Monday, 2nd December 2002, 2:19pm
An opinion by: Rascal

 

My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin

But while reading the sequel, My Career Goes Bung, I began to get interested. Putting both books together does an excellent service to their author, I think. My Brilliant Career was written in 1898-99, when Miles Franklin was 18 years old. By 1901 it had met caught the public's attention in England, where it was first published, and at home in Australia. My Career Goes Bung was published as a sequel in 1946, after Franklin had established herself in literary and feminst circles in Australia and in Europe.

The groovy and sophisticated thing that the author does with the sequel is to write a kind of deconstructive reflection on the first story - a "what really happened" story. So we meet many of the same characters over the same time period, as well as new characters who believe themselves to be portrayed in the first book.

In this tale, Mother is not quite the mean old bitch described in the original. Instead heroine Sybilla draws strength from her parent's hard edged no-bullshit morality. Neither is Father a weak drunk, but rather a intellectually inclined man, ill-fit for the life of a farmer. In this version of events, Sybilla's fortunes look promising when her novel brings unexpected notoriety. Her family scrapes together a cheap fare to Sydney, so she may take advantage of an invitation, and hopefully further her career. In Sydney she learns first hand about all manner of concepts such as EXPERIENCE, SOCIETY, CONTACT, SUCCESS, INFLUENCE, LOVE and EVENING DRESS (author's caps). Her salty reactions are more developed in this sequel, as are Sybilla's views on women's permitted roles in Australian society at that time:

"He flared into sentiments ignoble before an unsophisticated girl, so defenceless that he could say, 'I'm sorry I can't marry you' to her face without fear of being snubbed.

He said women were a pack of cats, only this was a politer word than he used. I said nothing at all. When the first fury passed he said women had no call to talk about men, that a woman's whole aim in life was to chase some poor devil and to trap him into having to slave for her for ever after. I thought this cowardly inconsistency seeing that women were compelled to marry by nearly all other occupations being closed to them, and by the pressure of public opinion. Men want it both ways like a bully arranging a game."

In the end each book provides a shadow image of the other with the same theme emerging in both: from a background of dust and bush-drudgery through the promise of freedom and glamour... to an appreciation of her unique country, which must include a full complement of dust and drudgery. This double edition seems to be out of print in the USA.

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