George Henry Johnston (1912–1970)

Put this one on your must read Classics list.
This book is really a memoir of the author (David Meredith) who just happens to admire his older brother Jack as he is the total opposite of himself. It takes place in Melbourne Australia between the 2 wars. It starts with his parents returning from the 1st World War, when the 2 boys are very young. It gives us a fantastic insight into the impact the War had on peoples lives and how they dealt with it, and how Australian society developed from it, through the roaring twenties and the Depression and into the 2nd World War. Jack is the quintiseential Aussie like his parents and their cohorts while David is quiet, reserved and out of place in that working-class suburban Melbourne world. Yet it is David that grows up to fill a space in society far greater than most people can imagine for themselves while Jack, the lively one, the adaptable one, the one in tune with his environment, never grows out of that environment.

The greatness of this book is its sheer honesty, and the honesty of the author. It portrays an Australian society that is violent, racist and sexist to levels that are embarrassing to admit today. It shows how characters react to what is happening around them and from these pieces build their lives. In this environment characters can be both kind and caring and at the same time rough and self-centred. Jack seems to blend all these elements into a rather balanced personality, but David admits early in the book, he is not a nice person - by the end of the book you have to agree with him.

My Brother Jack is the first of a trilogy which basically is a memoir of the author's life. The other books are Clean Straw for Nothing, and, A Cartload of Clay.… (plus d'informations)

Interesting. I'm glad I've read it, but I certainly have no desire to keep a copy on my shelves and re-read it later. Almost always described as an Australian Classic - it is unambiguously Australian, but I'm not sure what makes it a "classic"? I don't know enough literary history to place it in the context of other Australian books, but I'm guessing that it was among the earlier books to be unashamedly about the real lives of people who identify themselves as "Australian", and I suppose it was our involvement in the World Wars which was so important in shaping that identity. As such, I found it worthwhile to look back on what sort of society my parents and grandparents grew up in and how that might have made them into the people they were, and hence made me. My own personal family history is strongly linked to characters from this period and so it's good to get a different view on that part of our history. I found myself identifying quite closely with the narrator David, but the character of his brother Jack remains a complete mystery to me. I think maybe that's the point of the story?....to challenge the "Jack"s in our society?? Hmmmm...I think I'm out of my depth here, not being the analytical, intellectual type.… (plus d'informations)

This final of Johnston’s Meredity trilogy is not as brilliant as the first, My Brother Jack, nor as scattered as the second, Clean Straw for Nothing. Johnston died before A Cartload of Clay was published. Clean Straw reads as if thrown together from notes and partially complete chapters; Cartload reads as incomplete, which by all accounts it is. My Brother Jack may well qualify as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century. Other than a handful of short stories, these are the only Johnston works I have read.

The historic value of Cartload is twofold: first, as a likely biographical account of his reaction to his wife’s suicide and his own impending death and, second, as a beautifully written account of the changing face of 1970s Mosman, the Sydney suburb where Johnston lived out his last days.

Johnston’s metaphors are rich and unique, a good enough reason to read even his most lacking pieces, particularly if you are an aspiring writer seeking out silent teachers in the works of other writers. Unfortunately, My Brother Jack was his only success at storytelling. I consider Cartload of Clay somewhat of a post script to the other two -- not a work that stands on its own, but a needed completion to the story begun by the first two books. My Brother Jack belongs to world literature. Johnston’s other writings belong to his fans, his biographer and, not least, to his countrymen.… (plus d'informations)