City of Sydney Library - National Year of Reading 2012 - Autumn Program

The National Year of Reading 2012 is about children learning to read and keen readers finding new sources of inspiration.  It's about helping people discover and rediscover the magic of books. And most of all, it's about Australians becoming a nation of readers. Australian libraries are behind this campaign linking together all the great things that are already happening around books, reading and literacy, and giving them an extra boost, with inspirational programs and events taking place across the country.

As part of its promotions for the National Year of Reading, the City of Sydney Library is hosting an adult book group called Classic to Celluloid.  This book group will look at novels regarded as classics of Australian literature that have been adapted for film or television. In addition to discussing the novels during the regular book club meetings, there will also be selected screenings of some of the film or television adaptations of the novels. The items selected will fall into subject headings such as: Australian Literature, Authors, Australian, Australian Film, Australian literature -- Film and video adaptations and Australia fiction.

This blog contains annotations of all the novels to be covered by the book group. There is also information about the cinematic adaptations of the works of literature. In addition,  useful links to other relevant websites can be found.

The intention of this book group is to;

·         Introduce members to seminal works of Australian literature

·         Introduce members to eminent Australian authors

·         Introduce members to renowned Australian films

·         Foster a love of  Australian literature , Australian authors and Australian films

·         Encourage members to become regular users of the library and to take advantage of the library’s comprehensive collection of works in this genre.

My Brilliant Career

Franklin, Miles. My Brilliant Career, Pymble N.S.W. : HarperCollins, 2001.

Set in rural Australia in the 1890s, My Brilliant Career follows the aspirations and frustrations of a young woman, Sybylla Melvyn, who is constrained by middle-class social arrangements, especially the pressure to marry. Owing to her family’s adverse financial situation, Sybylla is initially sent to live with her grandmother. However, she is later sent to work as a governess/housekeeper for the family of neighbour to whom her father owes money. Miles Franklin wrote a sequel called My Career Goes Bung which was not published until 1946.

We of the Never, Never

Gunn, Aeneas Mrs. We of the Never, Never, Richmond, Vic. : Hutchinson of Australia, 1983.

Set in the Northern Territory in 1902, the newly-married Jeannie Gunn (Mrs Aeneas Gunn) leaves the security and comfort of her Melbourne home to travel to the depths of the Northern Territory, where her husband had been appointed manager of 'The Elsey', a large cattle station. She was the first white woman to settle in the Mataranka area and was discouraged from accompanying her husband to the station on the basis that as a woman she would be "out of place" on a station such as the Elsey.  She was at first resented by people on and around the station, till her warmth and spirit won their affection and respect. We of the Never Never describes the journey and settling in and is a moving and simple account of her life amidst the beauty and cruelty of the land, and the isolation and loneliness.

The Getting of Wisdom

Richardson, Henry Handel. The Getting of Wisdom, University of Queensland Press, 2001.

The Getting of Wisdom is a wicked and satirical novel on the pain and confusion of growing up. Laura Tweedle Rambotham, the main character, is the eldest child of a country family. She is a clever and highly imaginative child, given to inventing romantic stories for the entertainment of her younger siblings, and an avid reader. She is also both proud and sensitive and her mother finds her difficult to handle. At the age of twelve, Laura enters the portals of an exclusive girls' school eager to be accepted. But she is snubbed and ridiculed by her fellow students, who are richer, more attractive and more adept at dealing with life's hypocrisies. Her experiences at school shock and humiliate the unworldly Laura.

A Town Like Alice

Shute, Nevil. A Town Like Alice, London : Vintage, 2009.

A Town Like Alice is a story about Englishwomen and children forced on a WW II Malayan death march and the heroine's recovery in Australia. The novel, told partly in flashbacks, is about a girl's search for the Australian she met in Malaya during World War II. It is told, somewhat mysteriously, from the perspective of a young Englishwoman's elderly Scottish solicitor and trustee. He tells the story of her time as a prisoner of war in Malaya during World War II and her new post-war life in Australia, in a small outback community which she sets out to turn into 'a town like Alice'. A Town Like Alice is a  harrowing, exciting, and in the end very satisfying war romance.

Come in Spinner

Cusack, Dymphna & James, Florence.  Come in Spinner, Pymble, N.S.W. : HarperCollins, 2001.

Come in Spinner explores what life on the home-front was like for Australian women during  WWII and tells the story of three women, Claire, Guinea, and Deb, who are co-workers in the beauty salon of an exclusive Sydney hotel. The story follows a week in the lives of three women, a week in which their decisions change their lives and those of their men and families. These characters are weaved together with their familial and romantic relationships, as they struggle to manage the realities of working for the privileged upperclasses, to whom no rules apply, while their own families cope with wartime deaths and losses, rationing, government Manpower recruitment, and stiflingly conservative attitudes surrounding the role and perception of 'acceptable' behaviour of women. The original novel was published in abridged form as the the topics covered, such as abortion, adultery, prostitution and rape were regarded as too controversial at the time.

The Sundowners

Cleary, Jon. The Sundowners, Pymble, N.S.W. : HarperCollins, 2002.

The Sundowners is the tale of the outback Australian family, the Carmodys. Paddy Carmody loves being 'someone whose home is where the sun goes down', but his wife and teenage son are tired of the nomadic life, and want to settle down. The story is set in the Australian Outback during the 1920's and deals with one year in the life of the  nomadic Australian family as they work their way across the continent earning money to buy a farm. Paddy Carmody, Australian-born son of Irish migrants, is an itinerant worker, travelling the country with his wife Ida and son Sean in a horse-drawn wagon. Whilst Ida longs to settle in a place of their own, Paddy is unwilling to abandon his way of life and continues to pick up work where he can. He takes cattle-droving jobs and also sheep-shearing - which he doesn't like, but pays well. The story focuses on the father's refusal to accept adult responsibilities and the son's longing for a true father-son relationship.

Caddie

Caddie. Caddie, Sydney : Angus &​ Robertson, 1981.

Set in Sydney during the Great Depression, Caddie tells the story of a young mother’s desperate efforts to survive and earn an existence in hard times. Caddie leaves her adulterous and brutish husband and takes her two children with her. Forced to work as a barmaid in a pub, a morally suspect position,  she struggles to maintain her respectability while ensuring she can support her children. She sees the Sydney scene on all levels -the seamy underworld, middle-class respectability and pseudo-gentility. Caddie is a battler, a girl with honest, plain guts and, despite her troubles, she never goes under.

The Shiralee

Niland, D’Arcy. The Shiralee, Sydney : Angus &​ Robertson, 1980.

The Shiralee tells the story of itinerant rural worker Macauley, who suddenly finds himself taking responsibility for his child. Having returned from 'walkabout', he finds his wife entwined in the arms of another, and so he takes his four-year-old daughter, Buster, with him. A shiralee is a swag, a burden, a bloody millstone and that's what four-year-old Buster is to her father. He takes the child on the road with him to spite his wife, but months pass and still no word comes to ask for the little girl back. Strangers to each other at first, father and daughter drift aimlessly through the dusty towns of Australia, sleeping rough and relying on odd jobs for food and money. Buster's resilience and trust slowly erode Macauley's resentment, and when he's finally able to get rid of her, he realises he can't let his shiralee go. The barren landscapes of the outback are central to the swagman's love for his country and provide a backdrop to the richness of his developing relationship with Buster. The Shiralee reveals an understanding of the paradoxical nature of the burdens we carry and creates a moving portrait of fatherhood, told with gruff humour and a gentle pathos.

Walkabout

Marshall, James Vance. Walkabout, Harmondsworth ; Ringwood [Vic.] : Penguin Books, c1963

Walkabout is the story of a brother and sister who are lost in the Australian desert after an air crash and survive only with the help of an Aboriginal boy. A plane crashes in the vast Northern Territory of Australia, and the only survivors are two children from Charleston, South Carolina, on their way to visit their uncle in Adelaide. Mary and her younger brother, Peter, set out on foot, lost in the vast, hot Australian outback. They decide to walk to their destination in Adelaide which, unknown to them, is across the continent. They are saved by a chance meeting with an unnamed Aboriginal boy on walkabout. He looks after the two strange white children and shows them how to find food and water in the wilderness, and yet, for all that, Mary is filled with distrust. On the surface Walkabout is an adventure story, but darker themes regarding innocence and friendship lie beneath.

.

Wake in Fright

Cook, Kenneth. Wake in Fright, Ringwood, Vic. : Penguin Books, 1980.

Wake in Fright tells of a young teacher, John Grant, who arrives in a rough outback mining town planning to stay overnight before catching the plane to Sydney. He feels disgruntled because of the onerous terms of a financial bond which he signed with the government in return for receiving a tertiary education. The bond has forced him to accept a post to the tiny school at Tiboonda, a remote township in the arid Australian Outback. Grant is returning to Sydney for the holidays, but must spend a night in an outback mining town on the way. He is introduced to the illegal two-up gambling ring and hopes to win enough money to pay off his bond and escape his "slavery" as an outback teacher, however he quickly loses all his money. Grant finds himself dependent on the charity of bullying strangers while being drawn into the crude and hard-drinking lifestyle of the town's residents. In the company of some hard-bitten and disturbing locals he is drawn into a frightening spiral of alcohol and drugs that takes him to the darkest depths of the male psyche.

Careful, he might hear you

Elliott, Sumner Locke. Careful, he might hear you, Sydney, N.S.W. : Picador, 1997.

Careful, he might hear you is the story of intense family relationships where two feuding sisters battle for custody of their nephew. Set in Sydney during the Great Depression six-year-old P.S. is an orphan who lives with his Aunt Lila. However all that is about to change. Now his Aunt Vanessa has decided to take proper care of him. The dominant and elegant Vanessa, returns from England to Australia to bring him up, take him away, and provokes a custodial court hearing. Present and past fuse in the alternating narrative here; there are whispered references which P.S. only dimly understands. The boy’s father briefly reappears and this serves in the interest of the child when Vanessa gives up and gives him back to Lila.

My Brother Jack

Johnston, George. My Brother Jack, Pymble, N.S.W. : A &​ R Classics, 2001.
My Brother Jack is the story of two Australian brothers whose lives are moulded by their disparate characters and talents. It is part of a trilogy centring on the character of David Meredith. This semi-autobiographical novel follows the narrator, David Meredith, through his childhood and adolescence in interwar Melbourne through to adulthood and his journalism career during World War II. The novel constantly contrasts him with his older and more confident brother, Jack. Through the story of two brothers who grew up in patriotic, suburban Melbourne, George Johnston created an enduring exploration of two Australian myths - that of the man who loses his soul as he gains worldly success, and that of the tough, honest, Aussie battler. My Brother Jack chronicles the life of an average stereotypical bloke in Australian society.

 

Picnic at Hanging Rock

Lindsay, Joan. Picnic at Hanging Rock, Camberwell, Vic. : Penguin, 2009, c1967.
Picnic at Hanging Rock centers around a trip by a party of girls from Appleyard College, a fictitious upper class private boarding school, who travel to Hanging Rock in the Mount Macedon area, Victoria, for a picnic on Valentine's Day 1900. It is a lovely day, and the girls are excited at the chance for a break from their daily routine. But, when four girls go for a walk for a closer look at Hanging Rock, tragedy strikes. Three of the girls, and later one of their teachers, mysteriously vanish while climbing the rock. No reason for their disappearance is ever given, and one of the missing girls who is later found has no memory of what has happened to her companions. In the days and weeks following, the mystery surrounding their disappearance grows, and the subsequent effect ripples throughout the community.

 

The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith

Keneally, Thomas. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Pymble, N.S.W. : HarperCollins, 2001.
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is based on the life of bushranger Jimmy Governor. The novel tells the story of Jimmie Blacksmith who is the son of an Aboriginal mother and a white father. A missionary shows him what it means to be white - already he is only too aware of what it means to be black. When Jimmie Blacksmith marries a white woman the backlash from both Jimmie's tribe and white society initiates a series of dramatic events. As Jimmie tries to survive between two cultures, tensions build reaching a head when the Newbys, Jimmie's white employers, try to break up his marriage. Exploited by his white employers and betrayed by his white wife, Jimmie cannot take any more. He must find a way to express his rage. Thomas Keneally's fictionalised account of the 19th century Aboriginal, Jimmie Governor, is a powerful story of a black man's revenge against an unjust and intolerant society.

 

The Eye of the Storm

White, Patrick. The Eye of the Storm, North Sydney, N.S.W. : Vintage Books, [2011], c1973.

The Eye of the Storm tells the story of Elizabeth Hunter, the powerful matriarch of her family, who still maintains a destructive iron grip on those who come to farewell her in her final moments upon her deathbed. Set in the Sydney suburb of Centennial Park, Elizabeth is attended to by two nurses, a housekeeper and her two adult children. In her youth she had great beauty and used it to her own advantage and ends, destroying the lives of so many, leaving them vulnerable and under her control. A summer storm in Sydney drives Elizabeth to recall a mystical experience that transforms all her relationships: her existence becomes charged with a meaning which communicates itself to those around her. Despite her deteriorating health, the ageing ex-socialite continues to wield considerable control over her affairs and those around her. The Eye of the Storm is a savage exploration of family relationships and the sharp undercurrents of love and hate, comedy and tragedy, which define them.

Bliss

Carey, Peter. Bliss, Milsons Point, N.S.W. : Vintage Australia, 2005.

Bliss is the story of an advertising executive, Harry Joy, who briefly 'dies' of a heart attack. On being resuscitated, he realizes that the life he has previously drifted aimiably through is in fact Hell – literally so to Harry. The dilemma of Harry Joy is both funny and terrifying, for Harry wakes up in Hell, tortured by those he loves, and by the dreams and nightmares he once created for profit. For the first time in his life, Harry Joy sees the world as it really is and takes up a notebook to explore and notate the true nature of the Underworld. Bliss is a love story about a man who misunderstands the world so totally that he almost gets it right.

The Odd Angry Shot

Nagle, William. The Odd Angry Shot, Sydney : Angus &​ Robertson, 1979, c1975.
The Odd Angry Shot concentrates on a group of professional soldiers in the combat zone at the height of the Vietnam War. It is based on William Nagle’s own experience in 3 SAS Australian Army, portrays the boredom, mateship, humour, and fears of a group of Australian soldiers deployed to South Vietnam in the late 1960's. During the first weeks of their stay in Vietnam, their biggest enemies are mud, boredom and the never-ending torrential rains. But the real war strikes suddenly one night with an enemy mortar barrage which claims a number of casualties. Irony is the main means of suggesting the futility of war. The book is anti-heroic in tone with the emphasis on survival. The risks of combat are seen to be without purpose but the men do their job. The behaviour of the male group is within the ANZAC ethos of the anti-authoritarian, pragmatic digger and the ocker tradition of irreverent humour laced with sexist jokes.

Monkey Grip

Garner, Helen. Monkey Grip, Camberwell, Vic. : Penguin Books, 2009.
Monkey Grip is set in Melbourne in the mid 1970s in the a world of communal living, drugs, music and love. It explores the complications of love, desire and freedom. Monkey Grip tells the story of Nora who is single with a young child but still wants to live the life of a young artist. Nora has a stable job as a teacher, but she lives in an inner-city shared house, part of a bohemia of students, musicians, and actors  and junkies. She is drawn into an affair with Javo, a heroin addict, and struggles to overcome the complications of love in order to regain control of her life. Nora and Javo are trapped in a desperate relationship. Nora's addiction is romantic love; Javo's is hard drugs. The harder they pull away, the tighter the monkey grip.

 

The Well

Jolley, Elizabeth. The Well, Camberwell, Vic. : Penguin Books, 2009.
The Well tells the story of two women, Hester and her young ward Katherine, and their relationship with one another. Miss Hester Harper, middle-aged and eccentric, brings Katherine into her emotionally impoverished life. Together they sew, cook gourmet dishes for two, run the farm, make music and throw dirty dishes down the well. The relationship between the two women becomes strained after an incident where Katherine hits a mysterious creature with the roo bar on their four wheel drive. It is left unclear whether the creature is an animal or an intruder who has stolen a large sum of money from the house. When Katherine begins to hear voices from the well and becomes racked with guilt, Hester goes to extreme measures to maintain her influence over her young ward.

 

Oscar & Lucinda

Carey, Peter. Oscar & Lucinda, Milsons Point, N.S.W. : Vintage, 2005
Oscar & Lucinda tells the story of an unlikey romance between Oscar Hopkins, the Cornish son of a Plymouth Brethren minister who becomes an Anglican priest, and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress who buys a glass factory. They meet on the boat over to Australia, and discover that they are both gamblers, one obsessive the other compulsive. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass church from Sydney to a remote settlement at Bellingen, some 400 km up the New South Wales coast. This bet changes both their lives forever. Oscar and Lucinda is a tale of love and commerce, religion and colonialism, that culminates in a half-mad expedition to transport a glass church across the Outback.

 

Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence

Pilkington, Doris. Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, St Lucia, Qld. : University of Queensland Press, 2002.
Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence is based on a true story and is  a personal account of an Indigenous Australian family's experiences as members of the "Stolen Generation" – the forced removal of mixed-race children from their families during the early 20th century. Following an Australian government edict in 1931, black aboriginal children and children of mixed marriages were gathered up and taken to settlements to be institutionally assimilated. The book tells the story of Molly Craig, a 14-year-old Aboriginal girl, who is deemed "half-caste" by the Australian government. Along with two members of her family, her 8-year-old sister Daisy Craig and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie Fields, Molly is taken by police officers from her mother in the community of Jigalong and transported 1,600 kilometres to the Moore River Native Settlement. The girls escape with the intention to walk home, barefoot - without provisions or maps, escaping from the settlement's repressive conditions and brutal treatment; they set out to find the rabbit-proof fence, knowing it passed near their home in the north; tracked by Native Police and search planes, they hide in terror, desperate to return to the world they knew.