From the back cover:

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2001

In a dazzling act of ventriloquism, Peter Carey gives Ned Kelly a voice so wild, passionate and original that it is impossible not to believe that the famous bushranger himself is speaking from beyond the grave.

True History of the Kelly Gang is the song of Australia, and it sings its protest in a voice at once crude and delicate, menacing and heart-wrenching. Carey gives us Ned Kelly as orphan, as Oedipus, as horse thief, farmer, bushranger; reformer, bank-robber, police-killer and, finally, as his country's beloved Robin Hood.

***

I read this 10+ years ago, but I'm afraid I no longer remember my thoughts about the book at the time.

Heading off to new readers. Enjoy!

Received today. Thanks alot! I heard about this one when it first came out, then I read about it again in Eats, Shoots and Leaves, by Lynne Truss as a book that uses no commas. Amazing. I look forward to reading it. In the meantime, I'm about halfway through Silas Marner, by George Eliot

I'm currently reading Martin Luther, by Eric Metaxas, which is a fairly thick volume, so I have lent this to a friend in the interim.

This book is a very unique style of novel. Written as if in Ned Kelly's own hand, complete with colonial Australian slang and grammatical errors (there is not one comma in the whole book, for example), yet still immensely readable, proving C. S. Lewis to be correct in his assertion that 'the Myth does not essentially exist in words at all...

'What really delights and nourishes me is a particular pattern of events, which would equally delight and nourish if it had reached me by some medium which involved no words at all-say by a mime, or a film. And I find this to be true of all such stories.' ( C.S. Lewis, preface to George MacDonald: An Anthology)

Kelly is the most interesting character in Australian history, in my opinion. The book piants a clear picture of the brutality and corruption of late nineteenth century Australia. It also gives a good insight into the English/Irish conflict that was alive and well in the colony, and the Scotch-Irish 'honour culture' which can still be felt today, especially in rural areas. As Australians know, Kelly's story ends in tragedy. He was the last and most famous of the bushrangers, and has become a folk hero, immortalised in paintings (most famously, the series by Sidney Nolan) and songs, sometimes called Australia's Robin Hood. Ultimately, though, his life is an example of the maxim; 'All who will take up the sword, will die by the sword.'

After Ned Kelly, I am diving back into George MacDonald; I'm reading Lilith, after one friend told me it is 'very deep' and another said it's rubbish. I'm intrigued. I couldn't get in on Bookcrossing, so signed it out from our church's library.

After that, I will read Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

Happy travels, Ned Kelly!