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A review by ruthiella
My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin
4.0
I was reminded of Louisa Mae Alcott while reading this book. The two authors, neither of whom ever married, are best known for one semi-autobiographical novel which eclipsed their other efforts. Both women were also early feminists and wrote some of their work under male pseudonyms. Also, in both My Brilliant Career as in Little Women, there is a romantic element that will probably frustrate many readers since it defies conventional expectations. It did frustrate me!
It’s hard to say, since I knew going in that Franklin wrote this book as a very young woman, but I think it is evident it was written by a young adult. There is quite a lot of teenage angst, mood swings and emotive language. The story is of Sybylla who at age 16 is sent from her father’s unsuccessful dairy farm to her maternal grandmother’s home. Her life with her family in Possums Gully is a grind where the children work long hours only to see their father drink away any profits the farm makes. On the other hand, at her grandmother’s, where her mother grew up, life is fairly cultured and lively which Sybylla soaks up like a sponge, so starved was she for books and music and company.
Sybylla is a great heroine, even though the reader will want to shake her more than once. She is, however, in her wish to live a life beholden to no man but completely on her own terms, a very modern heroine and one to be admired. Also, the book is very much worth reading for Franklin’s loving descriptions of the Australian landscape.
I wish I could have read an annotated version so I could have more easily accessed the Australian English in the book like jackaroo, cockie or bobberie.
It’s hard to say, since I knew going in that Franklin wrote this book as a very young woman, but I think it is evident it was written by a young adult. There is quite a lot of teenage angst, mood swings and emotive language. The story is of Sybylla who at age 16 is sent from her father’s unsuccessful dairy farm to her maternal grandmother’s home. Her life with her family in Possums Gully is a grind where the children work long hours only to see their father drink away any profits the farm makes. On the other hand, at her grandmother’s, where her mother grew up, life is fairly cultured and lively which Sybylla soaks up like a sponge, so starved was she for books and music and company.
Sybylla is a great heroine, even though the reader will want to shake her more than once. She is, however, in her wish to live a life beholden to no man but completely on her own terms, a very modern heroine and one to be admired. Also, the book is very much worth reading for Franklin’s loving descriptions of the Australian landscape.
I wish I could have read an annotated version so I could have more easily accessed the Australian English in the book like jackaroo, cockie or bobberie.