''Such Is Life: Being Certain Extracts From The Diary of Tom Collins'' is a novel written by the Australian author Joseph Furphy (aka Tom Collins) in 1897, and published on 1 August 1903. It is a fictional account of the life of rural dwellers, including bullock drivers, squatters and itinerant travellers, in southern

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 ...

and

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

, during the 1880s. The book gives the impression of being a series of loosely interwoven stories of the various people encountered by the narrator as he travels about the countryside. The people he meets round campfires pass on news and gossip and tell stories, so that sometimes the reader can infer information by putting these second hand stories together with the action of the narrative. At times the prose may be difficult for some modern readers to understand because of the use of Australian vernacular and the attempt to convey the accents of Scottish and Chinese personalities. The title of ''Such Is Life'' is said to be derived from

Ned Kelly Edward Kelly (December 1854 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader and convicted police-murderer. One of the last bushrangers, he is known for wearing a suit of bulletproof armour during his final shootout wi ...

's last words—said as he was about to be hanged. The book is full of mordant irony from start to finish, not least from the contrast between the narration and the action—the narrator at times employing extremely high blown language (and displaying Furphy's almost freakish degree of book-learning) in humorous contrast to the extremely low characters and mundane events he is describing. Furphy employs both

pathos Pathos (, ; plural: ''pathea'' or ''pathê''; , for " suffering" or "experience") appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term used most often in rhetoric (in which it is ...

and

bathos Bathos ( ;''Oxford English Dictionary'', 1st ed. "bathos, ''n.'' Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1885. grc-gre, , "depth") is a literary term, first used in this sense in Alexander Pope's 1727 essay " Peri Bathous", to describe an ...

and the narration teases the reader with its tangents, like a shaggy dog story. (The pseudonym 'Tom Collins' is slang for a tall story.) There are hidden substories, and the narrator sometimes gets hold of the wrong end of the stick in untangling them, but the reader can nut them out. Subjects which occur in the book but are not spoken of directly include: foul language; nakedness and undergarments; passing as the opposite sex; homosexuality among bullock drivers; effeminacy; mutilation; and murder. At the same time the great joy of the novel is its realism: Furphy is able to capture the flavour of interaction between the bush characters he meets, their way of talking, the physical landscape, the feel of a nomad's life. The 19th century US novelist he is most similar in approach to is

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has pr ...

. With its use of a digressive,

unreliable narrator An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unr ...

, Furphy's method in ''Such Is Life'' can be compared with that of his Brazilian contemporary

Machado de Assis Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (), often known by his surnames as Machado de Assis, ''Machado,'' or ''Bruxo do Cosme Velho''Vainfas, p. 505. (21 June 1839 – 29 September 1908), was a pioneer Brazilian novelist, poet, playwright and short stor ...

. ''Such is Life'' has been described as Australia’s ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...

'' because, like

Herman Melville Herman Melville ( born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works are '' Moby-Dick'' (1851); '' Typee'' (1846), a ...

's book, it was neglected for thirty or forty years before being discovered as a classic.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Such Is Life 1903 Australian novels Novels set in New South Wales Novels set in Victoria (Australia)