HARRY HEATHCOTE OF GANGOIL
Aug. 15th, 2013 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blueinkedfrostTrollope does Australia! It's very interesting to read an outsider's perspective on those old days in the bush.
The eponymous character fits the profile of a tragic hero - noble, talented, hardworking, well-intentioned, but with a crucial flaw of being too autocratic and sure of himself.
There's the old Australian comic sketch of the swagman who turns up at the settler's place, asking for a bite to eat and a place to stay for the night.
Swagman. Mighty dry weather for this time of year.
Settler. Yes?
Swagman. Grass is like tinder.
Settler. Noticed.
Swagman. Be a shame if someone was lighting a match for a cigarette or pipe and accidentally dropped it, or something. Whole place would go up like smoke.
Settler. That's true.
Swagman. You a smoking man, sir? I got my pipe here with me.
Settler. You go round to my cook and get yourself something good to eat.
The novel is fundamentally about this plot.
Despite the protagonist's promising characterisation, none of the other characters in the novel have much depth. It's a simple tale, whose purpose is to show what Trollope researched about fire and squatters in the Australian bush. (Note: obvious racism in this novel is minimal though present.)
It's enjoyable on the whole, and quite heavy on action. Trollope wrote this one after visiting his son in Australia, basing it on his experiences, and in his Autobiography seems pleased with his efforts. He should've been!
There's this fun little passage in Trollope's autobiography about writing Christmas stories to order (this novel is set in the Australian midsummer):
A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should be the ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desire for Christmas religious thought, or Christmas festivities,—or, better still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with Dickens when he wrote his two first Christmas stories. But since that the things written annually—all of which have been fixed to Christmas like children's toys to a Christmas tree—have had no real savour of Christmas about them. I had done two or three before. Alas! at this very moment I have one to write, which I have promised to supply within three weeks of this time,—the picture-makers always require a long interval,—as to which I have in vain been cudgelling my brain for the last month. I can't send away the order to another shop, but I do not know how I shall ever get the coffin made.
The eponymous character fits the profile of a tragic hero - noble, talented, hardworking, well-intentioned, but with a crucial flaw of being too autocratic and sure of himself.
There's the old Australian comic sketch of the swagman who turns up at the settler's place, asking for a bite to eat and a place to stay for the night.
Swagman. Mighty dry weather for this time of year.
Settler. Yes?
Swagman. Grass is like tinder.
Settler. Noticed.
Swagman. Be a shame if someone was lighting a match for a cigarette or pipe and accidentally dropped it, or something. Whole place would go up like smoke.
Settler. That's true.
Swagman. You a smoking man, sir? I got my pipe here with me.
Settler. You go round to my cook and get yourself something good to eat.
The novel is fundamentally about this plot.
Despite the protagonist's promising characterisation, none of the other characters in the novel have much depth. It's a simple tale, whose purpose is to show what Trollope researched about fire and squatters in the Australian bush. (Note: obvious racism in this novel is minimal though present.)
It's enjoyable on the whole, and quite heavy on action. Trollope wrote this one after visiting his son in Australia, basing it on his experiences, and in his Autobiography seems pleased with his efforts. He should've been!
There's this fun little passage in Trollope's autobiography about writing Christmas stories to order (this novel is set in the Australian midsummer):
A Christmas story, in the proper sense, should be the ebullition of some mind anxious to instil others with a desire for Christmas religious thought, or Christmas festivities,—or, better still, with Christmas charity. Such was the case with Dickens when he wrote his two first Christmas stories. But since that the things written annually—all of which have been fixed to Christmas like children's toys to a Christmas tree—have had no real savour of Christmas about them. I had done two or three before. Alas! at this very moment I have one to write, which I have promised to supply within three weeks of this time,—the picture-makers always require a long interval,—as to which I have in vain been cudgelling my brain for the last month. I can't send away the order to another shop, but I do not know how I shall ever get the coffin made.
