Читать книгу The Buln-Buln and the Brolga - Joseph Furphy - Страница 3

Table of Contents

Rigby's Romance was finished first, and published serially in 1905-6. Furphy then gave his attention to the other story. On 20 June 1905 he wrote that he was "intermittently busy in revising, and re-writing, and largely altering, one of my old neglected yarns, entitled 'The Lyre Bird and the Native Companion'. The N.C. is Barefooted Bob of 'S.I.L', and the L.B., of course, is a fearful and wonderful liar." Bob, who appears in Chapter V of Such is Life, has now been elaborated to such an extent that he shares the title of the book with "The Lyre Bird", Fred Falkland-Pritchard, of whom, apparently, no trace remains in Such is Life.

In his title, Furphy finally chose to substitute the aboriginal names of the two birds which had provided the nicknames for Fred and Bob respectively-the one because of the obvious pun, the other from the tallness and thinness which suggested a physical resemblance to the long-shanked creature; hence The Buln-buln and the Brolga.

Though the year of the events, 1884, is unchanged, the circumstances are different. Here Tom Collins, the narrator, is not, as in Such is Life, a Government official, but, much like Rigby at one time, mechanical expert to an agricultural implement company, stationed at Echuca in Victoria, where the meetings and conversations which make up the story take place.

The book forms a study in character of Fred the liar, set off by Bob the bush-yarner, who can tell tall ones himself. As fabricators they differ in their procedures: Bob apparently works by means of extension of the facts, Fred on the principle of fanciful construction upon a small basis of fact. These two take to each other naturally, Fred finding a credulous listener, Bob a man with the gift of loquacity to admire. Also Fred has, as Collins explains, just the wife to suit him. Collins himself admires Fred, with pure disinterested appreciation of his mastery of his one talent. On her part, Mrs Fred assesses Tom and Bob by the value they place on the object of her adoration; accordingly she thinks highly of Bob, but fails to rate Tom high enough. Not that he cares: as Bob says to him in honest tribute, he is above being forgiven.

From this, from his own recollections of his boyhood, and from the concluding reflection, we learn more about Tom than we do in Such is Life or Rigby's Romance. The last-named touches on his boyhood in reminiscences of his first meeting with Rigby and his early friendship with Steve Thompson, but The Buln-buln and the Brolga gives no fewer than four complete glimpses of Tom, in the company of Steve and Fred, at different stages of his boyhood and adolescence. From these we can almost piece his history together. Then, too, he reveals himself clearly in his attitude throughout-as usual that of the spectator and commentator of life, never interfering in its course-shown in his relation to Bob, then Fred, then Mrs Fred, and all three together; although he modifies that attitude to the extent of attempting to prevail on Bob to stay and spend more time with his new--found friends, who rightly value Bob's admiration of Fred's abilities. At the end Tom makes the more-than-usually negative comment: "And so closes a glimpse, a mere momentary peep, into the vast and ageless volume of human insignificance."

Tom generally sees life as a humorous ironic spectacle: he here views it as also futile.

The characterization of Mrs Fred is subtle. Her appearance is prepared for, then Tom is disappointed of his dubious expectations; instead of wearing "a stern, practical, masterful look", being "sour in temper and repellent in manner, through continual brooding over her grand mistake", she proves to be tall, fair, lithe, graceful, and intellectual-looking. But-the art of it!-she is false-intellectual, pretentious, limited. Our first admiration of her is gradually abated, as she reveals herself; and when she turns against Tom, our sympathy moves quite away from her. She is simply Fred's "yes-woman", with a superficial interest of her own in native ethnology; which, also, draws her to Bob, as bushman.

The technique in presentation of Fred, too, is masterly, Furphy uses recollection, which is started, first by Fred's letter to Tom, later by mention of incidents of their common experience. We have a complete study of Fred from boyhood to his present self-assured manhood. And as a liar he is most convincing: he has all Bobadil's regard for detail, all the coolness, resourcefulness and readiness to explain difficulties in a story that he shows without Munchausen's outrageous imposition on credibility. Surely, as Tom admiringly suggests, Fred is a genius-liar!

The story offers, in sum, just one more glimpse of human insignificance. But, almost glum as that interpretation may seem for a self-styled jester, the book is very amusing, partly through the characterization, partly through the yarns related, partly through Tom's own comments. Before the meeting with Fred, we have an excellent, unintentionally comic self-picture of the bushman in town, drawn by Bob. And there is sheer fun in most of the incidents that demonstrate the accuracy with which Tom perceives himself as he was in his graceless juvenility.

The Buln-buln and the Brolga, in that it fills out the portrayal of Tom, forms an essential-indeed, integral-part of the Collins saga; it is also an addition to the humorous chapters of Such is Life.

Furphy's own typescript, copies of which were kindly lent by his son Mr Samuel Furphy, Dr Lloyd Ross, and Mr E. E. Pescott, has provided the text of this book. For permission to quote from unpublished letters of Furphy in the National Library, Canberra, I thank Mr Kenneth Binns, former Commonwealth Librarian. The publication has enjoyed the usual interest and enthusiasm of Miss Kate Baker, O.B.E., and the ready co-operation of Miss Miles Franklin.

R. G. HOWARTH