Vertigo: Chapter 1 Summary & Analysis

A 34-year-old Australian man named Luke Worley has recently picked up the hobby of birdwatching. Even though he grew up in a suburban home with a beautiful garden, he has never been interested in birds prior to this point in his life. He might have thought this was funny some time ago, but things have changed in recent years. He’s developed his new interest in birdwatching ever since he moved to the coast with his wife Anna. Luke and Anna used to live in the city, where the birds were much harder to notice amid the bustle and noise. On some early mornings in the city, Luke would hear a sorrowful bird call that he was always curious about, but he never quite got around to identifying it.

In the recent past, before they moved out of the city, Luke and Anna gradually begin to feel dissatisfied with their living situation. Anna has a chest infection and has been diagnosed with asthma, which disrupts her physically active lifestyle and damages her self-esteem as a result. Meanwhile, Luke begins to become disillusioned with city life, feeling less optimistic about his future and more depressed by his surroundings. In bed one night, Luke looks at a tired and sickly Anna gasping from her inhaler, and he knows that it’s time for a change. He can’t bear to see her like this, and the next day he suggests that they move to the country and work from home.

Anna is very open to the idea of moving to the country. Luke’s parents are more skeptical, though Luke’s father Ken admits that the polluted air in the city is probably what caused Anna’s asthma. While Anna’s friends assume that she’s moving for her health, Anna secretly feels disillusioned with the city, much like her husband. In her shabby, cramped apartment with Luke, she begins to feel jealous of her wealthier friends. She knows that this envy is choking her free spirit and turning her into someone she’s not, so she’s determined to move to a place where she can regain her once-carefree attitude.

Luke and Anna research rural and coastal towns, compiling a list of likely candidates for places to live. When they drive off in their car to visit these places, they already feel freer. They’re also encouraged by the fact that their young boy chooses to go with them on this trip. The boy is usually withdrawn and rarely appears in the apartment, but now he’s staring curiously out of the car windows at the new sights. They drive through a variety of rural towns near the coast, but all of them seem either too old or too new for Luke or Anna’s tastes. One afternoon, a wrong turn takes them into a small coastal town called Garra Nalla.

By all appearances, Garra Nalla seems like the perfect place for Luke and Anna to live. The town is small, quiet, and has many beautiful natural features, including sandhills, white-sand beaches, and a lagoon where black swans swim. Anna thinks the town is “almost too picturesque” as she looks at the variety of colorful flowers and trees. Even the boy is excited by what he sees. As Luke and Anna stand on the headland and watch the sea, they wonder how a beautiful place like Garra Nalla hasn’t been turned into a crowded resort yet. On their way home, a local in a nearby town explains to them that tourists avoid Garra Nalla’s beach because of its dangerous riptide, which has caused four people to drown in the past five years. For Luke and Anna, this lack of tourism makes the town even more perfect.

Luke and Anna’s friends can hardly believe they’d want to live in a place without shops, hotels, and the like. But this lack of activity is exactly why the couple are so in love with Garra Nalla. It feels timeless and untamed—a place where they can live simply and free of modern complications that threaten to change who they are. They also love the old-fashioned house they’ve chosen, which has a wrap-around veranda, a cast-iron stove in the kitchen, and a generally homey atmosphere. It’s also made much more affordable by the fact that it isn’t by the coast, though it’s nonetheless within walking distance of the beach. While Anna sometimes hesitates to change their lives so completely, Luke remains confident in their choice. In January, they pack their things and officially move to their new home in Garra Nalla.

When they arrive at the house, Luke and Anna feel an excited sense of ownership, despite how musty their new home seems. The boy runs eagerly ahead of them as they unpack, exploring every room restlessly. They sleep on a mattress on the floor on their first night in the house, and Anna smiles at the evil-sounding hisses of possums on the roof. These noises frighten the boy, however. Anna calls him to the mattress and comforts him, kissing his blond curls and lulling him to sleep in her arms. Luke and Anna begin a new routine in the mornings, sitting out on the wide veranda together. Anna looks around for the boy, but strangely, she seems not to expect him to be there every morning.

Anna and Luke settle comfortably into their new lifestyle. Luke takes up birdwatching, and both he and Anna are excited to learn about the local bird species. They feel as though the house has always belonged to them and that they’ve only just now claimed what’s rightfully theirs. Both of them work from home; Luke has his office up in the house’s glassed-in attic, while Anna takes her laptop into the sunroom in the back. The views of the sea and the hills are incredible, making the couple feel more grounded and connected to nature than they felt in the city. They spend much of their time on the veranda. The boy often runs along the veranda dragging a stick behind him, clattering across the wooden boards.

The couple starts a garden in March, and they enjoy the unfamiliar rhythms and movements of tiring manual labor. The boy often plays in the yard as they work, dancing around and throwing things and singing off-key. Luke and Anna don’t look into each other’s eyes at these moments, as they’d feel too overjoyed at what their lives have become. However, this new existence isn’t perfect, as Garra Nalla is in a dry area of frequent drought. The area has been experiencing a drought for the past seven years; a fact that almost makes it seem like the land is cursed. There’s rain and mist in the distant hills, but the town’s dryness forces Luke and Anna to conserve water as best they can.

Luke and Anna have two neighbors in Garra Nalla: Gilbert Reilly and Rodney Banfield. Gilbert (whom they call Gil) is an old widower who introduced himself shortly after the couple moved in. He often visits their house to dispense advice and local folklore. He generally likes Luke and Anna, remarking that they bring interesting new life to the town. Likewise, the couple appreciates his friendly nature and are grateful that he’s not one of those old men who rants about the “good old days.” Meanwhile, Rodney is a short man in his twenties and a plumber. He’s secretly sleeping with a local miner’s wife, and he’s rumored to have a marijuana plantation in the hills.

Luke enjoys seeing the wide and colorful variety of birds on his frequent walks. One evening, around dusk, he spots an unusual, owl-like bird staring at him from a low branch. The birds in the garden usually fly away when someone approaches, but this bird continues to calmly stare at Luke while he stares back. After a few silent moments of this, Luke continues his walk home, feeling strangely elated and “pointlessly, mindlessly happy.” He’s unable to discover the species of the bird in his book that night, but he tells Anna that simply seeing the bird is more important than naming it. It’s like the boy in that way—they’ve never named him, and that’s the way it should be. Luke wishes the boy could have been there to see the bird with him, but he knows the boy is out of his control.

After visiting an old mansion in the area, Luke and Anna ask Gil about the history of the place. Gil explains that the mansion once belonged to the McKinnon family, who were involved in the local community back in their day. After the patriarch of the family died, the eldest son inherited the mansion, but he was soon caught in a riptide and drowned. After that, the mansion was purchased by a consortium of businessmen, who have no interest in Garra Nalla’s locals and only use the mansion for the occasional party, where they invite people from the city. Gil speaks of these businessmen scornfully, holding the McKinnons in much higher regard.

Gil also recounts the story of how Garra Nalla’s coastal area was once called Ross’s Farm. An old soldier named Ross unsuccessfully tried to start a farm on the coast after World War I, but he eventually shot himself. As Gil explains the history of the area, he tells another story about the time he heard gunshots coming from the edge of the lagoon. He found people from the business consortium shooting swans. Though they told Gil they had a permit, Gil called the police to put a stop to their reckless behavior, as the shooting was dangerous for anyone in the sandhills. He remarks that his mother used to bake swans occasionally, and that they tend to be delicious.

In April, Anna buys an old yellow canoe from a neighboring town. After a local surfer teaches them the basics, Anna and Luke make it a habit to paddle along the lagoon in the late afternoons. Sometimes the boy comes with them, sitting contentedly in the canoe and nervously freezing whenever a swan comes near. During these days, Luke begins to have recurring dreams about massive tidal waves that swallow Garra Nalla and submerge it underwater. But rather than being frightening, these strange dreams comfort Luke. As he swims in the sunlit waters of his dream, the boy swims alongside him. The boy’s face is glowing, and translucent fish swim beautifully around his unravelling blond curls.

At night, Luke tends to read, as he doesn’t want to keep looking at a screen after working all day. Anna, on the other hand, tends to watch the news in the evenings. This habit started when she was a teenager. Her late father would watch the news constantly after coming home from long shifts, so Anna had to watch the news with him in order to spend time with him. This had made her feel more like an adult, and more included in his world. Now, however, she watches the nightly news to keep in touch with the world outside of Garra Nalla. She also keeps up with friends and posts humorous anecdotes about country life on social media, while Luke mostly stays offline.

Shortly after the couple moved into their new home, Luke found two old trunks in a shed behind the house. The trunks were full of antique books that had once belonged to a reverend who retired in Garra Nalla. But rather than religious texts, the reverend’s books were mostly old travelogues, documenting journeys and explorations around the world. Now, Luke has been poring through these interesting old tomes and begins reading one called The Land That Is Desolate, written by a physician named Sir Frederick Treves. The book, published in 1913, gives an account of Sir Frederick’s travels in Palestine. Luke had forgotten about the book until he saw Anna watching footage of a rocket strike in Gaza on the news and became more interested in Palestine’s history.

Upon reading The Land That Is Desolate, Luke is surprised to discover that Sir Frederick Treves seems to be a cold and cynical man of science, rather than the faithful pilgrim Luke had imagined. After the death of his daughter, Treves traveled to the Holy Land to find a sense of meaning, but all he seemed to find was disappointment. Luke reads Sir Frederick’s scathing account of The Promised Land, which describes it as a hollow and decaying place that long ago lost whatever beauty it might have had. Treves goes on to describe many holy sites as miserable and unremarkable locations.

A passage about olives in the book reminds Luke of the new olive plantation on the coast. He reflects on how fresh changes are coming to Garra Nalla, and how his and Anna’s arrival is just one of those changes. He puts the book down and watches the stars as he stands alone with his thoughts, knowing that even the stars’ fixed position in the sky is only an illusion. Things are always moving and changing. On a moonlit night recently, Luke took Anna out to the headland, where they embraced beneath a she-oak thicket, with the sound of the sea churning below them.