ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author talks about a time in her childhood when she lived in a country town, and while the boredom she experienced might seem a subjective phenomenon, she would argue that similar feelings of boredom might go hand in hand with the experience of others. Being a child in a country town means being at the crossing point of two vectors of anticipation: one is temporal and universal in that one is anticipating the bigger world of adulthood, and the second is spatial, the anticipation of modern urbanity, the country town is the child of the city. Return Home is one of many texts representing a disenchantment with the relentless modernisation that characterises cities in which the economic limits of liveability have been pushed too hard. Real-estate prices in Australian cities mean country towns promise city residents more opportunities for home ownership; perhaps for homes where children can grow up and the family can try hobby farming.
