The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Challenges
Back to History
Non Fiction 5
Chunkster Challenge
I can't believe it took me more than two weeks to read this book. I am so ready for it to be over. Robert Hughes has written an in-depth, extremely well-researched tome about the founding of Australia. Most people know that the continent was used as a penal colony to empty England's over-stuffed prisons and river hulks of its human refuse. Hughes argues the point that most of these people committed petty crimes they were driven to by poor economic conditions. However, a few pages later he presents an opposing view that a large majority of the people transported were habitual criminals, lest Australians become too complacent about their ancestry. There are several incidences in the book where Hughes brings out opposite sides of a situation in a confusing way. I'm sure both sides occurred but I found his presentation on those to be contradictory. Mostly the book portrays the horrific treatment of the prisoners, the aborigines, and some of the free settlers. Australia was not the most welcoming climate and the early convicts, guards and settlers really suffered. The aborigines became completely extinct on the Tasmanian island and were used and abused on the continent. The cruelty, mistreatment, torture, bigotry and inhumanity displayed during the eighty years that transportation was practised were truly appalling. It is certainly not the picture that I had in my mind of Australia and probably a testament to Australians that the country developed into such a unique and inviting culture. I found the book to be very interesting until about halfway through when it seems I just buckled under the burden of it all. Plus Hughes didn't write the book chronologically, more by different locales and issues, which was harder for me to follow. He probably couldn't have covered the whole subject so exhaustively in less than 600 pages, but I sure had a hard time getting to the end of it. I found it easy to draw correlations to the colonization of other countries, especially the mistreatment of African slaves and the Native Americans in the United States. It was pretty disturbing. A hard book to rate because it presents some great insights into world events at that time, the penal system and rehabilitation, and interesting facts about Australia, but it was way too long and difficult to read because of the harsh subject matter.
Rating: 3.5
Posted by Framed at 9:13 PM

4 comments:
Jeane said...
I'm grateful of your review because I just added this one to my TBR after reading Carnivorous Nights. It sounds exhausting and if I do pick it up, I'll probably feel like you did at the end- relieved to have turned the last page! Thanks for the heads-up.
7/02/2008 5:24 AM
Bookfool said...
I've got this one and I admit I'm terrified of it. So, hard reading, eh? I still plan to read it, someday, but man. Not encouraging! :)
7/03/2008 8:54 PM
Candace E. Salima said...
Ugh, sounds like painful read.By the way, I’m arranging virtual book tours for authors Barry K. Phillips, Abel Keogh and Barbara Salsbury. “Caught in the Headlights” is a sartorial look at what we think we want in life but end up with what we really need. I really enjoyed it and it’s by Barry K. Phillips. It has a foreword by Glenn Beck, so you can guess the comedic, yet serious, tone of the book.“Room for Two” is Abel Keogh’s autobiographical account of the suicide of his wife and being the one left behind forced to live. Fantastic book.“Preparedness Principles” is a book which covers the four areas of preparedness: provident living (job loss, illness, etc.), isolation (food available in the next town but you’re not allowed to get to it or even leave your house, natural disaster without utilities for up to 6 to 12 weeks without support, and total destruction where you must flee your home. It is a fantastic book and one which I am using to establish my food storage, one more time.They are all beginning their VBT July 15th and will run through August 15th. Would you be willing to review these books, and if so, please pick a day during that month you’d be willing to review each one? They are all LDS authors, but the books are written for a general market.The only dates currently available are:Caught in the Headlights: July 17, 20-24, 26-27, 29 and August 4-12, 14-15Room for Two: July 17-24, 26-28, and August 3-5, 7-8, 10, 12, 14Preparedness Principles: July 16-23, 26-30 and August 2-5, 10-12If you’re willing to do this please email me your mailing address so that I can have the publisher mail them to you. This is a great way to get free books. I hope you’ll be able to do this.Candace
7/04/2008 8:14 AM
Carrie K said...
A little too even handed. It does sound interesting though and I needed another book for my Amazon click order.....The Hollow Crown I finished last month had a similar what felt a virtually random approach to the subject matter. Lots of interesting bits about the people and the culture but I had a hard time figuring out the timelines.