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My Brilliant Career
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
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About this ebook
'I am given to something which a man never pardons in a woman. You will draw away as though I were a snake when you hear.'With this warning, Sybylla confesses to her rich and handsome suitor that she is given to writing stories and bound, therefore on a brilliant career.In this ironically titled and riotous first novel by Miles Franklin, originally published in 1901, Sybylla tells the story if growing up passionate and rebellious in rural NSW, where the most that girls could hope for was to marry or to teach. Sybylla will do neither, but that doesn't stop her from falling in love, and it doesn't make the choices any easier.
Author
Miles Franklin
Stella Miles Franklin (1879-1954) was born in the Australian bush. At the age of 21, she became an international publishing sensation with My Brilliant Career, which more than a century later is still regarded as an Australian classic. Novelist, journalist, nationalist, feminist, larrikin - Miles Franklin was all these and more.
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Reviews for My Brilliant Career
Rating: 3.8421052631578947 out of 5 stars
4/5
19 ratings16 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5This review has been crossposted from my blog Review from Rose's Book Reviews Please head there for more in-depth reviews by me.
Sybylla is going to have a brilliant career... in doing nothing. Out in the Australian Bush, and even in town, it's obvious that Sybylla doesn't belong. This is a prime example of early Australian literature, and it's worth a read if you like that type of thing, or the poetry of the 1890s isn't for you.
For years I didn't know that Miles Franklin was a woman. Upon now reading it, it's obvious that it is! She says it's not romantic, but in a way it is. Sybylla is lovable, in an irritating sort of way. The foreword by Henry Lawson is rather masculine, and I"m not sure it's really in keeping with the book, but it does display the attitudes of men towards women's writing at the time.
Before I started reading, I knew the ending because I had already read some references on the topic (hello essay topic of mateship). So I knew it was doomed from the start! I still persevered though, and in the end I was reading past my bed time because I wanted to see what the stupid Sybylla would do! There is a sequel to this book ('My Career Goes Bung'), which I don't think I'll bother reading (although I am somewhat curious).
Australian fiction doesn't do anything for me. Certainly not Australian fiction from the literary period of the 1890s. I'm sure there are better examples of Australian fiction, and I do enjoy some Australian fantasy, but novels of mateship and the hardships of the Bush don't seem to do anything for me. UnAustralian of me, I know, I know.
I can understand why I am set to study it, because it is a relatively good example of its kind. And it is extremely well known. This is rather reminicent of the writings of Jane Austin, which I also didn't enjoy. However, if you enjoy fiction in the style of Austin, and don't mind a bit of Australian slang, this is a good book to get right into it. The language isn't particularly hard, as long as you understand the Australianisms.
I feel like I've given you a list of reasons not to read it, and very little on the good aspects of the book. For a first novel by an early Australian writer, it's not that bad. The settings are well described, and you can understand the relationships of Sybylla with her family nicely. There is little action, but what there is is quite good. Sybylla seems to get into trouble over everything! And there is certainly no 'Brilliant Career' to speak of.
My copy was from the library, and the version of it had a surprising number of typos. Not unreadable, just that the editors seemed not to take any care. Or perhaps it was left over from the original manuscript - whatever, it was just a shame. That was reflected in the boring cover you see in the above image. The book is obviously riding on its reputation as a classic, not looking to pull readers on the basis of looks or story line alone. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A classic of Australian literature yet, written by a 16-year-old focusing on autobiography, not actually an amazing read. Important without being brilliant, this is nevertheless something to put on the bucket list.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Wonderful tale of a girl trying to get by in a world of poverty and rules. Learning that beauty is everything and with self doubt she travels through the story finding her way and self along the way.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A growing up story, a bit melodramatic and some of the characters are a bit of a caricature but it was written by a sixteen year old (wish I could write that well)
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Not a book for romantics - nothing is romanticised, not the past, rural life, love or marriage. The protagonist is prickly and contrary and at times you want to slap her, but she sticks to her principles and I really liked her.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I had known about this book as an Australian classic for many years, and Miles Franklin is namesake of a literature prize, but have only know got around to reading it. I was not disappointed. It is the story of a teenaged girl growing up in rural Australia, and her changing fortunes. I think the mastery is in the descriptions, and the ability of the book to really conjure up a picture in the reader's mind of the places and situations. The main character is herself very entertaining and real as a person, and wrestles with her own frustration at her own nature (although at such a young age, manages to do a pretty good job of accepting this). Excellent!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Brilliant Career was written when Miles Franklin was only 16, and it shows all the imperfections of youth. Based on Franklin’s experiences, the novel is the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a young girl who proves to be too much for her parents to handle, is sent to her grandmother’s in the Australian bushland, where she quickly becomes enamored of that way of life—and of pursuing a career as a writer.Sybylla is headstrong and opinionated, but as with youth she is naive and defiant. I liked her at first for being different from the usual housewife aspirant, and for wanting something more from life than the obvious. Our heroine is, nonetheless, a product of her environment, and she is, accordingly, naïve. But the more I read, the less I really liked Syblla. As I’ve said the book is autobiographical, so I don’t think that Miles Franklin had much of a chance to fully disengage herself from her material. There is also a reliance on melodramatic plot elements that the author might easily have gotten from the romance novels of the period (eg, the “ugly duckling” theme, the struggle between Sybylla and her mother, or the romance). It is a little bit juvenile and speaks of someone who doesn’t have much experience of the world.Still, the novel is revolutionary for the narrator’s outlook on life and her interest in and love for her native country. The author’s affection for the Australian bush country is palpable; the author was apparently a skilled horsewoman, for example, and it shows clearly in the novel. Although people in her area took the novel as fact, Miles Franklin insisted that the novel wasn’t completed based on her experiences, and it is interesting that for a period of 60 years, she banned the republication of My Brilliant Career—despite its popularity upon publication in 1901.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Amazing characters with a fantastic and unexpected ending. I read this in about 2 days as I just couldn't put it down. So wonderfully engaging and beautifully written.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5An Australian friend says this book is an Aussie version of Jane Austen I will have to concur because I haven't lived in Australia and she has. It is much grittier than Jane Austen's work though and I suspect Jane would have collapsed into a dead faint if she had been forced to governess the M'Swat children. I suspect that Sybylla and Susanna Moodie (who wrote Roughing it in the Bush about pioneering in Canada) would have had a lot in common though. I was rather miffed with Sybylla though for not trying to help her family who desperately needed assistance. Being a governess to the M'Swats was forced upon her by her mother but she surely could have found another situation if she had really wanted to. And her treatment of Harry Beecham was quite awful. She agreed to become engaged and wear his ring and then she threw it in his face when he got angry with her for flirting and then she decided she would become secretly engaged but not marry until she was 21. Then when he lost his fortune she promised she would wait for him and it didn't matter that he was poor but when he regained his fortune she said she didn't want to marry him. No wonder Harry left Australia and went travelling over the world! It's a wonder he didn't take up strong drink and gambling as well. However, it does have "loads of Australian scenery" and makes me long (again) to visit Australia even if it doesn't look the way Miles Franklin described it. Someday, I'll get there.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A very engaging, lively style of writing - especially considering it was written by a 16-year-old girl - but it was marred for me simply by the fact that I found the protagonist rather unsympathetic. She is a believable depiction of a headstrong teenage girl living in difficult circumstances, but I just didn't like her very much.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Franklin's narrator Sybylla Melvyn promises right at the start that she's not gonna spend a lot of time mooning over sunsets--a promise that she spectacularly fails to fulfill, and indeed she ends the novel on a sunset. It's a major clue that all is not as simple as it seems with her romantic longing, protofeminist righteousness, and disgusting class snobbery--or more specifically, that while Franklin herself probably agrees with all those things, she also recognizes that they are poison to the soul when combined with the anger of the frustrated solipsist--in other words, that the confines of 19th-century Australian bush society don't do Sybylla's chances in--she does it to herself. An important early book in Aussie lit, as I understand it, affecting in parts and maddening in others, and a good conventional frustrated-young-woman realist buldungsroman only with larrikins and jackeroos and dingos and suchlike.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Written by Franklin at the tender age of 16 (16 for goodness' sake!), My Brilliant Career is the story of Sybylla Melvyn, a young woman growing up in the Australian bush. Her father, once a successful horse breeder, makes bad business decisions and ends up a drunk; her mother is struggling to cope with her husband and eight children. Sybylla dreams of a better life, one full of culture and intellectual conversation, and rejoices when she is invited to live with her more wealthy grandmother where she can read and play the piano.Sybylla is a very unsympathetic heroine. She's self-absorbed, snobbish and melodramatic. She can be full of self-pity and is obsessed with her ugliness (as she perceives her appearance) and is a bit prone to martyrdom. Sybylla's life is full of the dramatic ups and downs of adolescence but she has very clear opinions about marriage and the role of women in Australian society. I think it is these characteristics that draw the reader in and make you want to find out what happens to her.As might be expected from a novel written by a 16 year old, the writing style is much like Sybylla herself - often melodramatic and overblown - but I think this makes the first person narrative feel entirely authentic
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This really is an amazing book. Very sophisticated look at the mind and heart of a young Australian dirt farmer in the late 1800s (written by a teenager who lived a similar life). Not without its imperfections, these take nothing away from the book. A very satisfying and indeed invigorating read. Nothing predictable about it, especially for its time, but even published now it would be unique. Loved it.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This coming-of-age story is distinguished by a number of factors – the setting in Australia, the often shallow, capricious and blithe narrator and the author’s refreshing voice. Sybylla Melvyn is the high-spirited, intelligent, pleasure-loving daughter of a cultured mother and a well-loved father. However, when they sell their acres and move to Possum Gully, things take a turn for the worse as the farming is poor, the weather intolerable and the intellectual environment nonexistent. Sybylla’s father takes to drinking and the family is soon mired in poverty.Things look up when Sybylla goes to live with her grandmother, aunt and uncle. Finally, she has likeminded and kind people to talk to and none of the drudgery at home. Sybylla can be annoying in a selfish, overdramatic kind of way, but she is just a teenager and one who has lived in soul-crushing circumstances. The book created a scandal when it came out in 1901 and there was much speculation about the autobiographical elements. Multiple characters fall in love with Sybylla, which can be clichéd or too much of a wish-fulfillment plot element, but the narrative finally ends up following only one quite unconventional romance. There’s also not the predicted blissful wedding at the end.Probably the best thing about the book is Sybylla’s first person voice – it’s fresh and funny and immediate which makes it all the more impressive that Franklin wrote it when she was 16. The setting, in the Australian backwoods, also provides a nice contrast to the usual coming-of-age, genteel romance plots – the backbreaking work at Possum Gully is given a vivid and depressing life, transients regularly stop by even the nicest homes and the dusty open country is palpable. Sybylla, though, can still find romance in the countryside, even at Possum Gully.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I don't understand this cover at all. The cover of my copy is apparently a movie still, with the girl looking pensive. And I don't know how to review this story. It did get easier to read as the girl matured, but I still don't agree with her final decision re marriage. It sure was interesting learning about old Australia, though.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Why do movies insist on a happy ending? Thankfully the book does not need to do so. I felt this was a combination of YA fiction, period drama, Australiana, and tragedy all in one. There are numerous references to Australiana that I must now investigate, and it was pleasant to read about fictitious towns based around Goulburn (which is 25 minutes up the Hume from where I now live. I am glad to have read this book, and Miles Franklin (albeit her pen name!) is surely one of Australia's great authors. While the who have seen the movie first (like me) will have had their imagination compromised, reading the book is still a worthy pursuit.
Book preview
My Brilliant Career - Miles Franklin
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