Why the narrative fails in Bail's Eucalyptus

Despite some initial promise and some exceptionally clear and observant writing throughout, Murray Bail's novel Eucalyptus (1998) never delivers and rewards readers with an exceptionally poorly managed deus ex machina conclusion. We can see why the novel received many accolades, especially from other "Commonwealth" writers, at the time of its publication, but today all the homages to postmodernism (author commenting on his own writing, a device that Bail seems to abandon about midway through), elements of surrealism and magic realism (the plot makes no sense if taken on a literal level, nor is it meant to), a sheen of arcane information (each chapter is named after a variety of eucalypt), and interest in fairy tales, ghost stories, and legends - all seem to work against one another and give this novel far too much baggage for the thin narrative to bear. For example, the young woman (Ellen) whose fate is in her father's hands as he seeks a suitable husband for her through an arcane test, meets a young man on he property whom she sees, secretly, almost every day and each day he tells her a "story" - but these stories (there are about 15 or so by the end) don't shed any light on the characters or the plot, they all end w/ a whimper (e.g., man courts and wins a woman, they go to buy a wedding ring, she looks at a bunch, then say, no, I want 18 karat - and that's it) and he never engages Ellen in conversation, never says anything to her directly, never even tells her his name. In the end, Ellen is a cypher - we know little or nothing about her personality. Another example: With all the naming and description of the many eucalyptus species, what does that tell us about the people in this novel and their lives? Yes, Melville could fill out his novel with arcana, but all in the service of a great story and vividly rendered characters. Here, the arcana about these trees does nothing but show off the author's knowledge or research. At one time, this novel might have been considered on-the-edge, inventive story-telling, but today it feels meandering and hapless, requiring a lot more buy-in than I was willing or able to give.