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The Unknown Industrial Prisoner
Australian classic.
Dustjacket synopsis:
"In his 'preface' which comes near the end of this extraordinary novel David Ireland says:
'It has been my aim to take apart, then build up piece by piece this mosaic of one kind of human life...to remind my present age of its industrial adolescence.'
"Piece by piece, David Ireland portrays a kind of life which is lived at an oil refinery in Sydney - from its highest tower from which one of the workers plunges to death, to the secret hide-out in the mangroves where the men refresh themselves with such ladies as the Sandpiper and Never on Sundays. He takes apart this vast industrial complex and its multitudinous characters, then reassembles it into a mosaic fiery and macabre, whose crazy patterns are lit with grim humour.
"The huge structure becomes an image, at once amusing and appalling, of the whole industrial society in which modern man is trapped."
Dustjacket synopsis:
"In his 'preface' which comes near the end of this extraordinary novel David Ireland says:
'It has been my aim to take apart, then build up piece by piece this mosaic of one kind of human life...to remind my present age of its industrial adolescence.'
"Piece by piece, David Ireland portrays a kind of life which is lived at an oil refinery in Sydney - from its highest tower from which one of the workers plunges to death, to the secret hide-out in the mangroves where the men refresh themselves with such ladies as the Sandpiper and Never on Sundays. He takes apart this vast industrial complex and its multitudinous characters, then reassembles it into a mosaic fiery and macabre, whose crazy patterns are lit with grim humour.
"The huge structure becomes an image, at once amusing and appalling, of the whole industrial society in which modern man is trapped."
387 pages, hardcover
First published January 1, 1971
10 people are currently reading
245 people want to read
About the author
David Ireland
14 books26 followersDavid Ireland was born in Lakemba in New South Wales in 1927.
Before taking up full-time writing in 1973 he undertook the classic writer's apprenticeship by working in a variety of jobs ranging from greenkeeper to an extended period in an oil refinery.
This latter job provided the inspiration for his second (and best-known) novel, The Unknown Industrial Prisoner, which brought him recognition in the early 1970s and which is still considered by many critics to be one of best and most original Australian novels of the period.
He is one of only four Australian writers to win the Miles Franklin Award more than twice
He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1981.
Before taking up full-time writing in 1973 he undertook the classic writer's apprenticeship by working in a variety of jobs ranging from greenkeeper to an extended period in an oil refinery.
This latter job provided the inspiration for his second (and best-known) novel, The Unknown Industrial Prisoner, which brought him recognition in the early 1970s and which is still considered by many critics to be one of best and most original Australian novels of the period.
He is one of only four Australian writers to win the Miles Franklin Award more than twice
He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours of June 1981.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 12, 2024
Since I live here again, after many years of absence, I’m always on the look-out for great Australian authors that may have passed me by. I’ve started with multiple winners of the Miles Franklin Award, which goes back to 1957. After Astley, Winton, and Carey, I’ve now arrived at David Ireland, who won the Award three times in the 1970s. To my shame I must admit that Ireland was completely unknown to me.
I didn’t know what I missed! This 1971 novel is a true masterpiece in pretty much every respect. Full disclosure: I am rather partial to ‘angry working man’s’ literature in the vein of Tressell and Sillitoe but, boy o boy, this book is more ‘furious prole’ than ‘angry working man’!
The novel describes the working man’s (or should it be ‘person’s’?) plight using a fictional oil refinery in Sydney as an example. I’m pretty sure this fictional refinery is modelled on the former Kurnell refinery, located in Botany Bay. If that’s correct then the fictional owner ‘Puroil’ would be the Caltex-Chevron corporation. I suspect that large parts of the book could only have been written by someone in the know; a little digging revealed that Ireland did indeed work at the Kurnell refinery for a number of years!
Anyway, the novel is about much much more than the working man’s plight and in truth encompasses a detailed critique of the capitalist industrial, societal, and political system of the time. Puroil is wholly overseas owned, without any Australian shareholding, and is only interested in profits. Like many global corporations, it exploits its employees and doesn’t care about their welfare or indeed the welfare of the environment. What is more, Puroil is stuck in its inappropriate hierarchical structure and ‘the bosses’ are ultimately incompetent, not only as far as leadership is concerned, but also technologically. As one would expect, this breeds a similar attitude of carelessness and contempt in its workforce, who shirk, pilfer, and sabotage the refinery’s operation. You guessed it: the trade unions are completely useless, as well, and more often than not collude with management.
The narrative, which I would describe as experimental and which doesn’t have a plot in the conventional sense, is written in contrasting voices. I loved the juxtaposition of a typically Australian irreverent and ironic voice, often using highly technical language about refinery processes to great effect, when describing actual (fictional) events making up the storyline, and interspersed, an often almost mystical and poetical voice of razor-sharp insight when talking about political and societal concepts or the human condition in general.
Another experimental aspect concerns the exclusive use of aptonyms, many of them hilarious, for the protagonists. Some are self-explanatory, such as ‘Fitter Dick’, ‘Wild Bull of the Pampas’, ‘Angry Ant’, ‘Herman the German’, ‘Thieving Magpie’, and ‘Gypsy Fiddler’. Others are less obvious: ‘Wandering Jew’ (executive who will go anywhere for promotion), ‘Terrazzo’ (sees figures in patterns), ‘Sea Shells’ (the constant sound in everybody’s ears), ‘Beautiful Twinkling Star’ (a religious man), ‘Canada Dry’ and ‘One Swallow’ (drinkers), ‘Groaning Dykes’ (manager of construction), ‘Humdinger’ (farts), ‘Glass Canoe’ (a man who lacks confidence), ‘Whispering Baritone’ (one of many selfish ambitious bosses who will walk quietly over dead bodies), Cheddar Cheese (man with shift-worker’s pallor but actually dying from leukaemia), ‘Oliver Twist’ (a union delegate), Elder Statesman (a section head, or as the prisoners say, a suction head), ‘Far Away Places’ (an enigmatic man), ‘Macabre’ (the safety officer), ‘Doctor Death’ and ‘Calamity Jane’ (company physician and nurse), and many many more. Down across the Eel river (an emulsion of oil and water) is the ‘Home Beautiful’, an illicit brothel hidden in the mangroves and overseen by the ‘Great White Father’ in his infinite wisdom. Refinery workers on duty slink to the ‘Home Beautiful’ for some light recreation and a drink or two. They get there in a little skiff rowed by the ‘Volga Boatman’.
Ireland takes the concept of our blind belief in technological advances, regardless of whether they are good or bad for us, to its ultimate and logical consequence, namely societal and environmental apocalypse, using the refinery as a microcosm of human endeavour.
Reading this novel now, 50 years on, one is tempted to ask if anything has changed? Australia has solved all the problems discussed in the book very neatly: we simply don’t produce anything anymore but import everything (there isn’t a single oil refinery in NSW today)! Those of us who are not retired ‘work from home’ (euphemism for ‘swanning around in your pyjamas’), or are ‘celebrities’ or ‘social media influencers’. Sarcasm aside, of course nothing has changed except we are now more aware that we probably can’t carry on like this much longer…
I didn’t know what I missed! This 1971 novel is a true masterpiece in pretty much every respect. Full disclosure: I am rather partial to ‘angry working man’s’ literature in the vein of Tressell and Sillitoe but, boy o boy, this book is more ‘furious prole’ than ‘angry working man’!
The novel describes the working man’s (or should it be ‘person’s’?) plight using a fictional oil refinery in Sydney as an example. I’m pretty sure this fictional refinery is modelled on the former Kurnell refinery, located in Botany Bay. If that’s correct then the fictional owner ‘Puroil’ would be the Caltex-Chevron corporation. I suspect that large parts of the book could only have been written by someone in the know; a little digging revealed that Ireland did indeed work at the Kurnell refinery for a number of years!
Anyway, the novel is about much much more than the working man’s plight and in truth encompasses a detailed critique of the capitalist industrial, societal, and political system of the time. Puroil is wholly overseas owned, without any Australian shareholding, and is only interested in profits. Like many global corporations, it exploits its employees and doesn’t care about their welfare or indeed the welfare of the environment. What is more, Puroil is stuck in its inappropriate hierarchical structure and ‘the bosses’ are ultimately incompetent, not only as far as leadership is concerned, but also technologically. As one would expect, this breeds a similar attitude of carelessness and contempt in its workforce, who shirk, pilfer, and sabotage the refinery’s operation. You guessed it: the trade unions are completely useless, as well, and more often than not collude with management.
The narrative, which I would describe as experimental and which doesn’t have a plot in the conventional sense, is written in contrasting voices. I loved the juxtaposition of a typically Australian irreverent and ironic voice, often using highly technical language about refinery processes to great effect, when describing actual (fictional) events making up the storyline, and interspersed, an often almost mystical and poetical voice of razor-sharp insight when talking about political and societal concepts or the human condition in general.
Another experimental aspect concerns the exclusive use of aptonyms, many of them hilarious, for the protagonists. Some are self-explanatory, such as ‘Fitter Dick’, ‘Wild Bull of the Pampas’, ‘Angry Ant’, ‘Herman the German’, ‘Thieving Magpie’, and ‘Gypsy Fiddler’. Others are less obvious: ‘Wandering Jew’ (executive who will go anywhere for promotion), ‘Terrazzo’ (sees figures in patterns), ‘Sea Shells’ (the constant sound in everybody’s ears), ‘Beautiful Twinkling Star’ (a religious man), ‘Canada Dry’ and ‘One Swallow’ (drinkers), ‘Groaning Dykes’ (manager of construction), ‘Humdinger’ (farts), ‘Glass Canoe’ (a man who lacks confidence), ‘Whispering Baritone’ (one of many selfish ambitious bosses who will walk quietly over dead bodies), Cheddar Cheese (man with shift-worker’s pallor but actually dying from leukaemia), ‘Oliver Twist’ (a union delegate), Elder Statesman (a section head, or as the prisoners say, a suction head), ‘Far Away Places’ (an enigmatic man), ‘Macabre’ (the safety officer), ‘Doctor Death’ and ‘Calamity Jane’ (company physician and nurse), and many many more. Down across the Eel river (an emulsion of oil and water) is the ‘Home Beautiful’, an illicit brothel hidden in the mangroves and overseen by the ‘Great White Father’ in his infinite wisdom. Refinery workers on duty slink to the ‘Home Beautiful’ for some light recreation and a drink or two. They get there in a little skiff rowed by the ‘Volga Boatman’.
Ireland takes the concept of our blind belief in technological advances, regardless of whether they are good or bad for us, to its ultimate and logical consequence, namely societal and environmental apocalypse, using the refinery as a microcosm of human endeavour.
Reading this novel now, 50 years on, one is tempted to ask if anything has changed? Australia has solved all the problems discussed in the book very neatly: we simply don’t produce anything anymore but import everything (there isn’t a single oil refinery in NSW today)! Those of us who are not retired ‘work from home’ (euphemism for ‘swanning around in your pyjamas’), or are ‘celebrities’ or ‘social media influencers’. Sarcasm aside, of course nothing has changed except we are now more aware that we probably can’t carry on like this much longer…
February 27, 2023
This novel, like its author, is a complicated thing. Essentially, it is a dystopian satire on the industrial state in the post-World War II period. Set in and around an oil refinery 'Clearwater' in Sydney, owned by 'Puroil' a multinational run by the Australian Board, overseen by the London Board, and the World Board, it is a corporate machine in which the workers ("prisoners") are an insignificant part.
The bureaucracy and shortsightedness of the company is plain to see, and is of course reflective of the corporate environment the world over. Published in 1971, it is as relevant as ever, with the computer technology being the only differing factor. The company saves money by reducing maintenance, by avoiding safety matters and by limiting the workers power to be heard. The company cares little for the environment or for the local community - why would they, the refinery is fully foreign owned. Workers are discarded or demoted carefully just before their pensions kick in. The workers, and their union work hard to do less for more money, they cheat, they steal and the sabotage in revenge for their poor treatment. The union, in this case are ineffective, and sell out the workers rights.
The company meanwhile is modernising the plant - a move that will see them require far fewer workers, but the modernisation and new equipment continually fails in its reliability - for all the above reasons, but mostly due to skimping on costs.
The novel in primarily linear, but by no means conventional - if anything the style would be referred to as experimental. There are themed chapters, each which move the narrative forward, but every chapter is made up of short sections each with a title, each section typically a paragraph to a page and a half long; an occasional section might be 3 pages. These change character and perspective, often having little linear relevance, but sometime interwoven. There are many, many characters, but perhaps 30 have primary roles.
The 'prisoners' we see do not have real names. They have nicknames – the Great White Father, the Wandering Jew and Samurai are three of the supervisors, the Slug, the Python, the Brown Snake are further up the foodchain. Workers include Blue Hills, Beautiful Twinkling Star, Two Pot Screamer, Far Away Places, Disneyland and a host of other imaginative names. The upper management are merely known by numbers.
Just beyond the plant itself, hidden in the mangroves is the Home Beautiful. A series of huts in which a team of six prostitutes operate on rotation, and where the men (on and off-shift) drink, talk and relax (and avoid their wives). This is a counter-culture to the plant, where the men still bicker and blame, but are ostensibly calmed and placated, and make (futile) plans for better lives.
There is limited plot to the novel, more a series of events which show the demise or downward spiral of the plant and of the physical and mental health of the 'prisoners'. It isn't a short novel, my edition 450 pages of relatively tight font, and I don't consider it an easy read. Some of this is no doubt on purpose. The metaphor of small cogs in a big machine lends itself to the many characters, some of which are only involved for a page or two, or as incidental characters; the complex jargon of the plant is unfamiliar and (I don't think accurately) technical in the explanations of what men do as part of their jobs, or how they go about their sabotage. At times the jargon and descriptions of the plant come across as purposefully confusing and hard to take in - which mirrors the fact the management have no idea how the plant works, or what the workers actually do.
The novel takes its name from a piece of art one of the management has created and won a prize. It is titled "Unknown Industrial Prisoner", the obvious play on words with the workers also faceless prisoners to the company.
The book is readily quotable - so much clever writing from David Ireland, so I just picked out a few below.
5 stars for originality and cleverness.
P141
P142
The bureaucracy and shortsightedness of the company is plain to see, and is of course reflective of the corporate environment the world over. Published in 1971, it is as relevant as ever, with the computer technology being the only differing factor. The company saves money by reducing maintenance, by avoiding safety matters and by limiting the workers power to be heard. The company cares little for the environment or for the local community - why would they, the refinery is fully foreign owned. Workers are discarded or demoted carefully just before their pensions kick in. The workers, and their union work hard to do less for more money, they cheat, they steal and the sabotage in revenge for their poor treatment. The union, in this case are ineffective, and sell out the workers rights.
The company meanwhile is modernising the plant - a move that will see them require far fewer workers, but the modernisation and new equipment continually fails in its reliability - for all the above reasons, but mostly due to skimping on costs.
The novel in primarily linear, but by no means conventional - if anything the style would be referred to as experimental. There are themed chapters, each which move the narrative forward, but every chapter is made up of short sections each with a title, each section typically a paragraph to a page and a half long; an occasional section might be 3 pages. These change character and perspective, often having little linear relevance, but sometime interwoven. There are many, many characters, but perhaps 30 have primary roles.
The 'prisoners' we see do not have real names. They have nicknames – the Great White Father, the Wandering Jew and Samurai are three of the supervisors, the Slug, the Python, the Brown Snake are further up the foodchain. Workers include Blue Hills, Beautiful Twinkling Star, Two Pot Screamer, Far Away Places, Disneyland and a host of other imaginative names. The upper management are merely known by numbers.
Just beyond the plant itself, hidden in the mangroves is the Home Beautiful. A series of huts in which a team of six prostitutes operate on rotation, and where the men (on and off-shift) drink, talk and relax (and avoid their wives). This is a counter-culture to the plant, where the men still bicker and blame, but are ostensibly calmed and placated, and make (futile) plans for better lives.
There is limited plot to the novel, more a series of events which show the demise or downward spiral of the plant and of the physical and mental health of the 'prisoners'. It isn't a short novel, my edition 450 pages of relatively tight font, and I don't consider it an easy read. Some of this is no doubt on purpose. The metaphor of small cogs in a big machine lends itself to the many characters, some of which are only involved for a page or two, or as incidental characters; the complex jargon of the plant is unfamiliar and (I don't think accurately) technical in the explanations of what men do as part of their jobs, or how they go about their sabotage. At times the jargon and descriptions of the plant come across as purposefully confusing and hard to take in - which mirrors the fact the management have no idea how the plant works, or what the workers actually do.
The novel takes its name from a piece of art one of the management has created and won a prize. It is titled "Unknown Industrial Prisoner", the obvious play on words with the workers also faceless prisoners to the company.
The book is readily quotable - so much clever writing from David Ireland, so I just picked out a few below.
5 stars for originality and cleverness.
P141
And no more ball-ups with Workers' Compensation. A man from another plant, hungry for overtime, had worked his first night shift of the week at his own plant, then accepted a double shift on the cracker, from seven to three in daylight. He was last in bed on the Friday morning and by noon Saturday had been without sleep for twenty-nine hours. He stood watching several panel instruments with orders to give the alarm if certain things happened. Asleep on his feet, he reeled backwards many times, and recovered his balance. The time he didn't he fell back and fractured his skull. It was better to blame a slippery floor and get in a dig at the operators who mopped it than to admit the man had done too much overtime. It was like admitting the need to recruit more labour. The Unions were suspicious, but the company was so nice to the man in hospital that he maintained the floor was slippery. It was a close one.
P142
Several drops of moisture fell on his upturned face as he took off his hat and looked with pride upward at the mighty structures. Rain? Probably a small leak, not worth mentioning. He didn't see Far Away Places, two hundred feet above, buttoning his fly. He had taken to peeing from the top rather than have the Glass Canoe on his back.
March 19, 2017
A friend gave me a copy of David Ireland’s The Flesheaters. A new author for me and he had an immediate effect, one that readers like, that “get you thinking” kind of effect. “Merry Lands” was the 1st heading and some bloke is talking to a dog, trying to get the dog to understand his name. Is it an asylum? I was just not sure.
Later “I make a living from poverty” says the bloke with the dog. And so we go headlong into the world of the unemployed and destitute, the mad, the insane and the outsider. I can honestly say that I do not relate to their world but it is the written world that they are part of and I find that world strangely enthralling. I read on and I came out the end thinking that the book may have been, in fact, about those suffering depression. Who knows? Who knew? Not I. But I liked it a hell of a lot even if I may not have understood it. The author delivered prose that sucked me in.
This was enough for me to delve further and with that I got an old and battered copy of this book, The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Again there was an immediate effect. I found that I related to every character in the book as recognisable from my now 40 years of working life. I had worked with them all in one way or another. So with that recognition was I just another one of the many Unknown Industrial Prisoners? I think that after reading this book the answer might be yes.
The author tells the following. “Several drops of moisture fell on his upturned face as he took of his hat and looked with pride upward at the mighty structures. Rain? Probably a small leak not worth mentioning. He didn’t see Far Away Places, two hundred feet above buttoning his fly. He had taken to peeing from above rather than have the Glass Canoe on his back.”
My story from a distant past…..
“The Backroom Boys decided that it was better to pee in an empty flagon than bother traipsing down to the other end of the building when nature called. Get one of the 1st year apprentice’s to empty the contents at day’s end the tradesman’s had previously decided.
The Cop pulled up on his motorbike in the courtyard 3 levels below, as was usual each Thursday morning. Police Gazette galley proofs beckoned. Surfie was busy doing what all Backroom Prisoners did, glue bits of paper together. Surfie was bored. He looked down just in time to see The Cop pull up and begin to alight from his bike. Surfie then proceeded to tip the contents of the flagon over The Cop who looked up in time to feel several drops of moisture hit him from above and to just glimpse a disappearing head. The Cop hastened up the stairs to The Backroom, opened the door and asked with great annoyance as to who had poured the water over him. The Backroom Boys were heads down and bums up gluing bits of paper together. The Overseer looked up and said “don’t worry about it mate ya just lucky no one pissed on ya.”
Later the author tells of an Italian who gets one of his fellow Industrial Prisoner to break his arm so that he can claim workers compo and look after his ailing wife. I recall the story doing the rounds when I was an apprentice of a bloke “dropping” a large letterpress forme on his knees, his wife also needing care. He pleaded for compo and got it. His wife got care.
The parallel of working as an apprentice in a large printing company back in the mid 1970’s and David Irelands multinational corporation oil refinery is at times startling. Industrial Prisoners of all ilk, for that matter all nations, may have very similar stories as I related above.
The book itself consists of writing that is gritty, harsh, writing that has a close to the bone brutality and is also very masculine in style. It can also be very humorous. I laughed out loud several times. But we also get the softer philosophical views by some Industrial Prisoners and at times this can come as a surprise. As the reader I was battered by cynical, sarcastic, finger nails on a blackboard satire and irony page after page. Then out of nowhere would come beautiful prose that had an almost spiritual quality. Yes, a quality that was rare but there nonetheless. And that, for me, gives a very surprising and attractive dimension to this superb novel.
After all the observations of the gritty blue collar shenanigans I also think that there are recurring themes running throughout the book. Globalisation, Industrial Relations and also Work Place Health and Safety. After reading the last few pages a couple of times I might add there was also, I think, a theme of Belonging.
With the economy seemingly getting tighter the Prisoners are less inclined to have choice as to where to find other work if they really wish to leave the Prison. Shifts get longer, accidents happen. Prisoners claim compensation due to these “accidents happening” but the Prisoners never blame the longer working hours. With this the themes resonate.
Globalisation. I would suggest that with the decline in Australian manufacturing industries, at this present time of writing, there is relevance in this book for today’s world. In fact this book could be written for the beginnings of the industrial age. A work house with indentured labour is not that far back in time. I was an indentured apprentice as late as the 1970’s for example. Though we no longer have indentured manufacturing workers in countries such as Australia, manufacturing workers are seemingly under an increasing threat from globalisation, globalisation that is supported by multinational corporations. This tends to leave Prisoners thinking that their futures are in a state of limbo. In Australia we see the present closure of the auto manufacturing industries in Adelaide. Unemployment is already high and as I write another batch of the seemingly weekly redundancies are announced in that city. This is the effect of Globalisation as the Prisoners now compete with cheap 3rd world wages and/or technological changes.
Industrial Relations. The Prisoners belong to a Union but it matters not. The Union sign off changes to their conditions in agreement with the multinational corporation at the Prisoners expense. The Prisoners become more inclined to slack, to sabotage, to not give a care about anyone else, bar themselves. They become their ineffective Union and even their predatory employer. This may resonates for today’s times for some. My generation had a sense of loyalty to a local employer and that employer had a similar sense back towards their employees. Nowadays one seems a mere number, Prisoners expect to have many multiple jobs in their working lives. In Japan was it Salarymen who spent a life working for the same company? Maybe we never went to that extreme in Australia and other western countries but it came close. Loyalty is now thrown out the door just as the multinational corporation throws Industrial Relations out the door and in collusion with the very organisation that should be there for the prisoners.
Work Place Health and Safety. A constant theme. The Prisoners notice that the corporation ignores their safety. There are industrial accidents and even deaths. It reaches a point of cynicism by all Prisoners. The results are a mix of sabotage and finally the cataclysmic. Even today, in the day and age of authorities supposedly caring about occupational health and safety, in the not too distant past Iron Bar stood in the federal parliament of Australia and berated the country to stop vilifying a great Australian Multinational Corporation that had to head off shore so as to not pay the victims of their asbestos poisoning. What a great name, Iron Bar. It could have come straight from a novel called The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. His plea could have come from a novel called The Unknown Industrial Prisoner.
Belonging. I am unable to explain this. Reading the final chapter and then rereading it, I began to think that I may have been missing the theme that the Prisoners themselves “belonged”. They were part of their surroundings, the land, the industrial complex, the very surroundings they found themselves in. Maybe that’s the point of the book. Their acceptance of their place. The way they are part of the landscape. I may not be articulate enough to explain this feeling.
So who is the audience for this book? I suspect that the Phone Hackers print media would claim it would be one for the Chardonnay Sipping Inner City Academic Elites. They may be right. I suspect that the Chardonnay Sipping Inner City Academic Elites will discuss it’s resonance with the masses on the Dehumanisation of the Working Class Man by the Plutocracy who sit in their ivory towers conducting the lives of the faceless Prisoners below. They may be right as well. I also suspect that this being a very masculine book it will have less appeal for the female reader. I may be wrong and hope I am. In the end though I think it will appeal to those that want to be challenged about how industrialism could viewed in the age of Globalisation. Yes this was written in a past that may not have used the word Globalisation in the modern sense but there does seem something prescient by the past that the book has portrayed.
I began to get the mid 1990’s tune Political Prisoner by Insurge going through my head whenever I put this book down after reading. The song lyrics have a certain brutality that resonate with being an Unknown Industrial Prisoner.
“This song is for all the political prisoners, both here and around the world, for the people incarcerated for fraud, stealing, and larceny, and all other crimes involving property, for it's nothing but the state protecting the rich from the poor, ever since we lost our common ground, that's what the law's been for…….I see no criminals, I see before me political prisoners.”
A brutal protest song for a brutal protest book? Yeah!
Later “I make a living from poverty” says the bloke with the dog. And so we go headlong into the world of the unemployed and destitute, the mad, the insane and the outsider. I can honestly say that I do not relate to their world but it is the written world that they are part of and I find that world strangely enthralling. I read on and I came out the end thinking that the book may have been, in fact, about those suffering depression. Who knows? Who knew? Not I. But I liked it a hell of a lot even if I may not have understood it. The author delivered prose that sucked me in.
This was enough for me to delve further and with that I got an old and battered copy of this book, The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Again there was an immediate effect. I found that I related to every character in the book as recognisable from my now 40 years of working life. I had worked with them all in one way or another. So with that recognition was I just another one of the many Unknown Industrial Prisoners? I think that after reading this book the answer might be yes.
The author tells the following. “Several drops of moisture fell on his upturned face as he took of his hat and looked with pride upward at the mighty structures. Rain? Probably a small leak not worth mentioning. He didn’t see Far Away Places, two hundred feet above buttoning his fly. He had taken to peeing from above rather than have the Glass Canoe on his back.”
My story from a distant past…..
“The Backroom Boys decided that it was better to pee in an empty flagon than bother traipsing down to the other end of the building when nature called. Get one of the 1st year apprentice’s to empty the contents at day’s end the tradesman’s had previously decided.
The Cop pulled up on his motorbike in the courtyard 3 levels below, as was usual each Thursday morning. Police Gazette galley proofs beckoned. Surfie was busy doing what all Backroom Prisoners did, glue bits of paper together. Surfie was bored. He looked down just in time to see The Cop pull up and begin to alight from his bike. Surfie then proceeded to tip the contents of the flagon over The Cop who looked up in time to feel several drops of moisture hit him from above and to just glimpse a disappearing head. The Cop hastened up the stairs to The Backroom, opened the door and asked with great annoyance as to who had poured the water over him. The Backroom Boys were heads down and bums up gluing bits of paper together. The Overseer looked up and said “don’t worry about it mate ya just lucky no one pissed on ya.”
Later the author tells of an Italian who gets one of his fellow Industrial Prisoner to break his arm so that he can claim workers compo and look after his ailing wife. I recall the story doing the rounds when I was an apprentice of a bloke “dropping” a large letterpress forme on his knees, his wife also needing care. He pleaded for compo and got it. His wife got care.
The parallel of working as an apprentice in a large printing company back in the mid 1970’s and David Irelands multinational corporation oil refinery is at times startling. Industrial Prisoners of all ilk, for that matter all nations, may have very similar stories as I related above.
The book itself consists of writing that is gritty, harsh, writing that has a close to the bone brutality and is also very masculine in style. It can also be very humorous. I laughed out loud several times. But we also get the softer philosophical views by some Industrial Prisoners and at times this can come as a surprise. As the reader I was battered by cynical, sarcastic, finger nails on a blackboard satire and irony page after page. Then out of nowhere would come beautiful prose that had an almost spiritual quality. Yes, a quality that was rare but there nonetheless. And that, for me, gives a very surprising and attractive dimension to this superb novel.
After all the observations of the gritty blue collar shenanigans I also think that there are recurring themes running throughout the book. Globalisation, Industrial Relations and also Work Place Health and Safety. After reading the last few pages a couple of times I might add there was also, I think, a theme of Belonging.
With the economy seemingly getting tighter the Prisoners are less inclined to have choice as to where to find other work if they really wish to leave the Prison. Shifts get longer, accidents happen. Prisoners claim compensation due to these “accidents happening” but the Prisoners never blame the longer working hours. With this the themes resonate.
Globalisation. I would suggest that with the decline in Australian manufacturing industries, at this present time of writing, there is relevance in this book for today’s world. In fact this book could be written for the beginnings of the industrial age. A work house with indentured labour is not that far back in time. I was an indentured apprentice as late as the 1970’s for example. Though we no longer have indentured manufacturing workers in countries such as Australia, manufacturing workers are seemingly under an increasing threat from globalisation, globalisation that is supported by multinational corporations. This tends to leave Prisoners thinking that their futures are in a state of limbo. In Australia we see the present closure of the auto manufacturing industries in Adelaide. Unemployment is already high and as I write another batch of the seemingly weekly redundancies are announced in that city. This is the effect of Globalisation as the Prisoners now compete with cheap 3rd world wages and/or technological changes.
Industrial Relations. The Prisoners belong to a Union but it matters not. The Union sign off changes to their conditions in agreement with the multinational corporation at the Prisoners expense. The Prisoners become more inclined to slack, to sabotage, to not give a care about anyone else, bar themselves. They become their ineffective Union and even their predatory employer. This may resonates for today’s times for some. My generation had a sense of loyalty to a local employer and that employer had a similar sense back towards their employees. Nowadays one seems a mere number, Prisoners expect to have many multiple jobs in their working lives. In Japan was it Salarymen who spent a life working for the same company? Maybe we never went to that extreme in Australia and other western countries but it came close. Loyalty is now thrown out the door just as the multinational corporation throws Industrial Relations out the door and in collusion with the very organisation that should be there for the prisoners.
Work Place Health and Safety. A constant theme. The Prisoners notice that the corporation ignores their safety. There are industrial accidents and even deaths. It reaches a point of cynicism by all Prisoners. The results are a mix of sabotage and finally the cataclysmic. Even today, in the day and age of authorities supposedly caring about occupational health and safety, in the not too distant past Iron Bar stood in the federal parliament of Australia and berated the country to stop vilifying a great Australian Multinational Corporation that had to head off shore so as to not pay the victims of their asbestos poisoning. What a great name, Iron Bar. It could have come straight from a novel called The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. His plea could have come from a novel called The Unknown Industrial Prisoner.
Belonging. I am unable to explain this. Reading the final chapter and then rereading it, I began to think that I may have been missing the theme that the Prisoners themselves “belonged”. They were part of their surroundings, the land, the industrial complex, the very surroundings they found themselves in. Maybe that’s the point of the book. Their acceptance of their place. The way they are part of the landscape. I may not be articulate enough to explain this feeling.
So who is the audience for this book? I suspect that the Phone Hackers print media would claim it would be one for the Chardonnay Sipping Inner City Academic Elites. They may be right. I suspect that the Chardonnay Sipping Inner City Academic Elites will discuss it’s resonance with the masses on the Dehumanisation of the Working Class Man by the Plutocracy who sit in their ivory towers conducting the lives of the faceless Prisoners below. They may be right as well. I also suspect that this being a very masculine book it will have less appeal for the female reader. I may be wrong and hope I am. In the end though I think it will appeal to those that want to be challenged about how industrialism could viewed in the age of Globalisation. Yes this was written in a past that may not have used the word Globalisation in the modern sense but there does seem something prescient by the past that the book has portrayed.
I began to get the mid 1990’s tune Political Prisoner by Insurge going through my head whenever I put this book down after reading. The song lyrics have a certain brutality that resonate with being an Unknown Industrial Prisoner.
“This song is for all the political prisoners, both here and around the world, for the people incarcerated for fraud, stealing, and larceny, and all other crimes involving property, for it's nothing but the state protecting the rich from the poor, ever since we lost our common ground, that's what the law's been for…….I see no criminals, I see before me political prisoners.”
A brutal protest song for a brutal protest book? Yeah!
September 9, 2014
Librarians have an invidious job, trying to allocate some books to the Subjects Catalogue. I really feel for whoever had to deal with David Ireland’s The Unknown Industrial Prisoner and eventually assigned it to these subject headings:
•Manufacturing workers
•Death
•Working class
•Economic development
•Alienation
Well, yes, I can see why these subjects were assigned, but they are not really what the book is about. The Unknown Industrial Prisoner won the Miles Franklin Award in 1971 and I posted the opening lines of the novel here. It’s such a bitter and angry book that the word alienation seems inadequate to describe its concerns. Alienation today conjures up images of sulky adolescents lounging about in shopping malls instead of going to school, it just doesn’t begin to scour the depths of angst in Ireland’s novel. It’s the polarisation of society that interests Ireland: the brutal, amoral industrial world that traps the workers into imprisonment, a world which (he thinks) is invisible to complacent Australia.
I’m calling it a novel, but it doesn’t always seem like one. There are extremely short episodes instead of chapters, and the writing style seems mostly (though not always) more like journalism than literary. The multiple characters are all named, in that sly Australian way, to reflect aspects of their personality. These include, for example, Two Pot Screamer, Doctor Death, the Volga Boatman and Calamity Jane the nurse, and the central characters The Great White Father, the Glass Canoe, the Samurai, Far Away Places and the Wandering Jew. (He isn’t Jewish, so the moniker is anti-Semitic.) Some of these monikers are apt but others are a bit opaque – perhaps the allusions derive from the vanished pub world that Ireland evoked in The Glass Canoe (see my review). Or perhaps it’s because I’m a woman not privy to the secret language of men. But it wasn’t just trying to decode the names that made The Unknown Industrial Prisoner a challenge. Far from it.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2013/07/21/th...
•Manufacturing workers
•Death
•Working class
•Economic development
•Alienation
Well, yes, I can see why these subjects were assigned, but they are not really what the book is about. The Unknown Industrial Prisoner won the Miles Franklin Award in 1971 and I posted the opening lines of the novel here. It’s such a bitter and angry book that the word alienation seems inadequate to describe its concerns. Alienation today conjures up images of sulky adolescents lounging about in shopping malls instead of going to school, it just doesn’t begin to scour the depths of angst in Ireland’s novel. It’s the polarisation of society that interests Ireland: the brutal, amoral industrial world that traps the workers into imprisonment, a world which (he thinks) is invisible to complacent Australia.
I’m calling it a novel, but it doesn’t always seem like one. There are extremely short episodes instead of chapters, and the writing style seems mostly (though not always) more like journalism than literary. The multiple characters are all named, in that sly Australian way, to reflect aspects of their personality. These include, for example, Two Pot Screamer, Doctor Death, the Volga Boatman and Calamity Jane the nurse, and the central characters The Great White Father, the Glass Canoe, the Samurai, Far Away Places and the Wandering Jew. (He isn’t Jewish, so the moniker is anti-Semitic.) Some of these monikers are apt but others are a bit opaque – perhaps the allusions derive from the vanished pub world that Ireland evoked in The Glass Canoe (see my review). Or perhaps it’s because I’m a woman not privy to the secret language of men. But it wasn’t just trying to decode the names that made The Unknown Industrial Prisoner a challenge. Far from it.
To read the rest of my review please visit http://anzlitlovers.com/2013/07/21/th...
November 25, 2025
A brutalist portrait of working life that left me genuinely conflicted, which I suspect is exactly Ireland's intent.
The novel oscillates between darkly comic and deeply shocking, often within the same page. Ireland's depiction of men ground down by industrial monotony is unflinching. The oil refinery setting becomes a kind of purgatory where identity dissolves into nicknames and humanity is measured against productivity.
While the world it depicts feels of its time, the underlying themes haven't entirely disappeared: the dehumanising potential of work, the strange camaraderie that forms in shared misery, the psychological cost of trading your hours for wages.
It's not an easy read. Some passages are genuinely confronting, and Ireland doesn't offer redemption or neat resolution. But that's the point. Working life stripped of romance, presented with black humour and brutal honesty.
The novel oscillates between darkly comic and deeply shocking, often within the same page. Ireland's depiction of men ground down by industrial monotony is unflinching. The oil refinery setting becomes a kind of purgatory where identity dissolves into nicknames and humanity is measured against productivity.
While the world it depicts feels of its time, the underlying themes haven't entirely disappeared: the dehumanising potential of work, the strange camaraderie that forms in shared misery, the psychological cost of trading your hours for wages.
It's not an easy read. Some passages are genuinely confronting, and Ireland doesn't offer redemption or neat resolution. But that's the point. Working life stripped of romance, presented with black humour and brutal honesty.
April 11, 2017
Loved it. I've been looking for an Australian novel that doesn't fall into the genre of Australiana. This is not set on an outback station. Nor in the suburbs. This doesn't deal with race relations, or Australian guilt. Unknown Industrial Prisoner rests on its own creative powers. Chapters are short and focus on one of the large cast of characters that occupy the oil refinery. There is a Pynchonian joy in description as the workers piss-fart about and sabotage the company's efforts at control.
Such an enjoyable novel about class and personal freedom.
Such an enjoyable novel about class and personal freedom.
January 24, 2017
‘A harsh and remarkable work…it will leave you shaken mildly or terribly according to your life experience.’
National Times
‘David Ireland offers a fiercely brilliant comic portrait of Australia in the grip of a dehumanising labour system.This almost prophetic book has been written to recognise these unknown industrial prisoners.’
M/C Reviews
‘When I think of my favourite Australian novels, two 1970s works by David Ireland are near the top of the list: The Unknown Industrial Prisoner and The Glass Canoe.’
Stephen Romei
‘There had been nothing like it in Australian literature before, and the only thing like it since was Ireland’s second great proletarian fiction, The Glass Canoe (1976).’
Peter Pierce
National Times
‘David Ireland offers a fiercely brilliant comic portrait of Australia in the grip of a dehumanising labour system.This almost prophetic book has been written to recognise these unknown industrial prisoners.’
M/C Reviews
‘When I think of my favourite Australian novels, two 1970s works by David Ireland are near the top of the list: The Unknown Industrial Prisoner and The Glass Canoe.’
Stephen Romei
‘There had been nothing like it in Australian literature before, and the only thing like it since was Ireland’s second great proletarian fiction, The Glass Canoe (1976).’
Peter Pierce
March 27, 2022
Reading this book is a bit like listening to an old bloke tell a long interesting yarn, where you need to keep asking about all the people and their nicknames- hard to follow the story at times as there are countless dark funny characters.
It’s totally dystopian and entertaining - lots of tales about the people who work at an oil refinery in the 1970s with an underlying menacing message of the evils of big business - oh how this tale still resonates today with the ever increasing price of fuel!!
The whole book is a dark cross between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Waiting for Godot.
It’s totally dystopian and entertaining - lots of tales about the people who work at an oil refinery in the 1970s with an underlying menacing message of the evils of big business - oh how this tale still resonates today with the ever increasing price of fuel!!
The whole book is a dark cross between Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Waiting for Godot.
November 27, 2016
An excellent, although difficult, book. Ireland concedes nothing to the reader, immediately launching straight into the bitterly drawn vignettes of the puroil refinery workers and management that make up the entire novel. The readers persistence is eventually rewarded as they coalesce, and even attain some urgency, into a narrative as the novel closes. Much of the satire is still current and very funny although it is not a comic novel. Recommended.
December 26, 2020
a little bit laboured in parts but worth a look; narrative on the worker's lot in modern western societies
March 21, 2025
This book is unlike anything I've read before, the structure consists of tons of vignettes that are only sometimes directly related to each other, it ebbs and flows. The little chapters deal with the men working under the puroil company, a mercilessly profit-driven company lead by faceless investors from Europe. Life revolves around their oil refinery for these men, a dysfunctional hellhole of destruction and sabotage. It robs them of their person basically so everyone is just known by outlandish nicknames.
Like I said there's a whole lot of destruction going on, be it of the environment, something in the factory screwing up, or of the men's psyche. My favourite part was the descent into madness of the Glass Canoe, a delusional guy with illusions of grandeur. Really the whole book is everything just slowly escalating into utter chaos.
It's permeated by a cynical anti-capitalisn where the only temporary way to escape is through drinking a shit ton and fucking prostitutes. Yeah, it's not exactly an emancipatory anti-capitalism, that's for sure, it's a rough masculine cynicism outlook filled to the brim with misogyny. Which isn't to say that that makes it on the whole uneffective, the inner workings of industrial capitalism with all it's facets like getting cheated out of sick leave, people not reporting accidents and hazardous leaks, strained relationships of the unions with workers, backstabbing, dysfunctional bureaucracy, lay-offs, austere restructuring efforts and the like are described so colourfully. Which makes it a fascinating piece about labour which still rings true to this day.
David Ireland's cynical outlook on these things really made him write his heart out, the refinery is based on a real one he worked at. Must have been fucking rough.
Well I'm making it sound like it's some brutally serious realist novel but it's full of humour as well, wonderfully cynical humour at the expense of others. This novel really is full of life and insane characters and I find the distinctive Australian outlook and way of writing fascinating as someone who's not a native English speaker. Yeah this book is great, even if there's lots to criticise about the ideology in it (From what I read David Ireland dropped his class conscious writing and became more openly reactionary later on and despised egalitarianism) but I'm not really gonna because that's annoying, really fascinating thing on it's own that will stay in my memory
Like I said there's a whole lot of destruction going on, be it of the environment, something in the factory screwing up, or of the men's psyche. My favourite part was the descent into madness of the Glass Canoe, a delusional guy with illusions of grandeur. Really the whole book is everything just slowly escalating into utter chaos.
It's permeated by a cynical anti-capitalisn where the only temporary way to escape is through drinking a shit ton and fucking prostitutes. Yeah, it's not exactly an emancipatory anti-capitalism, that's for sure, it's a rough masculine cynicism outlook filled to the brim with misogyny. Which isn't to say that that makes it on the whole uneffective, the inner workings of industrial capitalism with all it's facets like getting cheated out of sick leave, people not reporting accidents and hazardous leaks, strained relationships of the unions with workers, backstabbing, dysfunctional bureaucracy, lay-offs, austere restructuring efforts and the like are described so colourfully. Which makes it a fascinating piece about labour which still rings true to this day.
David Ireland's cynical outlook on these things really made him write his heart out, the refinery is based on a real one he worked at. Must have been fucking rough.
Well I'm making it sound like it's some brutally serious realist novel but it's full of humour as well, wonderfully cynical humour at the expense of others. This novel really is full of life and insane characters and I find the distinctive Australian outlook and way of writing fascinating as someone who's not a native English speaker. Yeah this book is great, even if there's lots to criticise about the ideology in it (From what I read David Ireland dropped his class conscious writing and became more openly reactionary later on and despised egalitarianism) but I'm not really gonna because that's annoying, really fascinating thing on it's own that will stay in my memory
November 24, 2023
Look, I gave this Miles Franklin winner (1971) a go, but at two thirds of the way through I've decided that I've read enough. It presents an oil refinery as a dystopian machine, where workers are prisoners, and the bosses ignorant and apathetic. Resistence exists as a bar and brothel in the mangrove swamps, and safety standards are upheld only inasmuch as they suit the company. The novel cycles through works, disenchantment, apathy, industrial accident, and then it moves through it again. The characters are given aptonyms or nicknames, which makes it hard to track who is who at times. There's a real sense of working class fury thoughout, but it just became repetitive for me.
December 24, 2021
Genuinely one of a kind in style and content. Ireland is a uniquely Australian author in the worst senses of the word and encapsulates the then emerging working class battler myths with the grim, sometimes gothic realities of poverty and labour.
June 8, 2024
Struggled with this one, after 40 pages I gave up. Not for me.
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