Product Description

This story is the song of Australia, and it sings its protest in a voice at once crude and delicate, menacing and heart-wrenching. The author gives us Ned Kelly as orphan, as Oedipus, as horse thief, farmer, bushranger, reformer, bank-robber, police-killer and as his country's Robin Hood.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #330662 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 384 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey returns to the harsh, brutal world of Australian history, so brilliantly evoked in earlier novels such as Illywhacker and Oscar and Lucinda. Set in the desolate settler communities north of Melbourne in the late 19th century, the novel is told in the form of a journal, written by the famous outlaw and "bushranger" Ned Kelly, to a daughter he will never see. As Kelly explains, "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 lies may I burn in hell if I speak false".

The salty, colloquial, unpunctuated style of Kelly's journal is reproduced with great skill, as Carey recounts the outlaw's early life with a cross-dressing, Irish immigrant sheep worker, and a beautiful but headstrong mother, always on the wrong side of the law. Inadvertently causing the arrest and death of his father, Ned realises that "there were a drought and nothing flourishing there but misery I were the oldest son I thought it time to earn my place", a decision that ultimately leads him into conflict with the law, and to form the notorious Kelly Gang.

The novel contains some wonderfully lyrical and deeply moving moments, as Ned struggles to articulate the harsh injustice of the world around him, but some readers might find Carey's epistolary style rather restrictive and colourless after the first 100 pages, and lacking in the imaginative excitement of Carey's earlier novels. --Jerry Brotton

Review
Carey's seventh novel narrates the brief and violent life of Australian bushranger Ned Kelly. Much of the life is folk-history; the story-telling genius lies in the voice Carey has found for Ned. It is both utterly convincing and yet continually surprising, creating new pleasures on every page. Kelly's knowledge of punctuation extends no further than the full stop, so the prose hurtles along unimpeded by commas, colons, and apostrophes, spilling information before us just like an excited speaking voice. It is a voice dedicated to honesty ('this story is for you [his unseen daughter] and will contain no single lie may I burn in hell if I speak false'), direct, practical, carefully prudish ('It were eff this and ess that and she would blow their adjectival brains out'), which frequently breaks into sudden brilliance of image and colour. On the run with his beloved Mary and her sick child, Ned hears a horseman following and forces her into a hiding place in a stream, then stands waiting, gun cocked. 'A fright of blood red parrots flared and swept through the khaki forest.' Kelly's story is enough to make you weep; his father dies when he is 12, and his mother takes her tribe of children to a government land selection at 11 Mile Creek, where trees need clearing and fences building, and she sells illegal grog to make ends meet. She also sells Ned to Harry Power, who takes him out on a spree of highway robbery, which ends with 15-year-old Ned's arrest. From then on the hostility of the police to the poor Irish in general and the Kelly family in particular, is enough to foil Ned's every attempt to go straight. Kelly is a true folk hero, a bush Robin Hood, bouncing up from every setback with cartoon-character optimism - but in his language he comes alive, his deadpan humour and sharp understanding are made real, and the legend becomes a man. He describes his sweetheart Mary critically overlooking his writing as 'like a steel nibbed kookaburra on the fences in the morning sun' - a description that could equally well be applied to the authorial intelligence behind Ned's voice. Reviewed by Jane Rogers, author of Promised Lands (Kirkus UK)

Excerpted from True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
May 23rd fell cold and dark there were no moon. I stood on the front veranda of a shanty in the Oxley shire but it gave no protection from the bitter wind the heavy rain were in my face and splashing off the muddy floor. I did severely miss the sweet dry fug of my home but I were still Power^Rs unpaid dogsbody ordered to keep the watch for policemen although God only knows how the traps could of reached us in this torrent the King River Bridge were 2 ft. under and groaning in the current. I were v. tired and fed up with my life.

The poor sniphorse off the Buckland Coach were sheltering with me under the veranda she had been fired on by the squatter Dr Rowe and were now wounded. It were Harry^Rs fault there were no reason to take her from that dull and honest coachhorse life her great heart pounding on the daily climb up the mountains the drear cycle of ceaseless labour must seem sweet enough to her now. She had taken the bullet high in her shoulder and when she cooled would certainly be lame for good. Thence only death a sledgehammer between her blindfolded eyes such is life.

Inside the shanty were much laughing and singing the shadows flitting across the curtains. Harry Power were dancing I heard not a word about the bunions he otherwise were whingeing about night and day. I never knew a man to make such a fuss about his feet. Feet & bowels never ceasing bowels & feet. My 1st job each soggy morning were to find them blackberry roots for his bowels thank Jesus he ministered to his smelly bunions by himself. He had a red string with 7 knots he must wind in a particular way around his inflamed joint then recite the following:

Bone to bone blood to blood

And every sinew in its proper place

The sniphorse pissed forlornly on the muddy floor I could smell bacon frying inside the shanty but none had been sent out to me. I were working myself into a temper on this point when the door swung open it were Harry Power holding a red hot coal in a pair of blacksmith^Rs tongs. Beside him come the landlord^Rs big chested wife she had narrow hips like a boy and very pretty hands in which she carried a sugar bowl. She were tipsy laughing pretending to fall against the famous bushranger.

Hold the horse Ned Kelly said he I did not thank him that he used my name in front of witnesses. Only 2 days previous he had caused Dr Rowe of Mount Battery Station to clearly see my face. We was lying on the rock above his paddock looking for a more spirited replacement for the sniphorse. Rowe were a cunning old fox he crept up beside us and let off a shot which kicked up the dust in front of my nose. I would of surrendered there and then but were more afraid of Harry than of the squatter thus we made this mad rush riding 2 days into the face of the storm arriving on this veranda drenched to the bone I were whipped and cut across the face by myall scrub my lip consequently swollen as if I had been thrashed.

Now the landlord^Rs wife give Harry Power the sugar he sprinkled it onto the red hot coal.

Hold the effing horse he says to me.

I took the bridle while Harry encouraged the smoking coal to pass over the horse^Rs wound I had seen this remedy practised by the Quinns and Lloyds but Harry were drunk so he placed the coal too near the skin I could smell the burning hair. The 1st time she were burnt the horse kicked but the 2nd time she reared and I couldnt hold her she broke through the bark roof of the veranda. Of this damage to the shanty Harry seemed oblivious. There he said that^Rll fix you girl. That were a lie because the ball were buried too deep it had gone to a place no smoke could reach.

To me he said he would soon send out some tucker.

I^Rll come inside said I.

O you will will you?

There aint no point in watching here I said unless the traps is coming in an adjectival ship.

For answer I got a mighty clout across the head I took a swing back at him. This he would not brook he grabbed me by the bawbles.

You want to fight me boy?

No Harry.

While the landlady watched he squeezed my bawbles till I could not help but cry out with pain and having wrung that humiliation from me he turned his back and took his girlfriend back inside. I calmed down the frightened horse swearing this would be my last adventure with the famous Harry Power.

By and by the door opened it werent Harry the stranger were more like a farmer with his powerful sloping shoulders and heavy arms but he bore no greater burden than a glass of liquor which he offered though I never liked the smell.

Too strong for you boy? He were a so called handsome man a neat beard framing his naked face. You want some lemonade in it?

He were watching me very close a smile playing round his lips so I sipped to show I could of drunk it if I wished.

Your ma is very partial to that drink I^Rm sure you know it.

I might.

Very partial said he.

All my childhood there were always some man thought he could tell stories about my mother he rested his back against the veranda post and grinned.

You know Bill Frost?

I admitted the connection. Thats a chap who is awful partial to his rum and cloves. He made it sound so dirty I were embarrassed laying my face against the mare^Rs cold wet neck and stroking her but still the man would not cease.

Customer Reviews

Historical tale of outlaws, poverty, hardship and prejudice.
Peter Carey has written an unusual novel that is put together as a series of letters written by Ned Kelly the famous Australian outlaw and bushranger, who became a national hero. It is presented as a raw, personal journal, written to a daughter he would never see. This is not only a very interesting concept but also provides a good insight into life in 19th century Australia. This novel is set in the desolate settler communities north of Melbourne, Victoria in the late 19th century, during a time when the first Irish settlers in Australia faced many hardships and struggles.

Peter's novel is basically a corrective to the popular conception, among some Australians, of Ned Kelly being a thug, thief and murderer. Ned's portrayal in this work is nothing less than a folk hero and freedom fighter, a defiant exemplar of Irish-Australian cussedness in the face of colonial oppression. To the authorities, this son of dirt-poor Irish immigrants was a born thief and, ultimately, a cold-blooded murderer; to most other Australians, he was a scapegoat and patriot persecuted by "English" landlords and their agents. With his brothers and two friends, Kelly eluded a massive police manhunt for twenty months, living by his wits and strong heart, supplementing his bushwhacking skills with ingenious bank robberies while enjoying the support of most everyone not in uniform. He declined to flee overseas when he could, bound to win his jailed mother's freedom by any means possible, including his own surrender if necessary. Ned Kelly was executed by hanging for murder in 1880 in Melbourne, Victoria. In the end his mother served out her sentence in the same Melbourne prison where her son was hanged. We come to understand the poverty, hardship, and the prejudice of the colonial police force, during that period of time, particularly towards the Irish. These factors were all part of the plight of Ned Kelly and his gang. Was he a good boy gone wrong?

This is a tale of misunderstanding, foul justice, and the wringing of a family's heart. This novel is packed with history, incidents, alive with comedy and pathos, and contains everything that you could ask for in a truly great work.

Masterful portrayal of the social conditions of the time
I don't know enough about the history of Ned Kelly to comment on the historical accuracy of the events, though I gather that the novel is quite well researched. What makes the book such an enjoyable read though is the remarkable portrayal of life in colonial Australia. You get a visceral sense of how it might have felt to be poor in the dog-eat-dog world of Ned Kelly's time, of the desperate struggle to conquer the Australian bush, of the constant oppression by authorities for whom laws rarely provide an effective check on power, of the solidarity of human beings brought together by their shared trials and tribulations. Carey has managed to convey a sense of this era in a way that few writers are able to. It is a portrait of social conditions that can be compared to the novels of Charles Dickens.

I loved it but that doesn't mean you will.
Yes it won the Booker price, and yes I loved it but its' important that you realise that there is no guarentee that you will enjoy it.

The written style is main thing to worry about. The narrators voice, Ned Kelly, can be a hard read. I've heard of people who have said that the found the books style a real grind to read and have never even finished the book. For me Ned Kelly's voice is utterly unique, free of the over intellectual prose of many authors. I was swept away, inside his head, into his world. I had never read anything like it.

It is clear Peter Carey has done a vast amount of research as well as made a massive leap of imagination. The gritty story is filled with tender and powerfully sad moments. It is certainly one of the most accomplished books I have read.

My advice, read a few pages or passages before you buy. If it you like the sound of it then go for it.