More on "the Man from Snowy River"

 Ballads... and their contradictions... truth of cruelty and cracks as a story is cracked up to create emotional effect.  What moves us and why?  Can we accept contradictions, not only in the case of the horse, but in the actual telling?  See what you think of this article: 

http://jacketmagazine.com/39/ra-brooks-david-snowy.shtml

I ask David Brooks,  why should we not succumb to "The driving rhythm and the general sound-over-sense sentimentality might have us coast over the top of these lines...

I don't think anyone ignores a horse that has been so gouged by the spurs of his rider that he is — the lines say it — covered with blood, from shoulder to hip.

Indeed, we might say that this is merely expression, epic exaggeration as befits the general quasi-Homeric frame of the poem, but I ask, is this a poem that relies on accuracy of the detail?  How would he suggest recounting the experience? 

Humans are cruel.  Contradictory. There is no doubt of it, reading this poem.  But it is also a ballad that became iconic for myriad reasons, one of which is the very telling of what seems to be an impossible and heroic event.  There is a long history of choosing "heroic action" over rational or compassionate behavior.

-- Kitty Jospé

Please feel free to add comment. 

From Graeme:

The first thing I look for in any written communication is its thesis—what is it about? what is its purpose, what is it trying to do? I read the paper Cracks in the Fray: Re-reading The Man From Snowy River by David Brooks carefully, expecting from its title that it might bring new insights into a poem that I evidently love. I could find no thesis statement, and furthermore was puzzled by a strange jumble of ideas that I didn't at first understand.

My thesis in this letter is that Brooks's document attempts dishonestly to mask its true purpose, which is to promote the author's campaign against cruelty to animals by hiding behind a facade of literary criticism. This harsh judgment may be unfair if the document was published in a journal devoted to animal welfare, and could be understood by readers to further support that cause. The lack of thesis statement, however, makes that unlikely, and the title is suspiciously literary. A very cynical possibility is that it was written to fulfill his requirement, as an assistant professor, to publish annually in his discipline, while still serving his primary interest in animal welfare, as evidenced by his academic profile at the University of Sydney and his Wikipedia entry, which mentions:

"Since then [2013], a long-term vegan, Brooks has devoted his time increasingly to animal advocacy. He and Pribac live in the Blue Mountains, with rescued sheep. In 2016 he published Derrida’s Breakfast, a suite of essays on poetry, philosophy and animals, and early in 2018 he completed the 100 Days Kangaroo Project, one hundred posts in one hundred days, offering a cross-section of the kangaroo in contemporary Australian society."

 

Far be it from me to be so ungenerous. I am certainly not saying that Mr. Brooks's intense love of animals and advocacy for their welfare is any way less than admirable, just that this particular paper seems to have a disturbingly well-hidden sense of purpose.

Brooks does mention that The Man From Snowy River is "perhaps Australia's best-loved poem" but never once does he explain that popularity in terms of the joy reading it, our love for its powerful storytelling, and the the excitement of a cracking yarn that keeps the reader entranced and asking, "and then what happened?" To do so would have been contrary to his desire to show Banjo Paterson up by saying that "Paterson may 'love' horses but, in the interests of a good horse-race, he seems most ready to see them treated with nothing less than savagery by their owners and riders, and indeed to celebrate the fact." There are too many such instances to mention, but in the statement, "But Paterson is a man lost amongst his contradictions, just as a nation which idolises his poetry — and there is no doubt whatsoever of his consummate skill as a balladeer — might be thought to be a little lost amongst its own." I was moved by his arguments, and the many instances of cruelty (incidental rather than deliberate for the most part) that he cites, but I suspect that he chooses not to mention that we Australians (and other nations) had no other choice for transportation and farm work at that time, and that what is now seen as egregious cruelty may have been viewed differently then. My own grandfather was in the Seventh Light Horse Regiment of the Second Light Horse Brigade of mounted infantry in World War I, and historical records show that the Sinai Campaign, in which he took part, saw the death of 640 horses and mules per week on average. It broke his heart that had to shoot his own dearly loved horse at the end of the war, when transporting the horses and mules back to Australia was judged to be out of the question.

Again and again, Brooks demonstrates a single-minded, almost puritanical abhorrence to all the many examples of cruelty to animals, and horses in particular. Perhaps I am being too sensitive, but I felt that his condemnation extended occasionally to the nation of Australia as a whole.

I no longer think that Brooks is an academic wanker. Just that his understandable obsession actually harms the effectiveness of his advocacy.