y separately published work icon The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories selected work   novella   short story  
  • Author:agent Tom Collins http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/furphy-joseph
Issue Details: First known date: 1971... 1971 The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories
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Notes

  • Rigby's Romance and The Buln Buln and the Brolga are each based on a single chapter from the original draft of Such is Life.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Adelaide, South Australia,:Rigby , 1971 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
The Buln-Buln and the Brolga, Tom Collins , single work novella

The Buln-buln and the Brolga is a long story that is a revised and expanded version of the second chapter of the original Such is Life. The action takes place in the township of Echuca where the narrator, Tom Collins, is waiting to meet a representative of the firm for which he works. While waiting for his associate to arrive, Collins meets a childhood friend, Fred Falkland-Pritchard, the titular buln-buln or lyrebird, so-called because of his reputation for lying. Tom also meets Barefooted Bob, the titular brolga. The three spend an evening together with Fred's wife, and the two swap yarns. Fred's yarns get taller and taller, but Bob accepts them as the truth, as Fred's wife has done throughout their marriage. Bob tells stories of violent encounters with Aboriginal people on the frontier, delivered with a bluntness that intrigues Mrs Falkland-Pritchard. The story can stand on its own as a study of an individual's perception of reality, specifically the fiction of reality or the reality of fiction. But it retains intriguing links to its original version in the typescript, made even more so by Furphy's methods of transferring sections of text during revision.

(p. 1-105)
Rigby and the Authoress, Joseph Furphy , extract novella (p. 106-124)
Dad's Artillery, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 127-129)
High Art, Tom Collins , single work short story humour (p. 130-138)
The Jeweller's Shop, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 139-146)
The Haunted Tunnel, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 147-152)
A Spec that Failed, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 153-158)
Providence and a Cattle Pup, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 159-160)
My Uncle's Treasure My Uncle's Fortune : A Tale of Loot, Joseph Furphy , single work short story humour (p. 163-173)
James Thorpe, Junior, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 174-178)
A Vignette of Port Phillip, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 179-191)
Worse than a Crime, Tom Collins , single work short story (p. 192-196)
The Discovery of Christmas Reef, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 197-218)
Four Half-Crowns, Joseph Furphy , single work short story (p. 219-225)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Adelaide, South Australia,: Rigby , 1971 .
      Extent: xx, 226p.p.
      Edition info: Seal Australian Fiction.
      Description: illus: port.
      Note/s:
      • Introduced by Kevin Gilding
      ISBN: 0851792324

Works about this Work

New Issues, Old Issues : The Australian Tradition Revisited John McLaren , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 170 2003; (p. 49-56)

McLaren discusses a number of Australian novels (all recently re-issued) which have been central to developing the way in which Australians and foreigners think about white society in this continent. He distinguishes several trends and traditions in describing and characterising Australia's social and political system. Whereas Clarke and Richardson present Australia as a prison, Palmer and Waten present it as a land offering the promise of freedom. Furphy, on the other hand, is seen as a writer 'who shows us a country seeming to offer plentitude but finally withholding its promise' (54).

McLaren concludes that the 'past expressed in these fictions variously produced values of solidarity, egalitarianism, harmony with the land, but their values remain circumscribed by fear of the powerless and the dispossessed, by the arrogance of the powerful, and by distrust of the outsider. Our future will be secure only as we accept continuity with the past, enter into dialogue with the differences of the present, and accept a common responsibility towards the land that supports us' (56).

Time Honoured Peter Pierce , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 7 May vol. 120 no. 6323 2002; (p. 73)

— Review of The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story ; Joseph Furphy : The Legend of a Man and His Book Miles Franklin , Kate Baker , 1944 single work criticism
Disquisitional Joe Brian Matthews , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 240 2002; (p. 45-47)

— Review of Joseph Furphy : The Legend of a Man and His Book Miles Franklin , Kate Baker , 1944 single work criticism ; The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story
The Buln-Buln and the Brolga Cameron Woodhead , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 16 February 2002; (p. 8)

— Review of The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story
y separately published work icon 'Touches of Nature that Make the Whole World Kin' : Furphy, Race and Anxiety Frances Devlin-Glass , Z845816 2000 single work criticism

'What appealed to generations of readers in Furphy can trouble a late twentieth-century reader: its call to nationhood, to one (white and assimilationist) nation; its lack of self-consciousness about what that meant in terms of dispossession of the pre-existing indigenous cultures; its heroicising of the bushman and worker, and its excoriation of the (absentee) capitalist landlord and squatter. This caricature of the rich texture of the novels, in fact, says more about the uses to which Such is Life in particular has been put by nationalist critics than about the novel itself which has retained its canonical status notwithstanding generations of critical misreadings (see Hadgraft) and neglect even by professional readers in Australian literature. This paper analyses one of these areas of contention: Furphy's stand on race, where the narratives locate themselves in the race debates (in particular monogenism and polygenism) and the realities of late nineteenth-century Aboriginal/European relations in Victoria.' (Opening paragraph)

Furphy Again 1949 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 26 January vol. 70 no. 3598 1949; (p. 2)

— Review of The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story
Toxophilia H. J. Oliver , 1950 single work review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 11 no. 1 1950; (p. 44-45)

— Review of The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story
The Buln-Buln and the Brolga Cameron Woodhead , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: The Age , 16 February 2002; (p. 8)

— Review of The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story
Disquisitional Joe Brian Matthews , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , April no. 240 2002; (p. 45-47)

— Review of Joseph Furphy : The Legend of a Man and His Book Miles Franklin , Kate Baker , 1944 single work criticism ; The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story
Time Honoured Peter Pierce , 2002 single work review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 7 May vol. 120 no. 6323 2002; (p. 73)

— Review of The Buln-Buln and the Brolga and Other Stories Tom Collins , 1971 selected work novella short story ; Joseph Furphy : The Legend of a Man and His Book Miles Franklin , Kate Baker , 1944 single work criticism
New Issues, Old Issues : The Australian Tradition Revisited John McLaren , 2003 single work criticism
— Appears in: Overland , Autumn no. 170 2003; (p. 49-56)

McLaren discusses a number of Australian novels (all recently re-issued) which have been central to developing the way in which Australians and foreigners think about white society in this continent. He distinguishes several trends and traditions in describing and characterising Australia's social and political system. Whereas Clarke and Richardson present Australia as a prison, Palmer and Waten present it as a land offering the promise of freedom. Furphy, on the other hand, is seen as a writer 'who shows us a country seeming to offer plentitude but finally withholding its promise' (54).

McLaren concludes that the 'past expressed in these fictions variously produced values of solidarity, egalitarianism, harmony with the land, but their values remain circumscribed by fear of the powerless and the dispossessed, by the arrogance of the powerful, and by distrust of the outsider. Our future will be secure only as we accept continuity with the past, enter into dialogue with the differences of the present, and accept a common responsibility towards the land that supports us' (56).

The Buln-Buln and the Brolga, the Stories, the Poems Julian Croft , 1991 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Life and Opinions of Tom Collins : A Study of the Works of Joseph Furphy 1991; (p. 246-271)
"Who Is She?" : The Image of Woman in the Novels of Joseph Furphy Julian Croft , 1983 single work criticism
— Appears in: Who Is She? 1983; (p. 1-11)
Croft acknowledges two levels of narration in Such is Life: realism and romance. The sexual hypocrisies of the realistic strand are counterpointed by the romantic strand, especially in the story of Molly Cooper. Croft sees Molly Cooper as the hero of Such is Life. While Tom Collins presents the realistic mode, the ideal world in which Molly Cooper is able to be loved despite her disfigurement offers a synthesis witheld from others.
Joseph Furphy, Jacobean K. A. McKenzie , 1966 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Literary Studies , December vol. 2 no. 4 1966; (p. 266-277)
Human Magnetism David Hutchison , 1955 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 16 no. 3 1955; (p. 179)
Last amended 21 Mar 2003 08:58:58
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