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'I’m only telling you this to let you know what a silly thing it is to live like I do. What it was, I got sacked from my seventeenth job for fighting or gambling—I don’t know which—and because I was hardly ever there. I was gambling all right, but someone called me a cheat and swung at me, I moved my head and swung back and this kid went in to one of the bosses with blood coming out of his mouth saying I was a standover man.
'The Chantic Bird is the confession of a teenage anarchist, who combines a contempt for contemporary society with a great tenderness and warmth for his younger siblings and for Bee, the girl who looks after them.
'The first of David Ireland’s masterful novels, The Chantic Bird contains the same characteristic indictment of the bovine mindlessness of collective humanity, and the home-owning wage slaves.
‘It has been my aim to take apart, then build up piece by piece, this mosaic of one kind of human life…to remind my present age of its industrial adolescence.’ David Ireland
'This edition of The Chantic Bird comes with a new introduction by Geordie Williamson.' (Text Classic summary)
Notes
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Also available in sound recording and braille formats.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Ken Kesey, David Ireland and a Portrait of Australian Freedom
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Sydney Studies in English , vol. 37 no. 2011; 'David Ireland's 'The Unknown Industrial Prisoner' was an important novel of its day that has been somewhat forgotten in more recent years. It won the Miles Franklin award in 1971 and created some controversy amongst reviewers regarding its unconventional narrative technique, which had little, if any, Australian precedent. It did, however, have an American precedent in the works of the Beat generation. Foregrounding issues of freedom and individualism, Ireland's novel closely parallels Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1962), not only in its themes but also through its use of metaphors and character studies. Like Kesey's mental hospital, Ireland's Puroil refinery offers an example in microcosm of society's ills. Ireland's obvious use of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' suggests that he found in Kesey's work a certain resonance with the Australian experience. Yet the differences between the two novels are more telling. This article explores the possibility that Ireland intentionally wrote an adaptation of Kesey's novel in order to highlight differences between American and Australian cultural attitudes towards freedom and individualism.' (Author's abstract)
- y Atomic Fiction: The Novels of David Ireland St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1993 Z435693 1993 multi chapter work criticism
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Gerrymander : The Place of Suburbia in Australian Fiction
1990
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin , Spring vol. 49 no. 3 1990; (p. 565-575) Populous Places : Australian Cities and Towns 1992; (p. 19-30) -
[Review] The Chantic Bird
1989
single work
review
— Appears in: The Good Reading Guide 1989; (p. 125)
— Review of The Chantic Bird 1968 single work novel -
Double Agencies : David Ireland
1988
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Liars : Australian New Novelists 1988; (p. 111-137)
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Recent Novels
1968
single work
review
— Appears in: Overland , Summer (1968-1969) no. 40 1968; (p. 39-41)
— Review of Montgomery and I 1968 single work novel ; The Chantic Bird 1968 single work novel ; Three Persons Make a Tiger 1968 single work novel ; Count Your Dead : A Novel of Vietnam 1968 single work novel ; A Boat Load of Home Folk 1968 single work novel ; Tell Morning This 1967 single work novel ; The Wine of God's Anger 1968 single work novel -
[Review] Charco Harbour [and] The Puzzleheaded Girl [and] The Chantic Bird
1968
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June vol. 7 no. 8 1968; (p. 143)
— Review of Charco Harbour : A Novel of Unknown Seas and a Fabled Shore Passaged with Coral Reefs and Magnetical Islands, of Shipwreck and a Lonely Haven -- the True Story of the Last of the Great Navigators, His Bark and the Men in Her 1968 single work novel ; The Puzzleheaded Girl : Four Novellas 1967 selected work novella ; The Chantic Bird 1968 single work novel -
Writer and Reader
1970
single work
review
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 30 no. 1 1970; (p. 70-74)
— Review of A Boat Load of Home Folk 1968 single work novel ; The Chantic Bird 1968 single work novel ; Count Your Dead : A Novel of Vietnam 1968 single work novel ; Where a Man Belongs : A Novel 1969 single work novel ; The Survivor 1969 single work novel -
Angry Rooster
1968
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 6 April vol. 90 no. 4596 1968; (p. 73)
— Review of The Chantic Bird 1968 single work novel -
[Review] The Chantic Bird
1989
single work
review
— Appears in: The Good Reading Guide 1989; (p. 125)
— Review of The Chantic Bird 1968 single work novel -
Butterflies Flew Free : David Ireland's Australia
1984
single work
criticism
— Appears in: True North/Down Under , no. 2 1984; (p. 75-86) -
Ken Kesey, David Ireland and a Portrait of Australian Freedom
2011
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Sydney Studies in English , vol. 37 no. 2011; 'David Ireland's 'The Unknown Industrial Prisoner' was an important novel of its day that has been somewhat forgotten in more recent years. It won the Miles Franklin award in 1971 and created some controversy amongst reviewers regarding its unconventional narrative technique, which had little, if any, Australian precedent. It did, however, have an American precedent in the works of the Beat generation. Foregrounding issues of freedom and individualism, Ireland's novel closely parallels Ken Kesey's 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (1962), not only in its themes but also through its use of metaphors and character studies. Like Kesey's mental hospital, Ireland's Puroil refinery offers an example in microcosm of society's ills. Ireland's obvious use of 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' suggests that he found in Kesey's work a certain resonance with the Australian experience. Yet the differences between the two novels are more telling. This article explores the possibility that Ireland intentionally wrote an adaptation of Kesey's novel in order to highlight differences between American and Australian cultural attitudes towards freedom and individualism.' (Author's abstract)
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The Picaresque Mode in Contemporary Australian Fiction
1978
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , September vol. 38 no. 3 1978; (p. 282-293) -
Paranoia as a Way of Life
1982
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Quadrant , January-February vol. 26 no. 1-2 1982; (p. 96-103) -
Disconnecting Reality
1982
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Age Monthly Review , vol. 2 no. 2 1982; (p. 11-12)
Awards
- Sydney, New South Wales,