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"What is it about we Australians, eh?" demands a schoolteacher near the end of Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang. "Do we not have a Jefferson? A Disraeli? Might not we find someone better to admire than a horse-thief and a murderer?" It's the author's sole nod to the contradictory feelings Ned Kelly continues to evoke today, more than a century after his death. A psychopathic killer to some, a crusading folk hero to others, Kelly was a sharpshooting outlaw who eluded a brutal police manhunt for nearly two years. For better or worse, he's now a part of the Australian national myth. Indeed, the opening ceremonies for the Sydney Olympics featured an army of Ned Kellys dancing about to Irish music, which puts him in the symbolic company of both kangaroos and Olivia Newton-John.
What's to be gained from telling this illiterate bushranger's story yet again? Quite a lot, as it turns out. For starters, there is the remarkable vernacular poetry of Carey's narrative voice. Fierce, funny, ungrammatical, steeped in Irish legends and the frontier's moral code, this voice is the novel's great achievement--and perhaps the greatest in Carey's distinguished career. It paints a vivid picture of an Australia where English landowners skim off the country's best territory while government land grants allow the settlers just enough acreage to starve. Cheated, lied to, and persecuted by the authorities at every opportunity, young Kelly retains no faith in his colonial masters. What he does trust, oddly, is the power of words:
And here is the thing about them men they was Australians they knew full well the terror of the unyielding law the historic memory of UNFAIRNESS were in their blood and a man might be a bank clerk or an overseer he might never have been lagged for nothing but still he knew in his heart what it were to be forced to wear the white hood in prison he knew what it were to be lashed for looking a warder in the eye ... so the knowledge of unfairness were deep in his bone and in his marrow.Ned Kelly as literary hero? Strangely enough, that's what he becomes, at least in Carey's rendering. Pouring his heart out in a series of letters to the country at large, Kelly wants nothing more than to be heard--and for the dirt-poor son of an Irish convict, that's an audacious ambition indeed. It's not so surprising, then, that his story continues to speak to Australians. Like all colonial countries, Australia was built at a steep human price, and the memory of all those silenced voices lives on. True History of the Kelly Gang takes its epigraph from Faulkner: "The past is not dead. It is not even past." And like Faulkner's own vast chronicle of dispossession, it's haunted by tragedies as large as history itself. --Mary Park --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Every Australian grows up hearing the legend of outlaw Ned Kelly, whose exploits are memorialized in the old Melbourne Gaol, where he and his comrades were imprisoned before their execution in 1880. Carey's inspired "history" of Kelly from his destitute youth until his death at age 26 is as genuine as a diamond in the rough. No reader will be left unmoved by this dramatic tale of an instinctively good-hearted young man whose destiny, in Carey's revisionist point of view, was determined by heredity on one side and official bigotry and corruption on the other; whose criminal deeds were motivated by gallantry and desperation; and whose exploits in eluding the police for almost two years transfixed a nation and made him a popular hero. The unschooled Kelly narrates through a series of letters he writes to the baby daughter he will never see. Conveyed in run-on sentences, with sparse punctuation and quirky grammar enriched by pungent vernacular and the polite use of euphemisms for what Kelly calls "rough expressions" ("It were eff this and ess that"; "It were too adjectival hot"), Kelly's voice is mesmerizing as he relates the events that earned him a reputation as a horse thief and murderer. Through Ned's laconic observations, Carey creates a textured picture of Australian society when the British ruling class despised the Irish, and both the police and the justice system were thoroughly corrupt. Harassed, slandered, provoked and jailed with impunity, the Kellys, led by indomitable, amoral matriarch Ellen, believe they have no recourse but to break the law. Ned is initially reluctant; throughout his life, his criminal activities are an attempt to win his mother's love and approval. Ellen is a monster of selfishness and treachery. She betrays her son time and again, yet he adores her with Irish sentimentality and forfeits his chance to escape the country by pledging to surrender if the authorities will release her from jail. This is in essence an adventure saga, with numerous descriptions of the wild and forbidding Australian landscape, shocking surprises, coldhearted villains who hail from the top and the bottom of the social ladder and a tender love story. Carey (Booker Prize-winner Oscar and Lucinda) deserves to be lionized in his native land for this triumphant historical recreation, and he will undoubtedly win a worldwide readership for a novel that teems with energy, suspense and the true story of a memorable protagonist. 75,000 first printing. (Jan. 16)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Most helpful customer reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating book on Australian bandit's life,
By
This review is from: True History of the Kelly Gang (Vintage International) (Paperback)
This is a book that I've recommended to a number of friends and family. It's a really great read. First, Mr. Carey has adopted the lyrical, unpunctuated style that Ned Kelly used and the same vernacular of the early Australian immigrants Second, the story of the Kelly family and the brutal, unfair conditions of life for the forced immigrants makes for an important and compelling story. The True History of the Kelly Gang is mainly a depressing tale, but there are moments of genuine humor and humanity. Highly recommended.
4.0 out of 5 stars
A really good historical novel, a little surprising it won a Booker,
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This review is from: True History of the Kelly Gang (Paperback)
That pretty much sums it up. The novel is narrated by Kelly in poorly punctuated fashion. Surprise! Kelly thinks he's a hero. What he really is is difficult to discern, but he has a con's way of being convincing. The story is entertaining, keeps moving and everything else. So its definitely worth reading, if you like a good historic novel once in a while. Nothing else really to say . . .
4.0 out of 5 stars
Pride and prejudice down-under,
By
This review is from: True History of the Kelly Gang (Vintage International) (Paperback)
I knew nothing of this famous gang since I am from the US and I've never stduied Aussie outlaw history. Could the Kelley Gang have been in the US? England? South Africa? Yes, I think so- many of the conditions that led to this gang seem to be universal. Ned kelley's Irish family were put-down, locked-up and thrown-around by tyranical law enforcement gangs because, well, because they were Irish. Ned Kelley lashes back at the law with fists, guns and armour. His Irish family is treated by the "adjectival" authority with disdain bordering on obsessive hatred. Taught by the notorious bushranger Harry Power, Ned learns young to run, think and fire fast and first and ask questions later. The body count is high, morality low and yet the human spirit remains intact as Ned's love for his Mother and girlfriend (later to be wife) provide motivation that rises above loathing and eye for an eye rationale. I do enjoy Peter Carey's books. If you do too, I highly recommend "Jack Maggs".
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