Illywhacker in Aussie Readers

Nov 17, 2008 Tracey rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, australian, 2009

Okay, I enjoyed this book, I liked the characters but as read further into the novel, I found myself wanting more of Herbert Badgery's story. About three quarters of the way, I get bogged into a whole heap of characters that I neither cared about or want to know. I was intrigued by Herbert and I found this massive slab of his story just disappeared as I was taken along to the story about his son and then grandson.
Parts of the book moved into the surreal with people living in cages and just deca ...more

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Feb 16, 2016 David James rated it liked it

Carey, Peter. Illywhacker

From the outset the reader is aware that he is being led on by a con-man, for Carey makes it plain on the cover that his narrator, Herbert Badgery ‘is a terrible liar and always has been.’ Moreover in the novel’s epigraph Carey cites dictionary definitions of the Australian word ‘Illywhacker’ indicating its meaning as variously ‘professional trickster,’ ‘trickster or spieler,’ ‘one who wacks the illy,’ ‘peter tickler’ and ‘eeler spee.’ So the book craves wary walking. T
Carey, Peter. Illywhacker

From the outset the reader is aware that he is being led on by a con-man, for Carey makes it plain on the cover that his narrator, Herbert Badgery ‘is a terrible liar and always has been.’ Moreover in the novel’s epigraph Carey cites dictionary definitions of the Australian word ‘Illywhacker’ indicating its meaning as variously ‘professional trickster,’ ‘trickster or spieler,’ ‘one who wacks the illy,’ ‘peter tickler’ and ‘eeler spee.’ So the book craves wary walking. The reader is at once seduced into the world of Herbert Badgery, a man aged139 who is famous for being a physical wreck. Strangely one more or less believes him, especially when he speaks of his internal workings, which leaves him ‘like some old squid lying on the beach.’ He tells us ‘I didn’t read a book until an age when most men are going blind.’ By the time he was in Rankin Downs gaol he was known as ‘The Professor.’

I picked up this book in Poundland. It was the solitary copy, lonely on a shelf of random leftovers. The back cover was bent and from the front one a grizzled old man, face spotted with old age warts stared out at me. After a one-page apologia we are plunged into the world of 1919 Geelong, an Australian resort on its beam ends, where we meet Annette Davidson, a disgruntled teacher and Phoebe, one of her pupils, a sulky girl, who gets excited only when, seeing an aeroplane gliding towards her - ‘my aeroplane,’ according to the narrator - and her parents Jack and Molly McGrath. From then on Herbert becomes our guide, though often disappearing into the sidelines. We soon forget that he is an old man, his time in gaol is skimped and his son Charles becomes the main focus. It’s not ‘his story’ after all but a potted history of Australia, told by an aggrieved survivor. I was reminded of Carey’s later novels through which I’d struggled many years ago.

This is a densely packed book, moving through various cities (Ballarat, Sydney, Geelong), with swarms of characters, some having just walk-on parts. The chapters are short, the scenes curtailed, and the book lacks focus. Badgery appears and disappears, leaving many unanswered questions, such as Is Charles’s ‘Best Petshop in the World’ a reality? Is his wife Emma mad? Was he tricked into marrying her? And the teasing ultimate question of course: Is it Badgery or Carey who’s in charge of the narrative?
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