Irene Bobs loves fast driving. Her husband is the best car salesman in southeastern Australia. Together they enter the 1954 Redex Trial, a weeks-long endurance contest of a car race that circles the entire continent. With them is their lanky, fair-haired navigator: deposed quiz show champion and failed schoolteacher Willie Bachhuber. If they win the Redex, the Bobs name alone will get them a … dealership, and Willie will have recharged a life currently ground to a halt. But before any of that might happen, their official strip maps will lead them, without warning, out of the comfortable white Australia they know so well. A breakneck, often hilarious, eye-opening adventure that at the same time reminds us how white people took possession of a timeless culture—the high purpose they invented, and the crimes they committed along the way—A Long Way from Home is Peter Carey’s late-style masterpiece.
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It was an up and down experience reading this book. I loved the voices of the two main characters, Mrs. Bobs and Willie Bachhuber, who each tell the story in the first person in (mostly) alternating chapters. I loved the scenery and the description, and the 1950s setting, but the book as a whole didn’t entirely work for me. Nor did I really get the professed humour.
The author uses the backdrop of the Redex Trial (an extreme saloon car race around Australia) in which Mrs. Bobs, her husband and Willie compete, to explore the appalling treatment of the Aboriginal people by Australia’s white colonialists. After the excitement and tension of the race, the pace of the story slows and we are stuck with Willie in a vicious and claustrophobic world where the indigenous people are maltreated and exploited. The new cast of characters we meet are well-drawn and their story feels authentic. Moreover, I found telling comparisons with the colonial and Apartheid history of South Africa, which was particularly interesting.
A hasty conclusion draws the two strands together, but for me, the story of the racial conflict and oppression would have stood better on its own, without the wrapping of the Redex Trial.
Overall, despite being somewhat disjointed, this was an engaging read, which introduced me to a chunk of history and culture of which I was largely unaware.
This past weekend I got lucky, not lucky that way, but lucky, nonetheless, when I found a new copy of Peter Carey’s novel about a highly improbable circumnavigation of Australia. I was familiar with Carey from The True History of the Kelly Gang, so that and the Booker Prize notation on the cover was enough for me. The story features Mr. and Mrs. Bobs, who plan the trip in hopes of securing a Ford dealership for Mr. B., and a neighbor, Willie Bachhuber, who will navigate. They set off from Bacchus Marsh, apparently somewhere near Melbourne. The terrain over which they drive, while beautifully described, consists of a few navigable roads but mostly paths never intended for auto traffic, so there is lots of repair work along the way. The territory is so remote and primitive that this reader’s “suspension of disbelief” is stretched almost to the breaking point.
Carey’s characters, in addition to the three mentioned, include colorful types such as Doctor Battery, Crowbar, Punka Wallah (aka Tommy Tailor) and others.
The story is told in a series of first person narratives, and I must say I was thrown by a few of them and had to return to the first of the chapter to be sure who was speaking. Also, some of the terminology was daunting. What exactly does “Lochy you bullamen toilet” mean? What’s a humpy? a langa jila, a gunyah? a skerrick? Do the bartenders really require passes (dogtags) before serving up alcohol?
Approx. the first two-thirds of the book concern the race itself (the Redex) and the last third is a voyage of self-discovery by Willie Bachhuber. The story is at times humorous, sometimes poignant and with a strong undercurrent of social consciousness.
On the whole, a delightful read, well worth the struggle with the odd word here and there.
Insightful picture of Australia in mid 20th century, with a glimpse of its troubled racial history, combined with a complex story of a couple who brave the traditional Redex car trial around Australia. Singular characters. I read everything by Peter Carey I can get my hands on!