Burn

Geordie Williamson says of David Ireland “He has fallen out of fashion and fashion is king in contemporary publishing. His subject matter is not simpatico with today's currents. Now, if he was gay and took drugs instead of being straight and drinking beer, he'd be Christos Tsiolkas [author of The Slap] and a best-seller. Back in the day, though, Tsiolkas wouldn't have got a look in, so there you go.” Susan Lever detects a wider malaise: “Australian literary publishing is in a parlous state. I know several other Miles Franklin winners who have found it difficult to get published in the past five to 10 years. Publishers don't have any incentive to publish novels of ideas because they know they won't sell.”This short novel by David Ireland is beyond literacy critics bemoaning his demise as an author. This book has hardly been talked about period. This, his 4th novel, was published prior to his brilliant Miles Franklin winner The Glass Canoe and a couple of book after the Australian literary classic The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. Let's cut to the chase. I have immersed myself in Irelands work over the last couple of years and other than one specific book that left me cold I have been enthralled. He is a brilliant writer. Geordie Williamson, quoted above, also called him a great proletarian writer. Burn, being ignored, should have made me wary I suppose. Not that good? Falls short? Hah! This is a brilliant novel and as far as I can see it is the subject matter that has led to the sad ignoring of this confronting tale. Gunner McAllister lives on the fringe, he lives in a humpy with his family. And when I say fringe I don't just mean in his shanty I mean as part of white society in small town Australia. Ireland describes Gunner, his family and their hovel. It makes brutal reading. There's a long silence. Early tourists passing at a hundred and ten down the south road slow resentfully to eighty at the sixty sign and speed up the other side of Myoora.Lovey day, the women says. What was that?Where?In the trees?Didn't see anything.Like huts.Maybe it was huts.Oh. They're gone. Wish you didn't go so fast.You want a decent motel tonight don't you?Well, yes. But they looked so romantic, those huts in the trees. Sort of peaceful.You'd curl up and die without air-conditioning sweet heart. Gunner recalls his past. Often. He lives his past. Gunner fought in Bouganville in the 2nd world war, a half caste aboriginal and he was a great shot. Without an hour passing Gunner reminisced. Mayhem could be happening around him, his sons fighting, his daughter getting drunk, his wife dreaming out loud for a life of something other but he does not hear them once he is back in the realms of the best days of his life. Shelling was the end. After the first burst you soon developed a fear of the open ground. Wherever you went you looked for cover. When the tree bursts came, shells that exploded tree height, you'd dive for the nearest hole. Last man in the hole one afternoon in the sunset shelling time and I swear when I looked up I could see ninety percent of the heavens. Out on patrol you had three forward scouts strung out so they couldn't pick y'all off together. Then the section head and the Bren. Then the rest. The nips used to go for the forward scouts. I got my first nip on one of these patrols. Shot him out of a tree. He was still firing.That's when the rifle got me. The beauty of it going off. And the speed of the bullet and the miracle of making something happen because you squeezed a bit of trigger. When it came over me it was like I was the whole of my race, feeling the weight of the last two hundred years lift. The two hundred years we spent stunned. With the slaughter, the poisoned meat, the poisoned waterholes, the sport of hunting when you've got a rifle sighted on someone that hasn't got a rifle sighted on you. It didn't matter who it was. The four of our blokes I got at night. I had nothing against them. They made a noise in the dark, that's all. They expected it. The others never said a word about it; I know they were waiting for me to make a noise and let me have it but I never did. They just got me moved up to forward scout. Gunners boy Gordon comes back after being away at the big smoke. Presents for all. Gunner gets smokes. He likes a drink as well. Gunner takes whatever is on offer. He gets a war pension and as they took his country away he is not going to work either. I risked my life for this country he says. And he got some shrapnel in the head. Released in 1974 this book has passed the test of time. It should be still relevant in today's day and age and should be a challenge readers of Australian literature. How I am the only individual that has read this book in Goodreads is a mystery but then the author has “fallen out of fashion” How convenient.Review of and discussion on this book and the play it morphed from [b:Image in the Clay 5121367 Image in the Clay David Ireland https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png 5188157]