The Ballad of Desmond Kale
by Roger McDonald
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Description
Winner of the Miles Franklin Award. In the early 1800s, out of the prison society of governors, redcoats, English gaolers, Irish convicts, and the few free settlers of Botany Bay, no one had ventured much farther inland than a few dozen miles from Sydney. Or so it was believed until the escape of Desmond Kale and the vengeance of his rival, the wildly eccentric parson magistrate Matthew Stanton. The Ballad of Desmond Kale is a broad-sweeping novel of the first days of British settlement in show more Australia. At the centre is Stanton's pursuit of Kale - an Irish political prisoner and a rebelliously brilliant breeder of sheep. The alchemy of wool fascinates, threatens, and transforms when it is discovered that fine wool thrives in New South Wales as nowhere else in in the world, producing veritable gold on sheep's backs. The Ballad of Desmond Kale is both a love story of unusual interest and an epic novel of greed, ambition, conceit, and redemption. The novel is rich in its characterisations and the rawness of its settings, vigour of language, and vividness of personality. The action moves from the early Australian bush to the halls of Westminster, the mills of Yorkshire, the sierras of Spain, the wilds of the Southern Ocean, and returns at last into the far outback for its finale. Once the ballad is sung, ordinary experience is heightened, the world can never be the same again. A brilliant and inspired recreation of the early days of white Australian settlement by one of Australia's finest writers working at the height of his powers. show lessTags
Recommendations
Member Reviews
I bought this for the first episode of First Tuesday Book Club on ABC (http://www.abc.net.au/tv/firsttuesday/), giving myself an insane 48 hours in which to read it (and it clocks in at 650 odd pages, and I have small children and a full time job). Due to a herculean effort, I got about 1/3 of the way through before the show started. And then it took about two weeks to finish the remaining 440 pages.
The plot is a bit of a rip-snorter, but I felt it sagged rather in the middle with the characters just uttering veiled threats at each other and trying to work out other people's plans. And the last 100 pages are rather rushed (but it was also a bit of a relief, getting to the end, so I liked those last 100 pages).
The language is probably show more the toughest bit of the book. The grammar is rather twisted and erratic. I tried reading it in an Irish accent (assuming that as it's rather like an Irish ballad, that might work), but I can't talk in an Irish accent, and I can't read in an Irish accent either.
And it was interesting how Kale is hardly in the book (not at all in the second half). With his name in the title, you'd think he'd be the main character, but it's more about the people affected by him (or, more importantly, his legend). A rather nicely done touch.
The atmosphere of early white settlement in Australia around Botany Bay and Port Jackson was very well recreated. And if you want to know about early sheep farming in Australia, this is the book for you. show less
The plot is a bit of a rip-snorter, but I felt it sagged rather in the middle with the characters just uttering veiled threats at each other and trying to work out other people's plans. And the last 100 pages are rather rushed (but it was also a bit of a relief, getting to the end, so I liked those last 100 pages).
The language is probably show more the toughest bit of the book. The grammar is rather twisted and erratic. I tried reading it in an Irish accent (assuming that as it's rather like an Irish ballad, that might work), but I can't talk in an Irish accent, and I can't read in an Irish accent either.
And it was interesting how Kale is hardly in the book (not at all in the second half). With his name in the title, you'd think he'd be the main character, but it's more about the people affected by him (or, more importantly, his legend). A rather nicely done touch.
The atmosphere of early white settlement in Australia around Botany Bay and Port Jackson was very well recreated. And if you want to know about early sheep farming in Australia, this is the book for you. show less
Story of a convict and a NSW Corp officer establishing quality sheep in the early stages of colonial settlement in NSW. Told in a curiously indirect manner, with inferences replacing facts, which is initially mildly annoying, but becomes a theme of the book. Interesting. Read March 2008
One the very, very few books I could not bring myself to finish. More about sheep than anyone could ever wish to know, in tiresome plodding prose.
Wonderful story. Like a big 19th century novel, set on the Australian frontier.
I fould it hard to relate to the characters. Some of the historical facts and situations were interesting but I didn't really care what was happening.
Language difficult. Historical fiction focussing on wool industry. Did not enjoy. A very difficult book.
Tried three times with this. Evidently don't like sheep enough to persist.
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Author Information
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Awards and Honors
Awards
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2005
- Important places
- Australia; New South Wales, Australia
- Dedication
- For Lorna McDonald with love and thanks for gifts of conversation, friendship, and example over a lifetime.
- First words
- After Desmond Kale was flogged for stealing a ten shilling metal rake he was cut down from the punishment tree and commanded to walk the ten miles back to the prison stockade of Toongabbie.
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Statistics
- Members
- 131
- Popularity
- 248,562
- Reviews
- 9
- Rating
- (3.07)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
