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Shark
In his fourth novel Shark award-winning Aboriginal author Bruce Pascoe, begins his story in the sleepy Australian town of Tired Sailor which is nudged awake when a black child arrives, forcing people to accept the child alongside memories of their own dark past. Rooster Clark, mad Koori electrician, lives in the hidden reaches of the swamp and in the more obscure reaches of his own brain, a swamp savant capable of anything - as long as he survives his own wiring. And Jim Fox returns from the Papuan Independence war to the land of his birth and the yabby pumper who turns up on his doorstep at dawn. Will Tired Sailor ever really wake up?
216 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 1999
About the author
Bruce Pascoe
45 books322 followersBruce Pascoe was born of Bunurong and Tasmanian Aboriginal heritage in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond and graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Education. He is a member of the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative of southern Victoria and has been the director of the Australian Studies Project for the Commonwealth Schools Commission.
Bruce has had a varied career as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor.
He won the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Literature Award in 1999 and his novel Fog a Dox (published by Magabala Books in 2012), won the Young Adult category of the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
Source: http://brucepascoe.com.au/about/
Bruce has had a varied career as a teacher, farmer, fisherman, barman, fencing contractor, lecturer, Aboriginal language researcher, archaeological site worker and editor.
He won the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Literature Award in 1999 and his novel Fog a Dox (published by Magabala Books in 2012), won the Young Adult category of the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Awards.
Source: http://brucepascoe.com.au/about/
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 19, 2015
This book. I'm surprised it isn't a bigger deal in the literary world. It has things in common with Alexis Wright's novels - the biting wit ('In her other hand Doris held a copy of the autobiography of Billy Paddock, the communist Aboriginal jockey from Pymble. Doris had been reading to the others in the room Billy's commentary on racecourse capitalism.'), the political edge ('Black kids didn't get the luxury of considering the various merits of one career against another, for any who fluked an education had already had their career chosen by their pigmentation. Justice was their job. The fight for justice would be their life.'), the sense of timelessness that characterises the early chapters, and the presence of birds throughout the story. A story about many different kinds of Australians. I found out at the end it is the third in a series so I will read those now!
February 28, 2019
Published in 1999, Shark is the third novel from Bruce Pascoe, one of the foremost Indigenous Australian authors writing today.
Pascoe shot to fame in the last few years with the publication in 2014 of his groundbreaking work, Dark Emu, on Aboriginal housing, farming and landcare prior to colonisation. The evidence for this comes from the written record of early settlers' and explorers' diaries. He has since been speaking on national television and radio around the country on this issue: that the Aboriginal peoples of Australia were not in fact hunter gatherers and nomads but lived in large settlements and farmed the land. Of course they also hunted and gathered and travelled. He has also been joined on speaking engagements by permaculture progenitor David Holmgren discussing the implications of Aboriginal farming for sustainability in Australian agriculture and landcare.
His novels, such as Earth and Ocean, portray this traditional culture of housing and farming; in doing so, they overturn the Terra Nullius lie upon its own terms of logic. However, at the centre of Pascoe's fiction is the Aboriginal spiritual interrelationship between the Aboriginal People and the land. Despite colonisation, war and genocide, this interrelationship remains and is explored in Pascoe's novels in different time periods and settings, considering the ways this Indigenous land and culture is able to juxtapose with the Australia that settled on it.
Shark explores contemporary Australia, providing a glimpse of the Indigenous people and their culture as they live in both worlds and struggle to survive in the dominant Anglo culture, as well as maintain their heritage. This multiplicity of existence results in a highly complex narrative structure which moves effortlessly between worlds and situations. At times, it can be confusing, yet it provides a structure in which this multiplicity is able to be represented.
As the title might suggest, totems dominate the narrative as the Indigenous characters inhabit their land and relate to each other through their totem. Spirits also populate the narrative, yet it is the totem that is the central motif through which the interconnection between land and people is depicted. Not only that, but the juxtaposition of the Indigenous society with the Australian is also figured through the totem animals as these animals are shared experience, for example the Great White Shark.
The plot is based around Reuben Grange, a Black boy who is born to a White man, Lester Grange and Maree Fox McConnell who is part Aboriginal (although the baby is not Lester's; Maree had had an Aboriginal lover). The birth of the boy brings about an awakening in the fishing town of Tired Sailor and the rumblings of troubled race relations. The fight for Aboriginal people and their land becomes central to the narrative. As Reuben grows up and comes to learn about and deepen his Aboriginality, he joins with his cousin Rocky who is figured as a future leader of his people. In an allegorical address, the author of the novel (Pascoe) speaks directly to the reader: "The Melbourne Age says that in the novel Shark you will read a diatribe. Well, maybe, but perhaps it's just an admonition, a warning, an encouragement, a fanfare for the boy, Rocky Clark, a leader of his people. What's a novel anyway but a poor man's guess at the future. A guess that he thinks he's witnessed" (232). The narrative looks towards a rising up of Aboriginal people in Australia through a leader such as Rocky who is both traditional and University educated, resulting in a Treaty and a new Constitution: "It was his aim to know constitutional law so well that he could then dismiss it and start again. Start from scratch, an alternative constitution of black sovereignty" (264). It offers a way toward a coming together of Black and White law and a new country emerging.
While Shark is confrontational, there is hope of a renewal of Indigenous People and Culture within a new Australia where Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and cultures are not juxtaposed but deeply interconnected
Pascoe shot to fame in the last few years with the publication in 2014 of his groundbreaking work, Dark Emu, on Aboriginal housing, farming and landcare prior to colonisation. The evidence for this comes from the written record of early settlers' and explorers' diaries. He has since been speaking on national television and radio around the country on this issue: that the Aboriginal peoples of Australia were not in fact hunter gatherers and nomads but lived in large settlements and farmed the land. Of course they also hunted and gathered and travelled. He has also been joined on speaking engagements by permaculture progenitor David Holmgren discussing the implications of Aboriginal farming for sustainability in Australian agriculture and landcare.
His novels, such as Earth and Ocean, portray this traditional culture of housing and farming; in doing so, they overturn the Terra Nullius lie upon its own terms of logic. However, at the centre of Pascoe's fiction is the Aboriginal spiritual interrelationship between the Aboriginal People and the land. Despite colonisation, war and genocide, this interrelationship remains and is explored in Pascoe's novels in different time periods and settings, considering the ways this Indigenous land and culture is able to juxtapose with the Australia that settled on it.
Shark explores contemporary Australia, providing a glimpse of the Indigenous people and their culture as they live in both worlds and struggle to survive in the dominant Anglo culture, as well as maintain their heritage. This multiplicity of existence results in a highly complex narrative structure which moves effortlessly between worlds and situations. At times, it can be confusing, yet it provides a structure in which this multiplicity is able to be represented.
As the title might suggest, totems dominate the narrative as the Indigenous characters inhabit their land and relate to each other through their totem. Spirits also populate the narrative, yet it is the totem that is the central motif through which the interconnection between land and people is depicted. Not only that, but the juxtaposition of the Indigenous society with the Australian is also figured through the totem animals as these animals are shared experience, for example the Great White Shark.
The plot is based around Reuben Grange, a Black boy who is born to a White man, Lester Grange and Maree Fox McConnell who is part Aboriginal (although the baby is not Lester's; Maree had had an Aboriginal lover). The birth of the boy brings about an awakening in the fishing town of Tired Sailor and the rumblings of troubled race relations. The fight for Aboriginal people and their land becomes central to the narrative. As Reuben grows up and comes to learn about and deepen his Aboriginality, he joins with his cousin Rocky who is figured as a future leader of his people. In an allegorical address, the author of the novel (Pascoe) speaks directly to the reader: "The Melbourne Age says that in the novel Shark you will read a diatribe. Well, maybe, but perhaps it's just an admonition, a warning, an encouragement, a fanfare for the boy, Rocky Clark, a leader of his people. What's a novel anyway but a poor man's guess at the future. A guess that he thinks he's witnessed" (232). The narrative looks towards a rising up of Aboriginal people in Australia through a leader such as Rocky who is both traditional and University educated, resulting in a Treaty and a new Constitution: "It was his aim to know constitutional law so well that he could then dismiss it and start again. Start from scratch, an alternative constitution of black sovereignty" (264). It offers a way toward a coming together of Black and White law and a new country emerging.
While Shark is confrontational, there is hope of a renewal of Indigenous People and Culture within a new Australia where Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and cultures are not juxtaposed but deeply interconnected
September 12, 2020
Wonderful story
Another great read by Bruce Pascoe ,I learn a little bit more with each of his books and feel a bit more the past injustices to the original residents of our land
Another great read by Bruce Pascoe ,I learn a little bit more with each of his books and feel a bit more the past injustices to the original residents of our land
July 18, 2014
Beyond brilliant. Clever, funny, moving, subtle and engaging story. Absolutely loved it. Cannot wait to read more by this author
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews