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Hunting the Wild Pineapple
Leverson the narrator, at the centre of these stories calls himself a 'people freak'. Seduced by north Queensland's sultry beauty and unique strangeness, he is as fascinated by the invading hordes of misfits from the south as by the old established Queenslanders.Leverson's ironical yet compassionate view makes every story, every incident, a pointed example of human weakness - or strength.
184 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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161 people want to read
About the author
Thea Astley
35 books45 followersThea Astley was one of Australia's most respected and acclaimed novelists. Born in Brisbane in 1925, Astley studied arts at the University of Queensland. She held a position as Fellow in Australian Literature at Macquarie University until 1980, when she retired to write full time. In 1989 she was granted an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Queensland.
She won the Miles Franklin Award four times - in 1962 for The Well Dressed Explorer, in 1965 for The Slow Natives, in 1972 for The Acolyte and in 2000 for Drylands. In 1989 she was award the Patrick White Award. Other awards include 1975 The Age Book of the Year Award for A Kindness Cup, the 1980 James Cook Foundation of Australian Literature Studies Award for Hunting the Wild Pineapple, the 1986 ALS Gold Medal for Beachmasters, the 1988 Steele Rudd Award for It's Raining in Mango, the 1990 NSW Premier's Prize for Reaching Tin River, and the 1996 Age Book of the Year Award and the FAW Australian Unity Award for The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow.
Praise for Thea Astley:
'Beyond all the satire, the wit, the occasional cruelty, and the constant compassion, the unfailing attribute of Astley's work is panache' Australian Book Review
She won the Miles Franklin Award four times - in 1962 for The Well Dressed Explorer, in 1965 for The Slow Natives, in 1972 for The Acolyte and in 2000 for Drylands. In 1989 she was award the Patrick White Award. Other awards include 1975 The Age Book of the Year Award for A Kindness Cup, the 1980 James Cook Foundation of Australian Literature Studies Award for Hunting the Wild Pineapple, the 1986 ALS Gold Medal for Beachmasters, the 1988 Steele Rudd Award for It's Raining in Mango, the 1990 NSW Premier's Prize for Reaching Tin River, and the 1996 Age Book of the Year Award and the FAW Australian Unity Award for The Multiple Effects of Rainshadow.
Praise for Thea Astley:
'Beyond all the satire, the wit, the occasional cruelty, and the constant compassion, the unfailing attribute of Astley's work is panache' Australian Book Review
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 18, 2023
Thea Astley, a Queensland writer, was the winner of four Miles Franklin awards (still more than any other writer) but is barely known outside Australia, and indeed often out of print even there. This collection – short stories which share the same narrator and setting – deals, like a lot of her work, with the tropical and legendary Far North of Queensland, which is so wild and so different from the rest of Australia that (it's suggested here) it ‘should really be a separate state. A separate country?’
In its pages we meet hippy drop-outs, lonely-hearts correspondents, Aboriginal handymen, jungle recluses, hypocritical ecclesiastics and fashionable socialites – a representative cast of Queensland in the 1970s with, always, the landscape threatening to take over: rainstorms, profusions of vines, mountains of fruit, clouds of insects, an atmosphere where ‘the air smelt of river and the river smelt of jungle’.
Astley's characters are beautifully observed, but you discover them through the mannered complications of her prose style, whose ornate contortions are not to everyone's taste (Helen Garner famously can't stand it). In Astley's elaborate, baroque sentences, nouns become verbs, adjectives become nouns, and cliché is avoided so aggressively that one can hardly follow the sense for the newness of its phrasing. A drive through the rainforest, for instance:
Or a description of a pool party:
Her prose is bracing, but we often make out the action through a haze of style. This, I think, is hardly one of her major works, but as a portrait of a very particular time and place, I found it fascinating.
In its pages we meet hippy drop-outs, lonely-hearts correspondents, Aboriginal handymen, jungle recluses, hypocritical ecclesiastics and fashionable socialites – a representative cast of Queensland in the 1970s with, always, the landscape threatening to take over: rainstorms, profusions of vines, mountains of fruit, clouds of insects, an atmosphere where ‘the air smelt of river and the river smelt of jungle’.
Astley's characters are beautifully observed, but you discover them through the mannered complications of her prose style, whose ornate contortions are not to everyone's taste (Helen Garner famously can't stand it). In Astley's elaborate, baroque sentences, nouns become verbs, adjectives become nouns, and cliché is avoided so aggressively that one can hardly follow the sense for the newness of its phrasing. A drive through the rainforest, for instance:
After the climb west from the coast the van took a set of ruts along an old snigging trail heading east again and there came a sense of half-tone as the trees panned out, demobilised finally by a broad clearing on the remote side of which, through groined intervals in the plateau scrub, the sea cried its permanent name.
Or a description of a pool party:
Yet it wasn't a scramble or a plunge now into the baptismal properties of the pool, but rather an out-of-it sidle as people came dripping along the scootway feigning a need to dry out as they slid on a this or that; a yearning for liquor, as they fumbled towels or shirts over bare flesh, until in a short while most of the guests were at least half dressed and some were making time-to-be-going noises over which Bosie quacked with a kind of unhinged bounty.
Her prose is bracing, but we often make out the action through a haze of style. This, I think, is hardly one of her major works, but as a portrait of a very particular time and place, I found it fascinating.
June 19, 2017
This is a marvelous collection, and I cannot believe I’ve lived in Australia for nearly a decade now but not read Thea Astley. I have been missing out. She’s an astonishing writer, in all ways. This set of short stories was published over thirty years ago, but it is fresh and snappy and poignant. I laughed aloud at some parts and got a bit weepy in others.
I cannot seriously recommend any of the stories as better than others, but I do have my favourites: “The Curate Breaker”, “A Northern Belle”, “Ladies Need Only Apply”, and “Write Me, Son, Write Me”. But the other four stories are as beautiful, in their own ways, and “A Man Who’s Tired of Swiper’s Creek is Tired of Living” is one that made my heart catch in my throat. (Before you judge me, read the bit about the elderly lady, far from home and all that is familiar to her, wandering alone and confused on the airstrip tarmac).
A few of the stories invoke elements of the Gothic, akin to what one finds in Jean Rhys’s “The Wide Sargasso Sea”, which I think of as Romantic Gothicism in the West Indies. Also, there’s something about the tone of the narrator, Leverson, whose voice weaves in and out of the stories, as the common thread binding the local characters together, which reminds me vaguely of Tennessee Williams (only straight and Australian, if you can imagine). I see Leverson as someone a bit outside of it all, perhaps in a TW-style elegant white suit and jaunty hat, sipping chilled cocktails and being exceedingly kind and polite, whilst taking mental notes of every passing detail.
In many — or even most — of the stories, there is a sense of isolation and building dread, often due to a felt but not clearly understood menace, and then there are the big and little acts of evil perpetrated by looming characters whom the protagonists are unable to escape — either due to actual or perceived limitations on their own part — and who darken the landscape like an eclipse. I would put two of the most powerful stories in the Tropical Gothic category, for certain: “The Curate Breaker” and “Ladies Need Only Apply”.
(Aside: If you like literary Gothicism — I certainly do — and you want a flavour of how Australian’s handle that, you might enjoy Joan Lindsay’s “Picnic at Hanging Rock”. There are others, I am sure, but that one springs to mind first as outstanding in its ability to evoke all that sense of Gothic creepiness, whilst taking place in the bright sunlight of the Australian bush. Terror in sunlight is an especially clever trick to pull off, I think, when it does not involve crocodiles, snakes, spiders, or the much-maligned-but-mostly-harmless dingo.)
Another feather in Thea Astley’s writing cap is that you cannot predict her — or at least, I could not. She does not necessarily give you the character behaviour, the dialogue, or the endings you expect, but neither does she use cheap tricks to mislead you. She is simply hugely talented and quietly shocking in an era that does not shock easily.
The question I cannot answer, which I would have been able to at one time, is how culturally embedded this book is … by which I mean, do you need to be an Aussie to “get it”? I think not, because the stories are all set in Far North Queensland, which is the tropics, and which is a far cry from the temperate Victorian south, where I live. The people have their own ways up there, just as we do down here, and yet, the stories sing, and go on singing, even to us Southerners.
I cannot seriously recommend any of the stories as better than others, but I do have my favourites: “The Curate Breaker”, “A Northern Belle”, “Ladies Need Only Apply”, and “Write Me, Son, Write Me”. But the other four stories are as beautiful, in their own ways, and “A Man Who’s Tired of Swiper’s Creek is Tired of Living” is one that made my heart catch in my throat. (Before you judge me, read the bit about the elderly lady, far from home and all that is familiar to her, wandering alone and confused on the airstrip tarmac).
A few of the stories invoke elements of the Gothic, akin to what one finds in Jean Rhys’s “The Wide Sargasso Sea”, which I think of as Romantic Gothicism in the West Indies. Also, there’s something about the tone of the narrator, Leverson, whose voice weaves in and out of the stories, as the common thread binding the local characters together, which reminds me vaguely of Tennessee Williams (only straight and Australian, if you can imagine). I see Leverson as someone a bit outside of it all, perhaps in a TW-style elegant white suit and jaunty hat, sipping chilled cocktails and being exceedingly kind and polite, whilst taking mental notes of every passing detail.
In many — or even most — of the stories, there is a sense of isolation and building dread, often due to a felt but not clearly understood menace, and then there are the big and little acts of evil perpetrated by looming characters whom the protagonists are unable to escape — either due to actual or perceived limitations on their own part — and who darken the landscape like an eclipse. I would put two of the most powerful stories in the Tropical Gothic category, for certain: “The Curate Breaker” and “Ladies Need Only Apply”.
(Aside: If you like literary Gothicism — I certainly do — and you want a flavour of how Australian’s handle that, you might enjoy Joan Lindsay’s “Picnic at Hanging Rock”. There are others, I am sure, but that one springs to mind first as outstanding in its ability to evoke all that sense of Gothic creepiness, whilst taking place in the bright sunlight of the Australian bush. Terror in sunlight is an especially clever trick to pull off, I think, when it does not involve crocodiles, snakes, spiders, or the much-maligned-but-mostly-harmless dingo.)
Another feather in Thea Astley’s writing cap is that you cannot predict her — or at least, I could not. She does not necessarily give you the character behaviour, the dialogue, or the endings you expect, but neither does she use cheap tricks to mislead you. She is simply hugely talented and quietly shocking in an era that does not shock easily.
The question I cannot answer, which I would have been able to at one time, is how culturally embedded this book is … by which I mean, do you need to be an Aussie to “get it”? I think not, because the stories are all set in Far North Queensland, which is the tropics, and which is a far cry from the temperate Victorian south, where I live. The people have their own ways up there, just as we do down here, and yet, the stories sing, and go on singing, even to us Southerners.
February 5, 2013
This is the single most amazing book I have ever read. I studied this book for the better part of a year, and was still coming up with new ideas, concepts meanings behind the words that Astley has masterfully sewn into its plot. Even now I'm discovering new allusions, quotes and references. Reading the anthology at face value, you know you're reading something beautiful. Delve a little deeper, attempt to discover Astley greater purpose and you'll realise just how ingenious Astley truly was.
- this is a book that is never finished. You can read it cover to cover and still have missed something. Good luck.
- this is a book that is never finished. You can read it cover to cover and still have missed something. Good luck.
June 28, 2018
Finished: 28.06.2018
Genre: short stories
Rating: C+
#20BooksOfsummer
Conclusion:
Not every book can be a 'home run' for one of
my favorite authors.
Review
Genre: short stories
Rating: C+
#20BooksOfsummer
Conclusion:
Not every book can be a 'home run' for one of
my favorite authors.
Review
August 8, 2020
Let me draw you a little map.’
I am drawn to this collection of Thea Astley short stories because of the title, and because Lisa, at ANZ LitLovers LitBlog, is hosting a Thea Astley week later this month (August 17 to 25, 2020). More information can be found at: https://anzlitlovers.com/thea-astley/
I should admit that while Thea Astley has long been on my reading horizon, I have not previously read any of her work. So, I consulted my local library’s online catalogue and borrowed ‘Hunting the Wild Pineapple’, a collection of short stories published in 1979.
‘Take a patch of coastline and its hinterland, put it just north of twenty and one hundred and forty-six east, make it hot and wet and sprinkle it with people who feel they’ve been forgotten by the rest of the country – and don’t really care.’
There are eight marvellous short stories in this collection, narrated by Leverson:
‘Take a failure, male of middling years, who had already punctured several shiny bubbles.’
And who is missing a leg.
‘Add a name. Leverson.’
What can I tell you about these stories? Can I describe aspects well enough to tempt you to read them? The places you might see, the people you might meet. Would you like to travel to Mango with Leverson and Mrs Crystal Bellamy? Will you wonder about the characters in ‘The Curate Breaker’? Or, like me, will you become caught up in the stories (for there are more than one) in ‘A Northern Belle’?
It is Ms Astley’s descriptions that take me into the stories, lead me to observe people and wonder what might happen next after the writing stops. Are any of these relationships between equals? I keep thinking of ‘A Northern Belle’, but I could equally name ‘Ladies Need Only Apply’. There are images that grab my attention, scenes which have me squirm, people I feel sorry for. And some I detest.
There’s a skill in constructing self-contained narratives as short stories: images are important, and language is critical. Each of the eight stories held my attention: none of them is predictable, each of them has a twist (or two) to make you catch your breath.
So this collection of short stories is my introduction to Thea Astley. I will look, next, for one of her novels.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
I am drawn to this collection of Thea Astley short stories because of the title, and because Lisa, at ANZ LitLovers LitBlog, is hosting a Thea Astley week later this month (August 17 to 25, 2020). More information can be found at: https://anzlitlovers.com/thea-astley/
I should admit that while Thea Astley has long been on my reading horizon, I have not previously read any of her work. So, I consulted my local library’s online catalogue and borrowed ‘Hunting the Wild Pineapple’, a collection of short stories published in 1979.
‘Take a patch of coastline and its hinterland, put it just north of twenty and one hundred and forty-six east, make it hot and wet and sprinkle it with people who feel they’ve been forgotten by the rest of the country – and don’t really care.’
There are eight marvellous short stories in this collection, narrated by Leverson:
‘Take a failure, male of middling years, who had already punctured several shiny bubbles.’
And who is missing a leg.
‘Add a name. Leverson.’
What can I tell you about these stories? Can I describe aspects well enough to tempt you to read them? The places you might see, the people you might meet. Would you like to travel to Mango with Leverson and Mrs Crystal Bellamy? Will you wonder about the characters in ‘The Curate Breaker’? Or, like me, will you become caught up in the stories (for there are more than one) in ‘A Northern Belle’?
It is Ms Astley’s descriptions that take me into the stories, lead me to observe people and wonder what might happen next after the writing stops. Are any of these relationships between equals? I keep thinking of ‘A Northern Belle’, but I could equally name ‘Ladies Need Only Apply’. There are images that grab my attention, scenes which have me squirm, people I feel sorry for. And some I detest.
There’s a skill in constructing self-contained narratives as short stories: images are important, and language is critical. Each of the eight stories held my attention: none of them is predictable, each of them has a twist (or two) to make you catch your breath.
So this collection of short stories is my introduction to Thea Astley. I will look, next, for one of her novels.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
March 23, 2017
Exquisite written series of loosely linked short stories depicting lives of quiet desperation amongst the remote fecundity of far north Queensland. These are a little bit sad, silly and sadistic in turn. I think of art as something with the power and originality to change how I perceive or experience the world and I think this has done that for me.
August 25, 2010
My yearly reading of a Thea Astley work. Choosing the collection of short stories Hunting the Wild Pineapple reminded me of how much I enjoy reading her work. "Ladies only need apply" was the one that stood out for me.
July 1, 2012
One of my all time favourite books. Clever, insightful, dry and sometimes very funny. Astley wields words like a circus knife act and I find myself too terrified to flinch.
October 19, 2010
It's been a while since I've read this, but I remember the feeling of an interesting conflict within the stories. From the cover one might imagine this will be a nice book of short stories about the beach, however I distinctly remember each story containing a seriously dark, disturbing or unsettling element. Some even slipping into the almost surreal.
Though it may not necessarily fall into the nice, light read that someone may be looking for it definitely provided some engaging stories, and a different perception of the so-seeming idyllic region of Tropical Queensland.
Though it may not necessarily fall into the nice, light read that someone may be looking for it definitely provided some engaging stories, and a different perception of the so-seeming idyllic region of Tropical Queensland.
April 16, 2022
PMQ library.
Tried to read this book to gain another dimension of Astley. This book was a series of cameos about 'characters' in the top part of Australia.
Although some characters were interesting, salt of the earth, Far North Queensland types, the book itself seemed disjointed.
Tried to read this book to gain another dimension of Astley. This book was a series of cameos about 'characters' in the top part of Australia.
Although some characters were interesting, salt of the earth, Far North Queensland types, the book itself seemed disjointed.
February 26, 2020
This collection of short stories had sat on my bookshelf for almost a decade, finally gave myself time to read them.
Thea Astley is a titan in Australian Literature. She's won the Miles Franklin multiple times amongst other literary awards.
This collection shimmers with brilliance and eccentricity of The Far North. The characters are diverse and reflected in the one-legged narrator's voice. Some characters are despicable and I wasn't quite sure how to reconcile the amazing writing with awfulness of the story, "Ladies Only Need Apply" comes to mind.
Overall pleased to have read it and will make time for another of her novels hopefully before the year is out.
Thea Astley is a titan in Australian Literature. She's won the Miles Franklin multiple times amongst other literary awards.
This collection shimmers with brilliance and eccentricity of The Far North. The characters are diverse and reflected in the one-legged narrator's voice. Some characters are despicable and I wasn't quite sure how to reconcile the amazing writing with awfulness of the story, "Ladies Only Need Apply" comes to mind.
Overall pleased to have read it and will make time for another of her novels hopefully before the year is out.
January 7, 2024
3.5 A collection of stories that brings together the oddballs and eccentricities of those that choose the tropical north Queensland coast and hinterland as their home. How people become locals and how locals view the tourist interlopers (that are only there for the season), Astley captures this beautifully with her dry humour and wit. She is a fabulous Australian author who writes about working class Australians in a vivid and realistic way. She is particularly good at capturing the nuances of their lives.
February 17, 2021
Another beautiful book by Thea Astley.
This one is a collection of loosely connected short stories across multiple time periods in the Queensland bush.
This one is a collection of loosely connected short stories across multiple time periods in the Queensland bush.
January 15, 2023
Ashley attempts and fails to make the case for Queensland exceptionalism. In reality there is no case and this collection equally makes little sense.
September 23, 2024
Alas. If I’d known this was a collection of short stories I wouldn’t have started.
Enjoyed “The Curate Breaker.” The rest were tedious and trite.
Enjoyed “The Curate Breaker.” The rest were tedious and trite.
Want to read
April 21, 20251981 first edition, different cover
March 28, 2023
3.5 stars?? Someone left a lot of Thea Astley books with me, so I thought I would try one. A 1979 collection of linked short stories from Australia north of Brisbane. This book was a bit of a strange one for me. Maybe you need to be more familiar with this part of Australia? I found some of the stories hard to get into, some odd, some fairly good, but felt a lack of connection. I don’t know that part of Australia or that time (1970s) there either. The writing is quite literary, and I found some of it very pleasing.
April 11, 2017
Thea Astley is my favourite Australian author. This, a collection of loosely-connected short stories all set in Northern Queensland, was the first book of hers I read (in 1982). I have now read it 3 times &, each time, it has moved & amazed me. Her writing is beautiful, she has a deft touch for character, & a subtle approach to the humour & tragedy of humanity. The final lines of Write Me, Son, Write Me are heart-breakingly brutal. She also brings the rain forest to life in such vivid fashion that the sweat will trickle down your temples. For anyone interested in dipping into the work of this late, but great, author Hunting might be a good place to start. Highly recommended, along with (in particular) A Kindness Cup, Descant For Gossips, It's Raining In Mango ... & many more.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews