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A review by kcfromaustcrime
The Settlement by Jock Serong
This was a f2f bookclub read which met with a mixed response (I was one on the uncomfortable but worthwhile side of the table).
As always with Serong's writing there were beautiful, lyrical pieces of writing around deeply flawed systems and people. It's a story that needs to be told as well - without the white-washing, without sentimentality, based on some true accounts, and some elements that Serong explains are extrapolated by him.
It's a story about the removal of indigenous people from lutruwita (Tasmania / Van Dieman's Land) for their "protection", sending them to a brutally policed island offshore, a supposedly Christian run place where the white overseers are a combination of brutal, appalling sadists, and people in difficult positions.
It's uncomfortable reading needless to say, distress inducing in places. It's also clearly a story that Serong attributes as belonging to the descendants of the traditional owners of lutruwita and he expresses some obvious discomfort in telling it. Agree with that viewpoint 100% but I hope like hell more of these stories, unvarnished, undecorated, unspun are told.
I hated reading a heap of this book, not because it was unreadable (Serong's too good any author for that), but because this is exactly the sort of past that we should be reading about.
As always with Serong's writing there were beautiful, lyrical pieces of writing around deeply flawed systems and people. It's a story that needs to be told as well - without the white-washing, without sentimentality, based on some true accounts, and some elements that Serong explains are extrapolated by him.
It's a story about the removal of indigenous people from lutruwita (Tasmania / Van Dieman's Land) for their "protection", sending them to a brutally policed island offshore, a supposedly Christian run place where the white overseers are a combination of brutal, appalling sadists, and people in difficult positions.
It's uncomfortable reading needless to say, distress inducing in places. It's also clearly a story that Serong attributes as belonging to the descendants of the traditional owners of lutruwita and he expresses some obvious discomfort in telling it. Agree with that viewpoint 100% but I hope like hell more of these stories, unvarnished, undecorated, unspun are told.
I hated reading a heap of this book, not because it was unreadable (Serong's too good any author for that), but because this is exactly the sort of past that we should be reading about.