''Oscar and Lucinda'' is a novel by Australian author Peter Carey which won the 1988 Booker Prize and the 1989 Miles Franklin Award. It was shortlisted for The Best of the Booker.

Plot introduction

It tells the story of Oscar Hopkins, the Devonian son of a Plymouth Brethren minister who becomes an Anglican

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in partic ...

, and Lucinda Leplastrier, a young Australian heiress who buys a

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling ( quenching ...

factory. They meet on the ship over to Australia, and discover that they are both

gamblers Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three elem ...

, one obsessive, the other compulsive. Lucinda bets Oscar that he cannot transport a glass

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

from Sydney to a remote settlement at Bellingen, some 400 km up the

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

coast. This bet changes both their lives forever.

Inspiration

The novel partly takes its inspiration from ''

Father and Son Father and Son or Fathers and Sons may refer to: Literature * ''Father and Son'' (book), a 1907 memoir by Edmund Gosse *Father and Son (comics), cartoon characters created by E. O. Plauen * ''Fathers and Sons'' (novel), an 1862 novel by Ivan Tur ...

'', the autobiography of the English poet

Edmund Gosse Sir Edmund William Gosse (; 21 September 184916 May 1928) was an English poet, author and critic. He was strictly brought up in a small Protestant sect, the Plymouth Brethren, but broke away sharply from that faith. His account of his childhoo ...

, which describes his relationship with his father,

Philip Henry Gosse Philip Henry Gosse FRS (; 6 April 1810 – 23 August 1888), known to his friends as Henry, was an English naturalist and populariser of natural science, an early improver of the seawater aquarium, and a painstaking innovator in the study of ma ...

Film

A film version released in 1997 was directed by Gillian Armstrong and starred

Ralph Fiennes Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes ( ; born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before having further success at the Royal Shak ...

, Cate Blanchett, and

Tom Wilkinson Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson (born 5 February 1948)Born January–March 1948, according to the ''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com is an English actor of film, television, and stage. He has rece ...

References

External links

Peter Carey discusses ''Oscar and Lucinda''
on the BBC ''

World Book Club ''World Book Club'' is a radio programme on the BBC World Service. Each edition of the programme, which is broadcast on the first Saturday of the month with repeats into the following Monday, features a famous author discussing one of his or her ...

''
Oscar and Lucinda at the National Film and Sound ArchiveOscar and Lucinda at IMDB
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oscar And Lucinda Booker Prize-winning works 1988 Australian novels Novels by Peter Carey (novelist) Miles Franklin Award-winning works Novels set in New South Wales University of Queensland Press books Australian novels adapted into films Fiction set in the 1830s Fiction set in the 1840s Fiction set in the 1850s Fiction set in the 1860s