As it’s Australia Day, I’ll use this as an opportunity to make my contribution towards Australia Literature Month, being hosted over at Reading Matters.
I thought I’d go back and re-read Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang, one of my very favourite books. I’ve loved Peter Carey for a long time, but I’ve never really given much thought to how strongly an idea of Australia comes across in his books. So, to fit Reading Matters’ challenge, I thought I’d read, and read up on, True History of the Kelly Gang through the lens of What does this say about Australian identity? Little did I know what a minefield I was walking into!
The story of Ned Kelly is well-known: the Irish-Australian bushranger considered by some as merely a cop-killing thug, but for others he is a true folk hero. For the latter, Ned is a symbol of Irish-Australian resistance against the Anglo-Australian ruling class, and someone whose violence was justified rebellion against the squalor and oppression he, and his family, faced.
For critic Robert Ross it seems only natural that Peter Carey, undoubtedly one of Australia’s greatest writers, should choose Ned Kelly as the topic of one of his books, for “The History of the Kelly Gang continues Carey's chronicle of Australia's quest for national identity.” The Ned Kelly story is one that is imbedded within the Australian consciousness, like Bradman or The Battle of Gallipoli. By re-telling the Kelly story, Carey gets to put his interpretation on one of the most powerful narratives about who Australians are, and what they stand for. He was clearly aware of what he was doing. In talking about the book, Carey said: “the minute you start messing with a national story you know you are doing something a little risky… and this particular risk was one I had been thinking about for a long, long time.”
It’s pretty clear to any reader which camp Carey stands in. Mostly narrated through Kelly’s words, the book provides a largely sympathetic reading of Kelly’s character and his motives. Kelly is very much the hero of the piece, with the police and the administrators of the colonial judicial system very much the villains.
Kelly and the Irish-Australians come across as the oppressed, the underdogs, with the spirit to rebel against the colonisers and the establishment. This gritty, earthy character myth (whether true or not) is one that seems very much in evidence in the popular portrayal, and indeed self-portrayal, of Australians today, most obviously in the sporting world.
The huge sales of True History of the Kelly Gang in Australia suggests this was a book that tapped into something wider that just literature - this was a great book, a national happening, which was saying something about the country and its people.
The fact that Kelly is someone often seen as purely a mindless killer, particularly by people outside of Australia, only enhances his standing amongst those who see him as a folk hero. So Bill Bryson, only provides a view for Kelly champions to oppose, and with which to harden their own contrary opinions, when he dismisses Kelly as “a murderous thug who deserved to be hanged and was. He came from a family of rough Irish squatters, who made their living by stealing livestock and waylaying innocent passersby. … there wasn't a shred of nobility in his character or deeds. He killed several people, often in cold blood, sometimes for no very good reason.”
Bryson’s angle of criticism is not the only one faced by those who see Kelly’s story as a defining one of Australian identity. The Australian writer John Kinsella says that the True History of the Kelly Gang makes him feel “uncomfortable” because the “fictionalization of the life of Ned Kelly participates in the creation and continuation of so many national myths.” In particular, Kinsella is concerned that Kelly’s myth and Carey's book encourage a type of Australian nationalism that excludes Australians that are not of Anglo-Celtic descent, particularly indigenous and Asian groups.
Whatever the merits of the book purely as a work of fiction - and my view is it’s a work of genius - there’s no doubt that it has stirred up a debate about Kelly’s place in Australia’s national identity. Of course, this place, and this identity, is constantly shifting, and is different in everyone’s eyes, hence the nature of identity. The debate about Kelly myth will go on for centuries, and it will provide a way for all - his champions and his detractors - to define themselves. Carey’s book will now be central to this debate, and Carey has had his say on what Kelly’s legacy should be. Carey has handed the book over to his readers, particularly his Australian readers, and they will be the judge of Kelly and his place in their own identity. As Carey has said of readers’ opinions of the book “They saw it as much as history as literature. But there have been some more sophisticated readings of it, and a good reaction in Australia matters a lot. I have to write for a place, and Australia is my place. Australians read the book in a different way. They are passionately engaged and in the end it is theirs to love or to hate.”
I’d love to hear any opinions anyone has on Carey’s book or Ned Kelly in general - particularly if you’re an Australian!
As ever, a nod to Wikipedia for help with details, and a further nod to Nathanael O’Reilly’s essay on the book and identity.
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