Yes indeed, 'Herbert's contribution to the arts deserves greater recognition'. That especially applies to Poor Fellow My Country. I have never read a novel that conveys such a complex and illuminating picture of a whole culture. Yet so little has it been valued by the literary establishment that they have allowed it to slip out of print with hardly a murmur!

One reason for this shocking neglect of one of our culture's great novels is that too few critics have understood its use of genre. Northrop Frye, in the Anatomy of Criticism described four genres of prose fiction: ‘anatomy’, ‘confession’, ‘romance’ and ‘novel’ and his descriptionsof each are very helpful if you want to understand how Poor Fellow My Country works.

One problem for many critics has been that the book’s central genre, romance, is undervalued nowadays in comparison with ‘novel’. That is why many critics pay so much attention to Delacy, the ‘novel’ anti-hero, and so little to Prindy, the romance hero. Concentrating not on the symbol and allegory of romance but on the social history and psychology of ‘novel’, such critics fail even to recognise, let alone explore, Prindy’s complex importance in the novel.

A second problem is that the anatomy elements are rarely recognised as valid conventions of a long-established prose fiction genre. Instead, therefore, of being examined for what they achieve and how well they achieve it, the anatomy elements are often described as failed attempts to utilise ‘novel’ conventions and criticised accordingly. The following is typical. ‘Too much of the narration is flat dialogue or prosy exposition. The social anthropology is explained, not dramatised’. The standards applied here are inappropriate to anatomy. It is the ‘novel’ in which, as Frye says, an ‘interest in ideas and theoretical statements is alien’ and the ‘technical problem is to dissolve all theory into personal relationships’. To criticise Poor Fellow My Country for explaining rather than dramatising ideas is to criticise it for selecting the conventions of anatomy over those of ‘novel’.

A fuller explanationt of these ideas can be found in 'A Long and Winding Road' (UWA Press)

I am one of the people who have never read Xavier Herbert even though my grandmother, who lived in the Qld outback, told me once that she knew him and that he was a good author.
I had no idea what his books were about until now although I have looked for them - to no avail - in bookshops from time to time.
Is this a sign of the times?

Now that I have read this article I shall make more of an effort.

Hi Beachflow

Great to hear you're going to track down and read some Xavier books. The two really good novels he wrote were 'Capricornia' and 'Poor Fellow My Country" - his first and his last novels. Probably best to start with 'Capricornia' and then move on to 'Poor Fellow' which is more than double the length!

The only other full length novel he wrote was "Soldiers' Women" which is not worth reading. It's not a good book. So if that is the only one you can find in your local library - give it a miss and keep looking for 'Capricornia' or 'Poor Fellow'! His short stories and his autobiography are also worth avoiding. He only ever wrote two good books - but they really are good.

Happy reading. A friend of mine from Copenhagen recently read 'Capricornia' and told me she thought it was wonderful.