Book Information

Book ID Asin: 0571270158
Book Title: True History of the Kelly Gang
Book Author: Peter Stafford Carey
Book Format and Price:
Book Format Name: Kindle
Book Format Price: $11.99
Book Format Name: Audiobook
Book Format Price: $0.00
Book Format Name: Hardcover
Book Format Price: $27.85
Book Format Name: Paperback
Book Format Price: $13.42
Book Format Name: MassMarket Paperback
Book Format Price: $20.64
Book Format Name: AudioCassette
Book Format Price: —
Book Price: $13.42
Book Category: Books, Literature & Fiction, Classics and unknown
Book Rating: 1,145 ratings

Book Product Detail

• Best Sellers Rank: #1,608,574 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #36,124 in Classic Literature & Fiction
  • #71,967 in Literary Fiction (Books)

• Customer Reviews:
  4.3 out of 5 stars 1,145 ratings

unknown

Book Review

Name: Roger Brunyate
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: In His Own Words
Date: Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2009
Review: This is an astounding book, one of those Booker Prize winners that do not leave you wondering about the sanity of the judges. Peter Carey tells the story of Ned Kelly, a nineteenth-century Australian outlaw and folk-hero, ostensibly in his own words. And what words those are! Carey sets up the voice in the opening sentence: "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 lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false."

This punctuation-free run-on style is splendidly vigorous, but it is not entirely Carey's invention. We have one example of Kelly's own voice from the famous "Jerilderie Letter" that he dictated in 1879 in an attempt to justify himself. The first sentence after the salutation establishes the tone for the rest: "In or about the spring of 1870 the ground was very soft a hawker named Mr Gould got his waggon bogged between Greta and my mother's house on the eleven mile creek, the ground was that rotten it would bog a duck in places so Mr. Gould had abandon his waggon for fear of loosing his horses in the spewy ground." So Carey's achievement is less in inventing this style than in extending it for 360 pages, including passages of racy ribaldry that go way beyond the original, such as when Ned as a boy describes his mother's anger: "She cried I would kill the b-----ds if I were a man God help me. She used many rough expressions I will not write them here. It were eff this and ess that and she would blow their adjectival brains out." The initial difficulty of this writing soon passes off, making one's reading something like an exhilarating ride on a wild horse. [It is interesting that fellow-Australian Roger McDonald used a very similar archaic language two years previously for parts of his wonderful 

Name: Moisio
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Layers and layers between this book and the "true history."
Date: Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2014
Review: Initially unaware that both books were short-listed for the Booker in 2001, I read True History of the Kelly Gang shortly after finishing McEwan's Atonement. I find it interesting that the role of the author is at such issue in both books. Thankfully, the two authors take markedly different approaches.

Carey's novel is apparently a fictional enlargement of something actually written by Ned Kelly, a notorious nineteenth century Australian outlaw. For those whose first encounter with Ned Kelly, like my own, is through this book, it appears that Ned Kelly is an historical figure whose particular story is deeply embedded in the frontier foundation mythology of Australia. For Americans, a parallel would be Jesse James.

Like many myths that gain traction, Kelly's story is great; Carey chose wonderful material to work with. Much of this (quasi-epistolary) novel is written in the first person, so Carey takes great pains with the vernacular. I can't vouch for the authenticity but it certainly rings true. And Carey clearly sympathizes with his subject, making the outlaw's youthful mistreatment at the hands of the local authorities look like easy justification for what follows. But the real strength of the myth stems from the fact that Kelly was always doomed. And, indeed, he was hung.

As it pertains to my initial comparison, we have the Jerilderie Letter which was actually written by Ned Kelly but will certainly have been subjective. Then we have Thomas Curnow, a character in the book who makes off with Kelly's fictional manuscript. That it appears at all (fictionally, of course) indicates that he "published" it, which suggests he could have edited it. And, of course, we have Peter Carey with the pen. So, at least three layers lie between the events of this novel and the actual events of Kelly's life.

There is plenty else at work here but, like Atonement, Carey's novel seems to imply that the search for "fact" in the historical record is a quixotic endeavor.

Name: C. Collins
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Ned Kelly is a fascinating character in the work of Peter Carey
Date: Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2013
Review: I think this book was superb storytelling at its finest. The reader enters the world of Ned Kelly and gains an understanding of the conditions that made him into an outlaw legend. Kelly's mother was very young when he was born and thus they almost grew up together and are extremely close, as the story demonstrates. However it is the cultural social structure of Australia that is fascinating and helps the reader understand the creation of such an outlaw. Australia was a prison colony at a time when England was constantly suppressing the Irish people. Thus many poor rebellious Irishmen and their families came to Australia where English protestant wardens oversaw the pioneer areas, taking sides with the powerful landowning English protestant squatters and suppressing the Irish. Poverty and suppression create certain mental and social conditions that were seen in Australia, in Ireland, and among African Americans in the Southern states. Justice is so elusive when it lies in the hands of the powerful that those without power have to create their own local home-grown justice. Such is the case with Ned Kelly and his family. The narrative shows the development of Ned Kelly's character step by step as he encounters a world where the cards are stacked against him and his people. Carey uses a sentence structure that takes two minutes to master and reflects the way that thoughts cascade from the human mind in clusters of sentences. In this regard he reminded me somewhat of William Faulkner, however Carey is far more easy to read than Faulkner. The characters and events are vivid, the plot moves at a reasonable pace considering the number of years that the story covers. I highly recommend the book. It is full of action but also thoughtful reflection as Kelly is fully cognizant of what he is becoming and the ways he might exploit this notoriety.

Home | Contact  | DMCA