Cirrus@Austlit

'It seems commonplace, in contemporary academia, to stress that our world is undergoing an identity crisis. Finding its way into a wide spectrum of disciplines, the concept of identity becomes the axis around which many far-reaching academic discussions and debates have evolved: globalization and localization, modernity and tradition, gender studies, diaspora, multiculturalism and others. Besides, it’s increasingly common, even in our daily life, to hear identity fumbled for, fretted over 1 and frowned upon, by Chinese employees complaining about corporate culture, by English learners attempting to express what is local in a foreign language, by overseas returnees twice dislodged from a familiar ambience and culture, and by Chinese youngsters reveling in Korean soap operas, Japanese songs and American blockbusters.' (1)

'The word “identity” as we now use it derives from Erik Erikson in his personality theories in the 1950s. But since then, the word has gained enormous popularity ８ across such a wide spectrum of disciplines, each adding nuances, subtleties and specified contexts to the already confusing term, that one doubts if it is ever possible to properly capture “identity” in dictionary definitions ９. Originating in psychoanalytical studies, the term now features in many new disciplines and areas of academic interest, and has become entangled with a number of academic buzzwords such as power, discourse and politics. While most authors don’t bother to define the word at all, some academics do venture their own definitions, most of which, they would add, are applicable only for a particular purpose and in a particular context.' (10-11)

'No other Australian writer, including the Nobel laureate Patrick White, has ever been so enthusiastically praised and so indulgently protected in his early stage of literary creation. In “The Arrival of Thomas Keneally”, probably the first review on Keneally’s works, Max Harris (1965) delivered a lengthy criticism of Australian literary writing in particular and intellectual disposition in general, to be followed by lavish exaltation on and ecstatic hope for young Tom, whose first novel, Harris 19 believed, should win the 1964 Miles Franklin Award. ' (29)

'Keneally’s works and the criticism on them have generated quite a number of controversial issues. In the 1960s and 1970s, challenges were presented in a seemingly gracious manner, constructive in a way in that Keneally later adopted some of the suggestions in his writing and that discussions on subjects deeply imbedded in the Australian imagination were meaningful in themselves. However, since the 1980s and in the 1990s especially, critics no longer associated Keneally with the great “Australian” concerns such as displacement and colonial memory, on the understanding that Keneally was simply too international to be of any “Australian” value, and too commercial to be a focus of highbrow criticism.' (29)

'Taken as a whole, criticism on Thomas Keneally reveals as much about the Australian critical climate and Australian culture as it does the writer himself. A close examination of the critical tendency reveals how the obsessive insistence on “Australian” writing has rendered critics unable and unwilling to probe deeper into the themes of Keneally’s novels, and how critics’ eagerness to establish and define a unique Australian identity has led to their “making and unmaking” of an internationally renowned writer.' (40)

'Despite the wide attention granted to Keneally’s works and activities, there are still deficiencies in Keneally criticism, as summed up in the following. First, critics have given too much unjustifiable attention to the extra-literary aspects of Keneally’s writing, such as what he should write about, how fast he should write and how much he has earned by writing. These issues, hardly relevant to a 40 writer’s achievement, often came to the foreground and even overwhelmed truly critical concerns. ' (45)

Introduction to chapter three.

'To the transported convicts, the first dominant feature of Australia is that it is too far away from the center of civilization. To undergo hardships on the sea with a messianic confidence (as the Pilgrims Fathers of America did) can at least be imagined as self-fulfillment; to be chained and locked in cabins on an eight-month long voyage without any decent purpose at all is totally another thing, disorienting to say the least. “Each on his or her eighteen inches of bed space”, looking out through the portholes of the ship (Keneally 1987a: 18), the convicts know but one thing: it’s a long distance from their home. They’re sent to the “world’s worse end”, as the opening sentence of Keneally’s Bring Larks and Heroes states (1967: 7). ' (59)

'Different from the American Pilgrim Fathers, the early Europeans come to Australia without a dignified purpose. What’s worse, the Australian landscape defies their efforts to find a mission in local context. Everything here is different, alien and unaccountable, thwarting all attempts to subject it to European cognizance and interpretation. Even the most ardent scientist cannot find a proper mode of linguistic expression for the alien landscape, which leads to the disjunction between discourse and place. However, initial efforts are made by early settlers to find themselves a culturally and psychologically sustaining purpose. Self-commissioning takes such various forms as exploration, scientific studies and settlement, all of which are related, in a subtle but tenacious manner, to the British Empire and to their own past. Yet it is easy to put Australian on the map of the world, but it is difficult to subject the new world to the general scheme of the Empire. It simply refuses to be part of it. The wrestling with a troubled identity drives them to missionary activities in the land, which unfortunately further exacerbates the crisis rather than overcoming it, for in doing so, they forsake the sense of belonging “there”, only to find they can hardly belong “here”. ' (69-70)

'Towns are significant in the Australian nation-building process because they mark a new attitude toward the land, and hence a new way of life. If the early convicts are visitors who have no other choice, the immigrants who build the towns in the outback are willing settlers in this new land. Instead of regarding the land as a disorienting and disappointing “hell” they happen to be thrown into, the immigrants tend to look on the bush, the pasture and the farm as a place with new hope and new opportunities. Though they still carry old aesthetic expectations and occasionally lament the strangeness and barrenness of “the outback”, they are far more ready to adapt and of course, to re-create. In this sense, towns are the beginning of really positive and constructive interactions between Australians and their land. ' (77)

'Keneally is not known as a pastoralist or a romanticist. In terms of the Australian land, his uniqueness lies not in picturesque descriptions of the landscape, but in outlining a larger framework in which to consider the Australian sense of place, and in searching for possible communications between man and land, upon which a sound identity, both personal and national, can be established. ' (85)

Introduction to chapter four.

'Past crimes not only cripple, on the national scale, the imagination of early white settlers and therefore that of their descendants, but also penetrate the conscious being of the individual, in the form of ancestor heritage and personal memories. Though no less marked by the sense of guilt and by the interaction between past and present, the 95 latter is more personal and palpable in our concern of identity, and more allegorical and tangible in Keneally’s representations. ' (106)

Introduction to chapter five.

'In the huge corpus of Keneally’s works, there is a group of impressive Aboriginal characters; some are minor ones and others are protagonists. In particular, three novels are noted for their outstanding and substantial portrayal of Aborigines, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith in 1972, The Playmaker in 1987, and Flying Hero Class in 1991. Interestingly, the three stories take place respectively in three important stages of Australian history, one in colonial times in 1789, one in 1901, and one shortly before the dawn of the new millennium. With his sustaining interest in this subject, Keneally tries to present a panoramic view of Aboriginal images with a historical vision. ' (134)

'Keneally never forgets to weave his discussion of the Aboriginal issue into the Anglo search for identity in history, a problem which goes back as early as the beginning of white settlement of Australia. Convicts and the Admiralty soldiers, the earliest settlers on the land, come to Australian “stigmatized”. ' (142)

'The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, like other novels dealing with racial relations, is inevitably interpreted in the Australian political context whereas its theme of cultural colonization is less attended to. In fact, the thematic emphasis of the novel falls on colonization in terms of culture rather than politics, pointing to the dangling state of the colonized and the loss of cultural identity. The significance of Keneally’s representation lies in its attempt to perceive the history of white-black relations by deconstructing such dualisms as white-aborigine, colonizer-colonized and exploitation-revolt. As a cultural “stranger”, the character of Jimmie hints at the possibility of defusing dichotomy and Eurocentrism.' (150-151)