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Romulus, My Father
Romulus Gaita fled his home in his native Yugoslavia at the age of thirteen, and came to Australia with his young wife Christine and their four-year-old son soon after the end of World War II. Tragic events were to overtake them. Raimond Gaita has an extraordinary story to tell about growing up with his father amid the stony paddocks and flowing grasses of country Australia.
Written simply and movingly, Romulus, My Father is about how a compassionate and honest man taught his son the meaning of living a decent life. It is about passion, betrayal and madness, about friendship and the joy and dignity of work, about character and fate, affliction and spirituality. No one will read this wonderful book without an enhanced sense of the possibilities of being alive.
Written simply and movingly, Romulus, My Father is about how a compassionate and honest man taught his son the meaning of living a decent life. It is about passion, betrayal and madness, about friendship and the joy and dignity of work, about character and fate, affliction and spirituality. No one will read this wonderful book without an enhanced sense of the possibilities of being alive.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 174 reviews
July 11, 2017
This is a book about a good person, and when you read it you see how hard it is to create such a book and do it well. Most books which are supposed to be about good people are rather nauseating. You see at once that the author is trying to manipulate you into conforming to his or her idea of what goodness is supposed to be, and after a short while you resent it. There are several other things that usually make me dislike these books. One of them is that I tend to have severe doubts about whether the person in question really is very good. Another is that the author often feels they need to show that goodness reaps a reward; for example riches, success and popularity, or (worse) the joys of some dubiously plausible afterlife.
Raimond Gaita has not fallen into any of these traps. He describes his father in simple, moving words, and paints a convincing picture of someone who is genuinely good. Not because he feels he will be rewarded for it, a point which is made extremely clear, and not because he has been indoctrinated by some specious religion, although Romulus in his quiet, understated way is fairly religious. He is good for the reasons that Plato explains at length in Gorgias and the Republic: deep down, and although it is hard for many of us to realise it, we all actually want to be good people. Romulus has been lucky enough to understand this from an early age. He does not reflect on whether he should do the right thing, and he does not make a production of it. He simply takes it for granted that he should love his family and his friends, that he should keep his word, and that he should work honestly and to the best of his ability. All these things are easy to say and, as the book makes clear, exceptionally difficult to do. In most cases they grant no reward, in heaven or elsewhere, except the satisfaction of being true to oneself.
One notes, rather to one's surprise, that there are professors of moral philosophy who have something worth saying on this difficult subject. I should read some more Raimond Gaita.
Raimond Gaita has not fallen into any of these traps. He describes his father in simple, moving words, and paints a convincing picture of someone who is genuinely good. Not because he feels he will be rewarded for it, a point which is made extremely clear, and not because he has been indoctrinated by some specious religion, although Romulus in his quiet, understated way is fairly religious. He is good for the reasons that Plato explains at length in Gorgias and the Republic: deep down, and although it is hard for many of us to realise it, we all actually want to be good people. Romulus has been lucky enough to understand this from an early age. He does not reflect on whether he should do the right thing, and he does not make a production of it. He simply takes it for granted that he should love his family and his friends, that he should keep his word, and that he should work honestly and to the best of his ability. All these things are easy to say and, as the book makes clear, exceptionally difficult to do. In most cases they grant no reward, in heaven or elsewhere, except the satisfaction of being true to oneself.
One notes, rather to one's surprise, that there are professors of moral philosophy who have something worth saying on this difficult subject. I should read some more Raimond Gaita.
June 23, 2017
It's a complete mystery why Gaita's two Romulus books are so little read. Perhaps if he'd called them #1 and #2, with the hope for people that there would be a #7 and a #34.
I cannot do justice to this book, an elegant but simple, sorrowful but not, self-contained whilst being wide open to the world, recollection of his father. I guess the general unknown of this outside Australia is a spurning of the edge of the world in part. But most problematic is that people only want to read biography of Important People. The Importance can be the way of utter triviality, but it has to be public. Big.
Romulus, however, isn't Important. He is only important. And apparently that doesn't cut it. I'm not going to write about the book, I could not possibly do justice to it, a point on which I have brooded over the past months since reading it. So, to resort to vulgarity, it's a fucking amazing book and anybody who reads it must come out the other end a better person. If enough people read it, at the end the world would be a better world.
Update: 1 February 2017 I return to Gaita thinking if there is something in the world to neutralise that evil we see playing out around the world now, it is surely his works.
Update: 26 March 2011 walking around London. The Westminster city council has decided that homeless people should find somewhere else to be. So, as well as declaring that the homeless will no longer make the city their home, the Council has told charities that they aren't allowed to feed the homeless any more. My friend S-L who told me this said that the Council did that to get rid of pigeons, now they are doing it with human beings. Attention Londoners, no feeding the homeless.
Lady Di is quickly forgotten. I don't they they would have dared do this if she were alive.
------------------------
Lost on the way to the theatre this evening, a chap stopped to direct us. After we moved on, Henrietta said how nervous she was, the guy was a drug addict. He looked like a perfectly ordinary chap to me, but she insisted. Maybe because I’ve shared my life intimately with drug addicts from time to time, I see them differently. If a drug addict wants to rob you, which was her fear, it is only because society for no good reason cripples these people financially. If drugs were ‘free’ or thereabouts, nobody would be robbed to pay for them. It seems to me a reason to be outraged on their behalf, rather than scared of them.
As we were walking along I talked to her about my experiences on Grey St, St Kilda. It was a street I travelled up and down daily for six months or so while I was living at one end of it, my PO Box at the other. It is a strip full of crazy people, mostly men, and to begin with I felt as nervous as she did. It didn’t take long for me to realise, however, these were human beings. Ordinary human beings. Strange to think that we fear people simply because they are powerless, that we somehow invest power into their powerlessness. Strange to think we are scared of people because they have nothing and live on the street. So, before long, these were people I knew, not in any intimate way, but in that sense you do people you see every day. We’d smile, nod, say hello. I might add that these people were empathetic. They were quite capable of ignoring you if they felt that is what you wanted.
As I’m telling all this to Henrietta, who believes not one word of it, I was regretting not walking along there anymore. I’m now torn between thinking that would be a lovely thing to do, but wishing to stay away from a place that has memories that are sometimes painful to evoke. I seem to be scared of making the trip.
Back from the theatre, I continue something I’ve been doing the last couple of days: reading what I can of Gaita online, having watched the film Romulus, My Father over a couple of nights. I come to this point. The Sacred Heart Mission is in the heart of Grey Street and accounts for the nature of the street’s inhabitants:
I hope you all now understand that you must see this movie, read this book. And take a walk down Grey St if you can.
I cannot do justice to this book, an elegant but simple, sorrowful but not, self-contained whilst being wide open to the world, recollection of his father. I guess the general unknown of this outside Australia is a spurning of the edge of the world in part. But most problematic is that people only want to read biography of Important People. The Importance can be the way of utter triviality, but it has to be public. Big.
Romulus, however, isn't Important. He is only important. And apparently that doesn't cut it. I'm not going to write about the book, I could not possibly do justice to it, a point on which I have brooded over the past months since reading it. So, to resort to vulgarity, it's a fucking amazing book and anybody who reads it must come out the other end a better person. If enough people read it, at the end the world would be a better world.
Update: 1 February 2017 I return to Gaita thinking if there is something in the world to neutralise that evil we see playing out around the world now, it is surely his works.
Update: 26 March 2011 walking around London. The Westminster city council has decided that homeless people should find somewhere else to be. So, as well as declaring that the homeless will no longer make the city their home, the Council has told charities that they aren't allowed to feed the homeless any more. My friend S-L who told me this said that the Council did that to get rid of pigeons, now they are doing it with human beings. Attention Londoners, no feeding the homeless.
Lady Di is quickly forgotten. I don't they they would have dared do this if she were alive.
------------------------
Lost on the way to the theatre this evening, a chap stopped to direct us. After we moved on, Henrietta said how nervous she was, the guy was a drug addict. He looked like a perfectly ordinary chap to me, but she insisted. Maybe because I’ve shared my life intimately with drug addicts from time to time, I see them differently. If a drug addict wants to rob you, which was her fear, it is only because society for no good reason cripples these people financially. If drugs were ‘free’ or thereabouts, nobody would be robbed to pay for them. It seems to me a reason to be outraged on their behalf, rather than scared of them.
As we were walking along I talked to her about my experiences on Grey St, St Kilda. It was a street I travelled up and down daily for six months or so while I was living at one end of it, my PO Box at the other. It is a strip full of crazy people, mostly men, and to begin with I felt as nervous as she did. It didn’t take long for me to realise, however, these were human beings. Ordinary human beings. Strange to think that we fear people simply because they are powerless, that we somehow invest power into their powerlessness. Strange to think we are scared of people because they have nothing and live on the street. So, before long, these were people I knew, not in any intimate way, but in that sense you do people you see every day. We’d smile, nod, say hello. I might add that these people were empathetic. They were quite capable of ignoring you if they felt that is what you wanted.
As I’m telling all this to Henrietta, who believes not one word of it, I was regretting not walking along there anymore. I’m now torn between thinking that would be a lovely thing to do, but wishing to stay away from a place that has memories that are sometimes painful to evoke. I seem to be scared of making the trip.
Back from the theatre, I continue something I’ve been doing the last couple of days: reading what I can of Gaita online, having watched the film Romulus, My Father over a couple of nights. I come to this point. The Sacred Heart Mission is in the heart of Grey Street and accounts for the nature of the street’s inhabitants:
In the same week that Romulus, My Father received a literary award, with all the glamour attached to such ceremonies, I read from it at the Sacred Heart Mission, in St. Kilda, reluctantly, for I was aware that people came for lunch, not for literature. At one stage a man, obviously mentally ill, called for me to stop. He raised his head, which he had held in his hands and exclaimed "God is in this book!" Remembering the times I had worked in mental hospitals, I was anxious about what he would say next. "I mean, that it's filled with love", he explained. His words moved me deeply. I remembered the day when my father and Vacek visited me at school. That tribute, by a man destitute of all worldly goods and achievements, quite without status or prestige and also quite mad, moved me, gratified me and convinced me of the worth of what I had done more than all the accolades the book has received.
I hope you all now understand that you must see this movie, read this book. And take a walk down Grey St if you can.
March 9, 2011
This is a book that is often studied in the final year of high school here in Australia, written by a philosopher about his dead father – that was all I knew about this book before I started reading it earlier this week. So, I expected it to be quite another kind of book to what it turned out to be.
There were things I didn’t like about the author – for example, his tendency to be very general in some of his ‘summing up’ of people or events. I also really disliked him referring to his chosen profession as ‘the life of the mind’ – not just because it sounds so pretentious, but also because saying that seemed to undermine so much of what I feel lies under this book – the idea that everyone lives a life of the mind and that we all too often do not listen to those around us for what are really superficial reasons (they speak broken English or don’t look quite right) which ensures we miss the depth they all s easily could offer us. Others have told me to read his A Common Humanity – but I don’t think I will ever get around to it, to be honest, even though I now know I probably should. This one has always seemed the more urgent to get to, and now I finally have.
What surprised me about this was that it was so oppressively about mental illness. I had no idea this was what the book would be about, if a biography can really be ‘about’ anything. It is told in the kind of matter-of-fact tone that makes the instances of abuse and harm and carelessness that occur due to mental illness seem almost too painful to read. There is lesson here if you are a writer – understatement is the best way to move people, at least, the people most worth moving who should be the people you are writing for in the first place. This book beautifully displays the way the hurt caused by mental illness can often seem almost banal to those who suffering from the consequences of the madness of those they love. This is a deeply moving book, and mostly in its way of not really trying to be moving at all.
I’m very fond of Maryborough – the country out there has whatever it takes to fill that fabled and haunting beauty that is often spoken about the Australian bush – the kind of beauty that creeps up on you. It is not something you see or understand first off, you need to live with it for a little while for it to get under your skin. The land around Maryborough is not beautiful in any conventional way. This book, with so much of it set in Maryborough, is beautiful in much the say way. Sparse, almost desiccated, but also lovely and life affirming in the sense that despite how difficult and patchy life is there, there is something inspiring in getting to see life struggle on anyway. It is the inexorable call to existence. And even in this book, one so darkly shadowed by suicide, isn’t that the message in the end?
I wonder what young people make of this book – particularly the lines where the author confides he always thought of sexual love as being an infinitely dangerous emotion, that he always feared it as the threat most likely to take away sanity.
There is no question that sons writing about their fathers is an endlessly difficult task, and so, when it is done well it is also one that is directly proportional in fascination to the difficulty of the task. This is a quite remarkable book – told simply and with an eye less likely to pass over the author’s foibles, those committed by his younger self, than it is to forgive and to even seek to understand the harms caused to him by those that loved him in their imperfectly human ways and are still loved by him in return.
There were things I didn’t like about the author – for example, his tendency to be very general in some of his ‘summing up’ of people or events. I also really disliked him referring to his chosen profession as ‘the life of the mind’ – not just because it sounds so pretentious, but also because saying that seemed to undermine so much of what I feel lies under this book – the idea that everyone lives a life of the mind and that we all too often do not listen to those around us for what are really superficial reasons (they speak broken English or don’t look quite right) which ensures we miss the depth they all s easily could offer us. Others have told me to read his A Common Humanity – but I don’t think I will ever get around to it, to be honest, even though I now know I probably should. This one has always seemed the more urgent to get to, and now I finally have.
What surprised me about this was that it was so oppressively about mental illness. I had no idea this was what the book would be about, if a biography can really be ‘about’ anything. It is told in the kind of matter-of-fact tone that makes the instances of abuse and harm and carelessness that occur due to mental illness seem almost too painful to read. There is lesson here if you are a writer – understatement is the best way to move people, at least, the people most worth moving who should be the people you are writing for in the first place. This book beautifully displays the way the hurt caused by mental illness can often seem almost banal to those who suffering from the consequences of the madness of those they love. This is a deeply moving book, and mostly in its way of not really trying to be moving at all.
I’m very fond of Maryborough – the country out there has whatever it takes to fill that fabled and haunting beauty that is often spoken about the Australian bush – the kind of beauty that creeps up on you. It is not something you see or understand first off, you need to live with it for a little while for it to get under your skin. The land around Maryborough is not beautiful in any conventional way. This book, with so much of it set in Maryborough, is beautiful in much the say way. Sparse, almost desiccated, but also lovely and life affirming in the sense that despite how difficult and patchy life is there, there is something inspiring in getting to see life struggle on anyway. It is the inexorable call to existence. And even in this book, one so darkly shadowed by suicide, isn’t that the message in the end?
I wonder what young people make of this book – particularly the lines where the author confides he always thought of sexual love as being an infinitely dangerous emotion, that he always feared it as the threat most likely to take away sanity.
There is no question that sons writing about their fathers is an endlessly difficult task, and so, when it is done well it is also one that is directly proportional in fascination to the difficulty of the task. This is a quite remarkable book – told simply and with an eye less likely to pass over the author’s foibles, those committed by his younger self, than it is to forgive and to even seek to understand the harms caused to him by those that loved him in their imperfectly human ways and are still loved by him in return.
August 27, 2016
Simple biography of the authors immigrant father.
Sometimes I feel one's appreciation of a novel such as this can be largely due to what time in their life they read it. I didn't find this book as intensely touching as others obviously did but I did enjoy reading it.
I was a little disconnected to Raimond, & whilst the story's events were new, the sentiment felt very familiar, as I have read similar memoirs. I expect I would have got more from it had I read it when I was younger.
Nevertheless, its always good for the soul to acknowledge those whose lives were steeped in poverty & much more difficult than ours are. Its a good reminder to appreciate what we have & for that, I'm really glad I read it.
Sometimes I feel one's appreciation of a novel such as this can be largely due to what time in their life they read it. I didn't find this book as intensely touching as others obviously did but I did enjoy reading it.
I was a little disconnected to Raimond, & whilst the story's events were new, the sentiment felt very familiar, as I have read similar memoirs. I expect I would have got more from it had I read it when I was younger.
Nevertheless, its always good for the soul to acknowledge those whose lives were steeped in poverty & much more difficult than ours are. Its a good reminder to appreciate what we have & for that, I'm really glad I read it.
March 20, 2009
A brutal book.
An absolutely astounding book.
Without a shadow of sentimentality.
Which is why it just tears at you.
Read it with a valium.
I put it on my philosophy shelf too.
For this book is all about living an ethical life within the constraints of one's own personality, family and friends, environment, society and the joys and tragedies they bring every day.
When the author, Raimond Gaita, visited the set of the film of his book during its recent production, the young boy playing him, flung himself on him and hugged him.
That's what you will want to do too.
See this fine movie, read the better book and lend it out!!!!
A European addition to the Australian Experience.
I knew Hungarian migrants like this as a very young boy - proud, strong and sensitive people who had drunk deep of the worst Life could offer and just started all over again. After the 1956 Uprising.
This book is the genuine article.
An absolutely astounding book.
Without a shadow of sentimentality.
Which is why it just tears at you.
Read it with a valium.
I put it on my philosophy shelf too.
For this book is all about living an ethical life within the constraints of one's own personality, family and friends, environment, society and the joys and tragedies they bring every day.
When the author, Raimond Gaita, visited the set of the film of his book during its recent production, the young boy playing him, flung himself on him and hugged him.
That's what you will want to do too.
See this fine movie, read the better book and lend it out!!!!
A European addition to the Australian Experience.
I knew Hungarian migrants like this as a very young boy - proud, strong and sensitive people who had drunk deep of the worst Life could offer and just started all over again. After the 1956 Uprising.
This book is the genuine article.
April 27, 2024
‘He was truly a man who would rather suffer evil than do it.’
This book is a memoir and a tribute to Romulus Gaita (1922-1996) by his son Raimond. Raimond’s eulogy for his father was published in Quadrant magazine in 1996, and was then developed into this book. Who was Romulus Gaita, and why read this memoir? Romulus Gaita was born in Markovac, a village in a Romanian-speaking part of Yugoslavia in 1922. At the age of 13, Romulus fled his home in Yugoslavia. The memoir briefly describes Romulus Gaita’s early life in Europe, and his arrival in Australia in April 1950 as an assisted migrant, together with his wife Christine and their four year old son Raimond.
‘Ersatz coffee became a symbol of that time in Germany, but ersatz liver sausage, made of pulped wood, is a symbol closer to the reality.’
Once Romulus and his family arrived in Australia, they were transferred to Bonegilla, a migrant camp in north-eastern Victoria. Romulus Gaita was sent to Baringhup, in central Victoria to work on the construction of a dam on the Loddon River. This is Romulus’s story, and while a number of others feature in it (especially Christine, Raimond and the Hora brothers) it is Romulus who remains in the centre. The stories of the others are really only told as they relate to Romulus.
In some ways, Romulus’s story has much in common with many other Europeans who immigrated to Australia after the turmoil of World War II. Assisted migrants were required to work for two years at jobs chosen by the Australian government, jobs that did not always take into account their previous training and skills. But what makes this memoir so moving is Raimond‘s depiction of a flawed and vulnerable man, a man who did his best to care for his son when his wife was incapable of doing so. Romulus Gaita was a man full of contradictions: a compassionate man who was calm, patient, stoical in the face of disaster, capable of unconditional love and great kindness, judgemental at times, and sometimes suicidal and despairing. But despite these contradictions (or perhaps because of them) the picture of Romulus Gaita we see is of a man true to his own values, a man intolerant of lies and a man who believed that if you started something you should finish it.
‘Never believe that I don’t love you.’
Raimond Gaita’s account of his father’s life is analytical, eloquent and beautifully written. He does not shy away from the difficulties his parents encountered – their tragedies, their episodes of illness, their battles with ignorance as a consequence of difference. Life for ‘new Australians’ of a non-English speaking background, in the 1950s, could be difficult. The labour provided was necessary and generally welcomed; the educational, cultural and language differences generally were not.
I enjoyed reading this memoir of, tribute to Romulus Gaita. For all its sadness and tragedy, there is also hope and humour. I have an image of Romulus Gaita, both as an individual and as one of many people who left Europe to build a new life in Australia. Romulus Gaita lived a difficult but fulfilling life. Romulus Gaita was a good man.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
This book is a memoir and a tribute to Romulus Gaita (1922-1996) by his son Raimond. Raimond’s eulogy for his father was published in Quadrant magazine in 1996, and was then developed into this book. Who was Romulus Gaita, and why read this memoir? Romulus Gaita was born in Markovac, a village in a Romanian-speaking part of Yugoslavia in 1922. At the age of 13, Romulus fled his home in Yugoslavia. The memoir briefly describes Romulus Gaita’s early life in Europe, and his arrival in Australia in April 1950 as an assisted migrant, together with his wife Christine and their four year old son Raimond.
‘Ersatz coffee became a symbol of that time in Germany, but ersatz liver sausage, made of pulped wood, is a symbol closer to the reality.’
Once Romulus and his family arrived in Australia, they were transferred to Bonegilla, a migrant camp in north-eastern Victoria. Romulus Gaita was sent to Baringhup, in central Victoria to work on the construction of a dam on the Loddon River. This is Romulus’s story, and while a number of others feature in it (especially Christine, Raimond and the Hora brothers) it is Romulus who remains in the centre. The stories of the others are really only told as they relate to Romulus.
In some ways, Romulus’s story has much in common with many other Europeans who immigrated to Australia after the turmoil of World War II. Assisted migrants were required to work for two years at jobs chosen by the Australian government, jobs that did not always take into account their previous training and skills. But what makes this memoir so moving is Raimond‘s depiction of a flawed and vulnerable man, a man who did his best to care for his son when his wife was incapable of doing so. Romulus Gaita was a man full of contradictions: a compassionate man who was calm, patient, stoical in the face of disaster, capable of unconditional love and great kindness, judgemental at times, and sometimes suicidal and despairing. But despite these contradictions (or perhaps because of them) the picture of Romulus Gaita we see is of a man true to his own values, a man intolerant of lies and a man who believed that if you started something you should finish it.
‘Never believe that I don’t love you.’
Raimond Gaita’s account of his father’s life is analytical, eloquent and beautifully written. He does not shy away from the difficulties his parents encountered – their tragedies, their episodes of illness, their battles with ignorance as a consequence of difference. Life for ‘new Australians’ of a non-English speaking background, in the 1950s, could be difficult. The labour provided was necessary and generally welcomed; the educational, cultural and language differences generally were not.
I enjoyed reading this memoir of, tribute to Romulus Gaita. For all its sadness and tragedy, there is also hope and humour. I have an image of Romulus Gaita, both as an individual and as one of many people who left Europe to build a new life in Australia. Romulus Gaita lived a difficult but fulfilling life. Romulus Gaita was a good man.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
September 17, 2013
I saw the film when it came out and thought that I had read the book too. But recently a friend lent me the book and its sequel, After Romulus and I realised I had not read it. Although the film did an excellent job of conveying the main story, the book is essential reading, a tour de force.
Raymond Gaita writes simply, with apparent calm, of his parents; his life as a child with his Romanian-Yugoslav father on a desolate farm in rural Victoria; the mental illness of all the adults close to him and especially that of his mother, the beautiful Christina, who committed suicide after a short, troubled life afflicted with what we would now call manic depression or bipolar disease.
Although he had limited formal education, Gaita's father had an acutely developed sense of ethics and morality. Through the tumultuous years of his childhood, this seems to have helped Raimond to live through the most difficult times and, as an adult, we can understand that his father's moral and ethical principles underpin his own philosophy.
I have read few books as moving as this.
In the last few years I have read many books where the theme is identity, quite a bit on World War II and its aftermath, and quite a bit on migration and its effects on the lives of those who emigrated/changed cultures. Romulus, My Father
encompasses all these themes.
Raymond Gaita writes simply, with apparent calm, of his parents; his life as a child with his Romanian-Yugoslav father on a desolate farm in rural Victoria; the mental illness of all the adults close to him and especially that of his mother, the beautiful Christina, who committed suicide after a short, troubled life afflicted with what we would now call manic depression or bipolar disease.
Although he had limited formal education, Gaita's father had an acutely developed sense of ethics and morality. Through the tumultuous years of his childhood, this seems to have helped Raimond to live through the most difficult times and, as an adult, we can understand that his father's moral and ethical principles underpin his own philosophy.
I have read few books as moving as this.
In the last few years I have read many books where the theme is identity, quite a bit on World War II and its aftermath, and quite a bit on migration and its effects on the lives of those who emigrated/changed cultures. Romulus, My Father
encompasses all these themes.
January 1, 2017
I consider this to be a masterpiece of biography. Thanks, Wayne, for directing me to it!
The writing is spare, simple and direct, philosophically reserved, yet intensely moving. As a tribute to his father, Gaita has done a superb job of educating us all to what it must have been like for a Yugoslav migrant to arrive in Australia and struggle to make a new life in his new land. The writing is so effortless and so beguiling that one almost does not notice how terribly tragic this particular migrant's family was; yet we are not spared the intensity of the tragedies.
The love of the son (Raimond Gaita) for his new country, and his gradual learning to appreciate and accept the peculiar beauty of the Australian landscape goes hand-in-hand with the tragic elements in his life; all is suffused with an unerring love for his father, an understanding of the difficulties he is going through, and a great respect for his craft, honesty and tenacity. These two element grow side-by-side, in counterpoint, each making the other more poignant by their juxtaposition.
The son views his father, his disturbed and disturbing mother, and the other Yugoslav friends and acquaintances with a certain detachment that grows from the experience of the children of migrants. They are temporarily in a kind of twilight world, where their emotional link to their blood relatives and their friends is almost effortlessly counterbalanced by a growing love for their adopted land never quite shared. The world of the former is real, but increasingly insignificant, both to Romulus and to Raimond; yet it contains for Raimond the reality of the lost world his parents and their friends inhabit, and something in which he coexisted as a child.
All this is so delicately and precisely described, so closely observed, yet so distantly positioned, that the cumulative effect is intensely emotional, and intensely moving; and one is perhaps surprised to realise how very beautiful it all is... One learns much, one feels much; one cannot help feeling an understanding of something new about the human condition. As a paean to compassion, this book is perfect.
The writing is spare, simple and direct, philosophically reserved, yet intensely moving. As a tribute to his father, Gaita has done a superb job of educating us all to what it must have been like for a Yugoslav migrant to arrive in Australia and struggle to make a new life in his new land. The writing is so effortless and so beguiling that one almost does not notice how terribly tragic this particular migrant's family was; yet we are not spared the intensity of the tragedies.
The love of the son (Raimond Gaita) for his new country, and his gradual learning to appreciate and accept the peculiar beauty of the Australian landscape goes hand-in-hand with the tragic elements in his life; all is suffused with an unerring love for his father, an understanding of the difficulties he is going through, and a great respect for his craft, honesty and tenacity. These two element grow side-by-side, in counterpoint, each making the other more poignant by their juxtaposition.
The son views his father, his disturbed and disturbing mother, and the other Yugoslav friends and acquaintances with a certain detachment that grows from the experience of the children of migrants. They are temporarily in a kind of twilight world, where their emotional link to their blood relatives and their friends is almost effortlessly counterbalanced by a growing love for their adopted land never quite shared. The world of the former is real, but increasingly insignificant, both to Romulus and to Raimond; yet it contains for Raimond the reality of the lost world his parents and their friends inhabit, and something in which he coexisted as a child.
All this is so delicately and precisely described, so closely observed, yet so distantly positioned, that the cumulative effect is intensely emotional, and intensely moving; and one is perhaps surprised to realise how very beautiful it all is... One learns much, one feels much; one cannot help feeling an understanding of something new about the human condition. As a paean to compassion, this book is perfect.
May 24, 2017
‘Elegantly composed and written, both profoundly moral and perceptive in its social observations…It is a tragic, uplifting book whose eponymous hero emerges as one of the more magnetic creations in recent Australian writing.’
1998 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
‘Consistently astounding…one of the most remarkable works of autobiography I have read for years, a memoir of absolutely compelling tragi-comic quality.’
Peter Craven, Australian
‘Extraordinary and beautiful…Gaita’s book is about how it is possible to stare into the abyss of nothingness and see beyond it to the redeeming mystery that is life…Romulus, My Father is a profound meditation on love and death, madness and truth, judgment and compassion. It is about so much that matters that is normally so little discussed with so little honesty.’
Richard Flanagan, Sunday Age
‘Gaita’s book is a moving account of his father’s commitment to words and of his struggle with a world of feelings that his words cannot get hold of…Tenderness is at the heart of the book.’
Eureka Street
‘This turbulent and tormented story of a migrant family’s life scarred by mental illness, skewed passions and suicide is a troubled tale relieved profoundly by compassion and honesty…it’s an insight into human hope, dignity and darkness.’
Canberra Times
‘Enthralling…a tale about madness, suicide, affliction and betrayal…a rare and passionate book, the like of which has seldom been seen in Australia.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘Radiates warmth; Gaita’s memoir constantly reinforces not only humanity, but the mystery of being human.’
Weekend Australian
‘A sustained dialogue with the past from which the present has been born, and an extended essay on madness and death, love and friendship, beauty, truth and morality…Romulus fills every page with his presence.’
Age
1998 Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards
‘Consistently astounding…one of the most remarkable works of autobiography I have read for years, a memoir of absolutely compelling tragi-comic quality.’
Peter Craven, Australian
‘Extraordinary and beautiful…Gaita’s book is about how it is possible to stare into the abyss of nothingness and see beyond it to the redeeming mystery that is life…Romulus, My Father is a profound meditation on love and death, madness and truth, judgment and compassion. It is about so much that matters that is normally so little discussed with so little honesty.’
Richard Flanagan, Sunday Age
‘Gaita’s book is a moving account of his father’s commitment to words and of his struggle with a world of feelings that his words cannot get hold of…Tenderness is at the heart of the book.’
Eureka Street
‘This turbulent and tormented story of a migrant family’s life scarred by mental illness, skewed passions and suicide is a troubled tale relieved profoundly by compassion and honesty…it’s an insight into human hope, dignity and darkness.’
Canberra Times
‘Enthralling…a tale about madness, suicide, affliction and betrayal…a rare and passionate book, the like of which has seldom been seen in Australia.’
Sydney Morning Herald
‘Radiates warmth; Gaita’s memoir constantly reinforces not only humanity, but the mystery of being human.’
Weekend Australian
‘A sustained dialogue with the past from which the present has been born, and an extended essay on madness and death, love and friendship, beauty, truth and morality…Romulus fills every page with his presence.’
Age
July 10, 2007
how anyone can be so analytical and philosophical about such great tragedy and sorrow is beyond me. a beautiful book that is admirably understated. will make you think about what standard of ethics you are capable of.
October 23, 2025
This memoir is, in effect, an extended version of the eulogy read at the funeral in 1996 of Romulus Gaita, by his son Raimond. It was first published in 1998.
Romulus Gaita was born in 1922 in Markovac, a village in the Romanian-speaking part of what was then Yugoslavia.
Treated harshly by the Germans during WWII - he was forced to work in a labour camp on war production activities - he migrated to Australia in 1950, with his young wife Christine and his son Raimond, who was 4 years old at the time.
This is the story of a fairly typical European migrant who emigrated to Australia in the post-war years. It was a wave of migration that fundamentally changed the fabric of Australian society and culture.
As was typical, Gaita and his family were assigned to a migrant reception centre (Bonegilla in Victoria) and then transferred to the central Victorian town of Baringhup to work on the construction of a dam on the Loddon River. He was obliged to stay for at least two years.
Raimond Gaita has lovingly crafted an elegy to the man who was his father Romulus, including the struggles to assimilate into the Australian lifestyle, his friendships with other migrants from his part of the world, the difficulties with his marriage to Christine, who suffered profound mental health issues and was chronically promiscuous, and his gradual acceptance into society, stemming from his commitment to hard work, his excellent skills as a tradesman and his forthright honesty.
There is not much point in going into the details of his life as related here by his son. It's fair to say that he endured his share of ups and downs just as most do in their lives. He celebrated, he suffered, he was joyful, he was distraught, he loved, he fought, he was welcoming with a tendency to be abrasive.
Raimond Gaita deserves praise for his honesty - the story is related warts and all - his compassion, his obvious love and devotion, despite his frequent frustrations, and his thoughtful ruminations.
It is a tale of a different time - life was harsher but also much simpler in Australia back in the 1950s, and migrants who worked hard had an opportunity to not just succeed but to thrive.
By and large, Romulus Gaita was one of those migrants who contributed something worthwhile to the fabric of today's successful multi-cultural society in Australia.
Romulus Gaita was born in 1922 in Markovac, a village in the Romanian-speaking part of what was then Yugoslavia.
Treated harshly by the Germans during WWII - he was forced to work in a labour camp on war production activities - he migrated to Australia in 1950, with his young wife Christine and his son Raimond, who was 4 years old at the time.
This is the story of a fairly typical European migrant who emigrated to Australia in the post-war years. It was a wave of migration that fundamentally changed the fabric of Australian society and culture.
As was typical, Gaita and his family were assigned to a migrant reception centre (Bonegilla in Victoria) and then transferred to the central Victorian town of Baringhup to work on the construction of a dam on the Loddon River. He was obliged to stay for at least two years.
Raimond Gaita has lovingly crafted an elegy to the man who was his father Romulus, including the struggles to assimilate into the Australian lifestyle, his friendships with other migrants from his part of the world, the difficulties with his marriage to Christine, who suffered profound mental health issues and was chronically promiscuous, and his gradual acceptance into society, stemming from his commitment to hard work, his excellent skills as a tradesman and his forthright honesty.
There is not much point in going into the details of his life as related here by his son. It's fair to say that he endured his share of ups and downs just as most do in their lives. He celebrated, he suffered, he was joyful, he was distraught, he loved, he fought, he was welcoming with a tendency to be abrasive.
Raimond Gaita deserves praise for his honesty - the story is related warts and all - his compassion, his obvious love and devotion, despite his frequent frustrations, and his thoughtful ruminations.
It is a tale of a different time - life was harsher but also much simpler in Australia back in the 1950s, and migrants who worked hard had an opportunity to not just succeed but to thrive.
By and large, Romulus Gaita was one of those migrants who contributed something worthwhile to the fabric of today's successful multi-cultural society in Australia.
June 24, 2018
Raimond Gaita writes an aching memoir about his life and his father's. The events depicted are brutal and almost unbelievable, but there is a beauty, too, that manages to see the light. The landscape near Frogmore, their home in rural Australia, comes alive on the page, as do the motorcycles that go to and fro over it. The book is about migration, life and death, joy and illness, and the ethics of navigating contradictions and context. It's terribly sad, but strangely life affirming to think such a beautiful book could come from such sorrowful -- yet sometimes joyful -- love.
September 27, 2021
This book is so beautiful and heartbreaking. Raimond perfectly captures the helplessness of mental illness as he details his childhood and perceptions of both his parents. A fascinating insight into the contrasts between European and Australian culture, but ultimately a tearjerker. I walked away from the last page of this book truly invested in the life of Romulus Gaita.
March 19, 2023
It's gorgeous.
June 27, 2025
When he said he studied philosophy he started cooking
2/9 done from Sutho library book haul 💪
2/9 done from Sutho library book haul 💪
January 5, 2022
Schitterende beschrijving van een filosoof over het tragische leven van zijn vader. Een persoonlijk verhaal dat eenvoudig is opgeschreven en juist daardoor binnenkomt. Een boek dat je doordringt van alle facetten van het leven: van schoonheid tot trauma. Sommige gebeurtenissen in het leven vormen je op een dusdanige manier dat het je karakter vormt. Of dat nou ten goede is of niet, juist die horen bij de rijkdom van het leven.
"De eenvoud van zijn morele overtuigingen - dat je geen leugens rondvertelt, dat je geen geld vraagt voor spullen van slechte kwaliteit, dat je prutswerk niet probeert te verdoezelen - duldde geen tegenstand, en ze wisten dat deze waarden in zijn leven en werk tot uitdrukking kwamen. Tegenover hem komen te staan was soms als je tegenover een Bijbelse profeet kwam te staan, iemand wiens vurige zuiverheid de belichaming was van de waarden waar hij voor stond".
"De eenvoud van zijn morele overtuigingen - dat je geen leugens rondvertelt, dat je geen geld vraagt voor spullen van slechte kwaliteit, dat je prutswerk niet probeert te verdoezelen - duldde geen tegenstand, en ze wisten dat deze waarden in zijn leven en werk tot uitdrukking kwamen. Tegenover hem komen te staan was soms als je tegenover een Bijbelse profeet kwam te staan, iemand wiens vurige zuiverheid de belichaming was van de waarden waar hij voor stond".
March 6, 2025
Deeply moving and rich chronicle of an interesting life
Full of loving and respectful memories of a difficult childhood but Gaita seems to harbour no blame or judgement on those responsible for his care
Simply told and eloquently written
Humphrey Bower as Narrator was excellent
Full of loving and respectful memories of a difficult childhood but Gaita seems to harbour no blame or judgement on those responsible for his care
Simply told and eloquently written
Humphrey Bower as Narrator was excellent
October 3, 2020
I don't usually like biographies, but I did enjoy this one. It is a fine tribute by s son to his father and shines a light on post WW2 migrant life in Australia.
January 15, 2018
Wonderful
September 8, 2018
A simple, engaging eulogy to his Romany father, filled with insight, depth and human dignity.
August 12, 2023
Is this a school English text? It was vaguely familiar to me, but I picked it up in an op shop after a friend recommend it and it did not disappoint! Easy read, loved hearing about their lives in rural Australia, descriptions of the landscape, plus just a well written and interesting biography!
June 11, 2018
Told with simplicity and compassion, this is a beautiful memoir of a difficult life in an earlier time in Australia.
October 28, 2007
Written as a recollection, not as a present experience, this story spans 50 years in just over 200 pages. There is no room for detail, for sharing the journey, rather the reader bears witness and connects through empathy. It’s like sitting in an older person’s living room and listening to their life story – something I very much enjoy doing if the experiences are vastly different from my own, and these are. Through Raimond’s words, he offered me an opportunity to witness his childhood, the observations and interactions he had with his parents, family friends, and the wider relevance of immigrants assimilating into the Australian culture – something my own mother and grandparents did around the same time as Raimond’s.
Romulus Gaita (Raimond's father), an immigrant to Australia from Yugoslavia, lived an unthinkably difficult life. Raised with violence, Romulus knew pain, hardship, living without. He strived to shield his son from the same and this book proves his success. Through Raimond’s memories, I developed a deep respect for Romulus, his family, the people he interacted with and for the toll mental illness takes.
Romulus chose a passionate woman in Christiana (Raimond’s mother), but she came with huge problems. Romulus’ pride, his high morals, his honour, prevented him from blaming her for her failures (and there were many), and it also had him supporting her when she betrayed him to another man (many other men, it seems). A lesser man would have cast her aside: Romulus did not because he said there is no worse fate than mental illness, and Christiana was deeply unwell. The pride and compassion of this man was inspirational, it highlights the difference between cultures and the generosity of spirit that allowed him to co-exist with Australians who did not immediately appreciate and share those virtues.
Raimond writes with pride, with strength, and I can’t help but share the admiration he holds for his father and for the people he writes about. As a child, Raimond experienced grief, loss, abandonment, confusion that no child should ever experience, yet he never doubted his father’s love for him, and he was never without support.
This story is amazing, made all the moreso because it’s true.
Romulus Gaita (Raimond's father), an immigrant to Australia from Yugoslavia, lived an unthinkably difficult life. Raised with violence, Romulus knew pain, hardship, living without. He strived to shield his son from the same and this book proves his success. Through Raimond’s memories, I developed a deep respect for Romulus, his family, the people he interacted with and for the toll mental illness takes.
Romulus chose a passionate woman in Christiana (Raimond’s mother), but she came with huge problems. Romulus’ pride, his high morals, his honour, prevented him from blaming her for her failures (and there were many), and it also had him supporting her when she betrayed him to another man (many other men, it seems). A lesser man would have cast her aside: Romulus did not because he said there is no worse fate than mental illness, and Christiana was deeply unwell. The pride and compassion of this man was inspirational, it highlights the difference between cultures and the generosity of spirit that allowed him to co-exist with Australians who did not immediately appreciate and share those virtues.
Raimond writes with pride, with strength, and I can’t help but share the admiration he holds for his father and for the people he writes about. As a child, Raimond experienced grief, loss, abandonment, confusion that no child should ever experience, yet he never doubted his father’s love for him, and he was never without support.
This story is amazing, made all the moreso because it’s true.
May 8, 2015
This is not the sort of book I would tend to choose for myself; I don't tend to go in for memoirs... and let's face it, I don't tend to go in for real-world stuff that often. Especially not such modern real-world stuff.
I read this in an afternoon. Partly because I had to (for a class I had to teach); partly because I couldn't put it down. The prose it glorious and the story itself is captivating - tragic and funny and everything else that real life really is.
Raimond's parents, Romulus and Christina, come to Australia as newly weds, from Germany (although Romulus is born in... Yugoslavia, I think?). Their marriage is difficult - Christina has depression and possibly other mental health issues, while Romulus struggles to find work, as a non-Anglo immigrant, and is worried about his wife and his son. All of this is dealt with gently but honestly; after all, this is a son reflecting on the frailty of his parents, which is not as easy thing to do. His memories of his mother in particular are enough to break your heart; they, in themselves, are tragedy interspersed with love, much like many childhoods I suspect.
As well as mental health issues, Gaita also confronts issues of racism - I think we all agree Australia was a generally racist place in the couple of decades after WW2 (other times too of course, but that's when this is happening) - and the whole question of belonging and identity: how do you get to feel like you fit?
I really, really enjoyed it, far more than I had expected.
I read this in an afternoon. Partly because I had to (for a class I had to teach); partly because I couldn't put it down. The prose it glorious and the story itself is captivating - tragic and funny and everything else that real life really is.
Raimond's parents, Romulus and Christina, come to Australia as newly weds, from Germany (although Romulus is born in... Yugoslavia, I think?). Their marriage is difficult - Christina has depression and possibly other mental health issues, while Romulus struggles to find work, as a non-Anglo immigrant, and is worried about his wife and his son. All of this is dealt with gently but honestly; after all, this is a son reflecting on the frailty of his parents, which is not as easy thing to do. His memories of his mother in particular are enough to break your heart; they, in themselves, are tragedy interspersed with love, much like many childhoods I suspect.
As well as mental health issues, Gaita also confronts issues of racism - I think we all agree Australia was a generally racist place in the couple of decades after WW2 (other times too of course, but that's when this is happening) - and the whole question of belonging and identity: how do you get to feel like you fit?
I really, really enjoyed it, far more than I had expected.
October 16, 2011
I've been requested as a requirement of my senior study to read this book for my advanced English course. As my classmates read it they told me of how good it was and how interesting which are always strange comments from high school students. It also set the bar pretty high in my expectations of how this story would eventually pan out. I didn't end up enjoying it as much as my peers did unfortunately but that may be solely due to our gaping differences in literary opinion. I absolutely adore biographies usually but this one fell kind of flat with me. I found the tone uninteresting and the lack of chronology left me confused and quite annoyed generally. The personalities where genuine and I appreciated that as they conveyed a real sense empathy in me throughout their struggles but I was often left with questions about their actions and their intentions. I think this is due to the author's consistency in giving sweeping overviews of entire situations over a great span of time which meant the details just got lost in the cracks. I understand it was intended to include all of the phases of Romulus's and Raimond's life but I didn't appreciate it ultimately.
May 15, 2018
I started reading this book because my girlfriend from Chile was given it to read from one of her friends, presumably thinking it was a good literary work and representation of a part of Australia. We actually read the book together over several months, taking it in turns reading it out to the other (though she left before we finished it, and I finished reading it on my own).
I could really relate to the setting and landscapes described because I also grew up in Central Victoria, and knew all of the place first-hand. It was interesting to gain some insight into the history of these places.
The language was more complex than I had expected, and explored themes which I haven’t been exploring so often in literature, and it had more depth than I expected. I enjoyed it partly for these reasons.
I could really relate to the setting and landscapes described because I also grew up in Central Victoria, and knew all of the place first-hand. It was interesting to gain some insight into the history of these places.
The language was more complex than I had expected, and explored themes which I haven’t been exploring so often in literature, and it had more depth than I expected. I enjoyed it partly for these reasons.
August 1, 2014
The only thing that bummed me about this book was its brevity. It is full of all the things that I admire, both in content and writing style. It is honest and unceremoniously spiritual, drawing from a deeper well of humanity than most things we will encounter in our day to day lives. Raimond Gaita, in his description of his father's outlook and the Australian bush, has emphasised the things that he sees as critical and let the rest just drop away. It is a stark book, yet so full of inspiration. A reminder that words serve some referential purpose but should never be able to fully encapsulate life, and are less interesting if they do so.
August 29, 2019
Don't let the 3-star rating fool you. This was actually a really good book about a kind, generous and honest man who endured a lot of adversity in his life but was able to stay true to his morals despite it all.
Memorable Quotes
Memorable Quotes
"...I learned from them the connection between conversation and Otherness."
"...I know what a good workman is; I know what an honest man is; I know what friendship is; I know because I remember these things in the person of my father, in the person of his friend Hora, and in the example of their friendship."
August 13, 2015
Brilliant, moving honest account of a son's love for his incredible father. I loved this book. It made me laugh and cry. I felt like I was eavesdropping on the thoughts in someone's heart. Beautifully written, a moving and enlightening account of the humanity in relationships at their extremes. I will read it again and again.
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