An imaginative novel that feels like the last gasp of postmodernism

About half-way through, I'm finding Murray Bail's novel Eucalyptus (1998) readable and imaginative - that's saying something, as far too many novels are neither - though it leaves me w/ some qualms (which is not unusual). In essence, after some complex back story that I'm not sure I fully understand and several amusing asides in which the author comments on his own novel, the narrative settles down to this: A man (Holland) buys a vast tract of land in the Australian outback (using money from an insurance claim) and over time collects, plants, and nourishes every conceivable variety of eucalypt - the national tree of Australia. He is alone and raising his beautiful daughter, Ellen; when she's of marriageable age, he Holland sets up a test to select her husband-to-be: Anyone who can successfully name all of the hundreds of variants on his property will win Ellen's hand in marriage. Many men try; all - up to this point - fail. OK, so this ridiculous test recalls to us the same kind of schemes set up in Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice, e.g.), w/ sources even further back, in Roman comedies I think, and more recent in other art forms, such as Puccini's Turandot. But after all what does this say about women? In this novel, Ellen - completely sheltered through all of her upbringing - is pliant and passive in her acceptance of this strange, even cruel whim of her father. There's no way to accept this novel on a literal level - yet what is Bail getting at on the symbolic level? He opens every chapter (each named after a eucalypt variant) with the description of the characteristics of one of the plants, yet these descriptions bring little or no clarity to the plot of the characters. Is Bail indulging in a personal obsession here, or showing off his research chops? So far, I can't tell. This narrative, as well, is strangely deracinated; in yesterday's post I mistakenly placed this novel in the 19th century when in fact in must be set in about 1960, though it feels antique and w/ changes in a few topical details it could be set much earlier. So, I don't know: This novel, which never really got a foothold in the U.S. despite some international (Commonwealth) awards and the imprint of the prestigious FSG, is easy to read but in the end it feels a little like the last gasp of postmodernism.