1965, ISBN: cf2ff28deff49f65e81f3a5693c49cc7

London: Reprint Society, 1965. Hardcover. Good/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. This is a very clean copy internally apart from some very minor foxing to the prel… More...

London: Reprint Society, 1965. Hardcover. Good/No Jacket. 8vo - over 7¾ - 9¾" tall. This is a very clean copy internally apart from some very minor foxing to the prelims.. The boards have a little light soiling and a ghost of a sticker. Celebrated Australian novel about two brothers whose lives are moulded by their disparate characters, environment and talents. This semi-autobiographical novel follows the narrator, David Meredith, through his childhood and adolescence in interwar Melbourne through to adulthood and his journalism career during World War II. The novel constantly contrasts him with his older and more "typically Australian", brother, Jack. The book chronicles the life of an average Australian bloke in interwar Australian society. Jack Meredith is a liked and tough man, uneducated but hardworking and decent, who grew up suffering during the Great Depression. His younger brother has a successful and prominent career as journalist, although the narrator's personal life is empty, unlike that of his more physical, less intellectual, more "Aussie" brother Jack. Jack is a post-colonial archetype of Australian men: a type that has largely disappeared from reality with the modernisation of Australia however the image lingers and continues to influence the national psyche. The novel describes the "Aussie bloke" physical, unintellectual and his place in interwar Australian history with affection and a certain respect., Reprint Society, 1965, 2.5<