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galaheadh's review
I read these two books fairly spaced apart because I read My Brilliant Career for a book club and decided not to read My Career Goes Bung until after we’d had our discussion so that my view of the first book wouldn’t be altered by the second.
I’m glad I made that decision because the second book definitely casts new and interesting light on the first – I highly recommend reading My Career Goes Bung if you read My Brilliant Career, but it was nice to have book club be just about the one book, not both.
They’re a fascinating pair of books for very many reasons: the author and setting, the style of the narrative, the political and feminist outlook, the approach to genre and autobiography – the sheer metafiction of it all.
And the CHAPTER TITLES, good lord. Worth the price of admission on their own.
I’m glad I made that decision because the second book definitely casts new and interesting light on the first – I highly recommend reading My Career Goes Bung if you read My Brilliant Career, but it was nice to have book club be just about the one book, not both.
They’re a fascinating pair of books for very many reasons: the author and setting, the style of the narrative, the political and feminist outlook, the approach to genre and autobiography – the sheer metafiction of it all.
And the CHAPTER TITLES, good lord. Worth the price of admission on their own.
melbsreads's review against another edition
4.0
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.
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.
innerweststreetlibrarian's review against another edition
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...
alanfederman's review against another edition
3.0
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.
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