Such is Life.
Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2012 2:06 pm
Retracing the footsteps of Joseph Furphy
By Cathy Pryor- ABC Rural, Tuesday, 20 March 2012
It is 100 years since the death of Joseph Furphy, author of Australian classic 'Such is Life'.
The book's popularity has waxed and waned since it was first published in 1903, but it remains an important record of what life was like in the Riverina district of NSW in the late 1800s.
Purporting to be the diary entries of Tom Collins, a fictional character who worked for the Lands Department checking on the upkeep of pastoral leases, the novel explores the often tense relations between the bullock teams and the pastoralists for whom they worked.
This weekend a group of Joseph Furphy enthusiasts is embarking on a trip through some of the places that were fictionalised in the novel.
Ironically, although the book was set in 1883 during a year of drought, some of the locations are now in flood, an illustration of how harsh this part of the country can be.
In the late 1800s, bullock teams would often be on the road for three months at a time, carting wool bales to the railway heads where they would be taken to market.
***
"Them were the days"
Now we have to put barricades along each side and 'fencing' in the middle to keep 'em apart.
Do we really have 'bad' roads or obviously, dangerous drivers ?
Jim.
By Cathy Pryor- ABC Rural, Tuesday, 20 March 2012
It is 100 years since the death of Joseph Furphy, author of Australian classic 'Such is Life'.
The book's popularity has waxed and waned since it was first published in 1903, but it remains an important record of what life was like in the Riverina district of NSW in the late 1800s.
Purporting to be the diary entries of Tom Collins, a fictional character who worked for the Lands Department checking on the upkeep of pastoral leases, the novel explores the often tense relations between the bullock teams and the pastoralists for whom they worked.
This weekend a group of Joseph Furphy enthusiasts is embarking on a trip through some of the places that were fictionalised in the novel.
Ironically, although the book was set in 1883 during a year of drought, some of the locations are now in flood, an illustration of how harsh this part of the country can be.
In the late 1800s, bullock teams would often be on the road for three months at a time, carting wool bales to the railway heads where they would be taken to market.
***
"Them were the days"
Now we have to put barricades along each side and 'fencing' in the middle to keep 'em apart.
Do we really have 'bad' roads or obviously, dangerous drivers ?
Jim.