading us into Dowling’s utilisation of
the anima topos in this tale.

The Anima Topos in “The Leopard”
As the tale continues, Tom asks Julia-Cori what lies beyond the ship; she
replies it is a vast land, going on forever. She takes him to her belltree, which is
fourteen-feet tall, its sensor array “like a crown of thorns.”: “It was wonderfully,
dramatically alien among the screens of living stone, the hidden walks and glades, but
so was he.” (Dowling, 2003: 181). The belltree, Lone Star Stone, addresses him as
Ishmael, telling Tom it lived Tom’s first day with him.
Julia Cori is another instance of the anima topos in the Rynosseros cycle.
Carrying Tom’s inner feminine, like Aia Katehos in “Nights at Totem Rule” (see
below), she represents a guide for Tyson to his psyche’s other side. Tyson’s
relationship with Julia-Cori is about liberating the feminine ‘treasure’, his own anima,
which is incarcerated and unrelated to the rest of his psyche.
The story switches to the belltree’s voice. Stone tells us it is over a hundred
years old, a Pyrran Eidect, a rare strain of Artificial Intelligence. The Madhouse,
Stone tells us, bears the sign of the red wheel – readable in Jungian/mytho-realistic
terms as representing the energies of the psychic body’s base chakra, and thus
symbolically relating to Tyson’s survival, stability and his place in his world.
Stone longs to be re-linked to the ‘com net’ of other desert belltrees. It tells
Tom of Twilight Beach, makes him see Julia-Cori as just a woman, and tells him his
destiny: “Nation and the Colours and the miracle of the Six Captains.” (Dowling,
2003: 183) 35.
Mythic story’s importance in our lives is stressed by Dowling through the way
Tom must visit Stone at least twelve times to obtain his memories. The belltree says:
“I wanted to see him quicken, to watch his wonderful eyes widen and narrow and

flash with the exhilaration of enlightenment. The enlightenment of others is ineffably
dear to me.” This sentiment Dowling himself expresses through Stone’s voice: “Yes, I
love words. Telling this. Being me.” (Dowling, 2003: 185).
Stone tells Tom he was in the Madhouse only three years. It will send for
someone Tom knew from the past. Tom accepts having been the younger Tom,
“though he found no trustworthy memory of those years or of why the Madhouse had
taken him – those things were gone.” (Dowling, 2003: 184). Stone makes the couple
effortless lovers, “no longer madman saviour, no longer star-woman” (Dowling,
2003: 184-85). The belltree instructs Julia-Cori to call Tom by his secret name
(“Leopard”). Julia-Cori wants to know if Tom really loves her; he says he does. Stone
reveals he will receive a visitor – the old kitemaster, Scarbo. Julia-Cori and Tom must
now part.
Scarbo as the Mythic Messenger in “The Leopard”
Tom doesn’t recognise Scarbo, who has brought Tom tickets for the ship-
lotteries at Cyrimiri. Scarbo reveals that he, Scarbo, captained Ishmael thirty years
before.
Scarbo here represents the mythic story structure’s typical mythic messenger
of the first (Departure) stage, offering the hero a call to adventure 36. Scarbo has
appeared to lure Tom away from his initial state, revealing aspects of himself with
which he must deal in order to achieve growth and individuation. This mentor, or
guide, is often found in the mythic story’s Departure stage – the wise old man who
offers advice or provides the hero the requisite magical items for his journey – in this
case, tickets to the ship-lotteries which subsequently result in Tom’s gaining his
‘Colour’ (Blue) and captaining the sandship Rynosseros 37 .

Scarbo here fulfils a similar role here to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke’s mentor in
the Star Wars film series. He symbolises the developing self, assuring the hero that
the realms he will shortly enter can be comprehended and survived.
Tom queries him about the beautiful Ab’O woman’s ghost-image – Scarbo
think’s it simple ‘projection’ from Tom’s Madhouse memories – Dowling refers here
to the a Jungian term for “The situation in which one unconsciously invests another
person (or object) with notions or characteristics of one’s own:” (Young-Eisendrath,
1998: 318). Tom realises Julia-Cori was “designed” for her job; she is a construct, an
Artificial Intelligence. Tom removes his sensor mote and asks Stone if is also
‘designed.” Stone tells him no.
The story’s coda is entitled ‘Theirs’; it is a translation probably emanating
from the tribes. The coda stresses Tom is not undergoing a rehabilitation but a
habilitation – as though he has been born for the first time. Dowling here underlines
the fact that Tyson as hero is being propelled through the monomythic journey’s first
stage.

Close Reading 2
The Initiation Stage of the Monomyth: “Nights at Totem Rule”
The complex story “Nights at Totem Rule” from the third Tyson collection,
Twilight Beach, deals with the central Madhouse-remembered image Tom confronts –
the Woman’s Face – It is an image of an Ab'O woman with a golden lace Arete
triangle on her forehead38. Tom continues his quest: “I, who already had images to
place, dreams from the Madhouse, was no stranger to the strange hotel in the desert
waste beyond Ephemeris.” (Dowling, 2003: 113).
Acts of Naming
The importance of naming in the Rynosseros cycle reflects the Surrealists’
fascination with wordplay. Here, as in many Tyson stories, specific desert winds and
times of day are imaginatively and evocatively named: “Most visitors are careful to
arrive well before noon, giving themselves time to prepare for the merciless
violonnicas and revelades of that first night…” (Dowling, 2003: 114). These names
are poetic and evocative: “violonnica” suggests the viol or violin and harmonica, thus
a singing or musical wind, with “revelade” perhaps allusive to the French sources of
Surrealism and suggestive of “revelation,” foreshadowing revelations to come. Other
names coined by Dowling for various winds include the “brinraga” of the cool
afternoon (Dowling, 2003: 116); the ‘boomori’ and the ‘larrikin’: “the wind that blew
was the boomori, but a dreadful, unrelenting wind here away from the coasts, more
akin to the larrikin.” (Dowling, 2003, 121); and there is the evening wind, the
“hiasis.” Dowling has stated he sometimes dreams these words: “the imagination
loves it, a pure trigger.” (Eidolon editors, 1991: 3)

This wordplay recalls the Surrealists’ use of the game they termed “Exquisite
Corpse” (cadavre exquis) in which papers were passed around and combinations of
words or images collectively assembled (Breton, 1948; and Brotchie and Gooding,
1991: 143–144) 39.
Further wordplay results from Seitz’s explaining Sansvraimer as one of four
inland retreats of the DePolignacs, a National family who won Tribal (Ab’O)
concessions at Totem Rule. The Totem Rule hotel where he is staying has worn letters
over its front entrance – “TO-E- RULE”. The DePolignacs, says Seitz, were “fierce
Nationals” who placed the same “defiant words” over their doorways – “but with a K
and an N for the blank letters, not the T and the M. You understand?” (Dowling,
2003: 115). In other words, the DePolignacs called their retreats “Token Rule” – a
defiant gesture towards the ruling Ab’O tribes, despite having won concessions from
them.
Mythopoetic Landscape and Painterly Observation
Dowling’s painterly observation of landscape in Rynosseros and its sequelae is
traceable to Surrealist influence. As but one example, Tyson tells us:
And six hours later, only six, I was up at dawn… watching the play of antique
light in the east – first the disturbed velvet green you find in old mirrors, as if a
storm were forming out there, then, by my second caffe latte, there was a
sudden opalescent shift – the storm abandoned – and the whole eastern sky
became gleaming pearl behind which the harsh colours of day waited as barest
possibility.” (Dowling, 2003: 114).
Such close observation of the visual richness of the terrain strengthens
Dowling’s Jungian-based project of rousing the reader to a new, heightened sense of
awareness of the world – what I here term ‘Mytho-realism.’
Per David Tacey’s observation, Dowling’s work makes clear that “In
Australia, landscape carries our experience of the sacred other.” (Tacey, 1998: 6).

Given Tacey’s approach to the uniquely Australian milieu – its landscape, and
indigineity – his writings are highly relevant, illuminating core attitudes expressed by
Dowling’s fiction. Tacey states: “Australians, by virtue of their historical and
geographical conditions, are close to primordial reality almost by default.” (Tacey,
1998: 5) and that “The landscape in Australia is a mysteriously charged and
magnificently alive archetypal presence.” (Tacey, 1998: 6).
Dowling’s focus in the Rynosseros cycle on the great deserts and sandships,
Australia’s vast interior spaces, and their interaction with both tribes and Nationals,
makes much the same point. Dowling realises, as Tacey states, “…the Australian
landscape is in fact a most exciting archetypal field. The land is, or seems to be, the
sacred which bursts in upon our lives, which demands to be recognised and valued.”
(Tacey, 1998:7).
The Rynosseros cycle significantly exemplifies a mythopoetic response to
landscape. As Tacey points out, “Patrick White makes deliberate connections between
Euro-Australian ‘mystical’ experience of nature and the mythopoetic perceptual mode
of the Aboriginal Dreaming…” (Tacey, 1998:161). Dowling, like White, performs
this mythopoetic response. Crossing the deserts, accessing ‘forbidden’ areas of the
continent (metaphorical for accessing ‘forbidden areas’ of the psyche) is a key motif
in the Rynosseros cycle. Dowling consistently depicts the landscape as a potent,
powerful force upon his human characters40.
Tyson’s futuristic Australia is also coloured by an identifiably Surrealist
language of the uncanny, incongruity and disjunction, which relates his fiction also to
current Australian Surrealist artists such as Juan Davila, Albert Tucker, Peter Purves-
Smith and James Gleeson.

As Anthony White (Senior Lecturer, Culture & Communication, University
of Melbourne) points out,
In the Surrealist Map of the World published in 1929, France had virtually
disappeared, the [USA] did not exist, and the Pacific Ocean was at the centre
of the world. This imaginary geography reflected the surrealists’ anti-colonial
stance and their valorisation of art from countries beyond the territorial
boundaries of Europe.” (White, 2007: 1).
So grounded is the Rynosseros cycle in Surrealist engagement with non-
western culture – specifically, Australia as a mysterious, enchanting place where
white and Aboriginal cultures mingle amidst a terrain wholly alien to Europe’s – one
might almost think Dowling had deliberately embodied this Surrealist World Map in
fictional form. Clearly, his Surrealist metaphors, including his fictional utilisation of
actual Surrealist paintings (see below) can also be read as Jungian ones due to their
nature as psychic symbols.
Jouissance: Further Surrealist Traces
Tom is met by a National (white) man called Baris Seitz, a former professional
“dreamlock” (one who analyses and interprets dreams), which immediately introduces
an oneiric focus to the story 41. Seitz tells Tom he can no longer practise as a
dreamlock due to the local landscape: “This landscape does for me what the Spitzner
Museum did for Delvaux, or the Costa Brava for Dali.” (Dowling, 2003: 115). Here
Dowling specifically acknowledges two principal Surrealist painters, Paul Delvaux
(1987-1994) and Salvador Dali (1904-1989).
The Spitzner Museum, part of a fair which travelled Europe, featured medical
curiosities including the “Anatomical Venuses” – models of recumbent or somnolent
women, mixing tableaux vivant and mortuary-like displays with art and film from
America and Europe. (Hoffman, 2006: 139-59.). Paul Delvaux was inspired by visits

to it in the 1930s to the Spitzner Museum, where he saw the booth containing
skeletons and a mechanical Venus figure, images which recur continually in his
subsequent Surrealist paintings.
The significance of the Costa Brava for Surrealist painter Dali is that he grew
up there in Port Ligat, a small Spanish village; the environment greatly influenced his
work. With his almost throwaway references to Delvaux and Dali in this story,
Dowling subtly evokes a whole Surrealist period and ambience.
As the plot continues, Seitz refers to Tom’s presence in Yates-Eluard – the
location of Paul Boorindi, protagonist of another Tyson tale steeped in Surrealistic
traces, “Mirage Diver.” The reference to “Eluard” in this town name explicitly
acknowledges leading Surrealist theorist, Paul Eluard, typifying Dowling’s cross-
referencing names of places, peoples and things in the Rynosseros stories.
Seitz hints the DePolignacs built here purposely, trying to tap places in the
land where energies converge. He offers to take Tom to “the real Totem Rule.”
(Dowling, 2003: 116), telling him: “Your being here was dreamed. Your coming here.
All of it.” And Tom confesses:” I’ve been through this before, I’m afraid” – as though
lost in a deja-vu experience. Seitz then reveals a woman is involved – an Ab’O
woman with an Arete sign, which he is aware is one of Tom’s crucial images.
On arrival, Tom finds Totem Rule is “a large, whitewashed villa, two-
storeyed, set amid decks and terraces, with a roof-garden, loggias and wind-traps, the
walls and roofs of outbuildings.” (Dowling, 2003: 118): an architecture suggesting the
Mediterranean architecture often featured in the paintings of Surrealists Dali, Delvaux
and others; though Dowling adds unique touches, for here there are ‘belltrees’, the
metallic tribal Artificial Intelligences. Tom refers to Totem Rule as a ‘locus mirabilis’

(Dowling, 2003: 132) a Latin term meaning ‘sacred place’ or ‘place of miracles’ –
again underlining the Jungian psychic nature of Tyson’s initiatory journey.
Over the ornamental gate at Totem Rule is blazoned the word “Jouissance!”
This French word, favoured by Surrealists such as Bataille, who used it in relation to
texts of his own such as The Story of the Eye (1928), is not translatable directly into
English; it means uncontrolled bliss or enjoyment, with a sexual connotation. It is

42
discussed by French theorist Lacan . This concept recurs in the story, Tom
commenting that “The villa, with its cry of Jouissance! was an ambiguous zone, as if
awaiting resolution…”(Dowling, 2003: 123). Significantly, Fredric Jameson several
times utilises this term in his recent study of SF 43.
After meeting Isabel, a National woman; Rhee Fai Sue, known as Dida; and a
third robed woman, Celestine, who is Faddan Chryke’s wife and the housekeeper at
Totem Rule, Tom observes a tableau directly evocative of a Delvaux painting:
this lost retreat...the tables on the western terrace, the pier with its lanterns
flickering – the flames bending to the wind, the latticed, shuttered,
moonwashed walls of the private quarters and the dining pavilion, the quiet
ink-black colonnades of the South Loggia, the open squares like precious
glittering tiles where artesian fountains still played into pools, the unicursal
maze like a tightened knot, closed up with shadow where the moonlight
couldn’t reach, one maze inside another, one of stone, one of night. (Dowling,
2003: 125)
Mytho-realism: Maze, Mandala, Garden & the Oneiric
Both Surrealist and Mytho-realist tropes work in tandem in most of Dowling’s
Tyson stories, as they do here.
Seitz’s friend Chryke has ‘stigmata dreams’ in which images manifest
physically – Chryke has: “a trail of red shapes up his left forearm like sweet
44
mandalas…” (Dowling, 2003: 116). We note the Jungian symbolism of this .
Another reference to them occurs later in the story: “The sun was a vast red mandala a

handspan above the horizon, settling quickly now.” (Dowling, 2003: 136). Dowling
thus incorporates Jungian symbology into his descriptive subtext, subtly suggesting
the continuing journey of individuation undergone by the characters. Here is another
instance of “Mytho-realism” – Dowling’s specific usage of mythic imagery – its
purpose to produce heightened awareness of reality in the reader.
Looking around further, Tom is fascinated by a unicursal (one-directional)
maze. The maze, like the mandala, is a potent symbol. Saxby comments “The maze
symbolises characters who are lost and bewildered emotionally, and …trying to make
sense of life, attempting to traverse safely life’s ‘labyrinthine ways’.” (Saxby and
Winch, 1997: 180). The maze symbol is also held to contain the psyche’s pattern, as
in the mandala, which depicts life’s inner and outer aspects. According to Chetwynd,
“with masculine and feminine combined, the maze of psychic processes becomes the
place of transformation, where the destructive tendencies of nature are overcome…”
(Chetwynd, 1989: 256).
Seitz says he dreamed of the Arete-adorned Ab’O woman, requests Tom
record his dreams, and makes plain that Tom will meet her. The guests at Totem Rule
observe siestas after noon, and spend the afternoons in “games and diversions” –
recalling typical Surrealist activities – before watching the “breaklight” sunset over
the desert.
The oneiric is an increasingly significant Jungian motif in this tale. Seitz,
dreamless for years previously, says of his dream of the Ab’O woman: “The
automatic significance it acquires by occurring here fascinates me.” (Dowling, 2003:
124). The word ‘automatic’ here is echoic of the ‘psychic automatism’ or ‘free
association’ utilised by the Surrealists.

Awaking around midnight and exploring the house, Tom spies a strange
precinct. It is a secret night garden, somehow invisible or concealed by day. (Tom’s
Midnight Garden, a children’s novel by Phillipa Pearce, is specifically cited in the
story by Mark Sala.) (Dowling, 2003, 137). “Down from the roof-garden, from along
the beach terraces, came belltree song…the rolling susurration of many trees
preparing themselves for the night…” (Dowling, 2003: 118). The roof-garden is a
significant Jungian motif, for as Saxby points out: “garden is often the setting for the
innocence and well-being of a paradise or a Golden Age…In literature such as
Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden and Phillipa Pearce’s Tom’s Midnight
Garden, gardens are places of healing and renewal.” (Saxby & Winch, 1997: 176).
Tom enters, sensing the woman will be here: he “saw the white-robed waiting
figure, knew without seeing it on that hidden face…that she – she! – would have a
triangle of golden lace set upon her forehead, that she would be Ab’O and beautiful,
atavism and avatar.” The woman speaks to him. Tom says of her “she was slender, as
perfectly shaped as any dream-woman could be.” (Dowling, 2003: 127) – a clue to her
nature, for she is actually a dream-woman. Tom thinks he is awake, but he is
dreaming, caught in the oneiric, as the initiation stage of his monomyth journey
unfolds.
The woman reveals herself as Aia Katehos, an Ab’O scholar hired by Seitz to
“stage a therapy’, paid with the gold Arete piece she will wear. A clue to her symbolic
function here is the identity of her first name with the word “anima” with two letters
left out. (Dowling hinted at this with his earlier reference to the two letters left out of
the name “Totem Rule” hotel in its sign above the main entrance).

Anima and Persona Topoi in “Nights at Totem Rule”
The word ‘anima’ is Latin for ‘soul’. In Jungian terms, it is the archetype
within the male collective unconscious representing the feminine aspect. Jung states:
“Every man carries within him the eternal image of woman,…a definite feminine
image…The same is true of the woman: she too has her in born image of man.” (Jung,
Collected Works, 17: 338, quoted in Wilmer, 1987:45). The analogue of the anima for
women is the animus.
Tom’s second encounter with the anima figure Aia Katehos occurs in the night
garden, in the forest and its secret glade, where again he finds Aia awaiting him.
Reiterating she is part of Seitz’s plan, she says she told Atris the housemaid about
Tom’s being caught in the sun-trap.
Aia’s function as anima becomes progressively clearer as Tom touches her for
the first time and they make love. Aia is anima, pure Goddess energy: “I saw her
against the treetops and the stars, the hiasis in her hair, her hair becoming trees and
flowing night – and remaining just her hair, matted against her dark skin and mine.”
Eventually, says Tom, “we slept as that marvellous beast replete lovers can make –
side by side, touching, the alchemist’s beast, conjoined, en to pan, all in one.”
(Dowling, 2003: 142). Aia, as anima, is a form of Tyson’s beloved, whom he as the
hero must attempt to rescue – a battle representing Tyson’s struggle to free the
woman’s related qualities within his own psyche – another step in the integration of
his unconscious psychological contents.
Aia’s next speech reveals her role as an aspect of Tyson’s Persona: “Tom, the
considering of a thing, the earnestness to do it, breeds its own momentum. The doing
and being of a thing, taking on a mask [italics mine], a role, commands its own force.”

(Dowling, 2003: 140). ‘Persona’ is Latin for ‘actor’s mask.’ In Jung it symbolises the
way in which a person likes to imagine him- or herself. According to Wilmer,
The persona is the guise and manifestation of the role which disguises the
personality of the actor. The persona is an archetype; …a functional complex
that is necessary for adaptation to interpersonal relations…It is a compromise
between what we wish to be and what the surrounding world will allow us to
be. (Wilmer, 1987: 65).
For Tyson, Aia represents both the feminine and mysterious parts of himself
(the anima) and also a mask he holds up to the world – a defensive image or ‘persona’
(derived from his Madhouse experience) which he must eventually fully integrate for
psychological wholeness. As O’Neill points out, “The persona…is the mask we
assume to make the outward-looking manifestations of the psyche fit the assigned
social roles and expectations. “ (O’Neill, 1979: 25-26). Aia believes she may embody
what the image means for Tom, may play a part in helping its truth break through for
him.
Tom awakes at dawn in the spiral maze’s heart, his clothes soil-stained with
soil.: “Thank goodness. It was just barely possible to believe.” (Dowling, 2003: 142)
Angry and disappointed, he looks again for the garden but cannot find it When Tom
finds that Atris the housemaid does not exist, he knows he will not find the garden
again. He tells the others his “dream.” Returning to the maze court, he thinks Aia may
be hiding somewhere, devising further tricks of the ‘script.’
“Nights at Totem Rule” ends with a complex oneiric revelation, as Tyson
awakes to find himself back at the hotel at Sansvraimer. His ‘awakening’ is both
literal and metaphorical, for in voyaging through one of his initiations he has
furthered the process of Individuation we all must undergo.

Close Reading 3: The Return Stage of the Monomyth: “Sewing Whole
Cloth”
Tom Tyson’s return exemplifies the role of the archetypes. For Jung, “it [is]
only possible to live the fullest life when we are in harmony with these symbols;
wisdom is a return to them.” (Jung, CW8, 1953-96: 794) In “Sewing Whole Cloth”,
the cycle is reaching its conclusion. The Coloured Captains, with their seven
sandships, are converging upon the Air: “in three scant hours, they would enter the
vast salt lake, go out among the old wrecks left from centuries of tribal war, and face
their destiny.” (Dowling, 2007, Rynemonn, 295). Interwoven with this is the attempt
of Carlyr, a construct who is basically an assassin seeking to kill belltrees, to kill ID-
5982J, the belltree most important to Tom, whom Tom knows also under the name of
‘Rynemonn’ (which means ‘one skilled in mysteries’). The assassin is prevented from
doing his deadly work by Rocky Tom, a Stoneman who keeps the desert roads clear
for the charvolant sandships. Meanwhile, Tom has a lengthy confrontation with the
Ab’O Clever Man, Cleven Nos Peray. Cleven reveals various matters to Tyson about
his ‘incept’ programme, including that Tom has a bio-organic sensor mote implanted
in his forehead. It transpires that Tartalen, the old Ab’O who released Tom from the
Madhouse, is nearby at Azira, and may have crucial information to give to Tom about
his memories. But the ships are gathering on the air, and Tom is in a dilemma about
whether he can leave to go to Tartalen.
Crucially, Tom makes the decision to abandon his quest for his memories:
“He brought up his hand, open palm, recalling Seren’s words from Tarpial,
what it was to receive the gift of what you already had. “See what I have, Rob. See
what I already have!”

There were frowns, smiles, nods, acceptance, all in moments as the ship
completed its one-eighty and plunged back along the Gaenea. Simple. All simple
now. The clear, simple words of a lonely tree in another time.
What is in the empty hand but the universe entire.
What is in the eye but all there is.
What is for the heart but the only fire,
And for the soul? The only moment. This.” (Dowling, 2007, Rynemonn, 300-
01).
In this one moment, Tyson abandons all he has been questing for throughout
his journey. And yet at the same time he realises it doesn’t matter – the ‘treasure’ is
within himself. At this moment his journey is complete; the ‘gold’ of his inner or true
self, in Jungian terms, becomes manifest; he has wrested it from his unconscious and
integrated it successfully into the conscious personality.

Conclusion: Resacralisation and Re-enchantment
Terry Dowling’s Rynosseros cycle, although connected to SF, embodies
Surrealist and Jungian impulses and is firmly situated within traditions of Surrealist
discourse and of Jungian literature. The work sounds a cautionary note regarding the
effects of the ‘Reality Crisis’ and how they may lead us away from our deep selves.
Dowling is engaged in the process of ‘resacralisation’, or what David Tacey
also refers to as “the necessity of re-enchantment” (Tacey, 1998:150). The
Rynosseros cycle stories are tales of metamorphosis and fulfillment in which
Dowling’s deep understanding of Jungian tropes informs the narratives and in which
the modern crisis he has called “The Reality Crisis” is highlighted and partially
redressed.
To espouse a serious moral purpose in fiction in the postmodern era may seem
unfashionable. However, Dowling makes no bones about ensuring his fiction supports
timeless core values including the importance of “affect” – pure enlivened response to
the world about us. Tom Tyson’s marvellous symbolic journey is intimately wed to
the metaphysical. In Golden’s terms, Tyson’s journey “involves a realisation of [his]
relationship to the whole or to the ultimate ground of all being.” (Golden, 1995: 5).
I have demonstrated that the Rynosseros cycle contains various motifs and
images suggesting the high appropriateness of a mythic interpretation. The destructive
consequences for psychic and collective individuation due to the “Reality Crisis”
concern Dowling deeply, and his response in the Rynosseros cycle has been to
produce work which, while providing entertainment, functions on a deeper level to
address issues of power and status, racial reconciliation and our relationship to
technology. Most importantly the Tom Tyson stories use Mytho-realism as a means of

reawakening Dowling’s readers to the world, whereby the reader is enabled to regain
a sense of awe and wonder before the deep mysteries of life. Dowling’s special
interests in the themes and techniques of both Jungian/archetypal literary theory and
of Surrealism justify a view of the Rynosseros cycle as a Mytho-realist writer.
Dowling’s work, as demonstrated, is informed by a Surrealist perspective
which positions him centrally in modern Surrealist discourse. Dowling has extended
Surrealist techniques in the novel and story-sequence, as did J.G. Ballard; he has
utilised SF in the Rynosseros cycle to exemplify the marvellous, and thus further
established it as that branch of literature most open to the use of the marvellous as
praised by Breton.
Simultaneously, Tom Tyson’s adventures point us, as readers, to the
importance of shaping our own destinies, enacting our lives and expressing the most
dynamic reality possible to us. The Rynosseros cycle gives fictional articulation to a
view that our lives must be made sacred again, that we can tap into understandings of
our own deepest psychic levels.
Rynosseros and its sequelae show us one man’s thirst for the absolute, and by
extension, the way in which we as readers may universally satisfy our own thirst for
the absolute by living fully.

Endnotes
1. The term ‘Surrealism’ is generally capitalised by critics, as a proper noun
for the name of a literary movement, but sometimes it is spelled with a small “s,” as
when it is referred to as a literary or artistic style. I use the capitalised form
throughout this thesis except when directly quoting a source which uses the small “s”
form.
2. The literary term ‘science fiction’ is commonly abbreviated in texts dealing
extensively with the genre as either ‘SF’ or ‘sf.’ Throughout this thesis I hereinafter
use the abbreviation ‘SF’ to indicate ‘science fiction.’
3. Darko Suvin is best known for several major works of criticism and literary
history devoted to SF. Editor of Science-Fiction Studies from 1973 to 1980, his major
works include Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a
Literary Genre (1979) and Victorian Science Fiction in the UK: The Discourses of
Knowledge and Power (1983)
4. Todorov, Tzvetan. Introduction à la littérature fantastique (1970),
translated as The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre (Case Western
Reserve University Press, 1973).
5. S.T. Joshi is a leading authority on H. P. Lovecraft, Ambrose Bierce, H. L.
Mencken, and other fantastic writers. Major works include The Evolution of the
Weird Tale (2004), and Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopaedia
(with Stefan Dziemianowicz) (2005, 2 vols)
6. John Clute is author of the critical essay collections Strokes (1988), Look at
the Evidence (1995), and Scores (2003). He is a co-editor of The Encyclopedia of

Science Fiction (with Peter Nicholls) and of The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (with John
Grant), as well as The Illustrated Encyclopedia Of Science Fiction, which all won
Hugo Awards for Best Non-Fiction.
7. Western Australian novelist-academic Tess Williams makes some cogent
points regarding “genre snobbery” in her review of the anthology Forever Shores,
(see Williams in Bibliography).
8. Critic Harold Bloom, for instance, in his The Western Canon (1994. New
York: Harcourt Brace) explicitly deplores multiculturalism, Marxism, feminism etc.
The deplorable paucity of his coverage of women writers is only partially alleviated
by a few names he allows to creep into the post-nineteenth century section, despite the
prevalence of core tertiary subject units which by now should preclude this tendency
to exclusivity, amongst them feminist and postcolonial theory.
9. The Ditmar Awards is the annual Australian Science Fiction Achievement
Award, recognising excellence by Australians in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror.
A complete list of Dowling’s extensive critical accolades can be found at his official
website : http:// www.terrydowling.com/
10 http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=abo. Accessed Sept 9,
2009.
11. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=abo . Accessed Sept 9,
2009.
12. http://phorums.com.au/archive/index.php/t-216117-p-2.html Accessed
Sept 9, 2009.
13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_slurs Accessed Sept 9, 2009.
14. Cf. the mock documentary “BarbeKiuAria/BBQ Area” (1986) which
satirically reversed the roles of Aboriginal and white Australians.

15. Haraway, Donna. “Manifesto for Cyborgs.” Socialist Review, No 80
(March/April 1985)
16. Extropianism is an evolving framework of values and standards for
continuously improving the human condition, describing a pragmatic consilience of
transhumanist thought. It is guided by a proactive approach to human evolution and
progress.
17. A separate paper might expand on my Mytho-realist approach here, which
would investigate Tom Tyson as an avatar of archetypal and legendary figures
including Tom O’Bedlam, The Trickster, The Fool of the Tarot, Don Quixote and the
Green Man.
18. This assessment seems unduly harsh, and in commenting on it, one could
hardly blame Dowling if he were to quote, for instance, French political theorist Guy
Debord, who in his film In Girum Imus Nocte et Consumimur Igni (1978) memorably
commented: “To those who are annoyed at not understanding all the allusions, or who
even declare they are incapable of distinguishing clearly my intentions, I shall merely
reply that they should chafe at their own lack of culture and their sterile ideas, and not
at my workmanship.”
19. See T. Dowling, Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling (1999),
where the jacket copy states: “Jung wrote that it has always been our task, not to
illuminate the ancient truths and intimations of the unconscious, but to make them
immediate and contemporary, to give them meaning in the here and now…Antique
Futures shows just how well he [Dowling] has met that challenge.”
20. This indebtedness is made clear by, for instance, Dowling’s own M.A.
thesis “Beguiled Into Crisis: J.G. Ballard and the Surrealistic Novel.”

21. Some Jungian theorists subdivide the mythic cycle into more than three
stages – see for example Pearson 1989 (six stages). Campbell himself sometimes
utilises a framework of eight stages for the monomyth: miraculous conception,
initiation, withdrawal, quest, death, descent to the underworld, rebirth, and ascension
(as summarised in Leeming, 1973, passim).
22. Robert Holdstock. Mythago Wood (1984), Lavondyss (1988), The
Hollowing (1993) and Merlin’s Wood (1994).
23: There is a noble tradition of wise fools in literature – one thinks of
Dagonet, the fool of King Arthur (see Le Morte D’Arthur), the Jester in Shakespeare’s
“King Lear”. From medieval times until the 17th century, licensed fools were
commonly kept at court; medieval guild fools helped spread literature and education,
via a branch of the Troubadour organization, a force that permeated Europe. The Fool
of the Tarot, is the Qabalistic zero, the balance of the union of opposites, is the basis
for the legends of the Wandering Prince, and the Green Man of the Spring Festival,
and very often the saviour or the Holy Ghost
24. For further information on Lacan and Minotaure, see
http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/minotaure/. (Accessed 23 Sept,
2009).
25. ‘Unheimlich, or “the uncanny” (Ger. Das Unheimliche -- literally, "un-
home-ly") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet
foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of uncomfortable strangeness.
26. City of the Iron Fish by Simon Ings (1994) is a recent example. Other
novels, such as Lisa Goldstein’s The Dream Years (1985) and Robert Irwin’s The
Exquisite Corpse (1995) incorporate aspects of historical Surrealism.

26. The ‘Golden Age’ of SF is generally considered to cover the period from
the late 1930s -1950s. See for example, “Isaac Asimov on the Golden Age of Science
Fiction” videoclip at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pySVYz4GfzE (Accessed 23
Sept, 2009).
27. In the First Surrealist Manifesto (1924), Andre Breton, founding
Surrealist, famously discusses his initial encounter with the surreal via a hypnagogic
state he experienced in which a strange phrase inexplicably appeared in his mind:
There is a man cut in two by the window. This phrase echoes Breton's apprehension of
Surrealism as the juxtaposition of two distant realities conjoined to create a new,
uncanny union.
28. The ‘New Wave’ movement of SF, so-called, centred around New Worlds
magazine, was however not the only manifestation of Surrealism in SF. Most
commentators agree on the singular aptness of the Surrealistic themes and techniques
incorporated by artist Richard Powers into his SF book cover paintings of the late
1950’s -1970’s.
29. Affect theory is a branch of psychoanalysis which attempts to organize
‘affects’ (subjectively experienced emotions or feelings) into discrete categories and
connect each one with its typical response. “Blunted effect”, is a scientific term
describing an individual’s lack of emotional reactivity. It is seen to result from a
complex of psychological effects but is often attributed by sociological observers in
our society to what Dowling terms the “Reality Crisis.”
30. See, for example, Stiegler’s two-volume De la misère symbolique: (Tome
1, L'époque hyperindustrielle; Tome 2, La Catastrophè du sensible) 2004. Paris:
Editions Galilee.

31. It is unknown whether Dowling has seen the holdings, but the National
Gallery of Australia includes a collection, bequeathed to it by Ernst’s widow
Dorothea Tanning, of ninety-six works of African, American and Oceanic sculptures
collected by Ernst.
32. Resacralisation, or ‘resacralising vision,’ is a term devised by Jungian
psychologist/writer Andrew Samuels and extensively utilised by Australian Jungian
writer David Tacey in his book Edge of the Sacred: Transformation in Australia.
(See, for example, Tacey pp 1 and 168). Tacey defines it as follows: “The desperate
need in every secular society is to ‘remake’ the sacred, in the sense of restoring our
relationship to the sacred. This is a supreme art or craft; the ability to track down the
sacred, to revive and restore it, without falling into religious literalism,
fundamentalism, or dogmatic thinking. Jungian psychology constructs the sacred “
33. Dowling’s use of imagery derived from Melville’s Moby Dick in this
story, in “What We Did to the Tyger” and elsewhere would repay further study.
34. This ‘recognition’ calls to mind J. G. Ballard’s story “The Recognition” in
which a strange circus visits a small town, and the people who come to see it end up
caged. (see bibliography) The ‘recognition’ may be in the mind of the protagonist, or
in the reader’s recognition that a particular event holds symbolic significance. (see p.
56)
35. Colours are symbolically important in Dowling’s work as measures of the
sensory appreciation we have as humans. See “The Man Who Lost Red” where a
human is deprived by aliens of this colour and his experience of life is thus limited.
So in Rynosseros, Tom Tyson “getting Blue” is more than simply the award of an
honorary colour – it represents a symbolic deepening access to life and the senses. )

36. Joseph Campbell’s model of the ‘monomyth’ bears some resemblance to
the fictional scheme outlined in Vladimir Propp’s Morphology of the Folk Tale.
(1928) While Propp analysed folk tales from a formalist perspective and therfore did
not focus on Jungian or mythic elements of narratuive structures, both he and
Campbell’s models identify certain common stages in the sequence of narrative
functions commonly underlying fictional narratives.).
37. See “Colouring the Captains” in Rynosseros.
38. ‘Arete’ is one of Dowling’s terms which are not directly explained within
the Rynosseros cycle, but may stand for a Tribal (Ab’O) affiliation. Adornments in
Dowling, however, are generally potent indicators of cultural difference.
39. The name is derived from a phrase resulting from the Surrealists first
playing the game, "Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau." ("The exquisite corpse
will drink the new wine.")
40. Surprisingly, none of Australia’s major adult SF writers of this era (Greg
Egan, Sean McMullen, Damien Broderick, Sean Williams, Paul Collins) have
substantially utilised Australian settings for their SF. This leaves Dowling almost a
unique figure (save George Turner) in his concentration on the Australian landscape
for SF purposes.
41. ‘Oneiros’ is the Greek word for dream and an ‘oneiric’ or ‘dream-like’
quality characterises much Surrealist painting and literature, especially visible in the
work Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and Rene Magritte. Dreams in Jungian psychology are
also highly significant as providing keys to the contents of the unconscious.
42. In his Seminar "The Ethics of Psychoanalysis" (1959-1960) Lacan posits
that the pleasure principle functions as a limit to enjoyment: a law commanding the
subject to 'enjoy as little as possible'. The subject constantly attempts to transgress the

prohibitions imposed on his enjoyment, to go beyond the pleasure principle. Yet
doing so, according to Lacan, results in not more pleasure but pain, since the subject
can only endure a certain amount of pleasure. This 'painful principle' is what Lacan
terms jouissance.
43. Archaeologies, 196; 199. The second of these references is in the context
of the writing of J.G. Ballard, which again emphasises the Surrealists’ link via Ballard
to Dowling’s work.
44. Jung became interested in mandalas while studying Eastern religion,
seeing the circular images his clients experienced as "movement towards
psychological growth, expressing the idea of a safe refuge, inner reconciliation and
wholeness." For Jung, mandalas are ‘vessels’ into which we project our psyche, which
is returned to us as a way of restoration.

WORKS CITED & CONSULTED
Primary Bibliography (Terry Dowling)
Dowling, T 1979, “Beguiled Into Crisis: J.G. Ballard and the Surrealistic Novel.
Thesis [M.A.], University of Sydney.
Dowling, T 1987 “Marmodesse.” Omega Science Digest (Jan/Feb), p47-61.
Dowling, T. 1987 ‘Unfettered Dreams: Visions of a better world.’ Omega Science
Digest (Jan/Feb), 24-25.
Dowling, T 1988, Malgre. Unpublished Tom Tyson novel.
Dowling, T. 1990, Rynosseros. Aphelion Publications, North Adelaide.; 1990, Guild
America Books, New York; 2003, MirrorDanse Books, Parramatta NSW.
Dowling, T 1991, Wormwood. Aphelion Publications, North Adelaide.
Dowling, T 1992, Blue Tyson. Aphelion Publications, North Adelaide.
Dowling, T 1992, The Mars You Have in Me. Eidolon Publications, Perth WA.
Dowling, T & Ikin, V (eds). 1993, Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF. Coronet Books,
Sydney.
Dowling, T 1993, Twilight Beach. Aphelion Publications, North Adelaide.
Dowling, T 1999, Antique Futures: The Best of Terry Dowling. mp Books, Nedlands
WA.
Dowling, T 1995, An Intimate Knowledge of the Night. Aphelion Publications, North
Adelaide.
Dowling, T 1999, “Down Flowers.” Orb Issue no. 0 (Sept), pp3-5.
Dowling, T 2000, Blackwater Days. Eidolon Publications, North Perth, WA.
Dowling. T. 2000, “The Only Bird in Her Name” (dramatisation, Rasovsky, Y.) Radio
production for Hollywood Theatre of the Ear. Hosted by Harlan Ellison.

Narrated by Peter Dennis & Kaitlin Hopkins. Accessed 1/5/2009.
http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?
productID=RT_WOX_000005&BV_UseBVCookie=Yes.
Dowling, T 2002, ‘Spot Checking the Emperor.’ Paper, Fantasy Fictions Symposium,
(27 September). Accessed 20/4/2009. http://eidolon.net/homesite.html?
section=Terry Dowling &page=Terry
Dowling’s/emperor_paper.html&pagetitle=Spot-checking%20the%20Emperor
Dowling, T 2003, The Man Who Lost Red. (2nd edition). MirrorDanse Books,
Parramatta NSW.
Dowling, T 2003 “A Rose by Many Other Names.” Newswrite no. 130 (September),
pp7-8.
Dowling, T 2004. “Peter McNamara: An Appreciation.” Locus Online (9 June).
Accessed on 20/4/2009.
http://www.locusmag.com/2004/News/06_RemembersMcNamara.html.
Dowling, T 2006, Basic Black: Tales of Appropriate Fear. Cemetery Dance
Publications, Baltimore; 2009, Ticonderoga Publications, Greenwood WA.
Dowling, T 2006, Clowns at Midnight (novel): And, "The Interactive Landscape:
New Modes of Narrative in Science Fiction" (PhD thesis), University of
Western Australia School of Social and Cultural Studies, Communication and
Cultural Studies Discipline Group English. University of Western Australia,
Nedlands WA.
Dowling, T 2007, “Complete Rynosseros.” Accessed 20/4/2009.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Terry Dowling group/files/.
Dowling, T. 2007, “The How and Why”. Accessed Sept 9, 2009. http://www.Terry
Dowling .com/?id=biography.

Dowling, T. 2007, Rynemonn. coeur de lion publishing, [Alexandria, NSW].
Dowling, T. 2008, ‘Twilight Beach sample 1.’ Accessed 20/4/2009. Video clip
demonstrating visual inspiration of Tom Tyson setting.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Terry Dowling group/files/.
Dowling, T. 2009 “The Library.” In Stevenson, K (ed) X-6: Six journeys beyond the
borders of the real. coeur de lion publishing, [Alexandria, NS.W.]
Dowling, T. 2009, Make Believe: A Terry Dowling Reader. Ticonderoga Publications,
Greenwood, WA:

Secondary Bibliography (Other Works Cited or Consulted).
Anatol, G L 2003, Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. Praeger, Westport, CT.
Ashley, M 2007, Gateways to Forever: the Story of the Science Fiction Magazines,
1970-1980. Liverpool University Press, Liverpool.
Ashley M & Contento, W C 1995, The Supernatural Index: A Listing of Fantasy,
Supernatural, Occult, Weird and Horror Anthologies. Greenwood Press,
Westport CT.
Attebery, B 2005, ‘Aboriginality in Science Fiction’, Science Fiction Studies, No. 96
(Vol 32, Part 2) (July 2005), pp385-404.
Attebery, B. 1992, Strategies of Fantasy. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN.
Ballard, J G (1960) “The Coming of the Unconscious” New Worlds, vol. 50, no. 164,
pp141-46. 1996, in Ballard, A User’s Guide to the Millennium: Essays and
Reviews. Harper Collins, London.
Ballard, J G 1964, The Terminal Beach. Victor Gollancz, London.
Ballard, J G 1965, The Drowned World. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK.
Ballard, J G 1967 “The Recognition” in Ellison, Harlan (ed) Dangerous Visions.
Doubleday, New York.
Ballard, J G 1978, The Crystal World. Triad/Panther, London.
Ballard, J G 1978, The Drought. Triad/Panther, London.
Ballard, J G 1979, The Atrocity Exhibition. Triad/Panther, London. 1990, (with added
commentary notes). Re/Search Publications, San Francisco.
Ballard, J G 1985, Vermilion Sands. Everyman, London.
Bataille, G 1994, The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism, trans. Michael
Richardson. Verso, London & New York.

Baumlin, J S. (ed) 2003, Post-Jungian Criticism: Theory and Practice. State
University of New York Press, New York.
Baxter, J 2009, J.G. Ballard’s Surrealist Imagination. Ashgate, London.
Benet, W R 1985, The Reader’s Encyclopedia (3rd ed.) A C Black, London.
Berndt, R M & C H 1989, The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal
Australia. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, Vic.
Bhavnani, K-K; Foran, F & Kurian, P A 2003, Feminist futures: re imagining women,
culture and development. Zed Books, London.
Blackford, R; Ikin, V & McMullen, S (eds) 1999, Strange Constellations: A History
of Australian Science Fiction. Greenwood Press, Westport, CT.
Blackmore, L 1996, Ellison/Dann: A Bibliographic Checklist. R'lyeh Texts, Sydney.
Blackmore, L. 2003, “Tom Rynosseros cycle Displays Rare Insights” (review of
Rynosseros). Amazon.com, accessed 25/4/2009.
http://www.amazon.com/Rynosseros-Terry Dowling -/product-
reviews/095865834X/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?
ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sor2003y=bySubmissionDat
eDescending.
Blackmore, L 2005, “Terry Dowling in Forum’ [Live interview]. Canberra, ACT:
Conflux 2 convention
Blackmore, L 2005, "Terry [Terence William] Dowling” in S.T. Joshi and Stefan
Dziemianowicz (eds). Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia.
Greenwood Press, Westport CT, pp. 350-51; Yahoo.com, Accessed on
20/4/2009. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Terry Dowling group/files/.
Blackmore, L [uncredited] 2009, Wikipedia.com, “Terry Dowling”, accessed on
25/4/2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry Dowling

Blackmore, L 2005, Terry Dowling: Virtuoso of the Fantastic. R'lyeh Texts,
Wollongong; 2005, Conflux 2 Program Book (abridged version). Conflux,
Canberra ACT. .
loch, E 1983, The Utopian Function of Art & Literature, trans. J Zipes & F
Mecklenburg. MIT Press, Cambridge MA.
Bolen, J S 1980, Gods in Everyman: Archetypes That Shape Men’s Lives. Harper &
Row, New York.
Bodkin, M 1934, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry: Psychological Studies in
Imagination. Oxford University Press, London.
Borghino, J 1992, Review of Blue Tyson. Sydney Morning Herald, July 25.
Breton, A 1948, Le Cadavre Exquis: Son Exaltation exhibition catalogue, La
Dragonne, Galerie Nina Dausset, Paris (October 7-30).
Breton, A 1978, What is Surrealism?: Selected Writings, (ed. F Rosemont). Monad
Press, New York .
Broderick, D 1995, Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction. Routledge,
London.
Brotchie, A & Gooding, M. 1991, Surrealist Games. Redstone Press, London.
Bronstring, M 2003, ‘Terry Dowling Interview.’ Adventure Gamers, Oct 8. accessed
20/4/2009, http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,292; http://www.Terry
Dowling .com/PDF/Marek%20Bronstring%20Interview.pdf
Brown, S 2003, Review of “Down Flowers.” Eidolon.net Short Fiction Reviews 5,
accessed 20/4/2009, http://eidolon.net/?
review=shortfiction5&pagetitle=Short+Fiction+Reviews+5
Bryant, E 1992, Review of Rynosseros. Locus, (June) , p21.

Burleson, D R 1981, ‘The Mythic Hero Archetype in “The Dunwich Horror”‘.
Lovecraft Studies, vol 1, no. 4, Spring, pp3-9.
Campbell, J 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Bollingen Foundation Inc, New
York.
Campbell, J 1973, Myths to Live By. Souvenir Press, London.
Campbell, J 1988, The Power of Myth. Doubleday, New York.
Campbell, J 1990, Transformations of Myth Through Time. Harper & Row, New
York.
Carels, G; Deun, C V, & Delvaux, P 2004, Paul Delvaux: his life. Paul Delvaux
Foundation, Saint-Idesbald, Belgium
Carroll, J 2001, The Western Dreaming: The western world is dying for want of a
story. Harper Collins, 2001.
Caws, M A 2004, Surrealism (Themes and Movements). Phaidon, London.
Cederstrom, L. 2002, Jungian Archetypes in Twentieth-Century Women’s Fiction:
The Persona, The Shadow, the Animus and the Self. Edward Mellen Press,
Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter.
Cemetery Dance editors. ‘A Few Words with Terry Dowling.’ Accessed 20/4/2009.
http://www.cemeterydance.com/sh/01.html
Centre for Studies of Surrealism and Its Legacies. A joint project of the University of
Essex, the University of Manchester and the Tate Gallery. Accessed on
various dates from May 2009 through October 2009. Official website:
http:///www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/database/home.htm.
Chapman, C 1993, Surrealism in Australia. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.
Chetwynd, T 1989, A Dictionary of Symbols. Grafton, London.

Choucha, N 1991, Surrealism and the Occult: Shamanism, Magic, Alchemy and the
Birth of an Artistic Movement. Destiny Books, Rochester, VT.
Clute, J 1995, Science Fiction: The Illustrated Encyclopedia. DK Adult, London.
Clute, J 1988 ‘Knives in the Belljar.’ Nova Express vol.5, no. 1, no.17, Fall/Winter
pp19-21.
Clute, J 1988 ‘Response to Russell Blackford.’ Accessed on 12/4/09.
http://home.austin.rr.com/lperson/belljar.html.
Clute, J & Grant, J (eds) 1999 The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (2nd revised ed.) St
Martin’s/Griffin, New York.
Collins, P 1998, The MUP Encyclopedia of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Melbourne University Press, Melbourne, Vic.
Conger, J P 1988, Jung & Reich: The Body as Shadow. North Atlantic Books,
Berkeley, CA.
Congreve, B 1992 ‘Terry Dowling in Depth.’ The Mentor no.76 (October) pp54-58
Congreve, B 1994 ‘In Depth No 9.’ The Mentor no. 82 (April) pp21-22
Congreve, B 1995, Review of An Intimate Knowledge of the Night. Aurealis no. 15,
pp76-77.
Cormack, Lorraine. Review of Antique Futures. Accessed on 9/4/2009. As.if!
Australian Specfic in Focus: http:www.asif.dreamhosters.com/doku.php?
id=antique_futures.
Cowan, J 2002, Aborigine Dreaming: An introduction to the wisdom and thought of
the Aboriginal traditions of Australia. Thorsons, London.
Csicery-Ronay Jr, I. 2008, The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction. Wesleyan
University Press, Middletown CT.

“Customer, A”. “Blue Tyson – Out of the Madhouse.” Accessed 24/4/2009.
http://www.amazon.com/review/1875346058/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?
ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&2115R3L3PZ4ZJQPUZLHelpfulReviews4.s=
SUCCESS&voteError=0&2115R3L3PZ4ZJQPUZLHelpfulReviews4.v=1&so
r2003y=bySubmissionDateDescending.
Dann, J 1999 ‘An Angry Introduction’. In Dowling, T. Antique Futures (see Primary
Bibliography).
Dawson, T 1998 ‘Jung, literature and literary criticism’ in Young-Eisendrath, P &
Dawson, T. The Cambridge Companion to Jung. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dedman, S 1998 ‘Je dois être condamné à danser dans les ténèbres!’ Ténèbres no. 3,
(July/September). English translation accessed 20/4/2009. http://www.Terry
Dowling .com/PDF/Dark%20Fantastic.pdf (as ‘Dancing the Dark Fantastic:
An Interview with Terry Dowling.’)
Ducasse, I (‘Comte de Lautreamont’) 1983, Les Chants de Maldoror. Trans. Lykiard,
A. Allison & Busby, London.
Edinger, E F 1972, Ego and Archetype: Individuation and the Religious Function of
the Psyche. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York.
Eidolon editors, 1991, ‘Postcards from the Flight Deck.’ Eidolon no 4 (Summer).
Accessed 9/4/09 http:// www.terrydowling.com/PDF/Postcards%20From
%20The%20Flight%20Deck.pdf.
Eidolon editors, 1993, ‘Riding the Tiger.’ Eidolon no.12 (April) Accessed 20/4/2009
http://www.Terry Dowling .com/PDF/Riding%20the%20Tiger.pdf.

Eidolon editors, 2007, ‘Terry Dowling on his life and work’. Accessed on 20/4/2009.
http://eidolon.net/homesite.html?section=Terry Dowling
&page=TerryDowling’s /td_talks.htm.
Ellison, H 1991, ‘Introduction’ in Terry Dowling’s Wormwood (see Primary
Bibliography).
Elms, A C 1994, Uncovering Lives: The Uneasy Alliance of Biography and
Psychology. Oxford University Press, New York.
Elms, A C 2005, A Handbook of Psychobiography. Oxford University Press, New
York.
Ewins, P. 1994, Review of Mortal Fire: Best Australian SF, edited by Terry Dowling
and Van Ikin. (Coronet Books, 1993). Australian SF News (Jan), 11.
Ferrara, M H 2003, The Writers Directory 2003 (Volume 1 A-L). St James Press,
Detroit MI.
Foucault, M 1983, This is Not a Pipe. Trans. J Harkness; with illustrations and letters
by Rene Magritte. University of California Press, Berkeley/Los
Angeles/London.
Foucault, M 1970, The Order of Things. Trans. R Hurley. Pantheon, New York.
Frye, N 2001, ‘The Archetypes of Literature.’ The Norton Anthology: Theory and
Criticism. Ed. Leitch, V B. New York: Norton, pp 1445-1457.
Fukuyama, F 2003, Our Posthuman Future. Picador, London.
‘Fyxx.’ 2001, “Amazing alternative future.” (Review of Blue Tyson). Accessed
24/4/2009. http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Tyson-Terry Dowling -/product-
reviews/1875346058/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?
eDescending.

Gad, I 2004, Tarot and Individuation: A Jungian Study of Correspondences with
Cabala, Alchemy and the Chakras. Nicolas-Hayes, Berwick, ME:
Gelder, K (ed) 2000, The Horror Reader. Routledge, London and New York.
Giegerich, W 2003, ‘The End of Meaning and the Birth of Man.’ Guild of Pastoral
Psychology Guild Lecture No 284 (2 October). Accessed 19/9/2009.
http://www.guildofpastoralpsychology.org.uk/Media/samp284.pdf
Gilchrist, C 1991, The Elements of Alchemy. Element Books, Shaftesbury, UK.
Golden, K L 1995, Science Fiction, Myth and Jungian Psychology. Edwin Mellen
Press, Lewiston/Queenston/Lampeter.
Grant, K 2005, Surrealism and the Visual Arts: Theory and Reception. Cambridge
University Press, Cambridge.
Grof, S 1988, The Adventure of Self-Discovery. State University Press of New York.
Grof, S 2000, Psychology of the Future. State University of New York, New York.
Hannaford, J D. 2003, Review of Antique Futures. Accessed on 9/4/2009.
Amazon.com, http://www.amazon.com/Antique-Futures-Best-Terry
Dowling/dp/0646375334/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239345875&sr=1-1.
Haraway, D 2007, When Species Meet (Posthumanities). University of Minnesota
Press, Minneapolis, MN:
Harland, R 1998 ‘The Year of the Teratologists.’ Review of The Year’s Best
Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy Vol 2. Science Fiction vol.15, no. 1,
No. 41, pp45-47.
Harvey, E 2008, ‘Time for Tom Rynosseros: An Interview with Terry Dowling.’
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, no. 35 (June) Accessed 20/4/2009
http:// www.terrydowling.com/PDF/Time%20for%20Tom%20Rynosseros.pdf.

Havecker, C 1987, Understanding Aboriginal Culture. Cosmos Periodicals. Lane
Cove, Sydney.
Heilman, E E (ed) 2009, Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (2nd ed). Routledge,
New York and London:
Higgins, S 1995 Review of The Man Who Lost Red. Aurealis no 15, p82.
Hillman, J 1985, Anima: An Anatomy of a Personified Notion. Spring Publications,
Dallas TX.
Hillman, J 1990 The Essential James Hillman: A Blue Fire. Introduced & edited by T
Moore. Routledge: London.
Hoeller, S A 1980, The Royal Road: A Manual of Kabalistic Meditations on the
Tarot. (2nd ed) Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, IL.
Hoffman, K A. (2006) ‘Sleeping Beauties in the Fairground: The Spitzner, Pedley and
Chemise Exhibits.’ Early Popular Visual Culture, vol. 4, no. 2 (July), pp139-
59.
Hollinger, V & Gordon J (eds) 2002, Edging into the Future: Science Fiction and
Contemporary Cultural Transformation. University of Pennyslvania Press,
Philadelphia PA.
Honig, E 1966, Dark Conceit: The Making of Allegory. Oxford University
Press, New York.
Hubert, R R 1988, Surrealism and the Book. University of California Press,
Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford.
Hume, K 1984, Fantasy and Mimesis: Responses to Reality in Western Literature.
Methuen, London and New York.
Hume, L 2002, Ancestral Power. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.

Ikin, V 1987, ‘Terry Dowling.’ Syncon Program Book. Sydney: Syncon 1987
convention.
Ikin, V 1995 ‘Strange Scuttlings in the Night.’ Sydney Morning Herald (Oct 14), p.24
Ikin, V 1996, ‘Terry Dowling’ in Jay P. Pederson (ed) St. James Guide to Science
Fiction Writers (4th ed). St James Press, Detroit, MI. pp. 266-67.
Ikin, V 2001, ‘Utopian Elements in Terry Dowling’s Tom Rynosseros Fiction.’ (2001)
Paper, 'Antipodean Utopias' conference, University of Tasmania, Hobart, (7
December). Published: 2004, Australian Cultural History 23 (Annual), pp137-
41; 2004, in Futures Exchange, Elizabeth Leane and Jenny McFarlane (eds).
API Network and University of Queensland Press. St Lucia, Qld.
Ikin, V 2002, ‘The Ikin Interviews: Terry Dowling.’ Aurealis no. 30 (October),
pp.108-16. Accessed on 20/4/2009 http:// www.terrydowling.com/PDF/The
%20Ikin%20Interview.pdf.
Ikin, V & S McMullen 2005, ‘Australian Science Fiction’ in David Seed (ed). A
Companion to Science Fiction. Blackwell Publishing, Malden MA, pp337-50.
Ikin, V & S Paulsen. “Smoking Mirrors, with a Hint of Scrimshaw.” Interzone no.146
(Aug 1999). Accessed 4/20/2009. http://
www.terrydowling.com/PDF/Smoking%20Mirrors.pdf.
Jackson, R 1981, Fantasy: the Literature of Subversion. Methuen, London and New
York.
Jameson, F 1991, Postmodernism, Or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Duke
University Press, Durham, NC.
Jameson, F 2005, Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other
Science Fictions. Verso, London.

Jung C G 1933, Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Trans. Dell, WS & Baynes. CF
Harcourt, Brace and World, New York.
Jung C G 1953-96 (12 vols). Collected Works. Princeton/Bollingen, Princeton NJ.
Jung C J 1976, Alchemical Studies. Trans R.F.C. Hull. Princeton University Press,
Princeton, NJ.
Jung C G 1977, Mysterium Conjunctionis. Trans Hull, R F C. Princeton University
Press, Princeton, NJ.
Jung C G 1977, Psychology and Alchemy. Trans Hull, R F C. Princeton University
Press, Princeton NJ.
Jung, C G 1978, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche. Trans. Hull, R F C.
Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ.
Jung, C G 1980, Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. Trans R.F.C. Hull,
Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ.
Jung, C G 1981, Aion: Researches Into the Phenomenology of the Self (2nd ed).
Routledge, London.
Jung, C G 1984, The Spirit of Man in Art and Literature. Routledge, London.
Jung C G 1986, Four Archetypes. Routledge, London.
Jung C G 1990, Man and His Symbols. Arkana, London.
Knapp, B L 1984, A Jungian Approach to Literature. Southern Illinois University
Press, Carbondale & Edwardsville, IL.
Kurzweil, R 2006, The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
Penguin, London.
Lawson, C 1999 Review of Antique Futures. Coode Street Review of Science Fiction
(September) p8.

Leeming, J A 1973, Mythology: The Voyage of the Hero. J.B. Lippincott,
Philadelphia.
LeGuin, U K 1975, ‘The Stoneax and the Muskoxen.’ (Guest of Honour Speech,
August 1) Melbourne: Aussiecon 1: 33rd World Science Fiction Convention.
Published: 1975, Vector no. 71 (December); 1976, Suncon Convention
Journal no. 11 (Winter).
LeGuin, U K 1979, Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Putnam, New York.
Locus editors, 1994 “Terry Dowling: Australian Talespinner”. Locus, vol. 32, no. 6,
no. 401 (June) pp 4, 76.
Lowry, S P 1982, Familiar Mysteries: The Truth in Myth. Oxford University Press,
New York and London.
Luckhurst, R 1998, The Angle Between Two Walls: The Fiction of J. G. Ballard.
Liverpool University Press, Liverpool UK.
Mabille, P 1998, Mirror of the Marvellous: The Classic Surrealist Work on Myth.
Trans. Gladding, J. Inner Traditions, Rochester VT.
McCaffery, L (ed) 1991, Storming the Reality Studio: A Casebook of Cyberpunk and
Postmodern Fiction. Duke University Press, Durham NC and London
McKay, D. 2007, ‘The Defining characteristic of Reality: Surrealism and post textual
deconceptualisation.’ Accessed 15/9/2009
http://marabe7.com/ALL/Reference-and-Education/Future-Concepts/the-
defining-characteristic-of-reality-surrealism- and-posttextual-
deconceptualism.html.
McKerrow, R 1990, ‘Foucault and Surrealism of the Truth.’ Accessed 9/8/2009.
http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~mckerrow/foucault.pdf

McKie, D 1993, ‘Postcolonialism versus postmodernism: premature births and
premature burials in the late capitalist environment.” Journal of the South
Pacific Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies no.
36. Accessed 11//8/2009.
http://wwwmcc.murdoch.edu.au/ReadingRoom/litserv/SPAN/36/McKie.html
McMullen, S 1991 Review of Wormwood. Aurealis no. 5; 1999, Aurealis Mega Oz
SF Anthology. Aurealis Publications, Melbourne.
McNamara, P 1990, ‘Introduction’ in Rynosseros (2003 ed) (see Primary
Bibliography).
McNamara, P 2000 ‘The Terry Dowling Interview.’ SF Review, 5-EBI-FM, (radio
broadcast 23/6/00; 14/7/00; 4/8/00).
McNamara, P & Winch M (eds) 2003, Forever Shores: Fiction of the Fantastic.
Wakefield Press, Kent Town SA.
Mann, N R 1996, The Dark God: A Personal Journey Through the Underworld.
Llewellyn Publications, St Paul, MN.
Matthews, J.H. 1982, Surrealism, Insanity and Poetry. Syracuse University Press,
New York.
Mahon, A 2005, Surrealism and the Politics of Eros. Thames and Hudson, London.
Marshall, J 2002, Jung, Alchemy and History: A Critical Exposition of Jung's Theory
of Alchemy. Hermetic Research Series, Glasgow.
Meurs, J V & Kidd, J 1988, Jungian Literary Criticism: 1920-1980: An
Annotated, Critical Bibliography of Works in English. The Scarecrow Press,
Metuchen NJ and London:
Miller, F ‘Recommended Reading.’ Locus (Feb 1991), 35.

Miller, Tim. ‘The Heroic Monomyth.’ Accessed 25/05/09.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZJI3Tk5Gkg&feature=related.
Morgan, C Review of Wormwood. Emerald City no. 12 (Aug 1996). Accessed on
9/4/2009. http://www.emcit.com/emcpr012.shtml#Wormwood. .
Mudrooroo 1986, Us Mob: History, Culture, Struggle: An Introduction to Indigenous
Australia. Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
Mudrooroo 1994, Aboriginal Mythology. Aquarian, London.
Mundy, J.2001, Surrealism: Desire Unbound. Princeton University Press, Princeton
NJ.
Murray, J 1994 ‘Mr Dowling and the Wow Factor.’ Mens Journal Quarterly,
(Summer). Accessed 20/4/2009. http://
www.terrydowling.com/PDF/Postcards%20From%20The%20Flight
%20Deck.pdf .
Nicholls, P 1990, Review of Rynosseros. Sydney Morning Herald (Aug 8), p37.
Nicholls, P 1993, ‘Terry Dowling’ in John Clute and Peter Nicholls (eds) The
Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (2nd ed) Orbit/Little Brown, London, p351.
Nicholls, S 1980, Jung and the Tarot: An Archetypal Journey. Weiser/Red Wheel,
York Beach, ME.
Official Terry Dowling website. Accessed on various dates from April to October,
2009. http:// www.terrydowling.com/
Official Terry Dowling Yahoo group. Accessed 20/4/2009.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Terry Dowling group/.
Old official Terry Dowling website. Accessed 20/4/2009.
http://eidolon.net/homesite.html?section_name=Terry Dowling. Covers news
on the author up to 17 Nov 2006.

O’Neill, T R 1979, The Individuated Hobbit: Jung, Tolkien and the Archetypes of
Middle Earth. Houghton Mifflin Co, Boston.
Ozaniec, N 2002, Initiation into the Tarot. Watkins Publishing, London.
Pauli, W & Jung, C G 2001, Atom and Archetype, The Pauli/Jung Letters, 1932–
1958. (ed. C.A. Meier.) Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Paulsen, S & McMullen, S. 1998, ‘Terry Dowling.’ In Pringle D (ed) St James Guide
to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers. St James Press, Detroit, MI, pp.189-90.
Pearson, C S 1989, The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By. (2nd expanded ed).
Harper Collins, New York.
Piffle editors 1997, ‘The Terry Dowling Interview.” Piffle and Other Trivia no. 26
(September), 3-5.
Poma, C. “A Brief Study of the Hero Quest in Modern Stories.” Accessed 25/04/09.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgsm6XKD9DU&feature=related.
Pringle, D 1979 Earth is the Alien Planet: J.G. Ballard's Four-Dimensional
Nightmare. The Borgo Press, San Bernardino, CA.
Pringle, D (ed) 1997, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy. Carlton/Random House,
Sydney.
Pringle, D 1997, The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Science Fiction. Carlton Books,
Sydney.
Pringle, D 1984, ‘JGB and the Surrealistic Novel.’ JGB News no. 13 (September).
http://www.jgballard.ca/pringle_news_from_the_sun/news_from_sun13.html.
Proposch, S 1996, Review of An Intimate Knowledge of the Night. Bloodsongs no. 7
(April), 8.

‘quari.’ 2001, ‘A Beautiful but Troubled Future and a Mysterious Man. Review of
Blue Tyson. Accessed on 24/4/2009.
http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Tyson-Terry Dowling -/product-
eDescending.
‘quari.’ 2001, ‘Wonderfully Vivid Vision of Future Australia.’ Accessed on
24/4/2009. http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Beach-Terry Dowling -/product-
eDescending.
Rabinovitch, C 2004, Surrealism and the Sacred: Power, Eros and Occult in Modern
Art. Westview Press, Boulder, CO.
Raglan, Lord 1937, The Hero: A Study in Tradition, Myth and Drama. Oxford
University Press, New York.
Rank, O 1964, The Myth of the Birth of the Hero, and Other Writings. (ed P. Freund).
Vintage, New York.
Ray, P C 1971, The Surrealist Movement in England. Cornell University Press,
Ithaca and London.
Richardson, M 1994, The Dedalus Book of Surrealism 2: The Myth of the World.
Dedalus Books, Sawtry, Cambs, UK.
Robinson, J C 1995, Death of a Hero, Birth of the Soul. Tzekadah Publications,
Sacramento, CA.
Rombaut, M 1990, Paul Delvaux. Rizzoli, New York.

Rumsey, A & Weiner J E (eds) 2001, Emplaced Myth: Space, Narrative and
Knowledge in Aboriginal Australia and Papua New Guinea. University of
Hawaii Press, Honolulu.
Samuels, A 1985, Jung and the Post-Jungians. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London.
Samuels, A 1993, ‘The mirror and the hammer: The politics of resacralization’ in The
Political Psyche, London: Routledge, pp 3-24.
Saxby, M & Winch, J 1997 “Some recurring Patterns in Myth and Literature” in their
The Millenium Book of Myth and Story. Alexandria NSW: Millenium Books.
Scott, Richard (2008) Rynosseros Cycle Concordance: An Unofficial List of people,
Places and Things from Terry Dowling’s Tom Tyson Stories. Accessed on
various dates from April to October 2009. http://rynosseros.blogspot.com/.
Scott, R (as by ‘Blue Tyson’). 2007, Australian SF Reader (July 31) Review of Blue
Tyson. Accessed 24/4/09.
http://www.amazon.com/review/1875346058/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?
ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1&2115R3L3PZ4ZJQPUZLHelpfulReviews4.s=
SUCCESS&voteError=0&.
Scott, R (as by ‘Blue Tyson’). Australian SF Reader, (July 31) (Review of
Rynosseros). Accessed on 24/4/2009.
http://www.amazon.com/Rynosseros-Terry Dowling -/product
reviews/095865834X/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?
eDescending.
Scott, R (as by ‘Blue Tyson’) 2007, Australian SF Reader, (Sept 29), 2007. (Review
of Twilight Beach). Accessed on 24/4/2009.
http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Beach-Terry Dowling -/product-

eDescending.
Segal, R A 1998 ‘Introduction’ In Jung on Mythology. Princeton University Press,
Princeton NJ, pp 3-48
Sharp, D C 1991 Jung Lexicon: A Primer of Terms and Concepts. Inner City Books,
Toronto.
Singer, T 2000, The Vision Thing: Myth, Politics and Psyche in the World. Routledge,
London.
Sluganski, R (2004) ‘Just Adventure Speaks with Terry Dowling.’ Accessed
20/4/2009.http://www.justadventure.com/Interviews/Terry Dowling
/TD1.shtm;http://www.terrydowling.com/PDF/Just%20Adventure
%20Interview.pdf.
Smith, N D (ed) 1982, Philosophers Look at Science Fiction. Nelson-Hall, Chicago.
Smoley, R & Kinney, J 1999, Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner
Traditions. Penguin/Arkana, Harmondsworth, UK.
Speed, S (2005) Review of An Intimate Knowledge of the Night. Accessed on
21/4/2005. http://www.speed.demon.co.uk/reviews/night.htm.
Stableford, B 1999, The Dictionary of Science Fiction Places. Fireside, New York.
Stableford, B 2004, Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction Literature. Scarecrow
Press, Metuchen, NJ.
Steele, C 1993, Review of Twilight Beach. Science Fiction Commentary [n.d] p. 52.
Stiegler, B. “The Disaffected Individual”. Accessed on 6/9/2009.
http://www.arsindustrialis.org/disaffected-individual-process-psychic-and-
collective-disindividuation.

Stephenson, G 1991 Out of the Night and Into the Dream: A Thematic Study of the
Fiction of J.G. Ballard, Greenwood Press, New York.
Storr, A (ed) 1998, The Essential Jung. Fontana, 1998.
Strahan, J (2003) Review of Rynemonn. Coode Street Review of Science Fiction
(May), 7.
Sugg, R P (ed) 1992, Jungian Literary Criticism. Northwestern University Press.
Evanston, IL.
Szulakowska, U 2001, Review of Rabinovich, C. Surrealism and the Sacred: Power,
Eros and the Occult in Modern Art. Accessed on 15/9/ 2009.
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/publications/papers/index.html.
Szumskyj, B J, 2008, ‘The Weird Talesman: An Interview with Terry Dowling.’
Studies in Australian Weird Fiction 1 Accessed on 20/4/2009.
http://www.Terry Dowling .com/PDF/Weird%20Talesman.pdf.
Tacey, D J 2004, ‘At the Edge of the Sacred: Landscape and Dreaming,’ Harvest:
Journal for Jungian Studies, vol. 40 (November) pp60-76.
Tacey, D J 1989, ‘Australia’s Otherworld: Aboriginality, Landscape and the
Imagination,’ Meridian, vol. 8, no. 1 (May), pp57-65.
Tacey, D J 1998 Edge of the Sacred: Transformation in Australia. Harper Collins,
East Melbourne, Vic.
Talbot, N. (1995) ‘Psychic Invasion.’ The Weekend Review, (Nov 25-26), p8.
“Terry Dowling: Virtuoso of the Fantastic” Official Facebook group. Accessed on
20/4/2009. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7347055836.
Todorov, T 1988, Literature and Its Theorists: A Personal View of Twentieth-Century
Criticism. Routledge, London.

Trosky, S & Gale staff, 1988, ‘Terry Dowling.’ Contemporary Authors, vol. 123.
Gale, Detroit MI.
Tythacott, L 2003, Surrealism and the Exotic. Routledge, London and New York.
Vance, J. ‘Introduction” in Blue Tyson (see Primary Bibliography)
Vogler, C 2007, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. (3rd ed).
Michael Weisler Productions, New York.
Von Franz, M-L 1974, Shadow and Evil in Fairytales. Spring Publications, Zurich.
Waldberg, P 1997, Surrealism. Thames and Hudson, London.
Walker, S F 1995, Jung and the Jungians on Myth. Garland Publishing, New York
Westfahl, G 2005, Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy:
Themes, Works, Wonders. Greenwood Press, Westport CT.
White, A. (2007) ‘Terra Incognita: Surrealism and the Pacific Region.’ Papers of
Surrealism no. 6 (Autumn). Accessed on 15/9/2009.
http://www.surrealismcentre.ac.uk/publications/papers/index.html.
Williams, P VA (ed) 1979, The Fool and the Trickster. D.S. Brewer, Ipswich UK.
Williams, Tess. 2004, Review of McNamara and Winch (eds), Forever Shores:
Fiction of the Fantastic. JAS Review of Books, Online Issue no. 28 (October).
http://www.api-network.com/main/index.php?
apply=reviews&webpage=api_reviews&flexedit=&flex_password=&menu_la
bel=&menuID=homely&menubox=&Review=5093
Wilmer, H A 1987, Practical Jung: Nuts and Bolts of Jungian Psychotherapy. Chiron
Publications, Wilmette, IL:
Wyatt, G. 1996, ‘When was the last time you noticed the shape of the light-switch in
your bedroom?’ [Interview with Terry Dowling]. Sirius 11 (March), 11-12.

Young-Eisendrath, P & Dawson T 1998, The Cambridge Companion to Jung.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Deep in The Reality Crisis: Individuation, 'Mytho-Realism' and Surrealistic Traces in Terry Dowling's Tom Rynosseros Cycle

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Deep in The Reality Crisis: Individuation, 'Mytho-Realism' and Surrealistic Traces in Terry Dowling's Tom Rynosseros Cycle

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

“DEEP IN THE REALITY CRISIS”:

INDIVIDUATION, ‘MYTHO-REALISM’ AND SURREALISTIC TRACES

IN TERRY DOWLING’S TOM RYNOSSEROS CYCLE”

A thesis/creative work submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for

the award of the degree

BACHELOR OF CREATIVE ARTS (HONOURS)

SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM & CREATIVE WRITING

Deep in the Reality Crisis Page 1 of 102

This thesis recognises and illuminates under-examined key themes and

Dowling’s Rynosseros cycle (4 vols).

Terry Dowling’s four-volume Rynosseros cycle is a complex, multi-levelled

fantastic narrative of linked stories positioned in a realm identified as a far-future

after being imprisoned in the Madhouse (a place of punishment constructed by the

The key theoretical axes of my analysis will be the Jungian approach to

literature (archetypal criticism) and the Surrealist approach to creativity. Individuation

theories regarding individual psychological development have been highly influential

since mid-twentieth century in providing a theoretical framework for understanding,

term ‘monomyth’ to encapsulate the ‘heroic journey,’ one of many recurrent,

underlying, universal motifs discernible throughout literature, and analogous to the

life-journey of the individual psyche.

term ‘mytho-realism,’ arguing that Terry Dowling’s Tom Rynosseros cycle

consciously utilises transpersonal mythic motifs (such as monomyth variants) to

Deep in the Reality Crisis Page 2 of 102

‘Surrealism’ 1 is a complex of artistic and psychological attitudes to creativity

and to modes of artistic perception characterised by such ideas as ‘the marvellous,’

assist in contextualising this examination of Dowling’s story-cycle.

mythic overtones and grounding his narrative technique in ‘mytho-realism,’ Dowling

employs Jungian tropes, alongside ‘heterotopias’ and the Surrealist ‘marvellous’ in

thesis contends that Dowling’s work, although connected to speculative fiction, is

firmly situated within traditions of Surrealist discourse and of Jungian literature.

Deep in the Reality Crisis Page 3 of 102

assessment in any formal course”

Deep in the Reality Crisis Page 4 of 102

-- Tzvetan Todorov, Literature and Its Theorists (1988)

Deep in the Reality Crisis Page 5 of 102

Part I: “Deep in the Reality Crisis: Individuation, “Mytho-realism” and

Surrealistic Traces in Terry Dowling’s Tom Rynosseros Cycle.”

The Academy’s Treatment of Speculative Fiction & Dowling as ‘Imagier’ 11

Themes of Race and Indigineity in the Rynosseros Cycle 13

Critical Gaps in Existing Scholarship 21

Chapter 2. Background to Jungian Theory & Archetypal Criticism 22

Individuation: Self and Shadow 22

Archetypes and The Heroic Journey 23

Jungian Myth in Popular Culture 25

The Monomyth and Archetypal Criticism 25

Chapter 3. Jungian Mytho-Realism in the Rynosseros Cycle 28

Jungian Archetypes in the Rynosseros Cycle 28

Departure in the Rynosseros Cycle 30

Initiation in the Rynosseros Cycle 31

Return in the Rynosseros Cycle 32

Chapter 4. Background to Surrealist Theory 34

Surrealism in Popular Culture 35

Bataille, Surrealism and the ‘Absence of Myth’ 37

Deep in the Reality Crisis Page 6 of 102

Chapter 5. Surrealist Traces in the Tom Rynosseros Cycle 40

Influence of J.G. Ballard’s Surrealism on Dowling 40

Narrative Discontinuity in Surrealism and Dowling 43

Chapter 6. Deep in the Reality Crisis: Dowling’s Conception of the

Dowling’s Response to the ‘Reality Crisis’ as ‘Mytho-realism’ 46

Dowling’s Use of the Heterotopia and Inquietude 47

of Captain Gelise” (Aurealis 9, 1992; Twilight Beach) and “The Leopard”

Surrealist Imagery in “The Final Voyage of Captain Gelise” 49

Mytho-realism in “The Final Voyage of Captain Gelise” 51