Australian expedition that is genre-lly adjacent to The Tartar Steppe sort of? Less crazed insanity from the titular protagonist, the German ex-con Mr. Johann Ulrich Voss, but still some naturalistic supernatural spooking going on. Set in mid 19th century colonial Australia, the prose is very Austen-esque (complimentary).

The first half of the book bounces between Mr. Voss as he amasses his expeditionary party, as well as well-to-do, tea-party type drama fueled by the patron of the expedition Mr. Bonner, and Bonner's orphaned niece Laura Trevelyan. At first the two main characters seem diametrically opposed, but each makes an impression on the other that they are able to pierce through the bullshit surrounding them. Voss with his icy Germanic pragmatism, and Laura with her aloof (? not quite the right word) separation from the drama of the Bonner household. Which drama largely consists of Rose, the maid, mysteriously becoming pregnant (bringing shame and sin upon the family) and subsequent death, leaving Laura to tend for the child (Mercy) until a widower comes to take the child from her.

About a third of the way through the book, in Chapter 4, Laura and Voss have an intellectual tryst in the garden shortly before his departure during which time they but heads, but after which both walk away with a mutual respect, if not inexplicable affection, for the other. Their relationship captures the essence of a romance epic, rife with wandering, chivalry, and chastity:

'Shall we go a little?’ he invited.

‘Walking in this darkness is full of dangers.’

‘It is not really dark. When you are accustomed to it.’

Which was true. The thick night was growing luminous. At least, it was possible almost to see, while remaining almost hidden.”

'Interesting,’ he said.

But it was an obscure reply, of a piece with the spongy darkness that surrounded them.

‘Then you are not going to answer my question?’ he asked.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that silly claim I made! Although, to a certain extent, it is true.’

‘Tell me, then.’

‘Everyone is offended by the truth, and you will not be an exception.’

That it would take place, they both knew now.

Consequently, when she did speak, the sense of inevitability that they shared made her sound as if she were reading from a notebook, only this one was her head, in which her memorandum had been written, in invisible ink, that the night had breathed upon; and as she read, or spoke, it became obvious to both that she had begun to compile her record from the first moment of their becoming acquainted.

“You are so vast and ugly,’ Laura Trevelyan was repeating the words; ‘I can imagine some desert, with rocks, rocks of prejudice, and, yes, even hatred. You are so isolated. That is why you are fascinated by the prospect of desert places, in which you will find your own situation taken for granted, or more than that, exalted. You sometimes scatter kind words or bits of poetry to people, who soon realize the extent of their illusion. Everything is for yourself. Human emotions, when you have them, are quite flattering to you. If those emotions strike sparks from others, that also is flattering. But most flattering, I think, when you experience it, is the hatred, or even the mere irritation of weaker characters.’

‘Do you hate me, perhaps?’ asked Voss, in darkness.

‘I am fascinated by you,’ laughed Laura Trevelyan, with such candour that her admission did not seem immodest. ‘You are my desert!’

Once or twice their arms brushed, and he was conscious of some extreme agitation or exhilaration in her.

‘I am glad that I do not need your good opinion,’ he said.

Ugh, it's so good - just perfectly captures Voss' desire to chase the unknown, the only thing that can provide comfort to him from himself. That she reads him dead to rights on this front, but is nevertheless intrigued y the surplus of depth that he stands to offer her. Voss and Laura are mutually astute judges of character.

Voss' ascertainment of the quality of his men is further explicated once the party departs New South Wales

“The emancipist made a wry mouth, and sound of regret or doubt, of which Voss, preoccupied with his own deficiencies, remained unaware. Indeed, the pleasure he promised himself in learning to understand Judd did seem illusory, for rock cannot know rock, stone cannot come together with stone, except in conflict. And Voss, it would appear, was in the nature of a second monolith, of more friable stone, of nervous splinters, and dark mineral deposits, the purposes of which were not easily assessed.”

For a book written a hundred years later, I think White nails the Victorian diction

“All his days were wasting away in precise acts. His feet were heavy with dust as he tramped between shed, tent, and stockyard. Now his distaste for men returned, especially for those with whom he had surrounded himself, or, to be more accurate, with whom an ignorant jackass had surrounded him against his will. Blank faces, like so many paper kites, themselves earth-bound, or at most twitching in the warm shallows of atmosphere, dangling a vertebral tail, could prevent him soaring towards the apotheosis for which he was reserved. To what extent others had entangled him in the string of human limitation, he had grown desperate in wondering.”

Laura and Voss develop a pseudo-spiritual telepathic connection, appearing to one another in dreams and prayers and outright visions (as Voss begins to succumb the wilderness).

To kiss and to kill our similar words to those whose eyes focused to struggle

Wiki says

The strength of the novel comes not from the physical description of the events in the story but from the explorers' passion, insight and doom. The novel draws heavily on the complex character of Voss.

But I don't think that's entirely true. Voss is interesting, but the wilderness itself and in particular the descriptions of the nature were gripping, and I'm not one for pastorals.

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