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The White Earth
After his father’s death, young William is cast upon the charity of an unknown great-uncle, John McIvor. The old man was brought up expecting to marry the heiress to Kuran Station—a grand estate in the Australian Outback—only to be disappointed by his rejection and the selling off of the land. He has devoted his life to putting the estate back together and has moved into the once-elegant mansion.
McIvor tries to imbue William with his obsession, but his hold on the land is threatened by laws entitling the Aborigines to reclaim sacred sites. William’s mother desperately wants her son to become John McIvor’s heir, but no one realizes that William is ill and his condition is worsening.
McIvor tries to imbue William with his obsession, but his hold on the land is threatened by laws entitling the Aborigines to reclaim sacred sites. William’s mother desperately wants her son to become John McIvor’s heir, but no one realizes that William is ill and his condition is worsening.
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
39 people are currently reading
1665 people want to read
About the author
Andrew McGahan
16 books109 followersAndrew McGahan (b. 1966) was an Australian novelist, best known for his first novel Praise, and for his Miles Franklin Award-winning novel The White Earth. His novel Praise is considered to be part of the Australian literary genre of grunge lit.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 181 reviews
June 25, 2024
4.5★
“Then silence settled again, and he was alone. His new home frowned at him.
. . .
Overhead the clouds hung motionless. The air in the garden was chill, cooler than down on the plain, and it smelled different too. William was used to the dry scent of grain and chaff, and the dusty breath of the black soil. This place had a dank odour to it, a complexity of plants and trees and weeds, a bitter forest smell, with an underlay of rotting wood.”
William and his mother are being taken in to live at Kuran House, the once magnificent, now crumbling homestead of Kuran Station. His father was killed in a farm fire, so his father’s uncle, John McIvor, has offered them a place to stay.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Griffith, is as chilly and unwelcoming as the house, and Uncle John makes himself scarce. Most of the house is boarded off, with padlocks on makeshift doors on stairwells - obvious temptations for a nine-year old boy.
“As bad as the House looked from the outside, the interior was worse. It was a dim tangle of cramped rooms, narrow passageways and dead ends. It did not feel like anyone's home; instead, it reminded William of a derelict hotel.”
William hopes school will be an escape of sorts, but Uncle John decides he will stay at home, and has his tame local GP report glandular fever to the school. William’s mother has long suffered some kind of depression which being widowed has made worse. She lies silent in front of the TV, leaving William at the mercy of Mrs Griffith.
Suddenly, very late one night, Uncle John wakes William and takes the half-asleep boy out into the garden to look at the stars.
“Shooting stars. He had seen them before, of course, but never so many at once, nor at such a lonely hour. Was this what his uncle did at night, watch the sky? He wondered if he should speak, to express amazement or thanks. But the old man appeared to have forgotten he was there, so William stood waiting, his head craned back as the ghostly scintillations came and went.
‘I saw one hit the ground once.’
The words caught William unaware. His uncle's face was still set to the heavens.
‘It was out there on the plains, years ago, when I was a boy. It came down about a mile from our camp, a big flash and a clap of thunder. When we looked for it the next day all we found was a ring of dirt, like a ripple in a pond, and a little hole at the centre. No matter how long we dug, we couldn't find anything. The black soil had swallowed it up. It's deep, the soil out there. Forty feet, sixty feet, eighty. No one knows for sure. There's bedrock underneath it somewhere, but in my time I've seen whole houses sink down into the earth and vanish without a trace. They might still be there even now, resting on the bottom, if you knew where to look.’
It was a rich, dry voice, rolling in the darkness. William waited, disturbed and uncertain. The old man sniffed at the air.
'There are strange things in the world.’ ”
John McIvor’s story is really the heart of this, with his almost demonic obsession with Kuran Station and his love/hate relationship with the area. He doesn’t know why his father, the former manager, was reviled in the town, but it carried over to the family, so John is likewise tainted.
Even now, as an old man, the bitterness remains. Nevertheless, this is the land he feels belongs to him now and where he belongs.
He tells William stories of the unusual things he’s seen in the bush and asks if William has seen or heard the bunyip yet. He tells William that the new Native Title Act is being voted on and he’s rallying people to protest. He says the aboriginal people have all gone. Nothing to see here.
The author goes back to the White family in the 1800s and some of the local ‘white’ history of the time. Later, we hear the ghosts of the past.
This book won the 2005 Miles Franklin Award, for which Australian author Miles Franklin, (who wrote My Brilliant Career), bequeathed her estate. It is awarded to ‘a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases’.
“ 'That's the sort of thing you have to know about a piece of land, Will, if you're going to own it. You have to know where it fits in. You don't just buy a few square miles and put up a fence and say, This is it. Every stretch of earth has its story. You have to listen, and understand how it connects with other stories. Stories that involve the whole country in the end.’ ”
Between the protestations of ownership and property rights, hauntings and history, we sees ghosts and hallucinations intrude, keeping John awake nights and opening William’s eyes to those “stories that involve the whole country in the end”. William makes his own discoveries, to the astonishment of all.
I would love to think that William is out here somewhere, using everything he’s learned and his innate curiosity to make Australia a better place.
“Then silence settled again, and he was alone. His new home frowned at him.
. . .
Overhead the clouds hung motionless. The air in the garden was chill, cooler than down on the plain, and it smelled different too. William was used to the dry scent of grain and chaff, and the dusty breath of the black soil. This place had a dank odour to it, a complexity of plants and trees and weeds, a bitter forest smell, with an underlay of rotting wood.”
William and his mother are being taken in to live at Kuran House, the once magnificent, now crumbling homestead of Kuran Station. His father was killed in a farm fire, so his father’s uncle, John McIvor, has offered them a place to stay.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Griffith, is as chilly and unwelcoming as the house, and Uncle John makes himself scarce. Most of the house is boarded off, with padlocks on makeshift doors on stairwells - obvious temptations for a nine-year old boy.
“As bad as the House looked from the outside, the interior was worse. It was a dim tangle of cramped rooms, narrow passageways and dead ends. It did not feel like anyone's home; instead, it reminded William of a derelict hotel.”
William hopes school will be an escape of sorts, but Uncle John decides he will stay at home, and has his tame local GP report glandular fever to the school. William’s mother has long suffered some kind of depression which being widowed has made worse. She lies silent in front of the TV, leaving William at the mercy of Mrs Griffith.
Suddenly, very late one night, Uncle John wakes William and takes the half-asleep boy out into the garden to look at the stars.
“Shooting stars. He had seen them before, of course, but never so many at once, nor at such a lonely hour. Was this what his uncle did at night, watch the sky? He wondered if he should speak, to express amazement or thanks. But the old man appeared to have forgotten he was there, so William stood waiting, his head craned back as the ghostly scintillations came and went.
‘I saw one hit the ground once.’
The words caught William unaware. His uncle's face was still set to the heavens.
‘It was out there on the plains, years ago, when I was a boy. It came down about a mile from our camp, a big flash and a clap of thunder. When we looked for it the next day all we found was a ring of dirt, like a ripple in a pond, and a little hole at the centre. No matter how long we dug, we couldn't find anything. The black soil had swallowed it up. It's deep, the soil out there. Forty feet, sixty feet, eighty. No one knows for sure. There's bedrock underneath it somewhere, but in my time I've seen whole houses sink down into the earth and vanish without a trace. They might still be there even now, resting on the bottom, if you knew where to look.’
It was a rich, dry voice, rolling in the darkness. William waited, disturbed and uncertain. The old man sniffed at the air.
'There are strange things in the world.’ ”
John McIvor’s story is really the heart of this, with his almost demonic obsession with Kuran Station and his love/hate relationship with the area. He doesn’t know why his father, the former manager, was reviled in the town, but it carried over to the family, so John is likewise tainted.
Even now, as an old man, the bitterness remains. Nevertheless, this is the land he feels belongs to him now and where he belongs.
He tells William stories of the unusual things he’s seen in the bush and asks if William has seen or heard the bunyip yet. He tells William that the new Native Title Act is being voted on and he’s rallying people to protest. He says the aboriginal people have all gone. Nothing to see here.
The author goes back to the White family in the 1800s and some of the local ‘white’ history of the time. Later, we hear the ghosts of the past.
This book won the 2005 Miles Franklin Award, for which Australian author Miles Franklin, (who wrote My Brilliant Career), bequeathed her estate. It is awarded to ‘a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases’.
“ 'That's the sort of thing you have to know about a piece of land, Will, if you're going to own it. You have to know where it fits in. You don't just buy a few square miles and put up a fence and say, This is it. Every stretch of earth has its story. You have to listen, and understand how it connects with other stories. Stories that involve the whole country in the end.’ ”
Between the protestations of ownership and property rights, hauntings and history, we sees ghosts and hallucinations intrude, keeping John awake nights and opening William’s eyes to those “stories that involve the whole country in the end”. William makes his own discoveries, to the astonishment of all.
I would love to think that William is out here somewhere, using everything he’s learned and his innate curiosity to make Australia a better place.
September 23, 2018
Disclaimer: this is one of eight external assessment novels for senior English syllabus (Qld 2019).
The blurb is quite accurate: part family saga, part history, part gothic but it fails to state how truly grim this read is going to be!
Set on the Darling Downs of Qld, it spans 150 years. It deals with Native Title legislation, the Mabo decision and politics in Australia. The protagonist John McIvor blindly pursues the possession of property to the detriment of family, relationships and happiness.
Themes, symbolism and motifs are incredibly easy to identify and would be the only redeeming reason to subject students to this novel.
Reasons not to make students suffer through this long winded tirade are the lack of a single positive female character; unpleasant, embittered male characters, and the implausibly ridiculous notion that a 9-year old boy would ever have the insight readers need to believe possible in this saga.
A depressing, grim, sad, and unrelentingly negative novel.
The blurb is quite accurate: part family saga, part history, part gothic but it fails to state how truly grim this read is going to be!
Set on the Darling Downs of Qld, it spans 150 years. It deals with Native Title legislation, the Mabo decision and politics in Australia. The protagonist John McIvor blindly pursues the possession of property to the detriment of family, relationships and happiness.
Themes, symbolism and motifs are incredibly easy to identify and would be the only redeeming reason to subject students to this novel.
Reasons not to make students suffer through this long winded tirade are the lack of a single positive female character; unpleasant, embittered male characters, and the implausibly ridiculous notion that a 9-year old boy would ever have the insight readers need to believe possible in this saga.
A depressing, grim, sad, and unrelentingly negative novel.
November 28, 2015
4.5 ★s
The publicity blurb for this intriguing book touts it as Part family saga, part history and part gothic thriller. This is a pretty accurate description of a grim but compelling story.
The title does not reflect any reality, but rather is a reference to the White family who once owned a large pastoral station, Kuran, on the northern fringes of the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane. With that dynasty long gone, the property is now in the hands of John McIvor, son of the former station manager, Daniel McIvor. The father had grandiose plans for John to acquire ownership of Kuran Station through marriage to the last remaining White descendent. His big ideas came to nought and subsequently John worked long and hard to purchase Kuran, which he saw, in some misguided way, as his birthright.
When the story opens in 1993, John is an elderly widower , living in the dilapidated ruins of a once grand mansion, Kuran House, amid the memories and ghosts of the previous occupants. Deeply conservative in both his morals and politics, John becomes an activist, campaigning against the proposed legislation for Native Title, in the wake of the Australian High Court’s Mabo judgment.
While John is a key figure in The White Earth, the story revolves around his 9 year old great nephew, William. The young boy recently lost his father in a farming accident, and he and his mother, the vapid Veronica, are taken in by John, to live at the crumbling mansion, which is falling down around them. McGahan’s descriptions of the House (the word is always capitalised through the book) contribute to the Gothic atmosphere of the book. The sense of neglect, mould, decay, and sadness saturates the pages, and the brooding, grim House with its weird noises and mysterious rooms becomes like a character in the novel. Outback version of the classic ‘haunted house’? You betcha!
The motif of rot is a dominant theme in this book. The decay which pervades all areas of Kuran Station is echoed by the stinking rot eating away inside William’s head, as his medical condition is allowed to continue undiagnosed and untreated by the negligent adults around him. The other key motif of The White Earth is fire. This is not warm, healing, nurturing fire, but rather damaging flames, cruel, catastrophic, surreal. It is throughout the device of fire that the paranormal elements of this book are best conveyed.
Not being a fan of paranormal novels, I approached the ‘ghost story’ part of this book with a degree of scepticism. In the end I found that McGahan’s skill as a writer eased my anxieties, and the supernatural elements added greatly to the story and to the sense of the Gothic.
While the narrative of the book is driven by the story of John McIvor’s passion for possession of land and, ultimately, ownership of Kuran Station, the underlying story is that of ideas about ‘country’, and the dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants. McIvor’s obsession plays out in his creation of an arch-conservative political lobby group, eerily similar to the emergence in Australian society of Pauline Hanson and One Nation in the mid 1990s. The earlier history of the Whites and McIvors is gradually disclosed, of brutal treatment of indigenous people as white settlers invaded ‘country’ in pursuit of their dreams of ownership and wealth from the land. And indeed, that brutality comes back to haunt the present generation.
It is interesting to read this novel some 20 years after the Mabo decision and the passage of the Native Title laws. Although I did not plan it, I was fortunate to read this book during NAIDOC Week 2015, and during the days that the Constitution Committee was meeting with Aboriginal stakeholders about the plans for a referendum to formally recognise the first inhabitants in the Australian Constitution. How timely was that? It caused me to reflect on the plight of indigenous Australians today, and whether anything much has changed since the heady days when the passage of the Native Title Act promised great benefits for our Aboriginal population.
I must confess that it took me a long time to read this book. Every so often I had to put it down and have a little rest. Although brilliant, it is an unremittingly grim story. I had this deep compassion for young, sweet, naive William, who is surrounded by some of the most unattractive characters you could ever read in a novel. His mother, Veronica, is a weak, self-centred person, hell-bent on acquiring McIvor wealth for herself. The gaunt house-keeper Mrs Griffith is a sinister presence, straight out of English gothic novels (think Mrs Danvers), with her own agenda regarding ownership. John’s estranged daughter Ruth returns to Kuran House at Mrs Griffith’s request, but their relationship remains embittered and ugly. Each of these unpleasant women manipulates William in some way to further their own unscrupulous ambitions. Above all, William is trapped in the thrall of his dour, scheming, hard-hearted great uncle. John harbours a wish for William, his last remaining male relative, to inherit Kuran, but the boy must prove himself worthy of what is, in his deluded mind, a priceless bequest. Driven relentlessly by his vision for the future, he puts the 9 year old through some cruel experiences, designed to test the boy’s mettle. Meanwhile, the child has a serious medical problem, is half-starved, rarely clean, and prevented from leaving the property to attend school or mix in society.
I had to know William’s fate, so I kept reading to the very end, despite my reservations. There is not a single positive female figure in this book. Most of the males are either incompetent or evil. The land is blighted, by years of drought and by its hidden history of bloodshed. The house and all the outbuildings are ruinous. Even the one sweet spot in the landscape, the deliciously cool, green waterhole, has its dark secret.
Yet, despite all these negatives, I think The White Earth is a brilliant book, and well worth reading. It won the Age Book of the Year - Fiction in 2004, deservedly so, in my opinion.
The publicity blurb for this intriguing book touts it as Part family saga, part history and part gothic thriller. This is a pretty accurate description of a grim but compelling story.
The title does not reflect any reality, but rather is a reference to the White family who once owned a large pastoral station, Kuran, on the northern fringes of the Darling Downs, west of Brisbane. With that dynasty long gone, the property is now in the hands of John McIvor, son of the former station manager, Daniel McIvor. The father had grandiose plans for John to acquire ownership of Kuran Station through marriage to the last remaining White descendent. His big ideas came to nought and subsequently John worked long and hard to purchase Kuran, which he saw, in some misguided way, as his birthright.
When the story opens in 1993, John is an elderly widower , living in the dilapidated ruins of a once grand mansion, Kuran House, amid the memories and ghosts of the previous occupants. Deeply conservative in both his morals and politics, John becomes an activist, campaigning against the proposed legislation for Native Title, in the wake of the Australian High Court’s Mabo judgment.
While John is a key figure in The White Earth, the story revolves around his 9 year old great nephew, William. The young boy recently lost his father in a farming accident, and he and his mother, the vapid Veronica, are taken in by John, to live at the crumbling mansion, which is falling down around them. McGahan’s descriptions of the House (the word is always capitalised through the book) contribute to the Gothic atmosphere of the book. The sense of neglect, mould, decay, and sadness saturates the pages, and the brooding, grim House with its weird noises and mysterious rooms becomes like a character in the novel. Outback version of the classic ‘haunted house’? You betcha!
The motif of rot is a dominant theme in this book. The decay which pervades all areas of Kuran Station is echoed by the stinking rot eating away inside William’s head, as his medical condition is allowed to continue undiagnosed and untreated by the negligent adults around him. The other key motif of The White Earth is fire. This is not warm, healing, nurturing fire, but rather damaging flames, cruel, catastrophic, surreal. It is throughout the device of fire that the paranormal elements of this book are best conveyed.
Not being a fan of paranormal novels, I approached the ‘ghost story’ part of this book with a degree of scepticism. In the end I found that McGahan’s skill as a writer eased my anxieties, and the supernatural elements added greatly to the story and to the sense of the Gothic.
While the narrative of the book is driven by the story of John McIvor’s passion for possession of land and, ultimately, ownership of Kuran Station, the underlying story is that of ideas about ‘country’, and the dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants. McIvor’s obsession plays out in his creation of an arch-conservative political lobby group, eerily similar to the emergence in Australian society of Pauline Hanson and One Nation in the mid 1990s. The earlier history of the Whites and McIvors is gradually disclosed, of brutal treatment of indigenous people as white settlers invaded ‘country’ in pursuit of their dreams of ownership and wealth from the land. And indeed, that brutality comes back to haunt the present generation.
It is interesting to read this novel some 20 years after the Mabo decision and the passage of the Native Title laws. Although I did not plan it, I was fortunate to read this book during NAIDOC Week 2015, and during the days that the Constitution Committee was meeting with Aboriginal stakeholders about the plans for a referendum to formally recognise the first inhabitants in the Australian Constitution. How timely was that? It caused me to reflect on the plight of indigenous Australians today, and whether anything much has changed since the heady days when the passage of the Native Title Act promised great benefits for our Aboriginal population.
I must confess that it took me a long time to read this book. Every so often I had to put it down and have a little rest. Although brilliant, it is an unremittingly grim story. I had this deep compassion for young, sweet, naive William, who is surrounded by some of the most unattractive characters you could ever read in a novel. His mother, Veronica, is a weak, self-centred person, hell-bent on acquiring McIvor wealth for herself. The gaunt house-keeper Mrs Griffith is a sinister presence, straight out of English gothic novels (think Mrs Danvers), with her own agenda regarding ownership. John’s estranged daughter Ruth returns to Kuran House at Mrs Griffith’s request, but their relationship remains embittered and ugly. Each of these unpleasant women manipulates William in some way to further their own unscrupulous ambitions. Above all, William is trapped in the thrall of his dour, scheming, hard-hearted great uncle. John harbours a wish for William, his last remaining male relative, to inherit Kuran, but the boy must prove himself worthy of what is, in his deluded mind, a priceless bequest. Driven relentlessly by his vision for the future, he puts the 9 year old through some cruel experiences, designed to test the boy’s mettle. Meanwhile, the child has a serious medical problem, is half-starved, rarely clean, and prevented from leaving the property to attend school or mix in society.
I had to know William’s fate, so I kept reading to the very end, despite my reservations. There is not a single positive female figure in this book. Most of the males are either incompetent or evil. The land is blighted, by years of drought and by its hidden history of bloodshed. The house and all the outbuildings are ruinous. Even the one sweet spot in the landscape, the deliciously cool, green waterhole, has its dark secret.
Yet, despite all these negatives, I think The White Earth is a brilliant book, and well worth reading. It won the Age Book of the Year - Fiction in 2004, deservedly so, in my opinion.
May 30, 2011
Not a bad read - won the Miles Franklin. A bit soapy writing sometimes a bit clunky, and the boy of 9 yrs who is central character possibly can't be as wise as this quite as quickly. 3rd person voice a bit wobbly in other words. It's dealing with Mabo though plus a "Thornbirds" type twisted landed family theme so will be interested to see how it ends (other than in tears which is my bet)....
OK finished it now. Way weird attempt at dream-nightmare time Aboriginal sequence before everything burnt down and spent back half of book wishing they'd hurry on and diagnose the stink/pain in the kid's ear. Nearly gave me a pain in mine. Was waaaay over it by the time it finished (and everything predictably burnt down). Hoping they don't turn this one into a telemovie.
OK finished it now. Way weird attempt at dream-nightmare time Aboriginal sequence before everything burnt down and spent back half of book wishing they'd hurry on and diagnose the stink/pain in the kid's ear. Nearly gave me a pain in mine. Was waaaay over it by the time it finished (and everything predictably burnt down). Hoping they don't turn this one into a telemovie.
November 1, 2014
The White Earth has been described as an example of "Australian gothic" and it certainly makes use of gothic elements. The whole story is based around a decaying mansion where the main character William and his mother are forced to live when his father dies in a farming accident. This house is inhabited by William's bitter, angry uncle who is seeking an heir for Kuran station and who latches onto William as his last hope, and his sinister housekeeper who could have stepped straight out of the pages of Rebecca. There are dark secrets and ghostly visions and everything goes up in flames at the end. Interwoven into this story is the political issue of Aboriginal land rights and Australia's very bloody and shameful history. It's an ambitious attempt to intermarry the gothic tradition with political issues but in my opinion it doesn't work.
To be brutally honest the first word that sprang to mind for me as I started reading this book was "amateur." I was expecting a certain standard of literary merit for a Miles Franklin winning book and the writing did not live up to this standard. The language is not sophisticated or rich and I was baffled about how the book could have won such a prestigious award. Then I realized that it was the issue of land rights and the Mabo decision that probably resonated with the judges and this just made me feel even more disillusioned because the book only addresses these issues in a very superficial, heavy-handed way. This heavy-handedness is obvious in the symbolism. The original station owners for example were called White (hence the title) and William is haunted by a rotting smell throughout the book that turns out to be coming from his infected ear but is clearly meant to symoblise the death and destruction that Kuran station was founded on (enough with the damn ear ache already!). All the visions and William's wanderings through the darkness should have been dream-like and poetic but I found myself skipping many of these passages out of boredom.
Then there's the whole issue of place and time. One reviewer described the book as "timeless" in a complimentary way, and I have to agree with the description but for me this was one of the biggest faults of the book. I knew very little about The White Earth when I started reading it and I found it impossible to work out what period it was set in for several chapters. A boy of William's age would be immersed in popular culture but there no mention of anything he liked to do and no other references to events or objects that would place it in the 1990s. Although the book deals with Australian politics and history there's also nothing about this book that anchored it in rural Australia for me. I got no sense at all of the Australian bush, landscape, culture or people from this novel. The dialogue did not help to distinguish the characters or ground them. There was a whole lot of "telling" in the book, particularly in the chapters written from John McIvor's perspective. Much of the dialogue about Mabo and history came across as information dumping. (If you want to read a book that really captures the essence of rural Australia then try Foals Bread by Gillian Mears. For an account of the brutality of colonisation you can't do better than Kate Grenville's The Secret River).
Land rights and Mabo are very worth subjects to write about and should be explored in a serious way. This "gothic" approach does not do them justice in my opinion because it goes for cheap thrills, clichéd characters and melodramatic plot developments. The ending was particularly heavy-handed and ridiculous. It also doesn't include a single Indigenous voice. Although the Mabo legislation was all about Aboriginal rights they remain on the margins in the book as shadowy figures in a painting, ghostly victims of violence discarded at the bottom of the water hole, or cautious, watchful women on the former mission at Cherbourg. There's nothing about the ongoing impact of colonisation on Indigenous people apart from a rose-tinted reference to Cherbourg as a "self-governing" community. I was very dissatisfied with this novel which explains why it took me FOREVER to get through it.
To be brutally honest the first word that sprang to mind for me as I started reading this book was "amateur." I was expecting a certain standard of literary merit for a Miles Franklin winning book and the writing did not live up to this standard. The language is not sophisticated or rich and I was baffled about how the book could have won such a prestigious award. Then I realized that it was the issue of land rights and the Mabo decision that probably resonated with the judges and this just made me feel even more disillusioned because the book only addresses these issues in a very superficial, heavy-handed way. This heavy-handedness is obvious in the symbolism. The original station owners for example were called White (hence the title) and William is haunted by a rotting smell throughout the book that turns out to be coming from his infected ear but is clearly meant to symoblise the death and destruction that Kuran station was founded on (enough with the damn ear ache already!). All the visions and William's wanderings through the darkness should have been dream-like and poetic but I found myself skipping many of these passages out of boredom.
Then there's the whole issue of place and time. One reviewer described the book as "timeless" in a complimentary way, and I have to agree with the description but for me this was one of the biggest faults of the book. I knew very little about The White Earth when I started reading it and I found it impossible to work out what period it was set in for several chapters. A boy of William's age would be immersed in popular culture but there no mention of anything he liked to do and no other references to events or objects that would place it in the 1990s. Although the book deals with Australian politics and history there's also nothing about this book that anchored it in rural Australia for me. I got no sense at all of the Australian bush, landscape, culture or people from this novel. The dialogue did not help to distinguish the characters or ground them. There was a whole lot of "telling" in the book, particularly in the chapters written from John McIvor's perspective. Much of the dialogue about Mabo and history came across as information dumping. (If you want to read a book that really captures the essence of rural Australia then try Foals Bread by Gillian Mears. For an account of the brutality of colonisation you can't do better than Kate Grenville's The Secret River).
Land rights and Mabo are very worth subjects to write about and should be explored in a serious way. This "gothic" approach does not do them justice in my opinion because it goes for cheap thrills, clichéd characters and melodramatic plot developments. The ending was particularly heavy-handed and ridiculous. It also doesn't include a single Indigenous voice. Although the Mabo legislation was all about Aboriginal rights they remain on the margins in the book as shadowy figures in a painting, ghostly victims of violence discarded at the bottom of the water hole, or cautious, watchful women on the former mission at Cherbourg. There's nothing about the ongoing impact of colonisation on Indigenous people apart from a rose-tinted reference to Cherbourg as a "self-governing" community. I was very dissatisfied with this novel which explains why it took me FOREVER to get through it.
March 8, 2011
The winner of the 2005 Australian literary prize, the Miles Franklin Literary Award, this is a stunning novel set in the Darling Downs, a diverse farming region west of Brisbane. Prior to European settlement, because of its lush indigenous grasses,the region was important as a food source and culturally to the local Aborigine tribes. The arrival of the European farmers in the 1820s and 1830s put a stop to that, and the Downs quickly became the food basket for the region. Farming communities and towns quickly developed, as did large stations and homesteads which dominated their local communities. The indigenous people, as happened many places elsewhere, were displaced and effectively disappeared.
With this background in mind, the story begins in 1992 with 9 year old William's father having an unfortunate accident on the farm, resulting in his death. Forced to leave the farm, William and his depressed mother are taken in by an unknown great-uncle, John McIvor, who owns what is left of one of the big stations, Kuran station established by the White family. He lives in the huge original and now very derelict homestead. The motives for this altruistic act become fairly clear as John attempts to mould, some would say brainwash, young William into his heir. It also becomes fairly clear that John is quite mad, with an unwavering obsession to keep the property in family ownership. This, of course, makes for quite a dangerous situation for a 9 year old boy to be in. No father and a non-functioning mother means he finds himself slowly being drawn into the spell his great uncle is weaving.
At the same time, law changes are taking place that will give local Aborigines greater claim to lands that were traditionally used before European settlement. John knows secrets about the land the station is on that pertain to this, and he is determined that no one else will find out about them, thus safeguarding the property for his own interests.
Sinister yes, and spooky yes, underlying tension and danger oozing throughout the narrative, with young William being manipulated beyond his childish understanding. And yet, the uncle never comes across as evil. His whole life has revolved around Kuran station, he loves the land with a deep passion and enormous respect, and although he doesn't have the financial resources to make it productive again as it once was, he does not want to see it destroyed. The gift of the clever writer is that you actually do feel sorry for the old man as he tries to protect all that is important to him.
Any 9 year old child left to their own devices will project their own imagination and childish perceptions of the world onto what is going on around them. As William comes more and more under the spell of his great uncle's dream, he almost begins to operate in a parallel universe so that as the reader, at times you don't quite know yourself what is real and what is not.
The story is cleverly told, with chapters alternating between John's story which essentially tells the history of Europeans in the area since the 1820s and how he came to be at Kuran; and William's story. There is always a sense of impending doom, with the two symbols of 'white' and 'fire' constantly threading themselves through the story. The third character in the story is the land itself. What a love for the land this author has - the vast pastures, the hills, the water holes, the dryness, the dust, the rain when it occurs. I read an interview with the author which I now cannot find. He grew up on the Downs so has this deep seated love and respect for the land plus a number of things that happened in the book also happened to him.
My only criticism of the book is that I did feel at times, William was much older than 9 years old. He has to deal with a lot, and some of his perceptions and reactions are way beyond what I think a 9 year old's brain would process. Nevertheless this is a marvellous story of Australia and the continuing conflict between the traditional owners of the land and the European new comers.
With this background in mind, the story begins in 1992 with 9 year old William's father having an unfortunate accident on the farm, resulting in his death. Forced to leave the farm, William and his depressed mother are taken in by an unknown great-uncle, John McIvor, who owns what is left of one of the big stations, Kuran station established by the White family. He lives in the huge original and now very derelict homestead. The motives for this altruistic act become fairly clear as John attempts to mould, some would say brainwash, young William into his heir. It also becomes fairly clear that John is quite mad, with an unwavering obsession to keep the property in family ownership. This, of course, makes for quite a dangerous situation for a 9 year old boy to be in. No father and a non-functioning mother means he finds himself slowly being drawn into the spell his great uncle is weaving.
At the same time, law changes are taking place that will give local Aborigines greater claim to lands that were traditionally used before European settlement. John knows secrets about the land the station is on that pertain to this, and he is determined that no one else will find out about them, thus safeguarding the property for his own interests.
Sinister yes, and spooky yes, underlying tension and danger oozing throughout the narrative, with young William being manipulated beyond his childish understanding. And yet, the uncle never comes across as evil. His whole life has revolved around Kuran station, he loves the land with a deep passion and enormous respect, and although he doesn't have the financial resources to make it productive again as it once was, he does not want to see it destroyed. The gift of the clever writer is that you actually do feel sorry for the old man as he tries to protect all that is important to him.
Any 9 year old child left to their own devices will project their own imagination and childish perceptions of the world onto what is going on around them. As William comes more and more under the spell of his great uncle's dream, he almost begins to operate in a parallel universe so that as the reader, at times you don't quite know yourself what is real and what is not.
The story is cleverly told, with chapters alternating between John's story which essentially tells the history of Europeans in the area since the 1820s and how he came to be at Kuran; and William's story. There is always a sense of impending doom, with the two symbols of 'white' and 'fire' constantly threading themselves through the story. The third character in the story is the land itself. What a love for the land this author has - the vast pastures, the hills, the water holes, the dryness, the dust, the rain when it occurs. I read an interview with the author which I now cannot find. He grew up on the Downs so has this deep seated love and respect for the land plus a number of things that happened in the book also happened to him.
My only criticism of the book is that I did feel at times, William was much older than 9 years old. He has to deal with a lot, and some of his perceptions and reactions are way beyond what I think a 9 year old's brain would process. Nevertheless this is a marvellous story of Australia and the continuing conflict between the traditional owners of the land and the European new comers.
October 8, 2025
I love anything based in Australia and especially farms from growing up on one. This book takes a few crazy turns and covers some serious topics. It definitely didn’t end where I thought it would but it was a great read
September 29, 2020
Outstanding, intense and fascinating.
I looked through at least 200 books to find ‘a book with a great first line’ and finally I found this ONE SPRING DAY IN LATE 1992, WHEN WILLIAM WAS HALFWAY between his eighth birthday and his ninth, he looked out from the back verandah and saw, huge in the sky, the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. Now that is a cracker first line!
However the words ‘the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion,’ was a little misleading because the storyline didn’t go the way I expected it to at all. My mind sure did get carried away thinking thoughts of a tale filled with booms and blasts, but nope, didn’t happen, I got it wrong, so very wrong. Note to self: read the next few lines before giving free rein to your imagination. So, the storyline was definitely not heading to a nuclear catastrophe but to a tragic chapter in Australian history with a focus on land rights.
As the story unfolded I was completely drawn in to the interesting but unlikeable characters, nine year old Will, the deteriorating old station homestead, the family secrets, the politics, the slightly gothic theme and the gorgeous graphic descriptions of the Darling Downs region.
I loved Andrew McGahan’s storytelling, I can see why he won the Miles Franklin Award.
POPSUGAR Reading Challenge 2020: #40 - A book with a great first line
I looked through at least 200 books to find ‘a book with a great first line’ and finally I found this ONE SPRING DAY IN LATE 1992, WHEN WILLIAM WAS HALFWAY between his eighth birthday and his ninth, he looked out from the back verandah and saw, huge in the sky, the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion. Now that is a cracker first line!
However the words ‘the mushroom cloud of a nuclear explosion,’ was a little misleading because the storyline didn’t go the way I expected it to at all. My mind sure did get carried away thinking thoughts of a tale filled with booms and blasts, but nope, didn’t happen, I got it wrong, so very wrong. Note to self: read the next few lines before giving free rein to your imagination. So, the storyline was definitely not heading to a nuclear catastrophe but to a tragic chapter in Australian history with a focus on land rights.
As the story unfolded I was completely drawn in to the interesting but unlikeable characters, nine year old Will, the deteriorating old station homestead, the family secrets, the politics, the slightly gothic theme and the gorgeous graphic descriptions of the Darling Downs region.
I loved Andrew McGahan’s storytelling, I can see why he won the Miles Franklin Award.
POPSUGAR Reading Challenge 2020: #40 - A book with a great first line
August 16, 2014
3.5 stars. I'm rather conflicted about this book. I could not put it down for the first half of it, but then it petered out, started moving very slowly and seemed to lose its way. The two overarching story lines came together in a rather interesting climax, but then the book just finished with no real resolution, which was quite disappointing.
January 25, 2021
An emotive story with a grim secret at its core. This book explores the history and struggle of early white settlement in outback Queensland and the cost to the original inhabitants. Primarily set during the time of the High court decisions on Mabo and Terra Nullius this novel explores the exploitation, exposure and fear that surrounded the outcomes. Many landowners had seized land and driven out indigenous inhabitants (or worse) for their own profit.
This is also a coming of age story as Will is forced to come to understand and come to terms with the violence of his ancestors and the implications for his future. McGahan does an excellent job tackling a complex and difficult subject.
This is also a coming of age story as Will is forced to come to understand and come to terms with the violence of his ancestors and the implications for his future. McGahan does an excellent job tackling a complex and difficult subject.
May 7, 2018
One of my favourite Australian novels: richly evocative and unsettling - a sort of Queensland countryman's Gothic - with a wonderful sense of landscape, architecture and history. The opening chapters are superb.
It is fascinating to see how, on virtually every page, McGahan repurposes classic Gothic tropes in specifically Australian terms: at times this seems almost a little calculated, as if he is working from a checklist, and it threatens to fall into pastiche, but the beauty and clarity of his prose is a constant.
It is fascinating to see how, on virtually every page, McGahan repurposes classic Gothic tropes in specifically Australian terms: at times this seems almost a little calculated, as if he is working from a checklist, and it threatens to fall into pastiche, but the beauty and clarity of his prose is a constant.
May 27, 2025
Önceki kitabına göre daha az fantastikti, daha çok kadim güçlerle ilgili gibi...
Ağırkanlı ve uzun soluklu ama hoştu, keşke daha fazla kitabı çevrilse, bu kitabı bana daha çok Patrick White'ın Voss'unu hatırlattı.
Ağırkanlı ve uzun soluklu ama hoştu, keşke daha fazla kitabı çevrilse, bu kitabı bana daha çok Patrick White'ın Voss'unu hatırlattı.
November 4, 2019
To be completely honest, this was not my cup of tea. I read it for a class on current issues in contemporary Australian literature and while I absolutely recognise this book's cultural value and understand why it was so well-received, I did not really enjoy my time reading it.
The main reason for this was that I found it rather boring. Not all that much happens at all and the things that do happen did not interest me much. I could have gathered the actual message from scientific texts, which would have saved me a great deal of time. Apart from that, I hated most of the characters. I liked Ruth, but it's not like she appears all that often. William was alright, too. He reminds me of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird , as he is an innoct child confronted with rasicm without really understanding it. However, his perspective - like Scout's - comes with certain limitations. The reader is somewhat chained to a child's mind and it is frustrating to see what William sees and to watch him draw his conclusions, all the while knowing better.
I did enjoy the writing itself, though. It was not very impressive or anything, but I felt like it was easy to take in so that I got through the book relatively quickly. Moreover, I liked the short chapters. I've been super busy lately and there hasn't been much time for reading. I always find that shorter chapters are ideal for train rides and the like so that you're not forced to sit down and read for hours to actually get into the story.
All in all, I'm giving this three stars. It would be two if we were simply talking about whether I had a good time reading it. However, we're also talking about literary and cultural value, so let's make it three.
The main reason for this was that I found it rather boring. Not all that much happens at all and the things that do happen did not interest me much. I could have gathered the actual message from scientific texts, which would have saved me a great deal of time. Apart from that, I hated most of the characters. I liked Ruth, but it's not like she appears all that often. William was alright, too. He reminds me of Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird , as he is an innoct child confronted with rasicm without really understanding it. However, his perspective - like Scout's - comes with certain limitations. The reader is somewhat chained to a child's mind and it is frustrating to see what William sees and to watch him draw his conclusions, all the while knowing better.
I did enjoy the writing itself, though. It was not very impressive or anything, but I felt like it was easy to take in so that I got through the book relatively quickly. Moreover, I liked the short chapters. I've been super busy lately and there hasn't been much time for reading. I always find that shorter chapters are ideal for train rides and the like so that you're not forced to sit down and read for hours to actually get into the story.
All in all, I'm giving this three stars. It would be two if we were simply talking about whether I had a good time reading it. However, we're also talking about literary and cultural value, so let's make it three.
April 16, 2020
I bought this book about twelve years ago because I was interested in reading an Australian Gothic, and while I picked it up a few times over the years, it never pulled me in. Well, I finally finished it and it was not worth the wait. Overall, The White Earth was amateurish: the prose was unremarkable, the characters artificial, and the so-called 'stunning conclusion', while full of melodrama, was actually pretty tedious. McGahan attempts to explore a crucial aspect of Australian history and politics, but I don't think he ever did it justice. To finish on a positive note, I was satisfied to finally find out what was going on with William's ear, after a thousand mentions of it...
February 14, 2025
An evocative, haunting, family saga.
April 12, 2019
I am having an amazing run of luck with Australian novels.
I avoided The White Earth for a long time. It was pure prejudice. It’s been set on the new prescribed text list for English in Queensland as one that students can study for their big external exam. It looked to me like the token-Australian choice. The blurb was not kind. I’d even managed to get around it when we were writing the textbook.
Then I realised I’d actually have to read it for work.
Sigh.
I was wrong. I was prejudiced. I should’ve read this much sooner.
The protagonist, Will, and I are practically contemporaries. I reckon on him being a year or two older than me, and the recount of his childhood on a farm in the Darling Downs echoes my own, on a farm a couple of hundred kilometres away. While his story is more interesting than mine, the beautiful descriptive imagery gave voice to a strong, innate connection to place and the land in a way that I’ve never been able to explain. Interestingly, in discussing this novel with others, I discovered that it’s a feeling which is not entirely universal – something I’d just taken for granted my whole life.
We follow Will through some rather harrowing experiences. His father dies in the opening chapter as a result of a fire (cue the instigation of a key symbol) and he and his mother are cast upon the mercy of relatives. Will becomes somewhat powerful in this new arrangement, and the adults around him vie to manipulate his innocence with varying success. There is a compelling family narrative at work here – the adults are all awful in their own ways, and while Will can be annoyingly simple, you’ve got to feel for the guy.
The overtones of Australian Gothic are strong, and the novel toys with elements of magical realism which are right up my alley. McGahan was a skilled storyteller. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the novel for me was that it highlighted elements of social history which I lived through, but which I didn’t understand as a child of Will’s age. Native Title was a big deal when I was a kid, but my memories its beginnings are real events are vague. My family were similarly placed to Will’s – farmers, land holders, living in a politically conservative (backward) small town community. My family weren’t active in opposing Native Title as Will’s, but I’m sure there were similar conversations to which I was not privy. It was fascinatingly alien, yet familiar, to read about it from McGahan’s perspective as an adult myself.
I avoided The White Earth for a long time. It was pure prejudice. It’s been set on the new prescribed text list for English in Queensland as one that students can study for their big external exam. It looked to me like the token-Australian choice. The blurb was not kind. I’d even managed to get around it when we were writing the textbook.
Then I realised I’d actually have to read it for work.
Sigh.
I was wrong. I was prejudiced. I should’ve read this much sooner.
The protagonist, Will, and I are practically contemporaries. I reckon on him being a year or two older than me, and the recount of his childhood on a farm in the Darling Downs echoes my own, on a farm a couple of hundred kilometres away. While his story is more interesting than mine, the beautiful descriptive imagery gave voice to a strong, innate connection to place and the land in a way that I’ve never been able to explain. Interestingly, in discussing this novel with others, I discovered that it’s a feeling which is not entirely universal – something I’d just taken for granted my whole life.
We follow Will through some rather harrowing experiences. His father dies in the opening chapter as a result of a fire (cue the instigation of a key symbol) and he and his mother are cast upon the mercy of relatives. Will becomes somewhat powerful in this new arrangement, and the adults around him vie to manipulate his innocence with varying success. There is a compelling family narrative at work here – the adults are all awful in their own ways, and while Will can be annoyingly simple, you’ve got to feel for the guy.
The overtones of Australian Gothic are strong, and the novel toys with elements of magical realism which are right up my alley. McGahan was a skilled storyteller. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the novel for me was that it highlighted elements of social history which I lived through, but which I didn’t understand as a child of Will’s age. Native Title was a big deal when I was a kid, but my memories its beginnings are real events are vague. My family were similarly placed to Will’s – farmers, land holders, living in a politically conservative (backward) small town community. My family weren’t active in opposing Native Title as Will’s, but I’m sure there were similar conversations to which I was not privy. It was fascinatingly alien, yet familiar, to read about it from McGahan’s perspective as an adult myself.
August 30, 2011
The White Earth is a very well written piece of Australian literature which highlights our short yet complex history, the invasion of the land by the white people and the disruptions it caused for many, many generations and how it still impacts society today. Young William is the POV, his father dies in a farm fire leaving his already mentally unstable mother a widow and penniless. They move in with his great uncle John McIvor, into a dilapidated homestead on Kuran Station in the Darling Downs. William finds his new home aversive and is intrigued by his mysterious uncle who doesn't introduce himself until a week later. William is diagnosed with a fake illness so he can take 3 months off school to fulfil a role his Uncle has in store for him. His uncle has a strong connection with the land, a connection he doesn't want lost when he dies. William has until the end of the year to earn the right to inherit the station but at 9 years old he isn't even sure he wants it. We learn of his uncle's long fight to be the landowner of Kuran Station which took more than 40 years. John's story was told very well and it made the story so much more robust as the present day was complimented with the past.
The characters of John and William were very well developed and to a lesser extent Ruth, John's daughter. They had very real motivations, desires and conflicts. I felt frustration and anger towards William's mother who remains indifferent and depressed throughout the story, unaware of the impact her emotional absence has on her young son. The White Earth had me guessing to the very end what would happen to the property and how William would make sense of it all. It was very cleverly written and left me contemplating historical and political issues that have persisted into modern day Australia.
The characters of John and William were very well developed and to a lesser extent Ruth, John's daughter. They had very real motivations, desires and conflicts. I felt frustration and anger towards William's mother who remains indifferent and depressed throughout the story, unaware of the impact her emotional absence has on her young son. The White Earth had me guessing to the very end what would happen to the property and how William would make sense of it all. It was very cleverly written and left me contemplating historical and political issues that have persisted into modern day Australia.
September 25, 2020
A beautiful, timeless, gothic cathedral of a novel. Andrew McGahan, who passed away tragically young this year (2019), remains an underrated Australian novelist. While he is better known for his sardonic novellas capturing Queensland so well and - to younger readers - for his YA fiction, this is McGahan's great work.
Set during the Keating era and the passing of Native Title legislation (with flashbacks to the long dry years of the Menzies era), The White Earth is a story of our country's history, of a brewing war over that same history (a war that, in the 15 years since the novel was published, has erupted), and of the lies we tell to replace an unpalatable truth.
However, far from being didactic, McGahan grounds his examination in young William's discovery of his new world, Kunal Station, the farm where he and his recently-widowed mother have been taken in. The farm teems with gothic experiences and strange characters navigating their own paths. Importantly, the author also allows all of his characters to speak their truths, questioning that strange feeling (which I know only too well, as the descendant of a white family 200 years on this soil) of being the possessor of a stolen land while also having a genuine longstanding connection to the land oneself.
It is a novel of questions rather than answers, an earnest look at the challenges of land ownership, of Native Title, of family, and of history itself.
Set during the Keating era and the passing of Native Title legislation (with flashbacks to the long dry years of the Menzies era), The White Earth is a story of our country's history, of a brewing war over that same history (a war that, in the 15 years since the novel was published, has erupted), and of the lies we tell to replace an unpalatable truth.
However, far from being didactic, McGahan grounds his examination in young William's discovery of his new world, Kunal Station, the farm where he and his recently-widowed mother have been taken in. The farm teems with gothic experiences and strange characters navigating their own paths. Importantly, the author also allows all of his characters to speak their truths, questioning that strange feeling (which I know only too well, as the descendant of a white family 200 years on this soil) of being the possessor of a stolen land while also having a genuine longstanding connection to the land oneself.
It is a novel of questions rather than answers, an earnest look at the challenges of land ownership, of Native Title, of family, and of history itself.
February 2, 2009
A Disturbing Novel by Australian Author who received the Miles Franklin Award in 2005.Andrew McGahan wrote about an area where he grew up and describes the area with great feeling.
The book is Motivated by the Mabo Legislation and deals with reactions to this based on ownership of the land and consequences for the property Ownwers. It delves into Aboriginal History and Folklore and makes a very powerful observation about LandRights which I found very thought provoking.
Throughout the book images of Fire and burning recur. Mostly these images are associated with death and it is interesting that the Aboriginal asociation with fire is very positive and productive but the "White" asociation is one of death and destruction. The story moved on relentlessly to the horrific climax. I felt a little annoyed that such devestation could occur. I think I needed something more positive.I didn't agree that William should be subjected to a life of suffering and torment to compensate for the sins of others. I wanted something better to come out of all the horror.
Mabo however was a positve outcome for Land rights and a r ecognition of some terrible injustices which had occurred.
The book is Motivated by the Mabo Legislation and deals with reactions to this based on ownership of the land and consequences for the property Ownwers. It delves into Aboriginal History and Folklore and makes a very powerful observation about LandRights which I found very thought provoking.
Throughout the book images of Fire and burning recur. Mostly these images are associated with death and it is interesting that the Aboriginal asociation with fire is very positive and productive but the "White" asociation is one of death and destruction. The story moved on relentlessly to the horrific climax. I felt a little annoyed that such devestation could occur. I think I needed something more positive.I didn't agree that William should be subjected to a life of suffering and torment to compensate for the sins of others. I wanted something better to come out of all the horror.
Mabo however was a positve outcome for Land rights and a r ecognition of some terrible injustices which had occurred.
September 30, 2010
McGahan is grabbing for my heart strings, I can tell. But man, is he way off.
I do not care about William or his nasty ear, I do not care about John, the weird gothic house, or the ghosts that haunt Australia. In fact, I may like Australia less having completed this book.
McGahan does well to incorporate reality; the social issues of the time (1992 aka a super pivotal moment in Aussie history), and I appreciate allegory having a BA and pending MA in literature but this was just too much, guys. Save yourself some time and, yes, I dare to say it, you may be better off renting "Australia," the worst movie Hugh Jackman ever did (worse than Xmen Origins where they totally mess up Gambit?! Yes. Worse).
I do not care about William or his nasty ear, I do not care about John, the weird gothic house, or the ghosts that haunt Australia. In fact, I may like Australia less having completed this book.
McGahan does well to incorporate reality; the social issues of the time (1992 aka a super pivotal moment in Aussie history), and I appreciate allegory having a BA and pending MA in literature but this was just too much, guys. Save yourself some time and, yes, I dare to say it, you may be better off renting "Australia," the worst movie Hugh Jackman ever did (worse than Xmen Origins where they totally mess up Gambit?! Yes. Worse).
August 24, 2019
Honestly, I didn't think I'd make it.
I thought I would've given up halfway.
But I didn't.
This book was a journey. A long, draining journey. But I made it.
So I had to read this book for English and boy....it was rough. I have been reading this book for about 3 months and I would only ever read it at school or when I was waiting to be picked up. Overall I thought this book was pretty boring for the majority however when you get to the last 6 chapters, things start picking up. So yeah I don't have much to say on this book.
I thought I would've given up halfway.
But I didn't.
This book was a journey. A long, draining journey. But I made it.
So I had to read this book for English and boy....it was rough. I have been reading this book for about 3 months and I would only ever read it at school or when I was waiting to be picked up. Overall I thought this book was pretty boring for the majority however when you get to the last 6 chapters, things start picking up. So yeah I don't have much to say on this book.
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March 22, 2019A succinct book review, so you have more time left for reading books!
Australia, the serious version, so no kangaroos. A tale full of angry people with dark pasts, explored by an innocent boy. An intimate and grim exploration of the history of land appropriation and the relatable people involved. And not a single kangaroo...
Australia, the serious version, so no kangaroos. A tale full of angry people with dark pasts, explored by an innocent boy. An intimate and grim exploration of the history of land appropriation and the relatable people involved. And not a single kangaroo...
March 14, 2016
I am a bit conflicted about this book as it was quite interesting in parts and quite slow in others.
May 11, 2018
I don't normally read books like this (much more of a crime girl). I found it to be good but a little dry. I read a review before I started it that they liked the first half but not the second, I dont agree with this I think they were both entertaining enough. Another review said the boy character was too young to be so perceptive which I agree with. It felt like his character should have been a young adult instead. But overall it was a pretty good book, interesting enough but not the best I've read.
March 12, 2018
I took one star off for the ending which I thought needed to be more considered. A lovely storyteller overall. I enjoyed the weaving of history, family and culture within a gothic-esque (my word) atmosphere.
August 26, 2018
I really enjoyed this book until towards the end it got an attack of the "Peter Carey's", my description of ambiguous endings or as as Shakespeare might term it.. "As you like it".. .. I didn't.
June 28, 2019
4.5 stars
December 17, 2011
Reminds me in some parts of my own childhood exploring the old homesteads of the western districts in Victoria. I liked the familiarity of this but was soooooo bored by the end.
This was an easy (too easy?) read and an ok story although not wholly original - it is often reminiscent of Wuthering Heights or Great Expectations. As a work of literature, this book falls far short of the poetry, originality and grandeur of those works, and instead comes off feeling rather try-hard, self-indulgent, Formulaic. There is no subtelty or originality of prose which I find disappointing (although some would argue, sadly, that this is in itself a reflection of the "australian way"). Indeed, this book is far more of a political/social statement than an artistic or literary contribution. I tried to read it in this context, but it wasn't always easy.
There were some glaring inaccuracies - an eight year old Australian country kid in 1993 would never have thought of distance in terms of miles, as William does (over and over!) in this book (I know because I was an eight year old Aussie country kid in 1992), and a national Park ranger would never ever EVER have "flicked (his cigarette) ash into the grass". The William in my head should have been one of the boys I went to school with, and in many ways he was until a glaring statement is made that smashes the whole illusion. I'm left thinking "Dane would never have done/thought/said/seen that!!!" which is, needless to say, rather distracting. McGahan would probably have been drawing (naturally, of course) on his own experiences and thoughts as an eight year old Aussie country kid in the 70s? which would explain the miles thing, and perhaps even the old fashioned political beliefs, although I think it is important to recognize that rural kids of my generation are in many ways equally closed-minded with respect to issues of native title and multiculturalism - rural Australia in old squatter country continues to be a very Anglo-Saxon landscape, and the charcterisation in this book is consistent with this.
This book is brim full of comments on native title and One Nation - a reflection of the political landscape of the early nineties (those early, pre-Pauline Hanson One Nation days, following the Mabo trial) . As such it offers some important insights and clear warnings. It is no coincidence, I think, that McGahan christened the original owners of Kuran station the White family, although it is interesting that the main characters in the book are initially distanced from this association - a perceived separation between independent rural Australia and the aristocratic sensibilities inherited from the "mother-country", which is nicely ironic in the end in it's illustration that these mindsets are not so very far removed.
This was an easy (too easy?) read and an ok story although not wholly original - it is often reminiscent of Wuthering Heights or Great Expectations. As a work of literature, this book falls far short of the poetry, originality and grandeur of those works, and instead comes off feeling rather try-hard, self-indulgent, Formulaic. There is no subtelty or originality of prose which I find disappointing (although some would argue, sadly, that this is in itself a reflection of the "australian way"). Indeed, this book is far more of a political/social statement than an artistic or literary contribution. I tried to read it in this context, but it wasn't always easy.
There were some glaring inaccuracies - an eight year old Australian country kid in 1993 would never have thought of distance in terms of miles, as William does (over and over!) in this book (I know because I was an eight year old Aussie country kid in 1992), and a national Park ranger would never ever EVER have "flicked (his cigarette) ash into the grass". The William in my head should have been one of the boys I went to school with, and in many ways he was until a glaring statement is made that smashes the whole illusion. I'm left thinking "Dane would never have done/thought/said/seen that!!!" which is, needless to say, rather distracting. McGahan would probably have been drawing (naturally, of course) on his own experiences and thoughts as an eight year old Aussie country kid in the 70s? which would explain the miles thing, and perhaps even the old fashioned political beliefs, although I think it is important to recognize that rural kids of my generation are in many ways equally closed-minded with respect to issues of native title and multiculturalism - rural Australia in old squatter country continues to be a very Anglo-Saxon landscape, and the charcterisation in this book is consistent with this.
This book is brim full of comments on native title and One Nation - a reflection of the political landscape of the early nineties (those early, pre-Pauline Hanson One Nation days, following the Mabo trial) . As such it offers some important insights and clear warnings. It is no coincidence, I think, that McGahan christened the original owners of Kuran station the White family, although it is interesting that the main characters in the book are initially distanced from this association - a perceived separation between independent rural Australia and the aristocratic sensibilities inherited from the "mother-country", which is nicely ironic in the end in it's illustration that these mindsets are not so very far removed.
June 18, 2020
I picked up this book because I enjoyed Last Drinks by the same author, Andrew McGahan.
I wasn't really sure where it was going, I just liked the start of it, a mushroom cloud over a farm, seen from the perspective of a nine year old boy, William. Knowing it was the death of his father and he and his mother were going to go and live with an uncle he'd never met on some remote farm.
William's story is intertwined with his uncle's growing up and it wasn't obvious where the book was going for quite some time. Then land rights and Aboriginals are suddenly thrust into the story and his uncle is leading a group that is hoping to protect the land rights of farmers who are concerned that new legislation being introduced to compensate Aboriginals will take away their farms. Part of the charter reads:
We believe that the rights of the individual cannot be interfered with.
We believe in the inherent value of Australian culture and traditions.
We believe in One Flag.
In One People.
One Nation.
For non-Australians, the "One Nation" Political Party was created to essentially "keep Australia white". So that line sent shivers up my spine. I was worried that this innocent little boy was going to be warped by his racist old uncle... but as usual it's never so straight forward.
I found William an entirely sympathetic narrator. He's nine and is being shoved in at least three different directions by the end of the book and is never given a chance to just be a kid, he's forced into this dancing monkey role because one day his uncle's farm may be his.
His uncle, John's story was introduced slowly and as William learned more about him, so did we... and my sympathies for him lessened and lessened.
I wasn't expecting a story about Native Title, but this was a really interesting way to approach the topic.
I wasn't really sure where it was going, I just liked the start of it, a mushroom cloud over a farm, seen from the perspective of a nine year old boy, William. Knowing it was the death of his father and he and his mother were going to go and live with an uncle he'd never met on some remote farm.
William's story is intertwined with his uncle's growing up and it wasn't obvious where the book was going for quite some time. Then land rights and Aboriginals are suddenly thrust into the story and his uncle is leading a group that is hoping to protect the land rights of farmers who are concerned that new legislation being introduced to compensate Aboriginals will take away their farms. Part of the charter reads:
We believe that the rights of the individual cannot be interfered with.
We believe in the inherent value of Australian culture and traditions.
We believe in One Flag.
In One People.
One Nation.
For non-Australians, the "One Nation" Political Party was created to essentially "keep Australia white". So that line sent shivers up my spine. I was worried that this innocent little boy was going to be warped by his racist old uncle... but as usual it's never so straight forward.
I found William an entirely sympathetic narrator. He's nine and is being shoved in at least three different directions by the end of the book and is never given a chance to just be a kid, he's forced into this dancing monkey role because one day his uncle's farm may be his.
His uncle, John's story was introduced slowly and as William learned more about him, so did we... and my sympathies for him lessened and lessened.
I wasn't expecting a story about Native Title, but this was a really interesting way to approach the topic.
May 19, 2018
A thought provoking novel on a grand scale. It covers the troubled history of the relationship between black and white right from the beginning of settlement days. William's father died by fire and he and his mother were cast on the charity of an uncle he had never heard of. His uncle, an old man, had a hidden agenda for William and his mother was keen for him to do what was required. Unfortunately Williams right eardrum was perforated by a local Doctor when he was being examined to see if he was healthy. Over a short period he became unwell and there were symptoms of trouble but whenever he mentioned his pain it was brushed aside and he suffered alone and in silence. He was nearly 9 and reliant on adults to care for him. He learnt a lot from his uncle about the new law being debated in parliament to give aborigines a chance to claim native titled over the land. The landowners were against it and the old man was fighting a battle to stop it. When his uncle became ill Ruth was summoned by the housekeeper. Ruth was the old man's daughter but they were estranged and he was determined she would never claim his property. Ruth opened William's eyes to an opposite way of thinking and she was really the only one there for him in his hour of need. The old man's hopes and dreams of long ago turned his mind to bitterness and madness. William's needs in that house were never met. His mother was scheming to get the uncle to make him his heir, the housekeeper hated him and the old man was forever pursuing his own agenda. The beauty and starkness of the land, the tenacity of the settlers and the determination of the native people to remain were all revealed in stark prose.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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