That rarest of things, a recent prize-winning and critically praised novel that does NOT disappoint. Peter Carey channels the voice of Ned Kelly, Australia's answer to Robin Hood, or perhaps Bonnie and Clyde, achieving a chronicle of the life of the bushranger that is sympathetic to the crushing poverty and prejudice that gave rise to Kelly and his family, while never soft-pedalling the reign of terror that they unleashed on Victoria State, Australia in the 1870s.
I loved it, but I know that this won't appeal to everyone: the stylized language, and the episodic storytelling is the opposite of a comfortable read. Carey's inspiration was a letter Kelly actually wrote in 1879, before he robbed a bank in New South Wales.
" ... In or about the spring of 1870 the ground was very soft a hawker named Mr Gould got his wagon bogged between Greta and my mother's house on the eleven mile creek, the ground was that rotten it would bog a duck in places..."
That's a quote from the letter, not the novel (Mr. Gould, the hawker, does get his moment in the spotlight, in the novel, and it's a good one ...) But it's all there, and it might give you an idea what to expect: the slightly formal, desperate to be taken seriously style; the blunt, no nonsense view of a world that is both beautiful and terrible, and a grinding life that has been imposed on the sons and daughters of the Irish convicts who were whisked away to these alien shores, for crimes as heinous as stealing a loaf of bread for a starving family, or standing up to a corrupt landlord. The humor: the bleak, dark laugh at the heart of the very worst situation, right up to the very end, and Kelly's own, apocryphal last words: "Such is life."
About 1/3 of the way through the novel, I realized what it reminded me of: "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban. Like Hoban, in that novel (which, full disclosure, I rate as probably the best thing written in the history of the world, ever), Carey has invented his own language, and devised his own mythology for a "hero" who is trying to make sense of his place in what feels like a post-apocalyptic landscape. Carey's Kelly is heartbreaking in his misplaced and mis-shaped sense of honor, and right and wrong: he is desperate to be thought of as a "good man," to look after his family, and be thought well of by the (fictional) daughter he will never see.
Carey achieves what I would have thought was impossible -- explaining, and even justifying Kelly's iconic status in Australia and beyond.
I loved it, but I know that this won't appeal to everyone: the stylized language, and the episodic storytelling is the opposite of a comfortable read. Carey's inspiration was a letter Kelly actually wrote in 1879, before he robbed a bank in New South Wales.
" ... In or about the spring of 1870 the ground was very soft a hawker named Mr Gould got his wagon bogged between Greta and my mother's house on the eleven mile creek, the ground was that rotten it would bog a duck in places..."
That's a quote from the letter, not the novel (Mr. Gould, the hawker, does get his moment in the spotlight, in the novel, and it's a good one ...) But it's all there, and it might give you an idea what to expect: the slightly formal, desperate to be taken seriously style; the blunt, no nonsense view of a world that is both beautiful and terrible, and a grinding life that has been imposed on the sons and daughters of the Irish convicts who were whisked away to these alien shores, for crimes as heinous as stealing a loaf of bread for a starving family, or standing up to a corrupt landlord. The humor: the bleak, dark laugh at the heart of the very worst situation, right up to the very end, and Kelly's own, apocryphal last words: "Such is life."
About 1/3 of the way through the novel, I realized what it reminded me of: "Riddley Walker" by Russell Hoban. Like Hoban, in that novel (which, full disclosure, I rate as probably the best thing written in the history of the world, ever), Carey has invented his own language, and devised his own mythology for a "hero" who is trying to make sense of his place in what feels like a post-apocalyptic landscape. Carey's Kelly is heartbreaking in his misplaced and mis-shaped sense of honor, and right and wrong: he is desperate to be thought of as a "good man," to look after his family, and be thought well of by the (fictional) daughter he will never see.
Carey achieves what I would have thought was impossible -- explaining, and even justifying Kelly's iconic status in Australia and beyond.
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