A Kindness Cup

by Thea Astley

The story of Taws, an Australian town about to celebrate its 20th anniversary. But one man is not about to celebrate. Returning from 15 years exile, he is intent on reminding the town of the brutal acts they perpetrated during their early years of settlement.

Genres: Australia, Fiction, Historical, Literature, Classics, Historical Fiction, Novels

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

About the author

Thea Astley was one of Australia's most respected and acclaimed novelists. Born in Brisbane in 1925, Astley studied arts at the University of Queensland. She held a position as Fellow in Australian Literature at Macquarie University until 1980, when she retired to write full time. In 1989 she was granted an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Queensland.

She won the Miles Franklin Award four times - in 1962 for The Well Dressed Explorer, in 1965 for The Slow Natives, in 1972 for The Acolyte and in 2000 for Drylands. In 1989 she was award the Patrick White Award. Other awards include 1975 The Age Book of the Year Award for A Kindness Cup, the 1980 James Cook Foundation of Australian Literature Studies Award for Hunting the Wild Pineapple, the 1986 ALS Gold Medal for Beachmasters, the 1988 Steele Rudd Award for It's Raining in Mango, the 1990 NSW Premier's Prize for Reaching Tin River, and the 1996 Age Book of the Year Award and the FAW Australian Unity Award for The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow.

Praise for Thea Astley:

'Beyond all the satire, the wit, the occasional cruelty, and the constant compassion, the unfailing attribute of Astley's work is panache' Australian Book Review

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fact that Australia was built on a sustained, episodic genocide is something that had not really been dealt with by its novelists until fairly recently. Or so I'd thought; but here is a short, intense novel from 1974 which tackles the subject with amazing focus and power. In that sense, Thea Astley (as Kate Grenville suggests in the introduction to this Text Classics edition) was years ahead of her time. I had never read her before, and now I'm keen to read everything she wrote because this was great – pared-down and moody with a sense of a steady guiding anger.

She set most of her books in Far North Queensland (she lived for a while in Kuranda, near Cairns), and this is no different. It follows two timelines simultaneously: the events that led up to a local massacre of Aboriginal people, and a reunion of town residents twenty years later, when most want to forget about what happened but a couple of people are determined that justice will still be done. From the sly Burns reference of the title to the faceted characterisation, everything in here makes you feel that you are in safe hands, and there's a tremendous sense of mounting dread and excitement as the book builds towards its conclusion.

Astley sees this kind of massacre as – to borrow a term from elsewhere in the book – a ‘manifestation of maleness’, one aspect of a phenomenon that also manifests itself in sexual violence. Among other things, the book is a kind of analysis of types of masculinity (another way in which it feels ahead of its time), from the cruelty of the militia leader who ‘felt a tightening in his groin’ during the slaughter, to the furious righteousness of the avenging schoolteacher (who had already equated ‘militaristic claptrap and the insolvency of the rapist’ early in the novel), to the two schoolboys being raised in different ways by different fathers. These ideas are played out on multiple levels in the book, from committee meetings, to fist-fights, to flirtations. The implication is that the difference between a massacre and, say, an impolite comment to your wife, is a difference of degree not of kind. ‘The world of men,’ as one character sighs.

Astley's prose style is rich and consciously literary, with frequent bursts of personification: ‘the road gives its own mandates’, ‘a shuttered farmhouse turns its back’. But she knows how to pull back, too, and when the action mounts, her writing becomes correspondingly simple and controlled. Control, in fact, is the main skill on show here, in this excellent novel which I'm surprised isn't better known.

[Anne Fenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tiny book that packs a big punch. Written in early 1970s, it’s about a small Qld town having a reunion. One character wants to reveal things hidden in the past. The author gives little away openly, you have to read carefully to fill in the story. It’s dense writing, thick with powerful imagery about the landscape, people and places. There’s a lot of emotion involved.
So relevant to current indigenous/white people issues, so much more up front about them.

[Text Publishing]

‘This timely and attractively priced reissue is a welcome chance to reconsider [Astley’s] rich oeuvre. Astley’s work is characterised by her irony and unflinching scrutiny of social injustice. In A Kindness Cup, she was at the top of her impressive form…This short novel is one of Australia’s finest.’
Stuff NZ

[Carolyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Australian classic (published 1974) is an exposé of a massacre of an Aboriginal group in Queensland and the way a town managed to brush what happened under the carpet. Although this is a work of fiction, it is based on the fact that there were many such incidents in Australia's colonial history. The novel was written at the time when Indigenous rights were finally being recognised but before there was any serious recognition of the frontier wars that occurred or the crimes that white settlers inflicted on the native peoples.

When the town of Taws has a reunion to bring back its now scattered citizens, Dorahy (a teacher 20 years before) returns determined to make the perpetrators of the massacre face justice and the townspeople acknowledge their denial of events. The narrative moves between the time of the attack and the reunion. The massacre itself and associated events are described with brutal realism. Another character, Lundt, had fled the town after he too had been violently treated because he was a friend to the local people. He returns, not with vengeance in his heart, like Dorahy, but attempting forgiveness. Astley does not endorse either stance specifically: it is left to the reader to reflect and decide which, if any, approach is effective.

This is a fiercely intelligent novel that uses irony and metaphor very effectively. The title is ironic - 'we'll take a cup of kindness yet for the sake of auld lang syne'. At the final gathering of the reunion, a woman, Grace, has been asked to sing Auld Lang Syne. What happens creates a powerful and shocking denouement. There is little kindness evident in Taws - in the past or the present. The novel is an indictment of human prejudice, cruelty and lack of courage; it is also a compelling, impressively written and thought-provoking read.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is brutal. And wonderfully written.

What really struck home for me was its analysis of white guilt. A Kindness Cup is the story of a North Queensland town sometime in the late nineteenth century. Tom Dorahy is heading home for a town reunion, having left the town years ago. He is not a peaceable man, however, and is determined to lift the lid on the town’s terrible birthstain. Twenty years before, the townsfolk massacred a local aboriginal band, on the flimsiest of pretexts, and the perpetrators were protected by a morally idiotic judiciary. Tom Dorahy is determined that now, in his invulnerable old age, he will not let evil things rest.

I think it would be impossible for any reasonable person not to admire Dorahy, a brave and conscientious man who withstands the universal opposition of a community that would reject him. Though it must be said that insecurity does terrible things to the personality. There are probably many who would agree with the villains of this novel that Dorahy should let sleeping dogs lie.

But A Kindness Cup is about more than the History Wars. It is also about the complexity and irony of human motivation. We cannot doubt that Dorahy is concerned for the aboriginal people who were killed, but his main motive seems to be revenge. Revenge on the soulless croppers who dominated the town of his youth, revenge on the philistines who dismissed his culture and morality. His friends—Boyd, Gracie, Lucy, the Jenners and most of all Lunt—resist his crusade despite their agreement with his ethical viewpoint. Dorahy is ultimately vindicated, though the price others pay for his moral purity is high, and it is not clear how indigenous people benefit from his particular course of action.

Thea Ashley was not a proponent of silence, as this novel makes clear. But she was a clearsighted observer and highly sensitive to the moral complexities of life. There are so many fine Australian novels about the blood and pain of our recent history. This is one of the bloodiest, most painful, and best.

[Travis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella is both a brilliant work of art and an engrossing critique of the violent production of Australia's colonial history. Astley's prose here reminds me of late Faulkner, particularly INTRUDERS IN THE DUST, which, as it turns out, is very similar in themes, characterization, and plot. What is perhaps most remarkable is this work having been first published in 1974, predating what is now being called 'the Mabo turn' by two decades. Worth keeping in mind that, while this work of fiction was almost surely influenced by Stanner's 'Great Australian Silence' speech, Astley's depiction of characters who might now anachronistically be thought of as 'black armband' types is complex, and while there is certainly a distinction between justice and injustice at play, those seeking justice are not without their own profound complications and shortcomings. Seriously, this book deserves much attention from Australia's contemporary readership, especially those who enjoy the (problematic) works of Alex Miller and Kate Grenville.

[Michael Livingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, angry book about the violence and murder of colonisation and the ways it was minimised and hidden. Astley was ahead of her time - this is a brutal book about masculinity, racism and the (often unspoken - especially in the 1970s) suffering that underpins modern Australian history.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

After laboring (in a good way) through And Quiet Flows the Don I thought this slim 151-page volume, written in 1974, would be a breeze. I was wrong. Astley's language, the way she structures sentences, her metaphors and descriptions forced me to slow down and pay more attention. A Kindness Cup was a real pleasure to read and should be read by more Australians - especially those who had the selfishness, the ignorance to vote NO in the recent Voice to Parliament referendum.

Some quotes:

''Outside a world of trees and umber. Flies inside drumming window-heat, taking glass for air.''

"Summer was crouching all over the town.''

"... that was how the ... councilors found him, grave with twilight amid the loneliness of sail-creak and grass-stir. The sky was one huge bruise of wider and darker air.''

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspired by the true account of a massacre of Aboriginal people that occurred in Queensland during the early colonial period, this book was always going to be brutal and violent. The characters Astley creates that commit the act are truly awful people but I think what surprised me is that the “good guys” are not painted as saints. This book was published in the 1970s, so perhaps it is unsurprising that it centres the white townspeople rather than the Aboriginal people whose story this really should be, but it does paint a bleak picture of those white townspeople and is sympathetic in its way to the Aboriginal people in general, as well as specifically to the highlighted Aboriginal characters. The language tends quite literary, so this won’t be a book for everyone, but I’m glad I read it. 3.75 stars

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finished: 18.06.2019
Genre: novel
Rating: A+++

Quick Scan
This book is based on historical fact: a massacre of a group of Aboriginal people near Ball Bay Queensland in 19th C (The Leap) and the police whitewash of the event.

In A Kindness Cup Astely is examning the politics of race The central character is a bitter teacher, Mr Dorhay, who returns to the town of The Taws 20 years. He tried to bring classical education to the unwilling outback students. Dorahy embodies the rage and frustration....Thea Astley was also feeling.
Theme: justice....or is it revenge?
Theme: white guilt (suppress stories about events that disturb them)

Last Thoughts:
Thea Astley is a brilliant writer. I learn new words, expressions in every book!
This is Astely's first historical fiction. A Kindness Cup is the first of 3 novels highlighting the injustice to the Aborigines. Personally, I thought A Kindness Cup not as good as Astley's social satire novels:
The Slow Natives and A Boat Load of Home Folk...both books were much better.
Also there were NO REALLY strong female characters in A Kindness Cup. A 'beyond her prime', fading opera singer Gracie just did not match up to characters like
Sister Matthew...…Miss Trumper and Miss Paradise.
Still it was a good read...but not Astley's best.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of A Kindness Cup is ironic.  It alludes to the New year's Eve tradition of raising a glass (i.e. a cup o' kindness') while singing Auld Lang Syne. The words 'We'll take a cup of kindness yet' express 'good will, friendship and kind regard' to absent friends, and they evoke a sense of belonging and fellowship among the company.  But the occasion in the novel in which it is sung is evidence only of malice, self-delusion, and a wilful forgetting.  Written contemporaneously with Xavier Herbert's monumental Poor Fellow My Country that tackled Indigenous dispossession (1975, see my review) , Astley acknowledged in a note at the beginning of A Kindness Cup that the impetus for the novel was an actual incident at The Leap, Queensland, in the second half of the last [19th] century and she has used elements of the report of the Select Committee on the Native Police Force Queensland, 1861.  Her novel exposing this massacre won the Age Book of the Year in 1975, predating The Other Side of the Frontier by historian Henry Reynolds in 1981.  And wilful forgetting of Australia's Black history is still going on.

Alternating back and forth in time, from events surrounding the massacre to twenty years afterwards, A Kindness Cup exposes small town memorialisation as a lie.  The occasion is a reunion to celebrate the founding of a town with a weeklong extravaganza of speeches, drinking and a performance by the town songbird who made good elsewhere. Now aged 60, Latin teacher Tom Dorahy has returned as an avenging angel to expose the involvement of his pupil Buckmaster in the death of Kowaha and her baby girl.  Buckmaster now is an honoured citizen, knighted along with Sweetman for handling (i.e. breaking) the sugar strike and for owning more acres of sweet grass in the north than any man had the right to own.  Dorahy's musings establish that (like most of the class) Buckmaster was stupid and lazy; he also had a father whose patronage kept him at the school.  Defeated by his attempts to educate these lumpish boys, as a man of 37 Dorahy was capable of only minor acts of malice:

Nort, Mr Dorahy inscribed meticulously on Buckmaster's ill-spelled prose.  Nort, he gently offered, as Trooper Lieutenant Fred Buckmaster gave his evidence before the select committee. (p.6)

Here Dorahy allows himself a self-indulgent joke: he wants Buckmaster to know that he has scored 'nought' on his ill-spelled Latin translation.  Thea Astley is making the same comment about the enquiry into Kowaha's death — Buckmaster's testimony before a magistrate follows, and the enquiry achieves 'nort'.

Characters of all moral stripes flesh out the panorama of treachery.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/08/19/a...

[Tracey · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are books that manage to stay with you, creeping back into your thoughts with more questions than answers. A Cup of Kindness by Thea Astley is that book. It is a short read under 150 pages, but it kicks you so hard with the complexity and emotions.
The fictional town of Taws in Northeast Queensland is renowned for cane sugar and is about to celebrate its twentieth anniversary. Invitations have been sent out and everything is poised for a week to honour the achievements of the town and the people. For one man, former school teacher, Tom Dorahy this is an opportunity to bring to account a group of town luminaries that participated in the massacre of an indigenous community. Dorahy wants retribution, acknowledgement but others, well it is in the past, let it remain there.
What Astley does is dive deep into the best and worse of humanity, where you are allowed to see everyone’s motivation, but never does she pass judgement. That is left to you to form your own opinion, and you will certainly be doing that. It is a brutal story; it is ugly but there is hope. It is a slither, but it is there.
I could wax on lyrically about the book and I want to. Yet, I do not want to disclose all the events that occur. Being allowed to discover and feel through the Astley’s words is the core of the experience.
What is quite incredible is that Astley wrote this novel in the early 70’s and is based on actual events. In that period, and for some time after, the crimes committed against the indigenous communities remained essentially hidden and not acknowledged.
Astley is one of Australia’s most important authors, in my humble opinion. If you have never read any of Astley’s work, you should add this to the TBR.
A Kindness Cup is a book that will never leave you. It is a powerful and disturbing read, conceived well before its time.

[S. A. Tawks · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read from one of Queensland’s— One of Australia’s— One of the world’s most underrated writers.

A Kindness Cup has been read and re-read for over fifty years now, but it still reads like the work of a writer who knows how to quickly find a pulse. The novel is a fantastic look at how all perspectives can belittle the facts of a matter and the people at the heart of the matter, when mutual respect is thrown out the window in an attempt to make your voice the loudest on the matter.

Thea Astley is an Australian national treasure and every Australian and everyone interested in Australia should give her works a chance. She is one of this author’s favourite authors. Drylands still holds the top spot in my personal bookcase as Astley’s best, but A Kindness Cup is good close-by company.

[Noah Melser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel about small Australian town's response to brutality and historical memory. Astley's writing is very straight, no satisfying metafictive trickery or brake from the narrative construction, and I wonder sometimes if it's a little corny. Like the sweet and helpless Indigenous figures in this one. Yet in her sombre view of people and communities she subtly undermines the gaze of more conventional Australian writers who insist on some artificial restorative arc. And in her somewhat bleak world constructing she finds excellent little people which she beautifully animates and foregrounds against those oppressive forces who tend to control history making here. Her books are then very satisfying to be reading and I've got a few more to go yet.

[James Whitmore · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't we just forget all that bad stuff that happened, let bygones be bygones? Do we really need to bring all that up again? Such are the questions asked by many of the townsfolk in north Queensland in this ruthlessly to-the-point novel, and the questions that continue to be asked by many over a century later. Read more blog.

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little slice of settler mentality — of the dull yet occluded awareness of appropriation and, when necessary, worse, and the furious intransigence when made to acknowledge the same. The community is in the collusion.

[David Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece of writing. One of my favourite Australian novels

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

language like Shakespeare. every sentence required two readings before it sucker punched you with its implications.

[Leonie Recz · Rating 4 out of 5]

The telling of our history and how it may have been self justified, unacknowledged and hidden with failure of justice by even those who were horrified.

[Stella · Rating 5 out of 5]

Difficult. Completely beautiful.

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is well written in the sort of hard to read heavy sense. The sort of stuff they might make you read at uni, that is good for you (or so you hope). It was based on an actual occurence, the way things actually were in Australia. A lot of the details seemed plausible but having struggled through the whole thing I wanted some little patch of redemption or hope...something. It was all so bleak, such a scathing indictment of masculinity (although several different masculinites were portrayed they were all pretty much corrupt while all the feminities were irrelevant and trivial). Because of the paralells to how the political climate is now- the brutality, the lack of compassion I wanted a grain of hope.

I didn't really enjoy it. I wanted to like it for its complexity and criticism but I couldn't. Perhaps I don;t get it on some level?

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Powerful story of the darker sides of Australian culture. Beautifully written!

[Cate Ellink]

Book club book. Brilliant writing. Moralistic with religious undertones. One dimensional characters, may be deliberate?