Book Review - 1915: a novel by Roger McDonald

 1915: a novel by Roger McDonald

St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1979             ISBN 0702213756

This book has sold over 100,000 copies since its publication in 1979, it was nominated for the Miles Franklin award, won The Age Book of the Year award, and was made into a television miniseries. It's a book that I've been meaning to read for about twenty years, and have finally got around to it.

And, I have to state, it was a disappointment. The plot is not quite banal, but fairly predictable, the structure is at times confusing, the writing is over-florid for the subject matter, and the characters alternate between unbelievable, unlikeable and unrealised.

The problems in the construction of the novel mainly come with linking the beginning, set in Central New South Wales, to Walter and Billy's time at Gallipoli. The reader is dropped from one place, where Walter and Billy were the main protagonists, straight into the middle of the other, where Billy has disappeared without explanation, and many new characters confusingly appear and are written about as if we the reader should already know about them. It almost feels like a section of the novel has been chopped out. It takes the reader some time to pick up the threads of where the book is going in terms of plot. In fact it's a double blow in some ways, as the first section of the novel does not develop the characters in a way that makes them attractive or even that interesting to the reader. We have Walter the thinker, Billy the doer, Frances the rebel and Diana who wants a normal life, but these traits are put on these characters, rather than coming from within them. They are not quite cardboard cut-outs, but they are not far from it.

Then there is the writing. McDonald is a poet and he has unfortunately used too much of that sensibility in the book, particularly in the parts about Gallipoli. The florid nature of the writing doesn't really fit with the action, or the characters. Quite a few of the metaphors are clumsy, or inappropriate, viz. - " ' We lost half our men,' said Hurst. He studied Walter's face. 'It all happened in a dream, beyond recall.' He sighed, a young man, then shifted on his haunches, glassy eyes searching for a window on sanity with the slick desperation of air bubbles in a spirit level." - when this sort of stuff goes on for a few pages, rather than being carried away, the reader tends to get lost. A rewrite or severe edit would not have been out of place in these sections.

By the end of the book, after things have happened to all of the main protagonists, the reader just doesn't care anymore, which is a sign that the book has failed. I can't even recommend it as an insight into the fighting at Gallipoli, or farm life at the turn of the twentieth century. I keep wondering why it has sold so many copies (it's still in print now). I wonder if people who consider themselves Australian literature buffs feel that they must have a copy on their shelves. Of course the human race is wonderfully varied, and no doubt there are people who love this book. As for me, I'm left thinking that the  Age Book of the Year Award panel must have had slim pickings in 1979...

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell