Roger McDonald (1) (1941–)

Roger McDonald's Mr. Darwin's Shooter caught my eye in the stacks at the shop a few weeks ago, and I've been slowly reading it bit by bit on the T since then. It's quite a nice piece of historical fiction, highlighting the little-known character Syms Covington. Darwin's erstwhile assistant on the Beagle voyage and longtime correspondent thereafter, Covington is an enigmatic character, who left a narrow paper trail (online here) and more than a few mysteries.

McDonald's narrative takes place show more in two time periods: one plot-line follows Covington through his early years and along with Darwin on his travels, while the second portrays him as an aging man in Australia awaiting the arrival of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. This device is put to excellent use here; it allows McDonald to introduce a welcome element of suspense and curiosity into the excellently-written narrative.

The tensions in this book are the tensions that have always followed Darwin: as a man of great religious conviction Covington, is profoundly troubled at the conclusions to which his observations lead him (before, it is suggested, they led Darwin to the same place). McDonald handles these tensions well, and has fashioned from them a very good book.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2006/10/book-review-mr-darwins-shooter.html show less

Roger McDonald is a noted Australian novelist however this is the first of his books that I have had the pleasure of reading. Like The Moor's Account by Laila Lalami that I read earlier this year, this is a book based on the life of a real person. Syms Covington, the titular protagonist of this story was a person like most people who have lived and were forgotten. Now his life has been impressively reclaimed from history's notorious dustbin in this novel by Roger McDonald.

Syms Covington was show more 15 years old when he joined the crew of H.M. S. Beagle for a journey that would change forever both his own life and humanity's view of our place in the world. As collector and shooter and all-around assistant, young Covington accompanied Darwin throughout the five-year voyage and for two years of wrap-up work after the return to England. The Darwin biographer Janet Browne describes Covington as the unacknowledged shadow behind Darwin's every triumph. McDonald's fictionalized account of Covington's life is a well-researched book, rich in the complicated issues that surround Darwin and his work, especially its shock to Victorian religious sensibilities. But this novel is genuinely about Syms Covington, not about Darwin. It is about his adventurous life, which happens to accompany for a time that of a man destined to become the most influential scientist of his era.

McDonald imbues his story with the textures and assumptions of 19th-century life including religion, work, clothes, food, even shipboard floggings. The result is a well wrought tale of a man who embodies the milieu of his generation. It is the story of a daring, courageous, passionate man who is troubled by his own small role in the shocking changes going on about him. When we first meet Syms he is 12 years old, the religion-drenched son of a butcher. We accompany him as he and Charles Darwin and the natural sciences grow up. As readers we follow him into a contentious, disappointed middle age.

McDonald constantly surprises. His prose is ebullient, at times boisterous, holding the interest of the reader with language so vivid and original, alternately comic and tragic, that it reminded me of the novels of Dickens. McDonald makes his history come alive by refusing to stray from the sweaty, angry, sad, and sometimes violence of reality. This is one of the better historical novels I have read. show less

Roger McDonald, one of my favourite authors, has a rare ability to transport the reader to unfamiliar worlds. For me, he did this most notably in When Colts Ran when I found myself in the Outback observing his dissection of contemporary bush masculinity, but I was also transfixed by his depiction of a man sorting out his identity in Shearer’s Cook and by his exploration of loyalty and betrayal in colonial Australia in the Miles Franklin winner The Ballad of Desmond Kale. In A Sea-Chase, show more his latest novel, the reader discovers the compulsive world of competitive sailing. It’s very good, very good indeed…
A Sea-Chase is also a love story, but not merely a romance because there are other kinds of love involved. The central character Judy Compton thinks herself a bystander in her parents’ marriage: Raymond Compton is an idiosyncratic vegetable-grower on marginal land and her mother Dr Elizabeth Darke is a famous geneticist. Judy questions her mother’s love in particular because her childhood was impacted by Elizabeth’s career, especially when she was palmed off on the Salvos so that her mother could live away from home in the single-women’s quarters at the AGS, do her PhD, go slack on her mothering.

The events of Judy’s childhood, with their handings-over and movings-around, so big in her mind, were episodes in the building of two other lives, just a few brief months long… (p. 52)

McDonald explores the love of long-standing friends too, and a fond spot in the heart for a first love, and how these are sometimes the source of suspicion in new relationships. And then there is the passion for doing something you love, and separate to that, for some issue that you care about, and how that impacts on relationships. show less

When I grabbed this book from the library I expected to read a volume of Australian scenery, so I was a little surprised to see that it included photographs from the early years of Australian photography through to the present day. I am not a photographer of any description, enjoying books of photography for the photos themselves rather than as a study of the techniques used. So while I found Australia's Wild Places enjoyable, I skipped over the details about the photography, including the show more introductory section on the history of photography in Australia. Even though this book wasn't what I had at first expected, I did enjoy it and was particularly impressed by some of the early photos, which beautifully captured the Australian landscape. show less