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A Long Way from Home is a beautiful novel written by the famous author Peter Carey. The book is perfect for those who wants to read historical, historical fiction books. A Long Way from Home pdf book was awarded with Australian Book Industry Award Nominee for Literary Fiction , Walter Scott Prize Nominee for Longlist .
My point is, I'm bringing back the 1-star reviews. Hi, so I was willing to read a book featuring aboriginal characters, and I wanted to know if this book had them or if it only talked about Australia's cultural past metaphorically? That cover is based off a historical picture of one of the cars during a Redex Trial race. And I reckon that glorious final sentence will go down as one of the finest endings in Australian literature. It’s my usual practice to cite other reviews to complement mine, but I can’t find one that doesn’t reveal a major spoiler.
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I barely wanted to it to read The Picture of Dorian Gray recently; so you can probably imagine that for a recently written publication I have no tolerance for this snobbery. Australian settlement pretty much started with the gold rush in the 1850s, or if you were lucky you could trace your ancestors back to the original penal settlement from the 1820s or before. They were part of the backdrop like kangaroos and eucalyptus trees. Titch and their two children have moved to the town with a hope to set up a Ford dealership, but also (particularly in Irene’s eyes) to escape Titch’s larger-than-life and good-for-nothing father Dan Bobs – an attempt that proves futile. I have heard Peter Carey interviewed about this story, and he said he felt compelled as an Australian writer, to find and tell the truth about the history of his homeland. He gives away more of the story in his interviews than I’m prepared to share here, but suffice to say that “the Bobbseys”, as Willie calls them, get an unexpected education about Aboriginal slaughter from their educated navigator.
Interspersed with details of the Redex, which is a pretty boring race, we get random information about the lives of Willie and the Bobs , Willie's nazi brother, quiz shows, and the history of Australia. The most interesting part of the book to me is the last part which is devoted to the period after Willie leaves the race. He reluctantly gets another teaching position educating the children of Aborigines workers. "They paid me twenty pounds a week to erase the past, to modernise the blacks, to make them as white as possible in the hope that they would grow up as stockboys and house lubras and punks wallahs." It turns out that Willie is the one getting the education. The dialect used occasionally in this part of the book was too much work for me to follow.
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My busy schedule really struggled to induce this text into my life--it was hard! I left it for dead, left it as a joke, left it to do so much other stuff that did not include literature. Carey is a master at making things happen quickly, but perhaps it is the Australian way to leave us in dust clouds the entire time. Although I've even forgotten how it ends now, I do remember it is a narrative that ping-pongs between two central characters, companions in the continental race, while dealing with fathers and sons and obvious racism and misogyny. It's scope is awesome; it is wholesome like, I dunno, an Australian League of the Own (minus baseball and only with one woman protagonist!)--a PG-13 film, ready to be filmed.
(Not wishing to malign my own profession, but having worked in close proximity to one of the old-school ‘Tech’ schools where to my dismay I witnessed what seemed to be routine manhandling, I don’t actually find this so hard to believe). Willie is the oft-mentioned German bachelor of Bacchus Marsh, a disgraced teacher suspended for holding a student out of a second-story window after being taunted with racial remarks. Raised by a Lutheran pastor in Adelaide, Willie is unaware of the complexity of his heritage. Their battered Holden crosses land mapped with lines made by whites and Aboriginals, some laid down in the present, some as old as the soil. But Carey isn’t bound by the car-race plot he introduces at the beginning. His plans for the novel flap as they exit out the window.
Carey's late style masterpiece; a thrilling high speed story that starts
My only criticism is with the last part of the novel where Carey concentrates on Willie and Irene becomes something of a footnote, and the ending feels rushed…almost like a final sprint to a finish line. Set in Australia in 1953 and ‘54, the novel is narrated with alternating points of view between Irene Bobs, a modern wife and mother, and her quiz show prize-winning, next door neighbor, Willie Bachhuber, who possesses many secrets – some that he doesn’t even realize. Irene loves her husband Titch dearly, and as a team they endeavor to open a car dealership AND drive the famous Redex Trial, an actual race around Australia with its often harsh terrain. Irene isn't particularly good with a map, but Titch discovers that Willie is, and swiftly signs him on as navigator.
Illywhacker was short listed for the Booker Prize. Uncomfortable with this success he began work on The Tax Inspector. It was an entertaining evening — albeit very, very cold (even with the heating on, the church was akin to sitting in a giant refrigerator and after an hour in the pews I could barely feel my feet because they’d turned numb with the cold). He largely spoke about the background behind the novel, which is based on the Redex Australia Trial, a road rally dating from 1953 that circumnavigated Australia and was open to pro and amateur drivers in unmodified cars unsuited to the tough terrain. If you’re thinking that 15% isn’t enough to know if a story is good or not, then I agree.
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As we know from his earliest novels, Carey is a genius at quirky characterisation, and Willie Bachhuber is one of his best. Willie is a schoolteacher with a past and present that are equally troubled. To evade paying maintenance for a child he thinks is the fruit of his wife’s adultery, he has fled from his hasty marriage and his own estranged parent, and is batching next door to Irene and Titch in Bacchus Marsh. A mild-mannered man who participates in a weekly radio quiz show , Willie lives an otherwise quiet life with his books and his chooks until (gosh!) he is suspended from his job for hanging an obnoxious student out of a second-storey window.
After a while the plot did not hold my interest at all, and I felt what happened to Willie, getting trapped in that village, was a little bizarre, not to mention what happens to him at the end. I'm also not exactly sure what happened with Irene and Titch's marriage, or if Beverly ever got her comeuppance... The author uses the backdrop of the Redex Trial in which Mrs. Bobs, her husband and Willie compete, to explore the appalling treatment of the Aboriginal people by Australia's white colonialists. After the excitement and tension of the race, the pace of the story slows and we are stuck with Willie in a vicious and claustrophobic world where the indigenous people are maltreated and exploited. The new cast of characters we meet are well-drawn and their story feels authentic. Moreover, I found telling comparisons with the colonial and Apartheid history of South Africa, which was particularly interesting.
The book was first published in October 30th 2017 and the latest edition of the book was published in October 30th 2017 which eliminates all the known issues and printing errors. A breakneck, often hilarious, eye-opening adventure that at the same time reminds us how white people took possession of a timeless culture—the high purpose. As the Redex Trial and the potentially rich feminist story of Irene fade into the background, Carey recasts A Long Way From Home as a novel. A Long Way From Home begins in Bacchus Marsh, a small town outside Melbourne. It's , and local car salesman Titch Bobs and his wife Irene.
His vast knowledge and thorough research really bring the text alive, and also show his sympathy and respect for what so many aborigines have and do endure in what remains one of the most unforgiving and intolerant corners of the English speaking world. Overall, despite being somewhat disjointed, this was an engaging read, which introduced me to a chunk of history and culture of which I was largely unaware. Character is everything in Peter Carey's twisty new novel, "A Long Way From Home", and we are treated to some unique character types; from real jerks, to humorous caricatures, to deeply moving “real” people. This novel — his 14th — is based very much on the Redex Trial and focuses on a trio of eccentric characters that enter the event, before it morphs into an intriguing exploration of a different kind of race — that of white Australia’s crimes against its indigenous population. An absorbing, fearless probing of the 1950s Australian psyche when whitefella post-war optimism ruled and the secrets of the country's dark heart were yet to be openly acknowledged. The unfolding of the novel's central core is masterful - if this doesn't want to make you go back and revisit the entire Carey canon, nothing will.
This is a character-driven novel which takes place in the 1950s Australian small-town life. They were an interesting motley group of personalities, the most prominent being Willie, Irene and Titch. The premise is also interesting.The idea of following these 3 very different people whose lives collide interested me, so I finished the book, but I have to say it didn't really provide a satisfying read.
See the seller’s listing for full details and description of any imperfections. I was listening to an interview last night and the interviewer kept saying “you say in the book” and the author responded each time, “no, the narrator says”. This is a thrilling high speed story that starts in one way, and then takes you some place else. It often funny, more so as the world gets stranger, and always a page-turner, even as you learn a history these characters never knew themselves. After four novels had been written and rejected The Fat Man in History — a short story collection — was published in 1974. There are some wonderful moments in this book, and it’s clear that Carey is enjoying a strong period of writing, his last novel, “Amnesia” was filled with some great political and insightful thoughts.
I didn't know that much about Australian history and all the difficult tensions and conflicts that existed between the indigenous folks and whites, and perhaps my appreciation of the book suffered as a result. The language is also a little difficult, what with the local phraseology and lingo. Maybe I'm just too removed from Australia and its history to appreciate the language and in-depth look at the setting of the various small towns and the Aboriginal history.
Once, walking in a northern country town, alone, shortly before sundown, she suddenly felt a black arm was around her shoulder. And so she was led by this aboriginal to drink with group of blacks sitting on the grassy nature strip in the middle of the main road that passed through town. Those whites won't touch you now that you have been with us. A Long Way From Home is a story of an Australia long gone. It’s set in the 1950s, an era of unbridled optimism and prosperity, when there was full employment.
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