‘I own this here (adj.) country, as fur as the eye can reach’: Reading Realism, 1 Romance and Country in Joseph Furphy’s Such is Life.
Osborne, Roger (2025) ‘I own this here (adj.) country, as fur as the eye can reach’: Reading Realism, 1 Romance and Country in Joseph Furphy’s Such is Life. In: [Realism on Country]. From: Realism on Country, 22-23 May 2025, Wollongong, Australia.
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Abstract
In Australian literary history, Joseph Furphy’s Such is Life (1903) retains a prominent position in arguments about the “great Australian novel” and serves many scholars as a touchstone for discussions about nineteenth century realism and romance. The comedy associated with the narrator Tom Collins’ delusions that he has an “intuition which reads men like sign-boards” is elevated in latter parts of the novel when he confronts Toby, a young Aboriginal stockman. Disguised in a borrowed coat, bell-topper, and shaded glasses, Tom Collins represents a flawed figure whose ability to “see” his surroundings is tested. When Tom mistakenly assumes Toby is of “slave stock”, Toby protests and replies “Why, properly speaking, I own this here (adj.) country, as fur as the eye can reach”. Toby is a minor character in Such is Life, but this sentence encourages further analysis of the depiction of land and landscape in the novel, and the ways in which literary critics have laboured over the distinction without any consideration of the unceded Wiradjuri land on which the novel is set. As a first step towards such analysis, this paper considers the ways in which literary critics have analysed land and landscape in Such is Life and reflects on ways in which this analysis can be both disrupted and enhanced by listening to contemporary Wiradjuri voices.
| Item ID: | 88778 |
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| Item Type: | Conference Item (Abstract / Summary) |
| Copyright Information: | © The author. |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Sep 2025 04:39 |
| FoR Codes: | 47 LANGUAGE, COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE > 4705 Literary studies > 470502 Australian literature (excl. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander literature) @ 100% |
| SEO Codes: | 13 CULTURE AND SOCIETY > 1302 Communication > 130203 Literature @ 100% |
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