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official, given her the option of Alice’s Tiger Lily to remain silent or not, and then maintains
her status as an Orientalist cliché by leaving her mystery unresolved. Tiger Lily is indeed one
of Koch’s finer, if usually overlooked, creations, and she finally seems best described as an
apsarasas, a heavenly attendant to cosmic events, which Koch has liberally adopted from
Eastern mythology, and which are discussed in chapter 9 on the Divine Feminine.
In a more serious vein, Wally O’Sullivan, as already mentioned, is the Walrus of
Tweedledee’s poem who entices the young oysters to take a nice walk along the beach with
him, and then eats them all. O’Sullivan, whose size and eating habits as well as his first name
fit the walrus motif, is a pederast who has fallen in love with Southeast Asia thanks to the
access it gives him to beautiful young boys along with the relative anonymity, allowing him
solve his identity problem by coming, at least partly, out of the closet. He tells Hamilton and
Cookie:
‘I’m happy in this bloody mad country, you know. They might be on
the wrong track at the moment, but the Javanese have everything, really:
intelligence, subtlety, sense of humour, and sen-sensitivity.’ He hiccuped. ‘I
love them. I think I may never leave,’ he said. ‘This is my home, now. I may
apply for citizenship.’
At this, we laughed in disbelief; but he raised a stilling hand; even in
drunkenness his dignity was paramount. I’m quite serious—really, I have
something to give them; they have something to give me. There are young
men here who are hungry for education, for guidance that they can’t find in the
present breakdown. You met my young friends tonight—Hadji and Abdul?
Fine young men. I teach them English—supervise their reading--guide them in
their political thinking. They’ll be leaders, some day, and they’ll set this
country on a civilised course. And I can be myself with them. I can’t be
myself in Australia.’ (YLD, 102)
This explains why Koch would take prototypes out of Lewis Carroll. He must make his
characters likeable even while they represent very real, decadent Westerners who fall into the
worst tradition of Western imperialism as they live out their Orientalist fantasies. And so
Koch ennobles him as ‘Great Wally’ and makes him into the central figure in a clique where
shared experiences make the group important above all else, and the group’s rigid stereotypes
regulate its members. Like the Walrus, Wally relishes his role especially well, both as
consumer of Indonesian boys and as ringleader in the Wayang Bar, and his performance is
exceptional. Called upon to recite the many monikers of President Sukarno, Wally maintains
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