The Glass Canoe

There is little doubt that this 1976 novel documents a way of life now gone. Remnants remain, of course, especially in smaller, more isolated communities in New Zealand and Australia, but no longer exactly like this.

Having written my rambling review below, I was compelled to return to the start to advise that some of the rambling below could be construed as spoilers.

Through the eyes of Lance, or Meat Man as he is known due to the endowment of a readily guessed part of his anatomy, author David Ireland describes the events in and around The Southern Cross - a pub in a typical Sydney suburban setting. The regulars in the bar, referred to as a tribe feature heavily, as does what I would describe as pub philosophy, where not only Meat Man shares his thoughts on life, but he collects the thoughts of the other regulars. Lance works as a grounds keeper on a nearby golf course, but mostly his life is dedicated to spending time in the pub.

“The next tribe west drank at the Bull, and on the other side the nearest tribe holed up at the Exchange ... you never went walkabout to another tribe's waterhole. Unless there was trouble.”“And now and then, as they drank deeply, they saw in the bottom of the glass, not the face of the man they knew, but the monster within that was waiting and all too willing to be released.”“On hot days we jumped fully clothed into our bottomless beer glasses and pushed off from the shore without a backward look. Heading for the deep where it was dark and cool.”“I went to the bar and got us a small fleet of glass canoes to take us where we wanted to go . I thought of the tribes of Australia, each with its waterhole, its patch or bar, its standing space, its beloved territory.”

The Cross

his Darling

The Cross

“Blackie [the pub dog] let him pass without getting to his feet. You don't fight a three-legged dog.”“The car saw the pub and pulled over to the outside lane. It was ten past six in the morning. ‘Silly old bugger,' I told the car. ‘Won't be open till ten.'““The boxer turned and walked away up the street with great dignity, but not too slowly. Blackie [the pub dog] followed him for perhaps twenty metres, seeing him off his spread, then turned and walked slowly home.In the pub, you saw the same piece of theatre. Down to the harmless look, the no staring, no frowning, the slight cough to indicate weakness and mortality, the shoulders unassumingly slumped, the eyebrows raised to accompany the favour of a beer received from the barmaid, the slow gestures, the looking away, when the locals turned to see who the stranger was in enemy territory, so they got a good look but no confronting examination. And not a word spoken.”