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Loading... True History of the Kelly Gang (original 2000; edition 2000)by Peter Carey (Author)
Work InformationTrue History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey (2000)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Enchanting, instructive, masterful. ( ) Written as supposed letters to his infant daughter this story of Ned Kelly moves slowly and the detail and nature of the dialogue don't seem like they could actually be a series of letters - so I think the conceit ultimately fails. The story is reminiscent of the mid-20th century American criminals who became celebrities. There is some excellent Irish-Australian slang, e.g. fizgig - a flirtatious girl, but also a police informer. Most of the events of the 1800s involving Ned Kelly & his gang described are true, but the author says he tried to add the texture, the possible why’s for what Ned Kelly did. It’s a tremendous success. The Irish were treated so poorly by the English in Australia, with no legal rights & often abused by the wealthy elite, continuing to punish this convict class—descendants of those delivered here for their punishment—for the sins of their ancestors. The author portrays Kelly as a Robin Hood, beloved and protected by the abused masses against an intolerable ruling class. Told from Kelly’s “diaries” written to his unknown daughter, Kelly uses the word “adjectival” for the f-word, and I’ll probably think of that word often in the narrator’s Australian accent for a long time. I can see why it won the Booker. An excellent book. Historical fiction about the life of notorious Australian outlaw Ned Kelly (1854-1880). When I first picked it up, I thought it was non-fiction (just reading the title); however, I quickly realized it is a fictitious memoir, with Ned Kelly writing his life story to his infant daughter. Ned Kelly was the eldest son of Ellen and John “Red” Kelly, an Irish transported convict. His father died when he was young, so he and his mother developed a close relationship. He is apprenticed to bushranger Harry Power, where he learns the trade of an “honorable thief.” The storyline follows his increasing level of crime and his motivations. Carey gets into the head of the protagonist, imagining the majority of the content and wrapping it around the main factual events in Kelly’s life. Since it is written in Ned’s voice, one may expect a sympathetic portrayal. Ned Kelly’s education ended at an early age, so Carey has captured his voice in stream of consciousness with limited punctuation and questionable grammar. After reading about a third of it in hard copy, I switched to audio, which was a good move. The audio is beautifully performed by Gianfranco Negroponte. I find I prefer to listen to dialect as opposed to reading the text. This story is filled with adventure, conflict, and violence. Ned Kelly becomes a symbol for anti-authoritarianism and the embodiment of the underdog. It examines themes such as justice, colonialism, and class.
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“I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.” In True History of the Kelly Gang, the legendary Ned Kelly speaks for himself, scribbling his narrative on errant scraps of paper in semiliterate but magically descriptive prose as he flees from the police. To his pursuers, Kelly is nothing but a monstrous criminal, a thief and a murderer. To his own people, the lowly class of ordinary Australians, the bushranger is a hero, defying the authority of the English to direct their lives. Indentured by his bootlegger mother to a famous horse thief (who was also her lover), Ned saw his first prison cell at 15 and by the age of 26 had become the most wanted man in the wild colony of Victoria, taking over whole towns and defying the law until he was finally captured and hanged. Here is a classic outlaw tale, made alive by the skill of a great novelist. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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