Kunapipi XXV:2

STEPHEN COWDEN

Colonialism, Nationalism, Modernism: Rethinking Furphy's Such Is Life

'Offensively Australian'

Joseph Furphy completed the first draft of his magnum opus Such Is Life in 1897, and, being unsure where to have it published, submitted the 1,125 pages of hand-written manuscript to the Bulletin magazine, of which he was an inveterate admirer. In a now famous covering letter he wrote to the magazine's editor J.F. Archibald : 'I have just finished writing a full sized novel: title 'Such Is Life'; scene Riverina and northern Vic; temper democratic; bias, offensively Australian' (Barnes and Hoffman 28). These latter phrases have come to be seen as expressive of the 'legendary' nationalist discourse of the 1890s.¹ Though critical attitudes have never endorsed this view unconditionally, the predominant perception of the novel remains that expressed in the blurb on the 1991 Angus and Robertson edition of Such Is Life, which reads:

Here are the real Aussies of the 1880s the bullockies, swagman, squatters and 'foreigners' who eked their existence from a harsh begrudging land. Purporting to be the diary of one Tom Collins, an ex-government official, a bushman and former bullocky with literary leaning and impulse to reminisce, SUCH IS LIFE has come to be regarded as a classic Australian novel, which, perhaps more than any other richly captures the spirit and humour of the legendary characters of the outback. (back cover)

Thus Such Is Life comes to us as part of a body of work that celebrates the emergence of the 'real Aussies'. My essay is an attempt to disrupt this nationalist narrative and to offer some new points of departure on the novel. I begin this by re-reading the debate over the book that took place in the post-War period between the Radical Nationalist critics and the New Critics a debate now seen as largely irrelevant within contemporary Australian literary criticism. My reason for doing this is to suggest that the criticism of 'new times' can still learn a substantial amount from looking at the debates from 'old times'. I then sketch out some new frameworks through which Such Is Life, alongside other works of 'the 1890s', could be reconsidered. The reason for doing this is not just to forward an argument for the continuing relevance of Such Is Life as a work of literature, but also to reveal the novel as one that has as much to tell about Australia's past as it does the present. Instead of seeing this past in terms of a celebratory nationalist narrative, I have sought to locate the novel within the historical conflicts of the period ­ conflicts which revolve around issues of class and