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Goldfields Trilogy #3
Winged Seeds
The final novel in Katharine Susannah Prichard's stirring saga about the lives of a remarkable woman and her family during the gold rush in Western Australia. Winged Seeds is the concluding novel to Katharine Susannah Prichard's far-reaching goldfields trilogy. It is 1936. Sally Gough is now a widow, living with her lover Frisco de Morphe, who has always loved her. The third generation of Goughs, Sally's grandchildren, make their lives on the land. Once again, global events threaten to overtake the Depression has tightened its hold. There is tumult at home on the goldfields. Sally's grandson Bill has taken up the torch of socialism from his uncle Tom Gough and organises his fellow miners. Then war breaks out, and Sally's family is threatened as never before as Bill and his comrades are called away to the trenches of Europe.
392 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1950
24 people want to read
About the author
Katharine Susannah Prichard
39 books15 followersKatharine Susannah Prichard was born in Levuka, Fiji in 1883, and spent her childhood in Launceston, Tasmania, before moving to Melbourne, where she won a scholarship to South Melbourne College. Her father, Tom Prichard, was editor of the Melbourne Sun newspaper. She worked as a governess and journalist in Victoria then travelled to England in 1908. Her first novel, The Pioneers (1915), won the Hodder & Stoughton All Empire Literature Prize. After her return to Australia, the romance Windlestraws and her first novel of a mining community, Black Opal were published.
Prichard moved with her husband, war hero Hugo "Jim" Throssell, VC, to Greenmount, Western Australia, in 1920 and lived at 11 Old York Road for much of the rest of her life. She wrote most of her novels and stories in a self-contained weatherboard workroom near the house. In her personal life she always referred to herself as Mrs Hugo Throssell. She had one son, Ric Throssell, later a diplomat and writer.
Prichard moved with her husband, war hero Hugo "Jim" Throssell, VC, to Greenmount, Western Australia, in 1920 and lived at 11 Old York Road for much of the rest of her life. She wrote most of her novels and stories in a self-contained weatherboard workroom near the house. In her personal life she always referred to herself as Mrs Hugo Throssell. She had one son, Ric Throssell, later a diplomat and writer.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 8, 2019
Одноимённая повесть не так хороша, как вошедшие в сборник рассказы. В повести слишком много политики, как мне кажется, притянутой за уши к жизни небольшого австралийского городка. Читать про быт, историю и заботы людей гораздо интереснее, чем про "а вот так мы переживаем за всех трудящихся всего мира, коммунизм победит". Рассказы же лишены этого недостатка. Смешные и трагичные, яркие зарисовки показывают Австралию с разных сторон.
April 9, 2022
Winged Seeds, the third volume of Katherine Susannah Prichard's Goldfields Trilogy, is a fitting finale to The Roaring Nineties (1946, see my review), and Golden Miles (1948, see my review). Contrary to my expectations after reading a rather discouraging introduction by Drusilla Modjeska in my 1984 Virago edition, Winged Seeds turned out to be my favourite. I think it still reads very well today.
To recap: This trilogy traces the development of the mining industry in WA, from the discovery of alluvial gold, the gold rushes and small scale mining to the capitalist era of international mining companies and how that impacted working conditions for the miners. In the course of these novels, Prichard's characters experience World Wars 1 & 2, with the Depression in between, and also the impact of the Russian Revolution and the political fallout of communism in Australia. The trilogy is a remarkable social history, this third volume written almost contemporaneously with the events it portrays.
Winged Seeds continues the story of Sally Gough and her family in Kalgoorlie WA. When the novel opens in about 1936, it is with the arrival of two jaunty young women, Pat and Pam Gaggin, fresh from England. Widely thought to be the daughters of the reviled Paddy Cavan who'd caused so much grief to Sally Gough and her family, they are actually only his stepdaughters, maintaining a façade of respect for him until they come into their majority and have their own money. They break through the antipathy of the Gough family through Sally's grandson Bill. They have a letter of introduction for him, from a comrade who's joined the International Brigades in Spain, fighting alongside Pam's fiancé Shawn Desmond. Though they like to have a good time, these girls are not the flibbertigibbets they appear to be.
KSP's subtle comment on how marriage enables the appropriation of everything a woman has, should not go unnoticed.
Bill Gough is a very serious young man, committed to the communist cause with one essential difference. He recognises the united democracies of the world as the only way to counter the growth of fascism. But then as now complacency was a problem, and KSP shows him delivering a stirring speech to an almost empty hall. (If she were writing it today, she'd depict the missing audience at home watching Netflix.)
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/04/09/w...
To recap: This trilogy traces the development of the mining industry in WA, from the discovery of alluvial gold, the gold rushes and small scale mining to the capitalist era of international mining companies and how that impacted working conditions for the miners. In the course of these novels, Prichard's characters experience World Wars 1 & 2, with the Depression in between, and also the impact of the Russian Revolution and the political fallout of communism in Australia. The trilogy is a remarkable social history, this third volume written almost contemporaneously with the events it portrays.
Winged Seeds continues the story of Sally Gough and her family in Kalgoorlie WA. When the novel opens in about 1936, it is with the arrival of two jaunty young women, Pat and Pam Gaggin, fresh from England. Widely thought to be the daughters of the reviled Paddy Cavan who'd caused so much grief to Sally Gough and her family, they are actually only his stepdaughters, maintaining a façade of respect for him until they come into their majority and have their own money. They break through the antipathy of the Gough family through Sally's grandson Bill. They have a letter of introduction for him, from a comrade who's joined the International Brigades in Spain, fighting alongside Pam's fiancé Shawn Desmond. Though they like to have a good time, these girls are not the flibbertigibbets they appear to be.
When we're twenty-one we'll have control of our own money and we can do as we please. If daddy had the faintest suspicion we've learned to think for ourselves, he'd cut off our allowance.'
'I see'. Bill was still dubious.
'We can't be of much use at present,' Pat went on. 'But we want to do all we can to help Spain.'
'Crikey!' Bill began to laugh. 'It's the best joke I've heard for a long time. Who'd've thought it? Paddy Cavan's daughters —'
'We're no more his daughters than you're his son, Bill,' Pam reminded him. 'He married our mother, and then yours.'
'Eh?' Bill looked startled. "Gee, that's right,' he admitted after a moment's thought. 'But I don't call him daddy.'
'You didn't have to,' Pam replied.
'You weren't a pair of kids he took over with all of their mother's belongings,' Pat said gloomily. (p.68)
KSP's subtle comment on how marriage enables the appropriation of everything a woman has, should not go unnoticed.
Bill Gough is a very serious young man, committed to the communist cause with one essential difference. He recognises the united democracies of the world as the only way to counter the growth of fascism. But then as now complacency was a problem, and KSP shows him delivering a stirring speech to an almost empty hall. (If she were writing it today, she'd depict the missing audience at home watching Netflix.)
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/04/09/w...
January 25, 2017
This is the third, and final, installment in the trilogy, tackling the depression, the second world war, and the aftermath. With several 'commies' in the mix - including a hilarious and occasionally poignant pair of flappers - this is the most overtly political of the books. The wild passion of the Spanish Civil War gives way to the gruelling horror of the second world war. Prichard tackles the conflict between returning soldiers, who are largely thrown on the scrapheap by a society not equipped to deal with the aftereffects of physical and mental trauma, and homesick migrants seeking to escape the chaos of Europe, and bringing the more sophisticated political and cultural world with them, with sensitivity and grace.
She starts and ends the books with the perspective of Kalgoorla, one of the local people who have watched their worlds disappear. It is as if Prichard is trying to grapple with the effect of dispossession, without tackling it overtly. It seems an incongrous echo as a result - a note at odds with the sense of progress - a socialist view of progress but progress nonetheless - that imbues the rest of the work.
She starts and ends the books with the perspective of Kalgoorla, one of the local people who have watched their worlds disappear. It is as if Prichard is trying to grapple with the effect of dispossession, without tackling it overtly. It seems an incongrous echo as a result - a note at odds with the sense of progress - a socialist view of progress but progress nonetheless - that imbues the rest of the work.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews