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Yandilli Trilogy #1
The Second Bridegroom
The first novel in a trilogy by the winner of the Miles Franklin Award, Australia's most presitigious literary prize, who has been compared to Joyce, Faulkner and Marquez. Set in the early nineteenth century, it tells the story of a young English convict transported to an Australian colony, where he escapes into the bush and becomes the adopted member of an Aborigine clan.
214 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
About the author
Rodney Hall
63 books21 followersBorn in Solihull, Warwickshire, England, Hall came to Australia as a child after World War II and studied at the University of Queensland. Between 1967 and 1978 he was the Poetry Editor of The Australian. After a period living in Shanghai in the 1980s, Hall returned to Australia, and took up residence in Victoria.
Hall has twice won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, and has received seven nominations for the prestigious Miles Franklin Award, for which he has twice won ("Just Relations" in 1982 and "The Grisly Wife" in 1994).
Hall has twice won the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, and has received seven nominations for the prestigious Miles Franklin Award, for which he has twice won ("Just Relations" in 1982 and "The Grisly Wife" in 1994).
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 25, 2019
"Here in New South Wales...the real and the fabulous have not yet gone their separate ways. There is nothing to prevent our fables taking root here. And we have brought plenty of them with us."
What a revelation! Rodney Hall, a two-time Miles Franklin Winner (and seven-time nominee) has always been on my to-read list for that reason, but (in retrospect disappointingly) no-one has ever taken the time to recommend him to me. Indeed, his collective oeuvre has fewer than 400 ratings on Goodreads and around 60 reviews. Mr Hall, how the world has wronged you.
The Second Bridegroom is a sublime piece of literature, set in the 1830s as a convict escapes his dire conditions along the coast of Australia somewhere south of Sydney. In the bush, he finds himself part of a ceremony among local Indigenous people, whom he can barely comprehend even as people, let alone as practitioners of another culture. To say much more would be to spoil an exhilarating read, buoyed by Hall's delicate, exquisite prose and his ability to conjure a world lost to us (arguably two worlds). His narrator, apologetic for upsetting his reader with the mere idea that this other beings might be "men", is an authentic and engaging viewpoint into a mindset. Hall's work fuses the 1830s with the present day, raising questions about our shared past while exploring beyond individuals into the very essence of humanity, power, dignity, grief, and faith.
"Do you hear that as you read my words? Do you know the grief we know? Does life mean what you thought?"
Hall is clearly a writer's writer, but I believe that he could be engaging to all readers of quality Australian literature. I hope his reputation remains.
What a revelation! Rodney Hall, a two-time Miles Franklin Winner (and seven-time nominee) has always been on my to-read list for that reason, but (in retrospect disappointingly) no-one has ever taken the time to recommend him to me. Indeed, his collective oeuvre has fewer than 400 ratings on Goodreads and around 60 reviews. Mr Hall, how the world has wronged you.
The Second Bridegroom is a sublime piece of literature, set in the 1830s as a convict escapes his dire conditions along the coast of Australia somewhere south of Sydney. In the bush, he finds himself part of a ceremony among local Indigenous people, whom he can barely comprehend even as people, let alone as practitioners of another culture. To say much more would be to spoil an exhilarating read, buoyed by Hall's delicate, exquisite prose and his ability to conjure a world lost to us (arguably two worlds). His narrator, apologetic for upsetting his reader with the mere idea that this other beings might be "men", is an authentic and engaging viewpoint into a mindset. Hall's work fuses the 1830s with the present day, raising questions about our shared past while exploring beyond individuals into the very essence of humanity, power, dignity, grief, and faith.
"Do you hear that as you read my words? Do you know the grief we know? Does life mean what you thought?"
Hall is clearly a writer's writer, but I believe that he could be engaging to all readers of quality Australian literature. I hope his reputation remains.
February 21, 2019
Will be my favourite of the year. Not sure why other ratings are so low. Maybe they didn't get it? Who knows. Very poetic and surreal. I loved every word.
July 21, 2017
I’m a bit hesitant to review this exquisite novel too enthusiastically, because I know it’s long out of print and will be hard for my readers to find. I’ve checked Library Link which harvests from all the libraries in Victoria and there are half a dozen libraries which hold it, but other than that, getting a copy is going to involve trawling through second-hand bookshops. Fishpond doesn’t even list it…
But the search is worth it. The Second Bridgegroom (1991) is Rodney Hall’s sixth novel and first in the Yandilli Trilogy, but it was written after Captivity Captive (1988) which is No #3 in the trilogy. Both of the novels were shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award but it was No #2 in the trilogy, The Grisly Wife, published last of all in 1993, which won Hall his second Miles Franklin. (The first was Just Relations (1982) which is on my TBR too, and I will get to it one day soon!)
The other thing that’s special about this book, is that it’s published by McPhee Gribble (1975-1989), an innovative Australian publishing house founded by Hilary McPhee and Di Gribble (who also founded Text Publishing) McPhee Gribble was the initial publisher of many of our most significant writers, including Tim Winton, Murray Bail, Rod Jones, Helen Garner and Drusilla Modjeska. The book (hardback) is beautifully made, with cover art by Keith McEwan, and has quality paper, binding and boards. Reading the novel in this beautiful form seems fitting for such lush prose.
The story concerns an escaped convict known only as FJ, who is narrating events that took place in about 1820. In the process, he also relates his own back story as the son of a rebel from the Isle of Manx, who was hanged by the British for smuggling, under laws he doesn’t recognise any more than he speaks the English language. Ironically, FJ was transported for forgery to a place that is, he tells us, a counterfeit England, created by cutting down strange trees and digging out plants with no name. What is even more ironic is that he was originally charged with theft, because his excellent forgery was thought to be the long-sought-for 100th copy of a document attributed to William Caxton, the man who introduced the printing press to England in the 15th century and was the first retailer of printed books there.
On arrival in New South Wales, FJ is assigned to Edwin Atholl who takes him aboard the Fraternity to establish a new settlement somewhere along the coast. On board FJ is tormented by and eventually kills his fellow convict Gabriel Dean to whom he is chained at the wrist. On landing, when the convicts are brought up from below, these two, the living and the dead, are separated by a callous swipe of an axe so that FJ still has the manacle attached to his wrist when he takes advantage of a lapse in supervision and escapes into the bush.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/07/21/t...
But the search is worth it. The Second Bridgegroom (1991) is Rodney Hall’s sixth novel and first in the Yandilli Trilogy, but it was written after Captivity Captive (1988) which is No #3 in the trilogy. Both of the novels were shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award but it was No #2 in the trilogy, The Grisly Wife, published last of all in 1993, which won Hall his second Miles Franklin. (The first was Just Relations (1982) which is on my TBR too, and I will get to it one day soon!)
The other thing that’s special about this book, is that it’s published by McPhee Gribble (1975-1989), an innovative Australian publishing house founded by Hilary McPhee and Di Gribble (who also founded Text Publishing) McPhee Gribble was the initial publisher of many of our most significant writers, including Tim Winton, Murray Bail, Rod Jones, Helen Garner and Drusilla Modjeska. The book (hardback) is beautifully made, with cover art by Keith McEwan, and has quality paper, binding and boards. Reading the novel in this beautiful form seems fitting for such lush prose.
The story concerns an escaped convict known only as FJ, who is narrating events that took place in about 1820. In the process, he also relates his own back story as the son of a rebel from the Isle of Manx, who was hanged by the British for smuggling, under laws he doesn’t recognise any more than he speaks the English language. Ironically, FJ was transported for forgery to a place that is, he tells us, a counterfeit England, created by cutting down strange trees and digging out plants with no name. What is even more ironic is that he was originally charged with theft, because his excellent forgery was thought to be the long-sought-for 100th copy of a document attributed to William Caxton, the man who introduced the printing press to England in the 15th century and was the first retailer of printed books there.
On arrival in New South Wales, FJ is assigned to Edwin Atholl who takes him aboard the Fraternity to establish a new settlement somewhere along the coast. On board FJ is tormented by and eventually kills his fellow convict Gabriel Dean to whom he is chained at the wrist. On landing, when the convicts are brought up from below, these two, the living and the dead, are separated by a callous swipe of an axe so that FJ still has the manacle attached to his wrist when he takes advantage of a lapse in supervision and escapes into the bush.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/07/21/t...
May 6, 2022
Circles enclose and contain and they also isolate and exclude. The world changes as perspective shifts from inside to outside. What can be seen and processed varies. Hall's concentric circles operate at all points and take in all perspectives. The dragon and the cross, the idea of the real and the forged, the idea of building roads and fences as opposed to living in an unspoken but felt knowingness.
'The Second Bridegroom' is set in Britain's oldest colony with the protagonist coming from the Isle of Man and being transported to the newest colony New South Wales for forgery in the 1830s. Possibly the last consignment of convicts they are subjected to worse treatment as one circle closes and a new circle opens up.
The convict in question writes a diary. He observes that the Master to whom he is indentured, shares another bond, "In our fatal ambition to be loved by one woman. Yet we were always opposites. He was a horse man and I have never learned to ride." (19)
Arriving in the colonies things take an existential turn. The protagonist writes, "So, the Master put up a fence because he feared his herds might cheat him of power by running away. Just as his little herd of human beasts, with their starved souls, might be more ready filled than himself by such gifts as the land offers." (20)
The convict escapes and is eventually found and absorbed into the life of a local tribe who treat him with a distant reverence. "I can not say whether the circle of figures around me took the first step or myself" (36). He realises, "They stepped with bird feet, dipping their toes among hazards they were used to, dancing ahead on sprung thighs. Always they kept the circle complete and I began to find the going easier." (37) Finally, "I had arrived at a place where all my knowledge was useless. The joy, as I found myself filled with it, could not be described, the pepper taste still alive on my tongue." (37)
Fascinatingly, the tribe roams across the land but when they return to the site of the Master's claim, the narrator is taken by surprise, "Then we came to a fence. Imagine it. The fence baffled me as if I had never seen one before." This troubled him. "The Men would certainly have no name for this thing so I gave it the name I had brought with me. Fence. But what would happen now that the world of dreams - where fences belonged - began to trespass on the existing world." (85)
Worlds within worlds coexist and destabilise each other. Looking at his origins, the narrator observes, "At the centre of our family were my parents - but could two people be a centre? My father had certainly been head of his household, but how often was he there? My mother, being born with a different surname, might have thought she belonged more to her father's family than ours, yet she was the anchor, the one we depended on. Were there two intersecting circles? Only two?" (74)
This tension is sustained through the circular narrative. Speaking of the Goddess of Kirk Braddon the protagonist explains her, "taking one husband at the feast of horse mating in spring and the other in autumn at the feast of goat mating" (67). Later in the novel this circle connects to the pattern the narrator establishes between himself, the Master and his wife. This is foreshadowed by the narrator who observes the Master's cattle and then, "Pale forms plunged and bonded. The horses were mating. Spring had come." (90)
The novel, however, is not contained by its circular structures. Lived experience constantly creates new meaning as the various circles form and are then broken.
'The Second Bridegroom' is set in Britain's oldest colony with the protagonist coming from the Isle of Man and being transported to the newest colony New South Wales for forgery in the 1830s. Possibly the last consignment of convicts they are subjected to worse treatment as one circle closes and a new circle opens up.
The convict in question writes a diary. He observes that the Master to whom he is indentured, shares another bond, "In our fatal ambition to be loved by one woman. Yet we were always opposites. He was a horse man and I have never learned to ride." (19)
Arriving in the colonies things take an existential turn. The protagonist writes, "So, the Master put up a fence because he feared his herds might cheat him of power by running away. Just as his little herd of human beasts, with their starved souls, might be more ready filled than himself by such gifts as the land offers." (20)
The convict escapes and is eventually found and absorbed into the life of a local tribe who treat him with a distant reverence. "I can not say whether the circle of figures around me took the first step or myself" (36). He realises, "They stepped with bird feet, dipping their toes among hazards they were used to, dancing ahead on sprung thighs. Always they kept the circle complete and I began to find the going easier." (37) Finally, "I had arrived at a place where all my knowledge was useless. The joy, as I found myself filled with it, could not be described, the pepper taste still alive on my tongue." (37)
Fascinatingly, the tribe roams across the land but when they return to the site of the Master's claim, the narrator is taken by surprise, "Then we came to a fence. Imagine it. The fence baffled me as if I had never seen one before." This troubled him. "The Men would certainly have no name for this thing so I gave it the name I had brought with me. Fence. But what would happen now that the world of dreams - where fences belonged - began to trespass on the existing world." (85)
Worlds within worlds coexist and destabilise each other. Looking at his origins, the narrator observes, "At the centre of our family were my parents - but could two people be a centre? My father had certainly been head of his household, but how often was he there? My mother, being born with a different surname, might have thought she belonged more to her father's family than ours, yet she was the anchor, the one we depended on. Were there two intersecting circles? Only two?" (74)
This tension is sustained through the circular narrative. Speaking of the Goddess of Kirk Braddon the protagonist explains her, "taking one husband at the feast of horse mating in spring and the other in autumn at the feast of goat mating" (67). Later in the novel this circle connects to the pattern the narrator establishes between himself, the Master and his wife. This is foreshadowed by the narrator who observes the Master's cattle and then, "Pale forms plunged and bonded. The horses were mating. Spring had come." (90)
The novel, however, is not contained by its circular structures. Lived experience constantly creates new meaning as the various circles form and are then broken.
May 11, 2023
An interesting, engaging historical fiction novel set in Australia in 1838. A young English printer forges a document attributed to 15th century William Caxton. The printer is arrested and sent, as a convict in fetters, to New South Wales, Australia. Aboard the convict ship he is subject to unceasing abuse from fellow convict, Gabriel Dean. On arrival in NSW, the young, redhead forger escapes on landing, disappearing into the cover of surrounding bush land. He is taken care of by a group of aborigines.
An adventure story with interesting characters and plot surprises. The novel has good pot momentum. A worthwhile, satisfying reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 1992 Miles Franklin award.
An adventure story with interesting characters and plot surprises. The novel has good pot momentum. A worthwhile, satisfying reading experience.
This book was shortlisted for the 1992 Miles Franklin award.
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March 8, 2019Picked up this book in the Yandilli Trilogy. Sought it out because this book and Rodney Hall are well recognized - the blurb " a thrilling smart and juicy writer" New York Book Review. Not for me, the voice of each story became quickly irritating....having left the runaway forger in the Second Bridegroom I rolled forward to the Grisley Wife and still could not attach to the writing.
Good luck if you find it and enjoy it
Good luck if you find it and enjoy it
October 8, 2024
Some nice scenes in remote Australian landscape but the narrator is irritating and the novel circles round as the events do the same. I'm guessing there's a trick here but the narrative voice just dominates this and like other novels dependent on revealing the limits of character perspective, I just found it a bit tiresome.
May 26, 2011
The dialog is not as intriguing as The Fall by Camus but it still is a very interesting read. And a nice excursion into the early days of Australia which I liked a lot.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews