I’ve just discovered what a yabby* is.
I’ve been reading Illywhacker (good title, don’t you think?), one of Peter Carey’s earlier novels. Brimming with Australian flora, fauna and psyche, it tells the tale of Herbert Badgery: aviator, jailbird, teller of tall tales and patriarch (of sorts).
Cheating before sitting down to nut out my own thoughts about it, I did a bit of a Google search (because I love finding out what a book’s about after I’ve read it…). Apparently it’s about the Australian national character. Yeah, I guess. But I kind of think it’s also about writing and the writer as ‘illywhacker’ (a trickster or con-man).
It’s not just Herbert Badgery who spins a good yarn and whose narrative you’re never sure you can believe. It’s not just his family who put themselves in cages for the public to gawk at. It’s Peter Carey, puppet master, ultimate illywhacker…
Too much? Okay well then. In case you’re interested it’s a neato book. Step up, take a look. Ladies and gentlemen, in the pages of this outlandish yarn you’ll find everything you ever dreamed possible. Perhaps more… disappearing Chinamen, electric chastity belts, outback-dwelling lesbians, the marvellous snake trick, a socialist dancer – is she woman or emu?, the clawed progeny of goanna and woman, a severed finger, bush-tucker, the Great Depression (how great was it?) and much, much more. Oh and yabbies.
*A friend who grew up in Perth had one as a pet. Hers, she tells me, was blue. Illywhacker?
