Manning Clark: A Life

by Brian Matthews

Manning Clark was one of the most influential Australian intellectuals of the last half century. His political pronouncements were often highly provocative and his sweeping judgements, dire denunciations, and oracular prophecies infuriated conservatives and made him a controversial figure. His most enduring legacy, however, was his magisterial six-volume History of Australia. In it he reshaped the now familiar story of a nation's modern evolution; from the First Fleet's arrival, the convicts, the rum rebellion, gold, the sheep's back, Federation, and the glorious defeat at Gallipoli, up to the nation emerging from the Great Depression and on the threshold of a new world war. Within the dramatic narrative, which he envisaged as an epic, are highly original and insightful portraits of its great men with their tragic flaws: Phillip, Macquarie, Burke and Wills, Bligh, Wentworth, and above all Henry Lawson. But behind this ambitious work—with its more than a million words and 25 long, slogging years of research and scholarship—was a man as flawed as the historical figures he was presenting, figures in whose personalities and life events he often saw himself dauntingly mirrored. He was wracked with self-doubt and dogged by fears of failure and personal weakness, he craved forgiveness for the betrayals that stalked and threatened his marriage to Dymphna, and he wrestled with an elusive Christ in whom he longed to have a secure faith. Behind the signature broad hat and the stern unsmiling visage was a tortured man. That is the complex, enigmatic, and thoroughly enthralling Clark who emerges in this remarkable biography by Brian Matthews, whose previous acclaimed memoir of Louise Lawson was judged to be both ground breaking and revolutionary. Manning Clark: A Life draws a compelling portrait of the great historian, who attracted both critics and acolytes alike in equal number. Both sides can expect to be astounded and captivated.

Genres: Biography

450 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Manning Clark was undoubtbly one of Australia's foremost public intellectuals. He was a man though who often saw himself as shallow, grasping and morally questionable. He had a problem with alcohol which he flailed himself unmercifully for nigh on 50 years. He was an aggressive 'two pot screamer' who could not stop drinking once he started. He had one true affair and at least a couple more emotional ones which his wife never forgave him for but whose forgiveness he craved beyond measure.

This book brings the public and private strands of Clark's world together. Because Australia's academic and intellectual realm are quite small by world standards everyone knows everyone else. The author is a friend of Axel Clark one of Manning's sons. To produce this unflinching biography would have been quite brave since it could have so easily been misunderstood. It is no hagiography but it does come down squarely on the side of Manning Clark's importance in Australian intellectual life.

The author uses the private diaries of Clark extensively. Manning Clark's private view is alternately whinging and personally loathing. This is the only criticism I have of the book. Surely a diary is where one would let out the most hurtful ideas about ones predicament? The ones you can't even mention to your wife or lover or dearest friend? The author, by relying so much on this source perhaps the reader does not see Manning as others saw him. He was a gentle, easily offended, generous and a prickly pain in the arse. A contradiction like many of us. His inner torment while interesting is perhaps not the whole story?

There are aspects of his life that I would like made more explicit. Was Manning's ambition and drive stemming from the craving for approval that (he thought) he never got from his wife? The author does not speculate about this because he has no firm proof but he does a fair amount of speculation about Clark working through his own agonies by for instance building Henry Lawson up into an heroic/tragic outcast from the elite establishment, like Clark himself. A little speculation about where the drive to complete such a massive undertaking as Clark's History of Australia is not unwarranted.

To the authors considerable credit this is such an extensive and exhaustively researched book that the reader can draw the lines between the dots of any unanswered questions that may arise.

This is a well written book that is useful not only for anyone who wishes to understand Clark and his work but also for anyone who has a serious interest in Australian intellectual life in the 20th century.