Peter Carey s/d

I need to read more. I've only read O&L. On the whole I liked it but my opinion veered between thinking it was one of the best modern novels I'd read and finding its quirkiness rather wearing. The ostensible subject matter puts me off the likes of "Ned Kelly" or "Jack Maggs" so I'll probably try Theft or My Life as a Fake next.

No, do Ned Kelly, it is in every way NOT THE KIND OF BOOK I LIKE but it's an absolute masterpiece.

I agree with Kelly being a masterpiece. IMO that and 'Oscar and Lucinda' are Carey's definitely great books. All his other stuff I've had various problems with.

Loved 'Theft' and really enjoying 'Ned Kelly'.

I liked Theft a lot too, as well as Illywhacker, and I'm really into themes of deception/pretending to be someone you're not so it seems like I should love a lot of his books but I haven't been able to get into most of the other ones I've read.

really shld read more of this guy, he's pretty much my gf's fav living author

Oh duh I just read Parrot and Olivier in America too, and I already forgot. It was OK.

Watching quite mediocre adaptation of Oscar and Lucinda - though it has a great casting and score- and reminded of how much I love this book so very much.

“Our whole faith is a wager, Miss Leplastrier. We bet–it is all in Pascal and very wise it is too…we bet that there is a God. We bet our life on it. We calculate the odds, the return, that we shall sit with the saints in paradise. Our anxiety about our bet will wake us before dawn in a cold sweat. We are out of bed and on our knees, even in the midst of winter. And God sees us, and sees us suffer. And how can this God, a God who sees us at prayer beside our bed…I cannot see,” he said, “that such a God, whose fundamental requirement of us is that we gamble our mortal souls, every second of our temporal existence…It is true! We must gamble every instant of our allotted span. We must stake everything on the unprovable fact of His existence.”

…”That such a God,” said Oscar, “knowing the anguish and the trembling hope with which we wager…That such a God can look unkindly on a chap wagering a few quid on the likelihood of a dumb animal crossing the line first, unless…unless–and no one has ever suggested such a thing to me–it might be considered blasphemy to apply to common pleasure that which is by its very nature divine.”

Thanks, gyac, for your posts, thanks to which I read Oscar and Lucinda. Carey's meticulous reconstruction of this mid-19th century Australia and the secret thoughts of evangelists amazed me, and these days I get restless with latter-day realist fiction.

One of my favourites. I’m glad you liked it. Did you write about it in the books thread?

No, I'm going to.

ned kelly ripped me apart, it was so immersive and raw to me