My Brillant Career & My Career Goes Bung

by Miles Franklin, Elizabeth Webby (Introduction)

Book by Franklin, Miles

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Australia, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Literature

496 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin was born in 1879 in rural New South Wales. My Brilliant Career , her first novel, was published to much excitement and acclaim. She moved to Sydney where she became involved in feminist and literary circles and then onto the United States of America in 1907.

She was committed to the development of a uniquely Australian form of literature, and she actively pursued this goal by supporting writers, literary journals, and organisations of writers. She has had a long-lasting impact on Australian literary life through her endowment of a major literary award known as the Miles Franklin Award.

Reviews

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm well aware that many people find Miles Franklin's work a little slow-going, but My Brilliant Career is one of my absolute favourite novels, and one I've reread several times since my first time as an impressionable teenager. I love the main character, Sybylla, and I've had a massive crush on Harry Beecham for roughly twelve years now. Do read it - it's not the most exciting book, nor the happiest, but it's beautifully written, truly evokes that sunburnt Australia we love to imagine (it's not quite so pleasant to be in - just hot and rather dusty), and it's a novel that has the capacity to really make an impact, even if you're not a naive fourteen-year-old.

[Nerida Hart · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's hard to believe that this novel was written by a young woman in her teens. it's even harder to believe that it was written in the late nineteenth century. So much for Victorian attitudes... Sybylla rages against her parents, shuns marriage in favour of a career, sees class-ism and injustice as it truly is, and at one point questions the existence of God. The result is an entertaining story. Sybylla is a worthy literary sister to Anne of Green Gables, or the March sisters. The story has a little less of the innocence to it, but all of the charm. The description of 1890's Australia are vivid, as are all the people Sybylla meets (and those great Australian geographic names.)

[Jillian]

I think I liked My Career Goes Bung even better than My Brilliant Career, It was fascinating to see the repercussions of the original publication. I think this book seems to be much more autobiographical than the former, and even though it is a bit confusing at first, if you accept "My Brilliant Career" as the fictional autobiography within this fictional novel, it begins to make sense. It was very interesting to see the "society life" of Sydney in the early 1900's, and see how that was contrasted with the depressing nature of the drought engulfing the rest of the country. Sybylla is portrayed as quite a little schemer, but she's a much happier girl in this book, although just as earnest. Funnily enough, we still suffer from dry, dusty, drought conditions in the Riverina, and yes, Sydney is still a much more fun place to be! Amazing how things change, yet still stay the same...

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm usually a strict urban fantasy reader but I had to read this book as part of a course I was doing. I was pleasantly surprised. Definately recommend it.

[K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually finished this one about three weeks ago, and just kept on forgetting to actually review it. Whoops.

So. My Brilliant Career. It's the story of Sybylla, a teenage girl growing up in rural Australia in the 1890s. Her father makes bad decisions and ends up dirt poor. The family try to scrounge a living together, but the drought hits and all the animals start dying. So Sybylla's reasonably rich grandmother takes her off her parents' hands with the hopes of marrying her off or turning her into a governess. But Sybylla wants to do something more with her life, and starts writing about her life.

Sybylla was a FABULOUS character. She's sassy and fiercely independent and often talks in all caps. She'd rather hang out with the shearers and the grooms than with people of her own class. In short, she feels like a teenager struggling her way through a world where she's expected to be an adult already.

It's full of incredible characters and funny moments and amazing writing.

But then I hit My Career Goes Bung. And...it was not good. The basic gist of it is that everything we knew in My Brilliant Career was what Sybylla had written. In My Career Goes Bung, she tells us that huge parts of My Brilliant Career were fictional. There was no Harold Beecham. She had no siblings. Her mother and grandmother were both vastly different characters.

So basically? We had to get to know Sybylla all over again. And I didn't like Writer Sybylla nearly as much as the character she'd apparently created. Especially when she was dumped into an all-new environment with all-new characters.

In summary, I gave the omnibus book 4 stars, but it was more like 4.5 stars for My Brilliant Career and 3 stars for My Career Goes Bung.

[El · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stella Marie Sarah Miles Franklin was only sixteen when she wrote My Brilliant Career, the story of a young girl, Sybylla Melvyn, in Australia in the late 19th--century. Sybylla is a precocious girl with no desire to become her mother, a woman with high expectations and no dreams or desires. Due to Sybylla's father's failing financial situation, she is asked to become an adult earlier than she had anticipated by helping the family by doing labor on their farm and later by being taken to another farm to help raise a gaggle of ingrates.

My Brilliant Career was viewed by Austalians as being an autobiographical story, despite all of Franklin's statements to the contrary. As Sybylla is a wild character, questioning marriage and fidelity and religion, Franklin was widely chastised for her first novel. Years after stopping publication of her own book she wrote My Career Goes Bung, not so much a sequel to My Brilliant Career as a response to the public attention her first novel received.

I enjoyed My Brilliant Career more than I did her later installment. Sybylla is an exceptionally fun character, similar to Anne Shirley of Green Gables fame, in that her dreams were bigger than anyone's expectations could be for her. Sybylla is attracted to art, music and culture, things that were not prevalent in the bush in the late 19th-century. My Career Goes Bung is sassy and entertaining as such, but does not have quite the same magic as Franklin's first.

[Arabelle Carlton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as a 16yr old & felt Sybylla was my kindred spirit. I could relate to the fire burning inside of her. A yearning for something more that not even she could fully articulate. Frustration at the narrow & confining society she found herself & the moments of despair when her own gauche & absurb behaviour failed to measure up. A much loved coming of age tale set in a world of old world homesteads, lively jackroos, Australian drought and uptight Victorian drawrooms.

[Jcamille Wyatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Brilliant Career is a great novel from the early 20th Century. Miles Franklin's second novel, a response to the first is not quite as great. My Brilliant Career is an honest representation of a young girl's feelings about life and her pursuit of a career. The second novel is more of a parody, not quite as honest and fresh as the first.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not so good as the first in the series. Also pretty sure there is a Virago version, which not listed.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Miles Franklin had a runaway success with her first novel
"My Brilliant Career" published in 1901 but after that her
output was sporadic - of her 8 novels (published under her
own name) the last "On Dearborn Street" about her years in
Chicago co-editing a Trade Union magazine, was issued in 1981.
"My Career Goes Bung" was written and ready for publication in
1902 but the sequel to "My Brilliant Career" had her publisher,
George Robertson, running for cover. A thinly disguised account
of Franklin's own introduction to the cream of Sydney society,
most of the characters were easily recognisable and especially her
depiction of "Banjo" Patterson (with whom Miles Franklin was
entangled in an emotional relationship) as the calculatingly
ruthless Goring Hardy.
I picked up "All That Swagger" which won Franklin the 1936 S.H.
Prior Memorial Prize but, honestly, I couldn't get past page 26.
How much more fun was this book - she espouses her views on
everything from the plight of down trodden women to Christ on
the Cross to equal pay - all told in a breezy fluent style.
According to Franklin in this sequel, "My Brilliant Career" was
a "burlesque biography" written as a satire to all those staid
and egotistical books she had read just after leaving school.
It didn't stop her becoming the talk of Possum Gully, being
denounced by the local preacher and even being pursued by the
"catch of the county", Harry Beauchamp who mistakenly thinks she
has set her cap at him because of his similarity to the hero of
her book.
The little "bushie" becomes a celebrity and is feted by the
society matrons when she visits Sydney. Also nice to read
descriptions of Sydney in a more innocent time, when Sybylla
could look out of her bedroom window at the beautiful sunrise
over Circular Quay. At the end of the book you are left to
ponder that 110 years after events in the book, even though
women now have the vote - not much else has changed!!

[Neale · Rating 3 out of 5]

'My Brilliant Career' has not gained, I think, from its reputation as an 'Australian classic', or even from Gillian Anderson's very good film, which launched both her brilliant career, and those of Judy Davis and Sam Neill. The film, in particular, might lead one to expect a relatively serious treatise on the condition of women, bathed in a romantic 'magic hour' outback glow. It doesn't really prepare one for the quirky construction, conversational tone and offbeat humour of the first book, and the positively postmodern, metafictional conceits of the little known and rather wonderful sequel - in which we are informed that the first book (which purported to be an autobiography) was actually the novel that the protagonist was writing at the end, and that we are now being told the real story...

These books don't read like 'classics' - they read like contemporary fiction that just happens to have been written in the past. They are not as 'good' as you might have expected, but they are a lot more fun.

[Alan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had been hailed as a must-read Australian book, so it seemed required reading for my trip. The depictions of the challenges of early Australian rural life were excellent - the heat, the financial struggles, and the harshness of the geography. The narrator at times annoyed me with her self-pity, but after some additional reflection, her honesty is refreshing and only a teenager when she wrote this, she is amazingly self-aware and I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more about late 18th century Australia or the challenges of being an adolescent. Or both.

[Smagoo2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved "My Brilliant Career". ("My Career Goes Bung" seems to be an almost entirely unrelated book, almost a satire, which is being packaged as a "sequal" but isn't and which I put down after reading just a few pages.) I adored the narrator, and the writing - so fresh, compelling and hard to put down. The movie is lovely but the book is even better.

[Karen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can't help but wonder if Margaret Mitchell read this years before she wrote "Gone with the wind." Personalities of Sybylla and Harold remind me of Scarlett and Rhett! I haven't "My Career Goes Bung" yet. I enjoyed this novel thoroughly, but have to take a vacation from the harsh Australian bush!

[Michele Minor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells of one girl's experience in the Australian outback interested in art and literature when no one else in her area is interested in such things, where the women are expected to marry and have babies to forgo any interest in a career instead of a home and husband.

[Kelv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important follow up. Book shows that the failed relationship with Harry Beecham was the best for everyone and that it would all work out. How is happiness found or measured is definitely one for the reader.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still haven't gotten around to My Career Goes Bung, but I mean to read it some day. My Brilliant Career is quiet enjoyable, though the main character can be quite frustrating in her behaviour sometimes, especially as she is the narrator so it's written from her feeling that she's right.

[h. jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book..

was great. I would classify this book in the same realm as Anne of Green Gables. Read this when I was young and felt a kindred connection. Precocious much? Yes!

[Quinne · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorites! Great book and wonderful movie if you can find it. Love, love, love it!

[Sundra]

Ok, I didn't finish it. May someday.....No place to say that I just quit?

[Joanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read for book club at main library. Written by an Australian and published in 1901. These two facts are the most interesting part of the book.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read My career goes bung
Found it amusing...loved the language, so many words we don't use anymore yet describe something exactly.

[Rosemary · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read these a long time ago and loved them. I need to read them again. Australian classics and deserving of the status and so readable and engrossing.

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 5 out of 5]

All-time classic.

[Martin Ramsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is nothing short of remarkable that out of the bloated pomposity of Federation and the pumped up glory of the British Empire and the paranoia of the White Australia policy came the ferociously independent forward looking voice of Miles Franklin. To read 'My Career Goes Bung', her response to the phenomenal success of 'My Brilliant Career', written in 1902, but not published until 1946, is to realise how much ahead of her time Miles Franklin was. She expressed her views so clearly and so forcefully it was a shocking challenge to her mother's (and society's) views about WOMANLINESS. Despite condemning her daughter for speaking without EXPERIENCE, Miles Franklin acknowledges that her Ma was "superb in a real crisis, though irritating in a trivial rumpus" (57).

As well as taking on her mother, Franklin debates the local priest in Possum Gully. He challenges the pity she has for "overburdened women dying worn-out before their time." He argues women need to hear all the children they can to "hold the Yellow Peril at our doors". Enjoying the rare opportunity for a debate the young Franklin retorts, "What a fate, to be driven to a competition in emulation of guinea pigs!" Instead, she argues, "'No woman should be expected to have a big family in addition to drudging at a dozen different trades.' I suggested that the unfortunate Yellow Peril women might be relieved to enter into an alliance with us to stem the swarming business." (67)

No doubt this was the sort of outspoken behaviour that would have offended her mother's views about WOMANLINESS. The Father, however, admires Franklin's spirit and says, "Och, ye're a fine girl, and a beauty to boot. The pity of it ye're not a boy!Then we could make a priest of ye..." (68).

And so it goes... in the words of Miles Franklin, "I can never understand why men are so terrified of women having special talents. They have no consistency in argument. They are as sure as the Rock of Gibraltar that they have all the mental superiority and that women are weak-minded, feeble cronies; then why do they get in such a mad-bull panic at any attempt on the part of women to express themselves?" (129)

[Teagan · Rating 5 out of 5]

My Brilliant Career 5 stars
I'm very familiar with the movie and don't know why I didn't read this novel sooner. I loved it, there is a passion in Sybylla's infuriation at the world that you can take strength from and I felt keenly all her wretchedness and love for life.

My Career Goes Bung 4.5 stars
The synopsis for this novel was completely wrong, which is what threw me at first. The main character is Sybylla Melvyn, but not that same one from the first book. The first Sybylla was fictional and this Sybylla is the author of that novel. My Career Goes Bung is a semi-autobiographical, account of how Miles Franklin dealt with the fame of the first book, as it was written immediately after the first was published in 1902, but not published itself until 1946. It's also a satirical take on the Sydney/Australian literary scene at the time. Once I got in to it and left the first book behind, I really enjoyed it. There are some great paragraphs on women's rights and she was almost as fierce as the first Sybylla.


When My Brilliant Career was published, her popularity stemmed largely from the fact that many considered it her autobiography and thus thought everything including her personality, were as true as the novel. That wasn't the case, as in My Career Goes Bung depicts a Sybylla without the fierce passion and extrovertedness of the first, but one who behaves quietly and demurely and generally keeps her thoughts to herself and can't convince anyone that her first book was fictional.

I thought both books were brilliant and that it's a crime there seems to be no accurate synopses for My Career Goes Bung.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

5 🌟 for My Brilliant Career but only 3 for My Career Goes Bung ... the emphasis on outdated gender politics in the second was too exhausting for me to enjoy it much

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and passionate.

[Joe Sampson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the movie years ago which I enjoyed. "My Brilliant Career" is brilliant; the author has a good sense of humour; she is very observant of people. What is amazing is that it was written by an eighteen year old. I also enjoyed the follow up "My Career Goes Bung". I am looking forward to reading more books by Miles Franklin. She ranks with Jane Austen.

[Courtney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Why are men so disturbed by a woman who escapes their spoliation? Is her refusal to capitulate unendurable to masculine egotism, or is it a symptom of something more fundamental?

Go off Stella Maria Sarah Miles Franklin!

Honestly I find these two books an odd couple. While My Career Goes Bung is a direct sequel to My Brilliant Career, it weirdly undercuts the original in a way that I found odd. But it probably has something to do with the original being speculated to be based on the authors on life, in a way that protagonist Sybylla claims it was not in the sequel. Evident by the tweaking of the cast of characters. Sybylla is suddenly an only child and while her father is still useless and her mother overly critical, he appears to no longer be a raging alcoholic and she doesn't seem to actively hate her own daughter. Or Sybylla admires her more? Who knows. Like I said. It's an odd pairing. Or maybe it just exposes Sybylla as an unreliable narrator. Both are good separately but feel weird paired together. Honestly. I don't even have the language to articulate how they seem to be vastly different books without making it all sound like word salad.

Clearly Miles Franklin was a woman before her time. She ponders questions of the womanly lot that we still ponder today. I think I read somewhere that My Career Goes Bung was rejected at first for being too feminist. Which. Of course.

It takes a minute to get used to the language but Sybylla is an entertaining narrator. Especially in My Brilliant Career with her high emotions, she invokes memories of teenage mood swings while never seeming to make a completely fool of herself. I can imagine that at the time of original publication this would have been a breath of entirely fresh air. A teenage girls experience of early rural Australia.