Such is Life: Text Classics
Joseph Furphy
Nov 2013 · Sold by Penguin Group Australia
Ebook
400
Pages
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About this ebook
A classic of the Australian outback, Such Is Life is the farcical, tragic reminiscences of Tom Collins, philosopher and rogue.
As Tom drives his team across the plains of the Riverina and northern Victoria, he gets entangled in the fate of others like Rory O'Halloran, the two Alfs (Nosey and Warrigal) and Hungry Buckley of Baroona recreating the humour, the pathos, the irony of life in the bush. His is the tough-talking, law-dodging world of the 1880s, where swagmen and bullockies slept under the stars with 'grandeur, peace and purity above; squalor, worry and profanity below'.
These inspired yarns, 'fatally governed by an inveterate truthfulness', are woven into one of the greatest books of Australian literature, combining a genius for story-telling with a wry wit and a deep feeling for the harsh sun-baked land and the people who worked it.
Joseph Furphy was born at Port Phillip, Victoria, in 1843. 'Half bushman and half bookworm', Furphy worked as a goldminer, labourer and farmer before coming to the profession that would inspire Such Is Life, bullock driving. In 1904 he settled in Fremantle, Western Australia, to join his children. Such Is Life was originally published in 1903 and was soon regarded as one of Australia's great novels. Furphy's three other books - Poems, Rigby's Romance and The Buln Buln and the Brolga - were all published after his death in 1912.
As Tom drives his team across the plains of the Riverina and northern Victoria, he gets entangled in the fate of others like Rory O'Halloran, the two Alfs (Nosey and Warrigal) and Hungry Buckley of Baroona recreating the humour, the pathos, the irony of life in the bush. His is the tough-talking, law-dodging world of the 1880s, where swagmen and bullockies slept under the stars with 'grandeur, peace and purity above; squalor, worry and profanity below'.
These inspired yarns, 'fatally governed by an inveterate truthfulness', are woven into one of the greatest books of Australian literature, combining a genius for story-telling with a wry wit and a deep feeling for the harsh sun-baked land and the people who worked it.
Joseph Furphy was born at Port Phillip, Victoria, in 1843. 'Half bushman and half bookworm', Furphy worked as a goldminer, labourer and farmer before coming to the profession that would inspire Such Is Life, bullock driving. In 1904 he settled in Fremantle, Western Australia, to join his children. Such Is Life was originally published in 1903 and was soon regarded as one of Australia's great novels. Furphy's three other books - Poems, Rigby's Romance and The Buln Buln and the Brolga - were all published after his death in 1912.
A classic of the Australian outback, Such Is Life is the farcical, tragic reminiscences of Tom Collins, philosopher and rogue.
As Tom drives his team across the plains of the Riverina and northern Victoria, he gets entangled in the fate of others like Rory O'Halloran, the two Alfs (Nosey and War...
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About the author
Joseph Furphy was born at Port Phillip, Victoria, in 1843. 'Half bushman and half bookworm', Furphy worked as a goldminer, labourer and farmer before coming to the profession that would inspire Such Is Life, bullock driving. In 1904 he settled in Fremantle, Western Australia, to join his children. Such Is Life was originally published in 1903 and was soon regarded as one of Australia's great novels. Furphy's three other books— Poems, Rigby's Romance and The Buln Buln and the Brolga—were all published after his death in 1912.
David Malouf was born in Brisbane, Australia on March 20, 1934. He received a B.A. with honours from the University of Queensland in 1954. He lived and worked in Europe from 1959 to 1968, then taught English at the University of Sydney until 1977. After 1977 he became a full-time poet and novelist. His collections of poetry include Bicycle and Other Poems, Neighbours in a Thicket, Wild Lemons, First Things Last, Typewriter Music, and An Open Book. He received the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry for Earth Hour. His novels include Johnno, Ransom, An Imaginary Life, Child's Play, Fly Away Peter, Harland's Half Acre, Dream Stuff, Every Move You Make, and The Conversations at Curlow Creek. He received the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and the Prix Femina Etranger for The Great World and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award for Remembering Babylon. His collections of short stories include Antipodes, Untold Tales, Dream Stuff, and Every Move You Make. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award. His essays collections include A First Place and The Writing Life. He also wrote the libretto for Richard Meale's opera Voss. He won the 2016 Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature.
Joseph Furphy was born at Port Phillip, Victoria, in 1843. 'Half bushman and half bookworm', Furphy worked as a goldminer, labourer and farmer before coming to the profession that would inspire Such Is Life, bullock driving. In 1904 he settled in Fremantle, Western Australia, to join his children...
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