The Harp in the South: Popular Penguins

Harp in the South #2

by Ruth Park

Ruth Park's classic novel The Harp in the South  is one of Australia's greatest novels. Hugh and Margaret Darcy are raising their family in Sydney amid the brothels, grog shops and run-down boarding houses of Surry Hills, where money is scarce and life is not easy.

Filled with beautifully drawn characters that will make you laugh as much as cry, this Australian classic will take you straight back to the colourful slums of Sydney with convincing depth, careful detail and great heart.

Genres: Australia, Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Historical, Literature

252 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1948

About the author

Ruth Park was a New Zealand-born author, who spent most of her life in Australia. She was born in Auckland, and her family later moved to Te Kuiti further south in the North Island of New Zealand, where they lived in isolated areas.

During the Great Depression her working class father worked on bush roads, as a driver, on relief work, as a sawmill hand, and finally shifted back to Auckland as council worker living in a state house. After Catholic primary school Ruth won a partial scholarship to secondary school, but this was broken by periods of being unable to afford to attend. For a time she stayed with relatives on a Coromandel farming estate where she was treated like a serf by the wealthy landowner until she told the rich woman what she really thought of her.

Ruth claimed that she was involved in the Queen Street riots with her father. Later she worked at the Auckland Star before shifting to Australia in 1942. There she married the Australian writer D'Arcy Niland.

Her first novel was The Harp in the South (1948) - a story of Irish slum life in Sydney, which was translated into 10 languages. (Some critics called it a cruel fantasy because as far as they were concerned there were no slums in Sydney.) But Ruth and D'Arcy did live in Sydney slums at Surry Hills. She followed that up with Poor Man's Orange (1949). She also wrote Missus (1985) and other novels, as well as a long-running Australian children's radio show and scripts for film and TV. She created The Muddle-Headed Wombat series of children's books. Her autobiographies are A Fence Around the Cuckoo (1992) and Fishing in the Styx (1993). She also wrote a novel based in New Zealand, One-a-pecker, Two-a-pecker (1957), about gold mining in Otago (later renamed The Frost and The Fire).

Park received awards in Australia and internationally.

Winner of the Dromkeen Medal.

Reviews

[Carol, She's so Novel ꧁꧂ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Surry Hills, Sydney now. Epitome of gentility.

By Orestes654 (talk) 08:34, 23 November 2010 (UTC) - Own work, CC BY 3.0, Link

But it was a working class slum in the 1940s.

and it was home to the working class Darcys, who live in desperate circumstances. The squalor, lack of privacy & bed bugs - this is as far removed from the romantic poverty of I Captured the Castle as it possible to be. The family can barely afford to feed & clothe themselves (certainly not made an easier by father Hughie's bluster & heavy drinking. I can promise you there is one scene that will have most people grinding their teeth in rage at Hughie's fecklessness) but this family love each other & when it is important they pull together. These were real people that I came to care about & love.

The book is episodic in style. Another GR reviewer has the book was originally serialised in an Australian newspaper & while this shows, I don't think it detracts from their stories at all.

& Park won an award from the newspaper. This is from the start of my copy. I have a first edition - if only it wasn't in such poor condition!



Ruth Park is fading into obscurity in her country of birth (New Zealand.) I just hope she is better known in Australia where she lived most of her life. This, her first novel, is also supposed to be her best, but I still want to read more of her work.

Best New Zealand book I have read this year.

September 2024

I decided to read this series this year. Missus was disappointing, but this reread more than held up & is still my favourite New Zealand novel. I will start Poor Man's Orange in a couple of days. I'm seeing the potential for tragedy coming up - I hope I am wrong as I am very fond of these characters.

But I don't think I am.

[Suz · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an Australian classic. This story captures the essence of the hard life of the Darcy family, Sydney in the mid nineteen hundreds. They were poor and down trodden, they did not have anything to their names. What they did have in spades was a lot of love amongst the mess and slum that existed in Surry Hills during that time. Teenage pregnancy, alcoholism, racism (as I listened to an audio version I didn't take notes. But I loved a line between to young people in love discussing marriage, and wondering how the 'black skipped a couple of generations') and poverty was in abundance but this family loved each other and we were left with the impression they were wanting for nothing. The imagery of a young couple honeymooning in Narrabeen with pure delight was lovely. A short classic story, if readers haven't sought this genre before I'd recommend it. Excellent writing and it seems to me a perfectly captured era of the slums and mess and overwhelming love of a family who had naught in the way of materialistic pleasures. Maybe the youth of Australia could learn some things here.

[zed · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. A story of the working poor in pre-war Surry Hills in Sydney. Nowadays Surry Hill is probably as expensive as any place on planet earth so the description of this long lost working poor suburb is a look into a past that no longer exists.

The story itself covers the life of the Catholic Darcy family, the sons and daughters of Irish migrants, and makes a humane read of these people and their struggles through life be it tragic loss or love. Their trials and tribulations are well told in the hands of Ruth Park who has a beautiful turn of phrase and also an understanding of the life and thoughts of these working poor.

Many passages stood out and one of a young girl going to the beach for the first time showed an author of rare insight to youthful joy.
“At half past seven that night Dolour, almost purple with sunburn, and with sand in almost everything except her mouth, came bursting into the room. Behind her was a brilliant memory of a day at the beach, of bus rides, of yelling ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘Little Nellie Kelly” and ‘Hail Queen of Heaven’; of swooping white roads and sudden revelations of cobalt seas iced with foam; of Harry Drummy being sick all over the three Sicilianos, and Father Cooley being forced to take Bertie Stevens aside and explain to him about the gigantic hole in the seat of his trunks; of Sister Theophilus sitting calmly hour by hour making high turreted sandcastles which were wiped into spinning dust and pygmy willy-willies by the afternoon wind. There were so many things to talk about. Dolour had experienced them all in one day, but it took her weeks to tell about them all.”

The copy of this book that I have is an old Queensland school library copy with a few names stamped in the front cover from back in the early 80’s. I got curious and asked around. I was told that this was on the high school reading list of year 11 students for many years. I have no issue with that at all as the book has subjects that young people should read about and understand, abortion, alcoholism, sectarianism and racial prejudice for example. With that I am intrigued as it making the reading lists of Queensland state schools even as late as 1984. I vividly recall Rona Joyner and her anti humanist campaign in schools for subjects such as sex education and reading lists. This book, I would have thought would have been in that spotlight but seemingly passed the censors by. I recall books such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fahrenheit 451 were attacked. Link here for anyone interested.
http://blogs.slq.qld.gov.au/jol/2016/...
One other character is Delie Stock. I am wondering if Ruth Park modelled her on the infamous Tilly Devine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilly_D...


A book for anyone interested in Australian literature from the past.

[Deborah Biancotti · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I figured that, given the amount of resistance I've always had towards this book, I might end up loving it fiercely when I finally read it. But I didn't. I just liked it. Well enough.

On the plus side, I enjoyed the fact it's almost a series of short stories rather than a novel (Park herself said she wanted to write a book that was plotless, like life). I enjoyed the early chapters, which were mainly character portraits. I enjoyed the way Park evokes the poverty, over-crowding and lack of hope of the pitiful classes living in Surry Hills in the post-WWII era. I enjoyed one character in particular. Who died. Of course.

I was also pleased to find out how gritty it was. (The chapter with the bed bugs stands out!) I even enjoyed the Strine (Australianisms) which might otherwise have evoked desperate acts of cultural cringe in a more sentimental book. And I felt like I grew to understand why people with no hope will continue to pleasure the flesh--mostly through alcohol--rather than try for any grander, more apparently-impossible and longer-term kinds of acts.

I didn't enjoy the patronising racism or some aspects of the 'angel in the house' gender moralism, obviously. 'Nuff said.

I initially enjoyed but then grew weary of the way no character seemed capable of experiencing an emotion without it somehow becoming Grand and Great, as either a sign of their class, race (Irish, mainly, for some reason) or gruelling lifestyle. I also grew tired of being reminded that anger springs from hurt, & all the ways anger springs, & all the hurts that exist.

Though I did, for once, enjoy the 'hooker with a heart of gold'-type character! And also the nuns. And the boarder who refuses to share her first name right up until she leaves. Ha haaa! But especially the hooker, she was kinda great.

I did feel that Park occasionally laughs at her characters (for example, when two of them believe they're looking at a ruby when in fact it's something cheaper) & occasionally during the early chapters, I felt there was sometimes more pity than compassion, if you know what I mean. It's hard to quantify a sensibility, though, & I might just be that the old fashioned prose combined with the god-like perspective felt arch when possibly it wasn't intended that way.

And I found some of the more tragic events eye-rollingly predictable, but that's with the benefit of several decades more literature to read, about how fate is kinder to women who make servile decisions and how the physically challenged exist to teach the rest of us a lesson about our humanity. But wait! I said I wouldn't mention the moralism.

I was glad to receive a kind of happy ending for most of the characters.

The title still gives me hives, even though I now know it means The Irish in Australia, & not, as I feared, The Quite Dull Musical Instrument Inna Field Someplace. Conversely, I was pleased to find the word 'verdant' does not appear anywhere in the text.

I was, finally, struck by the intimacy of the Darcys, with each other and with the neighbourhood. I thought about them several times as I wandered through my neighbourhood over the weeks I was reading this book. I thought about the mud, & the vibrancy, & the life that was crammed into the streets of these old Sydney suburbs. And I was very glad it's not quite that bad anymore.

#aww2013 no.17
(marked as 19th Century reading in my list only because it evokes that earlier era)

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Good:
Such beautiful prose. This is a story about urban slum dwellers in the forties yet painted in fantastic faerie imagery. The setting is amazing, and almost certainly authentic, being set around the time of publication. The characters are very well done.

The Bad:
It was so depressing. My heart is broken. It is slow too and doesn’t follow a particularly exciting story arc.

'Friends' character the protagonist is most like:
Roie Darcy is definitely Ross. She is innocent and lovable, and her naivety leads her into misadventure but it all works out in the end.

[M.J. Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Harp in the South (published 1948) is actually the second book in a trilogy, although it was written first. The success of the novel was followed by Poor Man’s Orange (1949 - last book in trilogy) and Missus, the first book in the trilogy but actually written very much later, in 1985 in fact. I had no idea until after I'd finished reading it, that the (Harp in South) book was the winner of a newspaper competition and serialised in the Sydney Morning Herald in 1947. It’s not difficult to believe it won, because it really is so very well written; it perhaps also explains the slightly episodic nature of the narrative, which might be viewed as a flaw in the writing until you’re aware of that fact. The novel, perhaps surprisingly today, was seen as controversial when it first appeared, many arguing that Park had made up the slum life we experience through the lives of the Irish Catholic Darcy family who are central to her book. Park attested to the book’s authenticity, having herself lived in a tenement in the Surry Hills area of Sydney with her husband when first married.
The book is set at the time it was written, which certainly took this reader by surprise, probably because of the acute poverty experienced by its cast of characters. Initially (because the period isn’t stated), I thought it was set in the early 1930s or even earlier, but oblique references to Lana Turner etc put me on the right track. What really came across for me was the tolerance and care these people demonstrate for each other, how despite everything they somehow manage to uphold their standards of decency, despite the plodding grimness of their lives. It’s hard to believe (from our cosseted lives today) how a day’s outing to the seaside could have been seen as a momentous occasion. There is tragedy, ugliness and despair here, but there are also many light-hearted moments, and the book left me feeling exhilarated and uplifted. The writing itself is excellent and Park’s descriptions are always beautifully crafted.

Ruth Park (1917- 2010) was actually a New Zealander by birth and was no stranger to poverty, having grown up through the Depression there. She was a prolific writer, wrote several novels including many books for children and produced literally thousands of radio scripts. She died at the fine age of ninety-three.

If like me you were almost completely ignorant when it came to Antipodean literature, then add this title to your TBR pile. Or, just add it simply because it’s a very good book. I’m delighted to have found a new author and especially happy because I still have two parts of the trilogy left to go.

[Shelleyrae at Book'd Out · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I was about eleven when I first read this Australian classic and I decided to reread this year it to fulfil my Eclectic Reader challenge requirements after it was named in the First Tuesday Book Club's Top Ten Books to Read Before You Die.

The Harp in the South is a glimpse into the everyday life of inner Sydney's poorest post war community and introduces the Darcy family who live in Sydney's slums at Twelve-and-a-Half Plymouth Street, Surry Hills. The Irish Catholic Darcy's are an average family in their neighborhood, working class battlers struggling to survive in their damp, flea infested home. Mumma does the best she can with the little she has while her feckless husband Hughie drinks away much of what he earns. Sweet natured and naive eldest daughter Roie longs for romance while quick witted Dolour dreams of escape.
To supplement their meagre income the Darcy's rent rooms to the irascible Miss Sheily and her illegitimate disabled son, and Mr Patrick Diamond, a protestant who baits the family each St Patrick's Day. They take in Grandma when she needs extra care, a lively character who knows her own mind. They are neighboured by a Chinese grocer, Mr Lick, financially assisted by the local madam in time of need and attend church in their Sunday best.

The Darcy's are resigned to the grinding poverty and immune to the violence, finding joy where are able - a New Year's bonfire, a school trip to the seaside. They face heartbreak with stoicism and though their home is often chaotic, there is plenty of love within it's peeling walls.

Though perhaps more properly a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive narrative, following the Darcy's over a period of about a year, the story is well written. Park has an eye for authentic detail, character and dialogue- not surprising really since she lived in Surrey Hills with her husband at the time. The Harp in the South is a social commentary and brutally honest examination

Later followed by Poor Man's Orange and Missus, tracing the Darcy family's past and future
The Harp In The South is an engaging tale of the triumphs and tragedies amongst the poor working class in Australian cities. A must read for her every Australian who needs reminding just how lucky they are.

[Kiran Bhat · Rating 5 out of 5]

The mid 20th century was a time of much promising Australian writing. While a lot of people from other countries can’t probably think of a single novelist of Australian origin penning great books, Patrick White dazzled the capacities of literature with his still and smouldering style, and Christina Stead brought a much-needed playfulness and liveliness to the female- voiced modernist novel. A novelist that has lost a lot of attention both in Australia and abroad would be Ruth Park. I find this a great shame. I don’t think of Park as a writer of the first order, but just like the early 20th century female Australian writer Henry Handel Richardson, Park brought a lot of sophistication and polish to the novel form. She also wrote about people who were at that time not often depicted in literature: migrants living in big cities.

The Harp in the South is a collection of three of Park’s most important novels, detailing the lives of Hughie and Margaret Darcy, a second generation Irish pair living in the slums of Sydney (Yes, at that time, like every other developing city, Sydney had slums, and loads of them). Park wastes no time in depicting the destitution of the environment. The tenements of Sydney easily recall the early 20th century depictions of New York, and the reader is very easily set in the story as Park writes on. Park’s style is also very fluid and accessible. Her word usage is usually simple, with her storytelling doing most of the narrative’s legwork.

That being said, no matter how understated Park’s language is, it is very easy to recognize her talents. Park has one of the greatest ears for dialogue I have read. Her Irish Australians really sound properly hyphenated between both cultures, and no matter who she writes about, you can really hear how they properly sound. Park has the tendency to use apostrophes and dashes to indicate speech patterns. This is a style which often annoys me, but Park does it in a way that doesn’t seem to burden the text. Park chooses to use dialogue sparsely, and when she writes it, she does it very well, making sure that her characters jump off the page. The characters she writes about are also very easy to identify with. The trials and tribulations of the Darcy family are of the sort, that any immigrant, of any time period, would have to go through.

At a time when naturalism and its tendencies had long lost prominence, Park stood up, and wrote about things that novelists of the Australian landscape had yet to write about. Urban-rural conflict, cultural confusion, the poverty of tenement life; such themes would become a common focus of a lot of late 20th and early 21st century writing, as more places became urban, and these differences became a common tendency throughout the world. In being such a decadent stylist, Park incidentally preceded a lot of the stylistic tendencies of a later time period. She is no innovator, she is no world-defining novelist, but she wrote quiet stories about people who mattered, and she put them at the forefront of a culture using a pen. She has her prominence in the Australian canon for a reason. Whether she deserves global critical attention might be another question, altogether.

[Jim Puskas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often, I encounter a book where after only the first couple of pages, I know I’m going to love it. There is so much to embrace here: a beautifully drawn set of characters; a simple down-to-earth story of everyday life; a compelling sense of place and time — a bug-infested, run-down slum in Sydney, Australia, circa 1950s. I’ve rarely read any novel that seemed so real and true.
These are such simple, unassuming people; poor, uneducated, lacking any possibility of improving their lot. They curse and squabble endlessly, but the love and understanding they bear for one another is palpable. Their simple faith sustains them — perhaps aided by bouts of alcoholic oblivion to dull the pain of the truth they face every day. Mumma, Hughie, even young Roie have wordless conversations with their Lord, seeking to make sense of their chaotic lives. Worried about the future life of her daughter, Mumma rushes to her church, seeking comfort and guidance:
But she received no help there, either. She felt that Our Lord was smiling at her enigmatically, as though to say, “There, now, Mrs. Darcy, use your common sense, and no more of this running to Me like a foolish child, big fat woman that you are.”
Included among the characters are Patrick Drummond, a recalcitrant Orangeman afflicted with a Catholic name and thrust among “pope-worshipping” neighbors; a grim, angry and somewhat mysterious neighbor, Miss Sheily; Grandma Kilker, blustering, blunt and crafty at 83. And even a supposedly inanimate Puffing Billy, a cantankerous coal stove with which Mumma has an often violent relationship.
Any illusions that any of them might have had were long ago been beaten out of them by the slum they inhabit. Even the realities of love and commitment are deeply understood and accepted:
”How do you feel about him?” asked Mumma. Roie thought for a long time before replying. “I want to be with him all the time. I want to do things for him.” Mumma gave a silent groan, for she knew so well that the sort of love which wanted to serve the beloved was the sort you never escaped. It was around your neck, a silken cord of inconceivable strength, till the moment you died, and probably afterwards.
A book to be treasured!
But just one question remains: What is the significance of the title? Perhaps a fellow reader from Australia might be able to explain it.

[Overbooked ✎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel recounts the (mis)adventures of the dysfunctional but bighearted Darcy family, living in the dirty poor suburb of Surry Hills (Sydney) in the 40s.
I liked this is a down under classic for its realism, but one word of warning: one has to steel oneself for the rampant racist comments in the characters’ dialogues. I’m sure they were common and probably supposed to be funny at the time the book was written (1948) but nowadays they are truly cringe worthy. I listened to the audio version narrated by Kate Hood, the best comic parts in her Aussie brogue reminded me of “Kath and Kim”. 3.5 stars

[Tom the Teacher · Rating 2 out of 5]

My third DNF in a row of 2025 😭

I should've blasted through this book - dramatic family sagas are something I enjoy - but I found the writing style very off putting and amateurish, and the characterisation very one-note.

Another reviewer mentioned this would be better as a play, and I think they've hit the nail on the head. The dialogue here is fine; it's the bits in between that I find jarring, and there's not really a plot to speak of.

Sigh. Here's hoping fourth time lucky...

[Boy Blue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Told across several generations of the Darcy family. This novel brings Surry Hills to life; in all its boisterous glory. It was a markedly different place from now but Park's incredible descriptive ability will make you feel like you know it better than the Sydney you currently live in. Not just telling you but planting you right there on the kerbside, in the gutter, meeting real people with real flaws and foibles, seeing love blossom, and hearing laughter echo through the cramped terraced houses. There is no better writer of the Eastern Australian city scape (ironic that it took a Kiwi to do that). What sticks out the most though are the characters and Ruth Park's amazing ear for dialogue, you can just hear the Irish accents thick and heavy. If you live in Sydney, Australia, or indeed anywhere, you have to read this!

[Sharon Marchingo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harp in the South
By Ruth Park
The Harp in the South is a classic Australian novel that was the latest discussion book for the Crusoe Community Book Club. It was also nominated by The Tuesday Book Club on the ABC as one of the top 10 Australian reads of all time. The setting of the novel is Surry Hills in Sydney just after World War 2 (although this is never quite stated). The Darcy family are close knit but live a life of poverty amidst the brothels, grog shops and run down housing of the area. Money is tight and what little there is, Hughie spends at the local hotel to help him forget his life of misery through the lens of a bottle.
Yet amidst this life of deprivation there is real love in this family consisting of Hughie and Mumma and their two children Roie and Dolour. In addition to the immediate family there are borders, boyfriends, local shop owners and Grandma who comes to stay. The characters are beautifully and respectfully drawn who each has their own obstacles to deal with.
The family are of Irish heritage hence the title ‘Harp’ which is a symbol for all things Irish (according to the findings of Natalie who ran the book club discussion). At this time many Irish and recent immigrants lived in Surry Hills as this was the only area that they could afford. The family suffers much grief including the abduction of their son Thady, who is never found; joblessness, the beatings dished out by the border Miss Sheily to her only son and his subsequent death; Roie’s unfortunate pregnancy and miscarriage; her assault and the death of Grandma. Ruth Park captures the sorrow of these events with great empathy and the reader marvels at the ability of the family to stoically move on regardless of their depressing circumstances.
I was reminded very much of Angela’s Ashes and The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck. It deals with a period of history when life was less complex yet tougher, with no government support for struggling families. Yet through all these travails there is always hope that there will be a better life and that love will find a way. The ending of the novel was particularly powerful when Hughie asks his wife what she was thinking about and she turned to him and said, ‘I was thinking of how lucky we are.’ In a time when we have so much materially it is important to remember that it is the simple things in life that give the most pleasure.

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the 1940s and first published in 1948, The Harp in the South is a well renowned Aussie classic. Author Ruth Park (who passed away in 2010) was born in New Zealand and moved to Australia in 1942. After marrying writer D’Arcy Niland they moved to Sydney where she wrote full time, with over fifty books to her name, and she also received many awards including a Miles Franklin Award.

The Harp in the South is a story of the Darcy family, living in the slums of Sydney, extremely poor and struggling through their day to day lives. Hugh Darcy had a drinking problem, and many times he came home drunk, suffering from a terrible hangover the next day. When Margaret (Mumma)’s mother (Grandma) came to stay with them, (as Margaret’s sister, who had had Grandma for the past eighteen months and was now unwell herself, could no longer care for her), their small dwelling at Number Twelve-and-a-half Plymouth Street, Surry Hills, became even more congested.

The story of Thady, Hugh and Margaret’s son who vanished from their front yard at only six-years-old was a prominent one, with the grief they both felt at not knowing what happened to him one that wouldn’t let up. Rowena (Roie) and her gradual emergence into adulthood, her mistakes, loves and desperation and Dolour, the younger daughter and her puzzlement of life; then there were the boarders who helped the Darcy family make ends meet – Mr Diamond and Miss Sheily and her retarded son Johnny.

These wonderful characters mingled with other lesser characters to make an amazing day to day look at life in Sydney back in the ‘40s when all they had was each other; their love for each other meant when Grandma began to lose her memory, slipping into the depths of Alzheimers, they brought her home for her last days, after a brief stint in a nursing home. When Roie suffered terribly, she was nursed at home.

I enjoyed this novel, though at times I found it a little slow. But overall it is a classic which should be read by all (Aussies) and definitely earned its place in the Top 10 Aussie Books to read before you die!

[Suzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the 1940s, Harp in The South tells the story of the Darcy family who live in the working class suburb of Surrey Hills in Sydney. Hughie and Margaret (Mumma) live with their two daughters Roie and Dolour and Mumma’s mother (Grandma) as well as their boarder Mr Diamond in a small terrace house. Hughie has a job at a foundry, but is often off sick due to the effects of the sly grog he over-indulges in on a regular basis. Mumma is a housewife who does her best to be a good Catholic wife, amongst the bad influences that surround the Darcy family.

Harp in the South covers about a year in the Darcy family’s life. The main theme is poverty and hardship, yet there is a real sense of the Aussie Battler making the best of their lot and getting on with life. The influences of the Catholic church, the local brothel madam/sly grog supplier and heartless landlords are all explored. Also you come to understand how people in those times accepted what they had – dreams of a better life weren’t worth thinking about, because it was unattainable.

I loved this book! It is a quintessential Australian story. Ruth Park’s description is superb – you can feel the dirt underfoot, smell the various odours, hear the clang of the trams – basically you are transported to 1940s Sydney via her colourful prose. You can’t help but love the characters and feel for them as they battle their various life challenges. And while you can see and feel their hardships, you can’t help but feel that they will be okay.

A fabulous read – highly recommended.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Harp in the South (1948) was Ruth Park’s first novel and is, I think, the best-loved of all her books. While her two small children slept, Ruth Park wrote it on the kitchen table of her parents’ home in New Zealand while she was visiting from Australia. She and her husband D’Arcy Niland were determined to make a living from writing, and the Sydney Morning Herald’s literary competition with a prize of £2000 propelled her into using her experiences in the slum Sydney suburb of Surry Hills for a novel. As she recounts in Fishing in the Styx, this award brought criticism as well as much needed money…
To see the rest of this review please visit http://anzlitlovers.wordpress.com/201...

[Chrissie]

See instead the separate books of the series:

*****************************

The Harp in the South Trilogy
*Missus TBR
*The Harp in the South TBR
*Poor Man's Orange TBR

*Swords and Crowns and Rings 2 stars

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ruth Park, author of the renowned children’s book ‘The Muddle-Headed Wombat’ and many others, secured her place in Australian history with this enduring classic. Listening to a program on ABC Radio back in 2018, actors in a landmark two-part stage adaptation of Ruth Park’s ‘The Harp in the South’ produced by the Sydney Theatre Company were being interviewed. My interest was piqued, and onto my extensive ‘Want to Read’ list it went.

The trilogy begins with ‘Missus’ which chronologically is #3 and provides the background for ‘The Harp in the South’ and ‘Poor Man’s Orange’.

Based partly on her astute observations of Surry Hills’ families and on her husband’s Irish Catholic family, Ruth Park wrote 'The Harp in the South'. It won the novel section of the inaugural literary prize in 1946 and was published in instalments in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper in 1947. Published in book form in 1948, it became a bestseller and has never been out of print.

By the 1860s, an advancing tide of terrace houses would come to dominate the Surry Hills skyline, shaping the shanty town.

In the 1940s and 50s, there was plenty of Irish spirit to be found in Sydney. Irish emigration had reached levels only previously seen in the aftermath of the Famine. More than half a million people left Ireland between 1945 and 1960. The Assisted Passage scheme - known as the 'Ten Pound Poms' scheme (named after the price migrants from the UK and Ireland paid for subsidised travel to Australia or New Zealand) – ensured that the majority not headed for Britain or the US, found themselves going ‘down under’ to Australia.

An interesting mix of characters, fictional but real. Some of the novel’s content made me shudder – the abortion ‘clinic’, and the description of the bed bugs - “Captain Phillip brought them in the rotten timbers of his First Fleet, and ever since they have remained in the old tenement houses of Sydney, ferocious, ineradicable, the haunters of the tormented sleep of the poor.”

The novel brings to mind how much is taken for granted these days. How easy it is, for so many, to feel little gratitude for a small gift, how a visit to the zoo, museum, circus, the cinema, the markets, used to be something special. A honeymoon where you just went off to the seaside nearby or a little trip interstate.

Some events brought a tear to the eye in the sheer beauty of the moment. The gift of the red kite, and Grandma taken out of the nursing home by her son-in-law and brought home to die in familiar surroundings. The description of the evening or winter of one’s life is thought provoking.

“Grandma was not in that room; she was walking in some long-ago year as another might walk in a meadow. Days and nights filled with swift passions and griefs of youth lay around her feet like the pages of a discarded letter; hours and minutes of memory and sensation brushed her brain like the wings of moths.”

The simplistic and prosaic banter amongst the parents and lodgers depicted in the novel was the norm with the Irish and British working-class, we’ve often heard it in movies and serials for television. Deep down though, there is love, devotion and thankfulness for the simple things in life. At the end of the day, how rich the Darcy family felt to have each other, to comfort and hold, and to not be one of the lonely, to be without wife, husband or friend, without a soul in the world to care whether he lived or died.

My fun fact from this read is the Dead Sea Apple – “anything that looks nice on the outside and is nasty inside”.

I’m glad I read this book and will certainly be reading ‘Poor Man’s Orange’ in the near future. It was interesting to read about the history of Surry Hills, the face of which is very different today with its terraced houses on Crown and Cleveland streets showcasing hip coffee joints, fashion boutiques and global eateries.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Harp in the South by Ruth Park is set in Surry Hills of Sydney in the 1930's. The story focuses on the way in which the family of the Darcy's who live in number twelve and a half, Plymouth street, deal with the events and environment they are bought up in.

The important themes of the book centre around the poverty faced by people living in the area at this time, which is essential to the make up of this book. It enables an understanding of the characters as well as an insight into their daily struggles and expectations.

This book, became one that I couldn't put down. I would actually be walking around with my nose stuck to the pages because I needed to know what happened next.

I will always recommend this book and will probably re read it in the future (:

[Niki E · Rating 5 out of 5]

The descriptive writing in this is outstanding, and even many years after first reading it as a teenager in English class I remember some events with painful clarity. Her descriptions of the area and the people are so real and vivid I feel as though I know them, can hear their speech through her mastery of dialogue, can smell the dark, musty, sunless houses, the unwashed and boozy clothes and the poverty of the streets. It's hard to believe this was her first book.

[Taryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved this book for the characters, but it's not a plot driven book so i think that lost me a little bit. More than anything, it's a study of character and environment, and how the one drives the other. I don't think it would warrant a second read but i'm glad i picked it up.

[Shell · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Park writes beautifully and despite the grimness of the novel, there were a couple of parts where I laughed with delight at her turn of phrase. I can see why this novel has continued to intrigue Australian audiences and I am glad I have finally read it. Don't know whether I can cope with its sequel Poor Man's Orange though - might leave that for a while...

[Mel Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest I read this years ago and so its details escape me, but I remember being struck by the vividness of its portrayal of inner-city poverty. In its portrayal of old-fashioned Australian working-class life and the role of women in particular, I file it along with Brides of Christ and Come in Spinner .

I read it as an example of a bygone form of community in which people of different races and circumstances (disabled, addicted, pregnant, aspirant, etc) were forced to coexist and be confronted by one another. Another example is the Depression-era young adult novels Colour In the Creek and Shadow Of Wings by Margaret Paice, which I read as a kid, and which taught me about a particularly Australian stoicism and laconic community-building in the face of poverty.

I live in an atomised world now where the communities we make are created by shared belief systems and tastes, and sheltered by the privilege of class and cultural capital. I've noticed people can be very uncomfortable when confronted with difference – of opinion, of belief, of circumstance – because we're able to retreat from it. The Harp in the South hardly sentimentalises its world – there's plentiful violence and trauma – but it seems to me to illustrate a kind of Australian community that may no longer exist.

The other thing is that I didn't realise that 'Roie' was short for 'Rowena' (which gives you a hint of how you're meant to pronounce the name). So in my head I pronounced it closer to 'Roy'. I don't know why I am confessing my ignorance here, but there you go.

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Park lived in Surry Hills, then a Sydney slum (now gentrified and expensive). She witnessed first hand the grinding poverty but also the strength to survive and the strong bonds of family. She based the Darcys on the Irish family of her husband, D’Arcy Niland and they are all memorable characters - the loving Mumma, the hapless Hughie and their daughters, gentle Roie and hopeful Dolour. To make ends meet, the Darcys take in boarders - exaggerated characters perhaps but with unpredictable depths as well. Not to mention the indomitable Grandma who is a source of much humour in the book.

This is an Australian classic that has never been out of print since 1946 and for good reason. Ruth valued the outsider and the struggler, giving them a voice where they themselves were often inarticulate. She never shied away from describing the dirt, the malnutrition or the ubiquitous bugs but she wrote a novel that was deeply respectful of humanity. I first read this too many years ago to remember and it was a great pleasure to read it again for our ANZ online book group. Needing to buy it on Kindle (because the print in my old copy was too small!) I had the bonus of purchasing all the books in the Surry Hills trilogy. Missus (written much later as a prologue to The Harp) and Poor Man’s Orange remain a treat in store.

[Jayde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Sydney's Surry Hills in the 1940s, The Harp in the South is the story of a working class family and their daily trials and tribulations.

Hard as it is to believe, Surry Hills (currently land of the $2mil one bedder) was once upon a time a suburb of working class slums. Looked down upon by almost every other suburb, the Surry Hills inhabitants became a stand alone community all trying to survive from one day to the next.

The Darcy family at the centre of the story consists of an alcoholic father, a mother grieving the loss of her son, an older daughter experiencing her first love and a younger daughter growing into her early teenage years. Add in a snarky Grandmother and some bizarre boarders and you have a great cast of characters trying to find happiness amid their bed bug infested homes.

I really enjoyed Park's style of writing, which is a mix of humour and pathos. A fantastic snapshot of inner city life in 1940 Australia.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a big fan of Ruth Park's Muddle-Headed Wombat books as a child, but had never read any of her adult work. This is an incredibly accomplished first novel, set in late 1940s Surry Hills, Sydney - then a slum largely populated by poor Irish and other immigrant families. It's a fascinating look at a period not all that long ago, but totally alien to my 1960s lower-middle class Melbourne childhood. Ruth Park's characters are all well-fleshed out and believable. She takes us inside their heads and guides us through their domestic situations. Her writing is full of genuine emotion, yet she is never overly sentimental. I've already ordered the other two books in the trilogy. Highly recommended, especially to Australian readers.

[Alex Doenau · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can forgive something more when it's old: The Harp in the South is from 1948, so you can sort of tolerate its racial slurs and its period take on Protestantism versus Catholicism, and its indecipherable "Chinese dialect" dialogue.

The Harp in the South is the adventures of the Darcy family as they should have been presented, entirely divorced from the events of Missus (which it constantly and openly contradicts). An honest portrayal of the privations of poverty in a now long gone and super-gentrified suburb of Sydney, Park's work has a solid heart and shows genuine affection for her characters. Elements of the novel that read as fairly standard now were likely scandalous back in the day, albeit resolved with disappointing cop-outs. Nowadays we keep the poor people further from the CBD, and certain female health services are still prohibitively difficult to obtain.

So The Harp in the South is relevant today, and the only aspect that has aged poorly is the constant casual racism. Otherwise it's a fascinatingly gritty portrait of Australia in the earlier half of the twentieth century, and one that puts Missus to shame.

[Peter Mathews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ruth Park is a wonderful storyteller and The Harp in the South is no exception. The thing that is hard to swallow about this book, however, is the racism, particularly that expressed against Indigenous people in the latter parts of the book. For a novel that otherwise dares to challenges prejudices against women, immigrants, abortion, and pre-marital sex, this discrepancy is so jarring and sad.

[Jade Maree · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved delving into the lives of this family. Thanks Rach!