Beyond The Pale

Thanks to regular commenter Ebony, I have just finished reading Beyond The Pale by John Hooker (1998 Allen & Unwin).

It’s a tough uncompromising look at early colonial life in South West Victoria, just across the border from Mount Gambier.

At the beginning I thought it was set near Wannon Falls at the foot of the Grampians. Later, I realised the setting was Port Fairy, where Hooker lived for many years.

Beyond The Pale describes how an Anglo Irish aristocrat struggles against isolation and hardships in the 1840s to establish a successful farming estate on the edge of civilisation.

For the main character, John Harringon, Australia is an alien land which he dislikes, but seeks to tame.

As the younger son of a financially failed father he was sent to the colonies to make his own way.

He employs Daniel O’Leary, who becomes the farm manager and a lifelong ally, albeit they retain a master-servant relationship.

In Port Victoria (Port Fairy) Harrington has to deal with the merchant James Rutford who owns most of the town and its supplies.

Always prudent, cautious and responsible, Harrington succeeds financially where most others crash. He rarely drinks and remains aloof.

As his father’s fortunes fail, Harrington’s brother Richard, their sister Elizabeth and her husband Clive Davies join him in the new world.

They are all arrogant, flawed individuals who don’t want to be where they end up and struggle to adapt.

Richard Harrington and Davies are drunkards; Elizabeth is frustrated with her life and pretentious; she cavorts with a caddish neighbour Edmund Butler, acquires the pox and goes mad.

Beyond the Pale is a story of displacement, racism and brutality. The Irish are oppressed and they, in turn, oppress the Aborigines.

Unlike some authors, Hooker doesn’t portray the Aborigines as noble savages. They too are shown as having human frailties.

Harrington’s method of adapting to his alien world is to build an English estate, complete with mansion, gardens, a lake and church.

He succeeds, but it’s a constant battle to maintain the property against the climate, pilfering natives, envious rivals, corrupt officials and hostile staff.

A key aspect of the book I felt two thirds through was that no character was decent. Every one of them had a fundamental flaw, some kind of negative trait or vice.

Harrington was snobbish, exploitative and sexually ambiguous.

The ending elevated O’Leary to a more noble status, but earlier it seemed his lack of ambition would be his undoing. Overall he was loyal, persistent and less prone to excesses.

The sense of dislocation and human weakness are constant themes throughout the novel.

Reading this interview with Hooker, who died in 2008, dislocation was one of his favorite themes.

“It’s an uncompromising look at the treachery and racism that underlie Australia’s formation, notes Hooker. He remembers walking “many years ago in the autumnal hills outside Canberra with Manning Clarke who suddenly said: ‘We have no business being here’. He meant we, as Europeans, are in the wrong place. It was an undercurrent in his histories, and it’s echoed in Henry Reynolds’ work, that our presence here is morally defective. And I firmly believe that, that until we face up to our colonial past, we are never going to get it right.”

I think that’s a rather grim view, but I like the way Hooker wrote.

It was also fascinating to read early 19th century descriptions of an area close to my current home.

I’m visiting Port Fairy and Warrnambool tomorrow. I’ll look at both places with a fresh perspective.