McLaren, John (2009) Journey without arrival: the life and writing of Vincent Buckley. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, Australia.

Abstract

Many people have assisted through the memories they contributed in interviews and written records, and through checking what I have written, Although I have had ready access to Buckley’s voluminous papers, it is not an authorised biography and does not aspire to be the definitive portrait of its subject. Rather, to paraphrase the late Greg Dening, I hope it will open a number of conversations about Buckley and his work. To quote Andrew O’Hagan from a quite different context, “In trying to give an account of a life fully lived, a writer wonders what mattered most. In the end, what we write is not merely an account of bare facts, but an account of our choices and other people’s …” This is particularly true of a poet and man as complex as Vincent Buckley. I have tried my best to get the scaffolding of fact correct, but the interpretations of both his life and his work are as well informed as I could make them, and finally they are my own.

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