Bettany's Book

by Thomas Keneally, Tom Keneally

When Sydney film producer Dimp Bettany discovers the memoirs of her ancestors, pioneer settler John Bettany and convict Sarah Bernard, she is convinced she has found the vehicle for her next film masterpiece. Filtered through Dimp's correspondence with her sister, Prim, an aid worker in the Sudan, we are drawn into the lives of John Bettany, a man far ahead of his time, as he shares his vivid impressions of a new colony, and his future wife Sarah and her close relationship with an English murderess.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Australia, Historical, Novels, Literary Fiction

599 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Often published under the name Tom Keneally in Australia.

Life and Career:

Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist, and he was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books.

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List (1993). Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa).

In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject in Our Republic (1993). Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. He made an appearance in the rugby league drama film The Final Winter (2007).

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's Lincoln biography to President Barack Obama as a state gift.

Most recently Thomas Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama, Our Sunburnt Country.

Thomas Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Setting: Sydney, Australia & Sudan (modern day) and NSW, Australia (late 19th century).
Sisters Prim (Primrose) and Dimp (Dimple) grow up as orphans after their parents die in a car crash. Dimp is always the more forward of the pair whereas Prim is more introspective. As Dimp pushes her way forward, becoming a screenwriter and producer, Prim is far more restrained. But, in pursuing her academic studies, Prim becomes involved in an affair with her supervising professor - who goes on to betray her. Reacting to this, Prim joins aid organisation Austfam and is sent to the Sudan to assist their aid efforts, where she really comes into her own....
Then, a friend of Dimp discovers a journal written by Jonathan Bettany, an ancestor of theirs, detailing his journey to Australia, his settling on land beyond the then limits of settlement and his life as a sheep and cattle rancher, including his involvement with the local Aborigine population. The sisters devour the contents of the journal, which Dimp sends to Prim in Sudan - while Prim sees some parallels between the history as recorded by her ancestor and the current conditions she is observing in Sudan, Dimp pursues the difficult task of financing a screen adaptation of the memoir....
Extracts from Jonathan Bettany's journal form an essential part of the book and, to be honest, these sections, telling a story of Australian pastoral settlement were the most interesting bits of the book for me. I didn't feel that the sisters in the modern day particularly came to life for me and the book itself was over-long and a bit of a slog in places. Overall, a 3-star read for me - 7/10.

[John Newcomb · Rating 4 out of 5]

An epic tale spanning continents and centuries. I really enjoy reading Keneally who must be due a nobel prize at some stage. However the subjects are always a little dire. Here we have the eradication of native Australians in the 19th Century mirroring the slavery and ethnic cleansing in end of 20th Century Southern Sudan. But one should not be put off because the over riding humanism and wonderful narrative technique made it very difficult to put down.

[Peter Roe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have liked all of the Keneally books I have read but this one was lacking the usual flair. It was too disjointed. The modern story although compelling based in the Sudan was weak due to a weak central character. The story about New South Wales was strong and could have made the book by itself, but was interrupted by these two sisters who did not engender any sympathetic feelings from me. The people around them did but they did not. Their blandness ruined the book for me, it's only saving grace was the historical journal.

[Ron Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one mammoth of a read, over 700 pages. Keneally is a master story teller and this novel has several concurrent stories. There are two sisters, Prim and Dimp. One is an aid worker in Sudan while the other is an unhappy spouse, come film maker in Sydney. Dimp, the film maker has been given a book about an ancestor who was an early white settler in the south eastern highlands of New South Wales. It is his story that she wants to tell in a film. John Bettany’s life story is an epic itself. One of its themes is the destruction of indigenous people of the region. This story could have been a stand-alone book, but Keneally couples it with a story of a western aid agency working in the Sudan and the poverty, slavery and corruption of that country. This part of the book questions foreign aid and the role of western aide workers in these dysfunctional African countries. Prim escapes a disastrous love affair in Australia and then develops another doomed love affair with a Sudanese doctor.
At times I had to push myself to finish my twelfth Tom Keneally novel. I am glad I did and it confirmed my belief in Keneally as a master story teller.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened on audio, adequately read by Ulli Birvé, who struggled with the pronunciation of some words and couldn’t cope with the Yorkshire glottal stop.
The book is massively long. It is described as an epic but it feels a bit like an author who set off an didn’t know when, or how, to stop.
Two stories, two centuries apart, linked by ancestry and the possibility of creating a film.
Two sisters in Sydney go in totally separate directions: Dimp into film making and an unsatisfactory marriage into wealth;Prim, a principled and naive aid worker to the cultural and political maelstrom of Southern Sudan.
Dimp is given access to historical documents which reveal the history of ancestors at the time of convicts and the incipient sheep farming industry. The Bettany of the title is the son of a convict who establishes a sheep station and goes through many vicissitudes to establish the family which ultimately produces Dimp and Prim.
Common themes are the despoiling of indigenous peoples; and the tensions and challenges of cross- cultural relationships.
Although the book is too long the quality of the writing makes it worth persevering.

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A powerful story crossing 2 periods in history - the settlement of Australia and modern day Sudan. Dimp and Prim sisters but completely different. One outgoing and confident , the other insecure and rather shy. Dimp is handed diaries and letters from their early ancestors and plans to make a movie about it. Prim after a disastrous love affair flees to the Sudan to do relief work with the dispossessed. She gets romantically involved with a local doctor and with the local problems of famine, starvation and slavery in the huge camps of refugees. A grand vista of the beginnings of pastoral life in Australia and the political. moral and social mess in the Sudan.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interconnected tales in this 600-page tome.

Orphaned Australian sisters Prim (for Primrose) and Dimp (for Dimple) are very different creatures, but manage to connect until one of them moves to Sudan after a humiliating affair. One is a film producer and one is an aid worker.

Then, the sister that remained in Australia finds a book written by an ancestor pioneering in New South Wales in the 1840s. John Bettany and his story become a way for the sisters to reconnect with each other and the history of their country.

Bettany's Book is fascinating on its own, but intermingled with Sudan's struggles and the mad dance of film-making it makes a supremely satisfying read.

[Clare Staines · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a while to get through this epic story. I’m a big fan of the author; so kept going and pleased I finished. I found the Sudanese parts the hardest to get through as it felt more like a history book rather than a novel.

[Marni · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting story moving back and forth between 1980's Australia and Sudan and 1800's Australia lives of British convicts sent there and the settlement of the land.

[Dulcie · Rating 3 out of 5]

But so what? A long book Mr Keneally....But what is the point?

[Mike Taverner · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an epic! Spanning time zones and continents it really was three books in one. But I enjoyed the history of sheep farming and development on the Monaro as well as the background on the Sudan

[Doughlas Ivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read but very confusing as scenes shift between the present and the past without any notice. Only more than halfway through the book it starts to make sense.

[Sheryl Walpole · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up on this after 100 pages. Hard to decipher!

[Sammie]

Didn't get more than 50 pages into it. Its not often I give up on a book, and I'm not saying its a bad book. I just don't seem to be able to get into it. I find myself skipping over sentences and skim reading rather than absorbing myself into the narrative like I normally would. Perhaps I'll revisit this another time, but for now it remains one of a very small group of books that I have left unfinished.

I won't rate it, because its unfair to do so having read only a tiny fraction of the whole.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bettany's Book is classic Keneally - long, broad and impossible to categorize (there are books within the book). This novel shows the author of Schindler's Ark again addressing issues of compassion and suffering with great understanding and a compelling sense of period and place. Both rural Australia and the nation of Sudan are vividly brought to life, and the parallels and intricacies that cross between the stories make this story both thought-provoking and intelligent. You'll need time to plow through it all but should be satisfied at the end.

[Paula]

How many books combine Sudan with New South Wales? Well that's what Thomas Keneally does in this book as the narrative time-travels between Jonathan Bettany, who was one of the first white men to stake a claim to a farm in NSW and his descendant Primrose, who works for an NGO in Africa. The book gave me a lot to think about as well as teaching me about two places I have never been, which for me are two of the main criteria for a good read. It might take the length of several flights from Sudan to Australia to read it, but in my opinion the time invested would be worth it.

[Selma Mustapha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although admittedly easier to read than the author's Schindler's Ark (or Schindler's List, depending on which publication), it took me some time to get into the story (and some time to finish reading the book!). I must say that the jumping of scenes between 19th century New South Wales and present-day Sudan did not seem as seamless to me as has been said by others, but nonetheless the book, on the whole, makes for a good read - and a great deal of thinking and reflection.

[Lulu]

I want to like this book but I'm not a fan of letters as a form of narrative and think if an author must use this device then there needs to be a distinct difference between the voices (ie. between the narrative and the letters) and in this case there isn't......but I will persist a little longer!!

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had read it once before and enjoyed it as much the second time around though it took me six weeks to get through it as I've been so busy. Loved the contrast of the three interwoven storylines; colonial Australia, contemporary Sydney and war torn Sudan.

[Tim Corke · Rating 1 out of 5]

150 pages in and I’m still not really sure what’s going on. In get the two environments but there’s nothing actually happening just words and more words. I really enjoyed previous Kenneally books but this one just didn’t excite anything in me.

[Michael Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would struggle to equate another modern writer with the literary ingenuity manifested in this novel.

[Cath · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a while to get into this. I enjoyed the 2 time periods and 3 stories going on at once. Well-written and held the attention. The downside was - 600pages! Just too long.

[Di · Rating 3 out of 5]

felt like I was reading two books not related

[Charlotte Lea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Struggled a bit to get into the dual stories, loved the Australian part more but by the end was totally hooked.