Described as one of the great Australian novels, this Miles Franklin Award willing novel has dated pretty well. The prose style, with long sentences and descriptions, takes a little while to get used to in these days of staccato sentences and headlong action, but its well worth the effort. Its acutely observed relationships between the major characters - David Meredith, his wife Helene, his parents, and of course his brother Jack - are worked out against a background of the period between the wars and during the Second World War. Definitely worth a read. ( )

George Johnston's greatest book and one of the great Australian novels of all time, the first in his sadly unfinished Meredith trilogy.

Completely engaging story and characters, based on Johnston's own life. ( )

I'd heard of this book quite some time ago and found it when I was doing my massive christmas splurge. It's the story of David Meredith growing up. His view on the world and the people around him, in particular his older brother Jack. He compares himself to him, judges him and admires him. The book spans from the end of World War I through to World War II.

The characters are easy to relate to and develop nicely. As I read I would seesaw between liking Davy, sympathising with him or wanting to reach into the book and deck him. It's also nice to read a book where the references to places are recognisable - the mention of a street or suburb where I've visited. Was nice.

There are two more books about David Meredith and I think I'll track them down. I'm also going to find the mini series on video and have a look - has Matt Day as David Meredith which when you think about it, is lovely casting.

4 1/2 diggers out of 5 ( )

My Brother Jack is an Australian family saga covering the period between the ends of WW1 and WW2. Only a short time after its publication in the early 60s, the novel was already hailed as an Australian classic.

It is without doubt a beautifully drawn portrait of life in Melbourne in the inter-war years: the maimed, limbless soldiers returning from the trenches in France; the daily life on the dockside and at a print works; the effects of the Depression; schooling and religion. With Australian writers with the skill of Johnston, Patrick White and Ruth Park, there can be no better understood era in any country at any time.

Jack is the brother of the narrator, David Meredith, who fulfils an early ambition to become a writer. Jack himself is a model of how Australian males of the era liked to see themselves: a bit of a larrikin, bold, energetic, rebellious, good with his fists, a game adventurer. As with many other Australians, Jack’s adventurous spirit is thwarted. Johnston alludes to the pioneering spirit like that of the Old West in the US, only the Australian interior offered nothing to conquer but barren desert.

The narrator himself, while the weaker and more studious of the brothers, is the one who ultimately achieves greater worldly success. But as time goes on, David’s more intellectual, cosmopolitan outlook alienates him from his Australian roots. I found this aspect the least well charted development in the story. For most of the first half of the novel, the narrator’s eye is sharply focused on the people around him, not on David himself. So the reader feels less comfortable with the sudden 180 degree shift of focus onto the narrator as a character in his own story, as he begins to discover dissatisfaction with his marriage and ordinary middle class life in Melbourne.

All the same a very absorbing and rewarding book. ( )