y separately published work icon Naked Under Capricorn single work   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 1958... 1958 Naked Under Capricorn
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Davis Marriner had been drawn into the wilderness of the Australian desert by specious tales of easy wealth, only to be robbed and abandoned by his companions. Naked and alone he lay beneath the fierce sun of Capricorn, and there he would have died but for Jeff Edrington, a travelling horse trader, who saved his life and taught him the rudiments of continued survival in this hard and unknown country. Through Edrington and the tribe of Aborigines among whom he later settled, Marriner was floated on a tide that carried him down the years to wealth and influence as the owner of a great cattle station, his name becoming known in the distant cities of the coast as that of an almost legendary figure. This impressive novel vividly illustrates the opening up of central Australia during the first four decades of this century and reflects the same deep concern for primitive peoples in an era of change that was so memorable a feature of Olaf Ruhen's tales of New Guinea, Land of Dahori. (Publisher's blurb).

Adaptations

form y separately published work icon Naked Under Capricorn Peter Yeldham , Nine Network (publisher), ( dir. Rob Stewart ) Australia : Resolution Films Revcom Television Nine Network , 1989 Z1489633 1989 series - publisher film/TV historical fiction

A period drama that focuses on the adventures of Davy Marriner, from being robbed in the desert to teaming up with cattle drover Bluey Dallas.

Notes

  • Dedication: To Bill Harney...good bushman ...good thinker, ...good friend.
  • Author's Foreword (vii).

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       MacDonald ,       1958 .
      Extent: 254p.
    • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
      c
      United States of America (USA),
      c
      Americas,      :       Lippincott ,       1958 .
      Alternative title: Naked Under Capricorn, a Novel
      Extent: 217p.
    • London,
      c
      England,
      c
      c
      United Kingdom (UK),
      c
      Western Europe, Europe,      :       Corgi Books ,       1959 .
      Extent: 253p.
    • North Ryde, Ryde - Gladesville - Hunters Hill area, Northwest Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales,: Eden Paperbacks , 1989 .
      Extent: 254p.
      ISBN: 0207163421 (pbk.)
Alternative title: Under stenbukkens tegn
Language: Danish
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Other Formats

  • Also braille.
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Works about this Work

Race, Romance and Anxiety : A History of Mid-twentieth Century Commercial Fiction Catriona Elder , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Cambridge History of the Australian Novel 2023;
y separately published work icon Dreams and Nightmares of a White Australia : Representing Aboriginal Assimilation in the Mid-Twentieth Century Catriona Elder , Berne : Peter Lang , 2009 Z1613487 2009 multi chapter work criticism
Literature in the Arid Zone Tom Lynch , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007; (p. 70-92) This chapter surveys and assesses from an ecocentric perspective some representative literary portrayals of the Australian deserts. Generally, it contrasts works that portray the desert as an alien, hostile, and undifferentiated void with works that recognise and value the biological particularities of specific desert places. It explores the literature of three dominant cultural orientations to the deserts: pastoralism, mining, and traversal. It concludes with a consideration of several multi-voiced and/or multi-genred bioregionally informed works that suggests fruitful directions for more ecocentric literary approaches. (abstract taken from The Littoral Zone)
Ambivalent Utopias : Representing Colonisation and Assimilation in Naked Under Capricorn Catriona Elder , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 68 2001; (p. 135-143; notes: 240-241) The article explores an aspect of Australian colonialism through a reading of Ruhen's 1957 novel. The novel, 'a sophisticated text that critiques colonialism (as violent, illegitimate and destructive to indigenous cultures)', is, however, also seen as producing 'a story that legitimates, reinforces and justifies the process of colonisation'. Concentrating on two particular scenes at the beginning and the end of the novel respectively, the article is 'an analysis of how colonisation and dispossession are ultimately legitimated in this novel through gendered representations of assimilation and elimination' (135).
y separately published work icon Dreams and Nightmares of a 'White Australia' : The Discourse of Assimilation in Selected Works of Fiction from the 1950s and 1960s Catriona Elder , Canberra : 1999 Z1301412 1999 single work thesis This thesis is an analysis of the production of assimilation discourse, in terms of Aboriginal people's and white people's social relations, in a small selection of popular fiction texts from the 1950s and 1960s. I situate these novels in the broader context of assimilation by also undertaking a reading of three official texts from a slightly earlier period. These texts together produce the ambivalent white Australian story of assimilation. They illuminate some of the key sites of anxiety in assimilation discourses: inter-racial sexual relationships, the white family, and children and young adults of mixed heritage and land ownership. The crux of my argument is that in the 1950s and early 1960s the dominant cultural imagining of Australia was as a white nation. In white discourses of assimilation to fulfil the dream of whiteness, the Aboriginal people - the not-white - had to be included in or eliminated from this imagined white community. Fictional stories of assimilation were a key site for the representation of this process, that is, they produced discourses of 'assimilation colonization'. The focus for this process were Aboriginal people of mixed ancestry, who came to be represented as 'the half-caste' in assimilation discourse. The novels I analyse work as 'conduct books'. They aim to shape white reactions to the inclusion of Aboriginal people, in particular the half-caste, into 'white Australia'. This inclusion, assimilation, was an ambivalent project - both pleasurable and unsettling - pleasurable because it worked to legitimate white colonization (Aboriginal presence as erased) and unsettling because it challenged the idea of a pure 'white Australia'. (Author abstract from Australian Digital Thesis Program)
[Review] Naked Under Capricorn 1958 single work review
— Appears in: The Times Literary Supplement , 30 May 1958; (p. 293)
— Review of Naked Under Capricorn Olaf Ruhen , 1958 single work novel
Message From Never Never Sidney J. Baker , 1958 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 7 June 1958; (p. 13)
— Review of Naked Under Capricorn Olaf Ruhen , 1958 single work novel
Naked Under Capricorn David Rowbotham , 1959 single work review
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 14 1959; (p. 42-43)
— Review of Naked Under Capricorn Olaf Ruhen , 1958 single work novel
[Review] Naked Under Capricorn M. H , 1966 single work review
— Appears in: Advocate: A Weekly Catholic Journal , 5 May 1966; (p. 18)
— Review of Naked Under Capricorn Olaf Ruhen , 1958 single work novel
y separately published work icon Dreams and Nightmares of a 'White Australia' : The Discourse of Assimilation in Selected Works of Fiction from the 1950s and 1960s Catriona Elder , Canberra : 1999 Z1301412 1999 single work thesis This thesis is an analysis of the production of assimilation discourse, in terms of Aboriginal people's and white people's social relations, in a small selection of popular fiction texts from the 1950s and 1960s. I situate these novels in the broader context of assimilation by also undertaking a reading of three official texts from a slightly earlier period. These texts together produce the ambivalent white Australian story of assimilation. They illuminate some of the key sites of anxiety in assimilation discourses: inter-racial sexual relationships, the white family, and children and young adults of mixed heritage and land ownership. The crux of my argument is that in the 1950s and early 1960s the dominant cultural imagining of Australia was as a white nation. In white discourses of assimilation to fulfil the dream of whiteness, the Aboriginal people - the not-white - had to be included in or eliminated from this imagined white community. Fictional stories of assimilation were a key site for the representation of this process, that is, they produced discourses of 'assimilation colonization'. The focus for this process were Aboriginal people of mixed ancestry, who came to be represented as 'the half-caste' in assimilation discourse. The novels I analyse work as 'conduct books'. They aim to shape white reactions to the inclusion of Aboriginal people, in particular the half-caste, into 'white Australia'. This inclusion, assimilation, was an ambivalent project - both pleasurable and unsettling - pleasurable because it worked to legitimate white colonization (Aboriginal presence as erased) and unsettling because it challenged the idea of a pure 'white Australia'. (Author abstract from Australian Digital Thesis Program)
Literature in the Arid Zone Tom Lynch , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Littoral Zone : Australian Contexts and Their Writers 2007; (p. 70-92) This chapter surveys and assesses from an ecocentric perspective some representative literary portrayals of the Australian deserts. Generally, it contrasts works that portray the desert as an alien, hostile, and undifferentiated void with works that recognise and value the biological particularities of specific desert places. It explores the literature of three dominant cultural orientations to the deserts: pastoralism, mining, and traversal. It concludes with a consideration of several multi-voiced and/or multi-genred bioregionally informed works that suggests fruitful directions for more ecocentric literary approaches. (abstract taken from The Littoral Zone)
y separately published work icon Dreams and Nightmares of a White Australia : Representing Aboriginal Assimilation in the Mid-Twentieth Century Catriona Elder , Berne : Peter Lang , 2009 Z1613487 2009 multi chapter work criticism
Functions of Language Elizabeth Swanson , 1989 single work column
— Appears in: The Australian Magazine , 22-23 July 1989; (p. 6)
Ambivalent Utopias : Representing Colonisation and Assimilation in Naked Under Capricorn Catriona Elder , 2001 single work criticism
— Appears in: Journal of Australian Studies , no. 68 2001; (p. 135-143; notes: 240-241) The article explores an aspect of Australian colonialism through a reading of Ruhen's 1957 novel. The novel, 'a sophisticated text that critiques colonialism (as violent, illegitimate and destructive to indigenous cultures)', is, however, also seen as producing 'a story that legitimates, reinforces and justifies the process of colonisation'. Concentrating on two particular scenes at the beginning and the end of the novel respectively, the article is 'an analysis of how colonisation and dispossession are ultimately legitimated in this novel through gendered representations of assimilation and elimination' (135).
VIEW ALL WORKS ABOUT (10)
Last amended 18 Oct 2013 15:52:33
Subjects:
  • Bush,
  • Central Northern Territory, Northern Territory,
Settings:
  • 1900s
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