ellenkushner: (SWORDSPINT)
ellenkushner ([personal profile] ellenkushner) wrote2010-07-02 01:55 pm
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Bony and the White Savage

In preparation for our trip to Australia, I've been reading the "Bony" (Inspector Bonaparte) mid-century mystery novels by Arthur Upfield, lent me by Mr. Henry Wessells of Temporary Culture (& James Cummins Booksellers).

They include such memorable passages as:

"While one counted ten, the sky at zenith above the ridge to the graveyard of the sun was a soiled pink drape, becoming as the wrapping of a five-thousand-year-old-mummy before night came to obliterate the obscenity."
and
"'My old man!  He could do anything with nothing but his sweat.'"

But I must admit my favorite bit is the Times Literary Supplement  quote on the back cover flap, which begins:

"Arthur Upfield has an extraordinary gift.  In many of the most elementary ways, he writes badly; and yet somehow in all his long series of books he conjures up, more vividly perhaps than any other popular writer, the feel of the Australian outback...."

Yep.  Go, TLS - tell it like it is.

[identity profile] nutmeg3.livejournal.com 2010-07-02 06:25 pm (UTC)(link)
LOL! I read a bunch of those books years ago. I really enjoyed them, but it helped to think of them as artifacts as much as novels.

[identity profile] heartofoshun.livejournal.com 2010-07-02 06:27 pm (UTC)(link)
I've read almost all, if not all, of his books and I loved them. That Times Literary Supplement remark is priceless. Excellent execution is always a plus but is never a replacement for lifelessness.

[identity profile] movingfinger.livejournal.com 2010-07-02 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
"'My old man! He could do anything with nothing but his sweat.'"

Authentically Australian, both in sentiment and wording!

[identity profile] chaoticgoodnik.livejournal.com 2010-07-03 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
I'm glad to hear it — I have to say that when I heard it was Australian I immediately thought, "Boy, I hoped it's not Americanized (http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/habo-the-rancher-and-the-vegetarian/)." (Yes — clearly I have been spending my Internet time in all the wrong places.)

[identity profile] movingfinger.livejournal.com 2010-07-03 03:18 am (UTC)(link)
It isn't, AFAIK, an actual catchphrase, but it hits a bunch of the right notes.

[identity profile] threeoutside.livejournal.com 2010-07-02 08:05 pm (UTC)(link)
I loved the Bony books, as well. I found out about them in a Mystery Appreciation course I took one summer.