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Lädt ... The Yalda crossingvon Noel Beddoe
Keine Lädt ...
Melde dich bei LibraryThing an um herauszufinden, ob du dieses Buch mögen würdest. Keine aktuelle Diskussion zu diesem Buch. http://shawjonathan.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/noel-beddoes-yalda-crossing/ As Noel Beddoe says in an Author's Note, this book is fiction, but adheres closely to the history of white settlement near what is now the township of Narrandera, including the Second Wiradjuri War and the massacre on Murdering Island. It's a formidable achievement. Told from the point of view of Young James Beckett, as a teenager in the 1830s and as an old man in Sydney decades later, it is deeply embedded in its historical moments, and has a powerful sense of place. We care about the characters and come to appreciate their secrets and mysteries, not all of which are revealed, and some not until the last pages. The unfolding narrative gives us neither the 'dun-dreary naturalism' that Patrick White hated in Australian fiction, nor the black armband breastbeating that John w Howard claimed to discern and despise among Australian literati, nor again a ripping yarn of the frontier. The tensions of the colonial society are there – English vs Irish, convicts vs free, authority vs opportunism, women as a tiny, vulnerable minority – but they are embodied in recognisable individuals, facing particular dilemmas. The social, economic and moral world of the settlers is thoroughly fleshed out in its own right well before the prospect of a massacre appears on the horizon. Unlike other fictional treatments of atrocities against Aboriginal people, The Yalda Crossing lays the ground so that we understand how good people can deliberately commit abominable acts, not without reluctance, revulsion and remorse, but with a terrible sense of necessity. The good people who set the tone of the community aren't drawn into the vortex of violence created by people less grammatically correct than they: when push comes to shove, they are the ones who orchestrate the terrible acts. Launching the book at the Sydney Institute last July, Linda Burney said that as a Wiradjuri woman, descendant of the victims, she had to skip the chapter where the massacre happens and come back to it later. Noel Beddoe, descendant of the perpetrators, doesn't blink, and invites us, his semblables, to face our heritage with similarly unflinching gaze. Zeige 2 von 2 keine Rezensionen | Rezension hinzufügen
A powerful novel about Australia? frontier history, the story follows a successful trader and merchant in Sydney in the late 1870s. ?oung James?Beckett believes he has put his past behind him, but when the enigmatic bushman Lancaster reappears in his life, he is forced to confront the haunting truth of his early years. In 1832, Young James and his father, the Captain, arrived in New South Wales and set out with a group of convicts and a guide, Lancaster, to claim property on the Morrombidgee River in Wiradjuri country. As land opened up for further settlement, more whites arrived and the delicate balance that was in place between the Beckett family and the Wiradjuri people was shattered. What happened next was so shocking that it has tormented Young James for life, and it is only his chance encounter with Lancaster decades later that provides the final clue to those terrible events. Based on Australia? first contact history, this is a gripping adventure about the desperate battle for land and its dreadful consequences. Keine Bibliotheksbeschreibungen gefunden. |
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Google Books — Lädt ... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999Klassifikation der Library of Congress [LCC] (USA)BewertungDurchschnitt:
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This is a wonderfull, well written work of historical fiction which tells the true story of the massacre of the Wiradjuri people in the Murrumbidgee area of NSW. in 1842. The story is told from the viewpoint of the son of a fictional pioneering family in the district and his father who felt himself to be justified in exterminating these people. The family took up land which had been occupied by the W.people for centuries, They did him no harm, but they were in his way. The episode has a very marked effect on the boy and troubles him for the rest of his largely successful life after leaving his family. I must say that after reading this book, it also troubles me. ( )