Visitants is short, lyrical and at the same time deeply meditated, written in transparent prose by a poet who never poeticizes but knows all the resources of language … [It is] clear that Visitants is the product both of specialized knowledge and of deeply felt personal experience….

A relatively simple plot is embedded in an elaborately wrought narration. The story purports to be told by the five witnesses to the inquiry into the death of Alistair Cawdor…. With great technical skill, the point of view shifts between three Papuans and two Australians, the transitions which are the major potential difficulty in such treatment being managed without apparent effort. Randolph Stow has devised an individual style for each of his witnesses, so that after a time there is little difficulty in remembering whose viewpoint we are sharing. At the same time he has imposed an overall unity on the novel.

He achieves this, I think, by his treatment of one particular aspect of his subject, an aspect ignored by most novelists who set their scenes in foreign lands. He understands the change in perception which comes about with the knowledge and use of other languages. MacDonnell and Cawdor are represented as fluent in the native language; Osana, the interpreter, uses his frustrated skills to make mischief; Banoni speaks only a little Pidgin, and Saliba her native tongue. Dalwood passes through the stages of using odd phrases, which evoke embarrassing laughter, until he understands more and more of what is going on. The reader, too, is obliged to acquire a modest vocabulary: at least one early scene is difficult to understand until a second reading.

Inevitably the shade of Joseph Conrad lingers nearby as Randolph Stow leads us towards the dark heart of his story. There is the geographical closeness to Conrad's Malaya; there is the clash between cultures, which Conrad would have seen as the conflict between civilization and barbarism; there are evil and violence set against a background of tropical vegetation. But the parallels are fairly superficial. Stow … does not share Conrad's pessimism. Moreover, as his friend and admirer Hugh Clifford pointed out, Conrad knew rather little about his Malayan characters. Stow, on the other hand, is able to convince with both his Australians and his Papuans. The modern writer can be precise about the evils which destroy his creations: the orgies can be described and, though the frissons may be fewer, they can be enjoyed with more confidence.

At the same time, Stow does not evoke the archetypal simplicities which underlie Conrad's finest writing…. Where Randolph Stow excels, I think, is in providing an example of what Henry James called "saturation": the authority that comes from a deep knowledge of the life portrayed in his story. He is a writer who demands our attention and respect.