The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
by Thomas Keneally
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Jimmie Blacksmith is the son of an Aboriginal mother and a white father. A missionary shows him what it means to be white - already he is only too aware of what it means to be black. Exploited by his white employers and betrayed by his white wife, Jimmie cannot take any more. He must find a way to express his rage. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is based on an actual incident that occurred at the turn of the century. Set against the background of a turbulent Australian history, Thomas show more Keneally records with clarity the chant of one troubled man. show lessTags
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I had two reasons for wanting to read this book, firstly my on and off long term project to read as many Booker shortlisted and longlisted books as possible, and secondly because every Keneally book is different, and they are almost always enjoyable and thought provoking.
This time the setting is rural New South Wales in 1900, and the main protagonist Jimmie Blacksmith is the child of an aboriginal mother by a white father, who is educated enough to believe that he has a chance of succeeding on his own terms (and indeed is more literate than many of the white settlers), and for a while he manages to find fairly well paid work and acquires a poor white wife, but he finds himself thwarted by racist attitudes and injustices that eventually show more lead him to a violent protest against white Australia that turns him into an outlaw wanted for multiple murders.
Keneally handles this material with a surprising degree of sensitivity and sympathy (given than this book was published in 1972), and a feeling for the many injustices suffered by the aboriginal population. show less
This time the setting is rural New South Wales in 1900, and the main protagonist Jimmie Blacksmith is the child of an aboriginal mother by a white father, who is educated enough to believe that he has a chance of succeeding on his own terms (and indeed is more literate than many of the white settlers), and for a while he manages to find fairly well paid work and acquires a poor white wife, but he finds himself thwarted by racist attitudes and injustices that eventually show more lead him to a violent protest against white Australia that turns him into an outlaw wanted for multiple murders.
Keneally handles this material with a surprising degree of sensitivity and sympathy (given than this book was published in 1972), and a feeling for the many injustices suffered by the aboriginal population. show less
The Booker shortlisted Australian classic of a young indigenous man responding to the injustice and humiliations heaped upon him by white Christians in late 1800s New South Wales. It stands today as a mirror to intolerant society.
Kenneally delivers to the reader a carefully crafted and authentic story which evokes the nature and conditions of living in the Australian Bush before the arrival of the motor car. T
he alienated spirit of Jimmy Blacksmith cannot rest. The author gives his characters a humanity that displays empathy and understanding without sugar-coating.
Why otherwise good people do bad things and how that effects those involved is insightfully portrayed.
James Pope
he alienated spirit of Jimmy Blacksmith cannot rest. The author gives his characters a humanity that displays empathy and understanding without sugar-coating.
Why otherwise good people do bad things and how that effects those involved is insightfully portrayed.
James Pope
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith is the 7th novel by Thomas Keneally. Set around the time of Federation, it tells the story of half-caste Jimmie Blacksmith, initiated into tribal manhood by his aboriginal elders, he was, at the same time, taught by a Methodist minister. Under the minister’s influence, his criteria denoting the value of human existence were home, hearth, wife and land. And a white wife, say a farm girl, would mean his offspring would be quarter-caste, theirs but an eighth. Jimmie works hard to achieve his goals, but fails through no fault of his own, and the situation becomes explosive and violent. Keneally tells a great yarn, and manages to deftly convey the forces that battle inside Jimmie, as well as the attitude of show more whites to blacks and of blacks to whites at that time in Australian history. The story is told mainly from Jimmie’s perspective, but also from the view of the Methodist minister, the hangman, Jimmie’s maternal uncle Tabidgi and the fiancé of one of Jimmie’s victims. The debate about Federation rumbles in the background. Excellent prose, vivid descriptions, characters of depth and authentic dialogue. It is no wonder this tragic tale has become an Australian classic. show less
A young aboriginal man is determined to make his own way in pioneering. Australia. He has the advantage of being able to read and marries a white woman, he works hard for wealthy settlers but is repeatedly derided and cheated until one day he commits a terrible crime. Excellent writing and emotive story.
I remember some English classes at high school reading this book. Having now listened to it as an audio book I'm surprised as it was alot more violent and confronting than I thought it would be. Makes you think. Worth a read.
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ThingScore 100
Published here in 1972, Thomas Keneally's novel is no longer in print; the library copy that I read hadn't been checked out since January 1973- How did this book slip into neglect? Was it because the literary-publicity machine was in its modernist phase, when the most highly honored novels were intricate literary puzzles? Or did the thought "arid," so closely associated with Patrick White, show more smudge the wrong Australian? I began the novel around one in the morning, intending to read only a few chapters before going to bed. Although it's a short book (just a hundred and seventy-eight pages), I stayed up until five, reading it slowly, because I didn't want to diminish the pleasure by going too fast.
The book is like Nat Turner's story as a great lusty ironist—an Irish Nabokov, perhaps might have written it. I didn't want to lose the full shape of the story by interrupting it until the next day; anyway, I had to read it in one sitting, because the rhythms propel you forward. They're oral rhythms—not just in the dialogue but in the prose cadences. The book itself is the chant, and it's inexorable. show less
The book is like Nat Turner's story as a great lusty ironist—an Irish Nabokov, perhaps might have written it. I didn't want to lose the full shape of the story by interrupting it until the next day; anyway, I had to read it in one sitting, because the rhythms propel you forward. They're oral rhythms—not just in the dialogue but in the prose cadences. The book itself is the chant, and it's inexorable. show less
added by SnootyBaronet
Lists
Booker Prize
491 works; 62 members
Booker Prize Shortlist: Titles Read
103 works; 10 members
Australia's Greatest Books, as chosen by Geoffrey Dutton (1985)
97 works; 6 members
1970s
657 works; 23 members
Australia, New Zealand and Oceania
88 works; 20 members
Man Booker Prize Longlist 1972
4 works; 1 member
Booktopia's 50 Must Read Australian Novels
50 works; 5 members
Australian Classics: Fifty Great Writers and Their Celebrated Works
43 works; 1 member
Fiction with Men's Given Names in the Title
302 works; 11 members
Author Information
83+ Works 19,927 Members
Thomas Keneally was born in Sydney, Australia on October 7, 1935. Although he initially studied for the Catholic priesthood, he abandoned that idea in 1960, turning to teaching and clerical work before writing and publishing his first novel, The Place at Whitton, in 1964. Since that time he has been a full-time writer, aside from the occasional show more stint as a lecturer or writer-in-residence. He won the Booker Prize in 1982 for Schindler's Ark, which Stephen Spielberg adapted into the film Schindler's List. He won the Miles Franklin Award twice with Bring Larks and Heroes and Three Cheers for the Paraclete. His other fiction books include The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, Confederates, The People's Train, Bettany's Book, An Angel in Australia, The Widow and Her Hero, and The Daughters of Mars. His nonfiction works include Searching for Schindler, Three Famines, The Commonwealth of Thieves, The Great Shame, and American Scoundrel. In 1983, he was awarded the order of Australia for his services to Australian Literature. Thomas Keneally is the recipient of the 2015 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature. The award, formerly known as the Writers' Emeritus Award, recognises 'the achievements of eminent literary writers over the age of 60 who have made an outstanding and lifelong contribution to Australian literature. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Awards
Notable Lists
Australia's Greatest Books (1972)
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Has the adaptation
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1972
- People/Characters
- Jimmie Blacksmith
- Important places
- Australia
- Related movies
- The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978 | IMDb)
- Dedication
- To the memory of Peter Cady, January, 1971
- First words
- In June of 1900 Jimmie Blacksmith's maternal uncle Tabidgi - Jackie Smolders to the white world - was disturbed to get news that Jimmie had married a white girl in the Methodist church at Wallah.
- Quotations
- At night the shearers used to question him about the disgrace that had made him a shearers’ cook in Cowra. Some thought he might have been a grammar-school master who had been accused of corrupting boys. Others imagined rui... (show all)ned servant-girls and other caddish situations from British melodrama. They all half-suspected that he was simply a native-born draper’s assistant who put his hand into the takings; but that did not satisfy their hunger for a man of mystery, a gentleman of diverse and sporty malevolence, now brought low.
What he had done, without understanding it, was to elect her to the stature of ideal landowner’s-wife. It was not simply a matter of her being full and ripe: he could not have been so potently stirred by aspects so directly... (show all) sexual. But combine these with her impassive air, her peculiar way of sitting still in the dray and breathing out into the morning a vapour of worship and submission for her husband—and you had something that appealed to all Jimmie’s lusts.
The blue coat was a giant’s, the cap loose, the trousers knifed him in the crutch. He had taken a florid foreign oath to Victoria and was now on the books as a tracker, a comic abo in some other black’s clothes. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Mr Hyberry was away three days in all, and his fine boys could cope with the customers.
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- Members
- 476
- Popularity
- 63,516
- Reviews
- 6
- Rating
- (3.65)
- Languages
- English, Hungarian, Indonesian
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 31
- ASINs
- 10
