My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (book recommendations TXT) ๐
Description
My Brilliant Career is a classic Australian work published in 1901 by Stella Miles Franklin, with an introduction by Henry Lawson. A thinly-veiled autobiographical novel, it paints a vivid and sometimes grim picture of rural Australian life in the late 19th Century.
Sybylla Melvyn is the daughter of a man who falls into grinding poverty through inadvised speculation before becoming a hopeless drunk unable to make a living from a small dairy farm. Sybylla longs for the intellectual things in life such as books and music. She wants to become a writer and rebels against the constraints of her life. For a short period she is allowed to stay with her better-off relatives, and there she attracts the attentions of a handsome and rich neighbour, Harold Beecham. The course of true love, however, does not run smoothly for this very independent young woman.
The author, like many other women writers of the time, adopted a version of her name which suggested that she was male in order to get published. Today, the Miles Franklin Award is Australiaโs premier literary award, with a companion award, the Stella, open only to women authors.
My Brilliant Career was made into a well-regarded movie in 1979. Directed by Gillian Armstrong, it features Judy Davis as Sybylla and Sam Neil as Harry Beecham.
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- Author: Miles Franklin
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โCareer!โ exclaimed his foster-mother, catching at the word. โCareer! That is all girls think of now, instead of being good wives and mothers and attending to their homes and doing what God intended. All they think of is gadding about and being fast, and ruining themselves body and soul. And the men are as bad to encourage them,โ looking severely at Everard.
โThere is a great deal of truth in what you say, gran, I admit. You can apply it to many of our girls, I am sorry to confess, but Sybylla could not be brought under that classification. You must look at her in a different way. Ifโ โโ
โI look at her as the child of respectable people, and will not have the stage mentioned in connection with her.โ Here Grannie thumped her fist down on the table and there was silence, complete, profound. Few dared argue with Mrs. Bossier.
Dear old lady, she was never angry long, and in a minute or two she proceeded with her breakfast, saying quite pleasantly:
โNever mention such a subject to me again; but Iโll tell you what you can do. Next autumn, some time in March or April, when the fruit-preserving and jam-making are done with, Helen can take the child to Sydney for a month or so, and you can show them round. It will be a great treat for Sybylla as she has never been in Sydney.โ
โThatโs right, letโs strike a bargain on that, gran,โ said Everard.
โYes; itโs a bargain, if I hear no more about the stage. God intends His creatures for a better life than that.โ
After breakfast I was left to entertain Everard for some while. We had a fine time. He was a perfect gentleman and a clever conversationalist.
I was always desirous of enjoying the company of society people who were well bred and lived according to etiquette, and possessed of leisure and culture sufficient to fill their minds with something more than the price of farm produce and a hard struggle for existence. Hitherto I had only read of such or seen them in pictures, but here was a real live one, and I seized my opportunity with vim. At my questioning and evident interest in his talk he told me of all the latest plays, actors, and actresses with whom he was acquainted, and described the fashionable balls, dinners, and garden-parties he attended. Having exhausted this subject, we fell to discussing books, and I recited snatches of poems dear to me. Everard placed his hands upon my shoulders and said:
โSybylla, do you know you are a most wonderful girl? Your figure is perfect, your style refreshing, and you have a most interesting face. It is as ever-changing as a kaleidoscopeโ โsometimes merry, then stern, often sympathetic, and always sad when at rest. One would think you had had some sorrow in your life.โ
Lifting my skirt at either side, I bowed several times very low in what I called my stage bow, and called into requisition my stage smile, which displayed two rows of teeth as white and perfect as any twenty-guinea set turned out on a gold plate by a fashionable dentist.
โThe handsome gentleman is very kind to amuse himself at the expense of a little country bumpkin, but he would do well to ascertain if his flattery would go down before administering it next time,โ I said sarcastically, and I heard him calling to me as I abruptly went off to shut myself in my room.
โHow dare anyone ridicule me by paying idle brainless compliments! I knew I was ugly, and did not want anyone to perjure his soul pretending they thought differently. What right had I to be small? Why wasnโt I possessed of a big aquiline nose and a tall commanding figure?โ Thus I sat in burning discontent and ill-humour until soothed by the scent of roses and the gleam of soft spring sunshine which streamed in through my open window. Some of the flowerbeds in the garden were completely carpeted with pansy blossoms, all colours, and violets-blue and white, single and double. The scent of mignonette, jonquils, and narcissi filled the air. I revelled in rich perfumes, and these tempted me forth. My ruffled feelings gave way before the delights of the old garden. I collected a number of vases, and, filling them with water, set them on a table in the veranda near one of the drawing-room windows. I gathered lapfuls of the lovely blossoms, and commenced arranging them in the vases.
Part of the old Caddagat house was built of slabs, and one of the wooden walls ran along the veranda side of the drawing-room, so the songs aunt Helen and Everard Grey were trying to the piano came as a sweet accompaniment to my congenial task.
Presently they left off singing and commenced talking. Under the same circumstances a heroine of a story would have slipped away; or, if that were impossible without discovery, she would have put her fingers in her ears, and would have been in a terrible state of agitation lest she should hear something not intended for her. I did not come there with a view to eavesdropping. It is a degradation to which I never stoop. I thought they were aware of my presence on the veranda; but it appears they were not, as they began to discuss me (wonderfully interesting subject to myself), and I stayed there, without one word of disapproval from my conscience, to listen to their conversation.
โMy word, didnโt gran make a to-do this morning when I proposed to train Sybylla for the stage! Do you know that girl is simply reeking with talent; I must have her trained. I will keep bringing the idea before gran until she gets used to it. Iโll work the we-should-use-the-gifts-God-has-given-us racket for all it is worth, and you might use your influence too, Helen.โ
โNo, Everard;
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