I have yet to read a book by Nevil Shute novel that will not let his generosity and kindness, his understated, amiable nature shine through and illuminate the saddest and depressing themes. The Far Country is no exception. It is a delicate and touching love story between two young, lonely souls, but the background and inspiration for the novel is anchored in what is probably the most difficult decision the writer had to take in his life: to abandon his own homeland and immigrate to the far side of the world. The inclusion of autobiographical elements in Nevil Shute novels only serves to increase the sense of authenticity and sincerity that make me come back to Nevil Shute novels on a regular basis. On my second or third re-read, this present novel has lost none of its initial appeal. If anything, it has gained poignancy, as I find myself contemplating living for years outside my own country on an expat contract.The year is 1950, the second World War is officially over, but the hardships, the food shortages, the heavy taxes and the political upheavals still grip England and most of Europe in their iron fists. The most vulnerable are the very young and the very old. 24 years old office clerk Jennifer Morton is called to the bedside of her elderly grandmother Ethel Trehearn, a former society girl who is now dying of malnutrition because she was too proud and discrete to call for social assistance when her Indian widow pension got canceled. The old lady reminisces at length on the prosperity and social graces of her Victorian country heiress lifestyle, unable to adapt to the changing environment around her. There's no place for old ladies in the brave new world. Mr. Shute lets go with all guns against the evils of the new socialist government and the woes of the improvised National Health Service. His perspective leans mostly towards conservative, elitist values, not surprisingly given his own background as an upper middle-class engineer, but with his signature equanimity, he does present counter arguments and opinions from the leftist movement and enough context to paint a balanced picture. In each year of the peace food had got shorter, more and more expensive, and taxation has risen higher and higher. He was now living on a lower scale than in the war-time years; the decline had gone on steadily, if anything increasing in momentum, and there seemed no end to it. Where would it all end, and what lay ahead of the young people of today in England? Jennifer's father urges her to go visit a distant relation in Australia with the money that came too late to save her ailing grandmother. Jane Dorman has immigrated herself from England against the opposition of her family toawards her marrying dashing and unconventional Australian lieutenant in 1918. After long years of hard work and money troubles, Jack and Jane Dorman are finally able to pay off the loan for their wool station (big sheep farm in Australian lingo) and turn a profit due to the increase in wool prices. Even after high government taxes they are still left with enough money for small luxuries like new cars, holidays in Melbourne, house appliances and guests from the homeland. Regarding Australia, Nevil Shute's portrait may seem slightly exagerrated in its rosy tint of a land of marvelous landscapes, easy prosperity and limitless chances for the intreprid man, but as a literary tool deployed to contrast the bleak English situation, it serves its role remarcably well. Sweeping vistas of eucalyptus forests (called gum tress in the novel), clear rivers filled with trout, uninhabited miles after miles of pastureland, brilliant birds and novel beasts like koala bears and wallabies, stress free and hospitable locals - these are the ingredients that greet Jennifer on her arrival to the continent.Although we start the journey learning about sheep farming , soon enough the focus moves to the lumbering camps in the neighboring mountains, where New Australians, as the displaced persons who lost their homes and even countries in the war are called, work their two year indenture as payment for being allowed into the country from the crowded camps in Europe. One of them is Carl Zlinter, a Czech doctor who is put to cut timber as his diploma is not recognized in the new country. His perspective adds another layer to the immigrant song, one of the many decent people that was uprooted from his home soil, thrown into the iron maws of the army and left abandoned after peace in a refugee camp. Australia means for him stability and security, away from a crowded Europe where borders are redrawn every decade or so. Since I was a young man there has been this threat of war; or war itself, and death, and marching, and defeat, and camps of homeless people, and the threat of war again, and of more marching, of more death, of more parting from one's home - unending; here is a country where a man can built a home without the feeling that all will be useless and destroyed next year. Jennifer and Carl meet under strenuous circumstances, as she assists the doctor in an unauthorized couple of operations after a work accident in the forest. The set-up allows Nevil Shute to showcase the other side of his character: the technical specialist who can express himself concisely and clearly on professional themes, in this case work safety and medical emergency interventions.The last major story arc puts Jennifer and Carl in improvised sleuth roles, as they try to elucidate the mystery of a tombstone in Howqua -a ghost town from the Australian gold rush era (about the end of the 19th century) that was completely destroyed in a forest fire. The stone bears the same name as Carl, and it may be one of his ancestors. The investigation brings the two lovers closer together, yet their romance is hampered by troubles with Jennifer's family back in England and by Carl's lack of medical license and lack of funds to pursue a decent profession.I particularly liked their restrained and hesitant steps towards each other, the care they take of each other's feelings and the practical concerns of starting a family in a completely new environment. She's got her head screwed on right! is the highest praise one of the characters uses to describe Jennifer, and I wholly agree with his estimation.The novel should appeal to romantic oriented souls, but also to readers interested in the historical context of post-war reconstruction.
In Australia Jane and Jack Dorman own a prosperous sheep farm, or station. For the past few years most of the money they earned has gone to pay off loans and debts, but now, for the first time the wool money is all theirs, and its been a good year for selling wool. But Jane is worried about her aunt back in England. Aunt Ethel was the only family member who supported her in her decision to marry an Australian and leave England, they still exchange letters, and in Ethel’s latest she mentioned little things that begin to worry Jane.Jane is right to worry. The story moves to England and Jennifer, Ethel’s granddaughter, receives a telephone call from her mother asking her to check in on Ethel. When Jennifer does she discovers that Ethel is suffering from starvation and malnutrition. She has been hiding her lack of money from her family and hasn’t asked anyone for help, instead she was selling the furniture and pawning whatever valuables she had.Back in Australia the Dorman’s decide to send Ethel a cheque, but the money comes too late, Ethel knows she is dying and insists that Jennifer take the money and use it herself to leave England and travel to Australia.Okay, I’ve already spent longer than I wanted recapping the plot, and I haven’t even gotten to Carl Zlinter yet. But you get how a rough idea of how the story starts out.And those early chapters set in England are utter misery. Wonderfully written, but just plain miserable. Everyone is still living off ration cards, there is no meat, the damn socialists are in power and no one is happy. And the National Health system, which has just been introduced, is destroying the medical profession. People showing up at the doctors asking questions and getting forms filled out! As though they deserved a responsive doctor.I’m sure there was plenty of hardship in Britain in the years after WWII, but I think that blaming it on the “socialists” and the nationalisation of the health service is part of Shute’s anti-government spiel. Throughout the novel he seems very much of the opinion that if you work hard you will get rewards, and therefore you’ll deserve them. If you don’t get ahead in life then you haven’t been working hard.His example of this is Australia, where is you get your head down and do the hard graft you’ll be rich. But even there the government is sticking its nose in, making foreign people do 3 years of college in order have their medical qualifications recognised when anyone can see that they’re good hard working people!But Australia is there to contrast with the grey, wet, cold, crowded, miserable England that Jennifer leaves. Australia is full of open spaces and opportunity. Its warm and sunny, and there is so much land there for the taking.Yeah, lets not mention the original inhabitants shall we? Because they don’t get a mention at all in this apart from one comment about “blacks” not being in the frame in a postcard. Well, they don’t get to be in frame in this book either.So, for me, there are a lot of problems with this novel. It’s almost innocent, in a way, how it seems to believe that hard work is enough. But it is a damaging attitude to have, because it ignore the fact that if you start out life with even a little bit of money then you are way ahead of those in poverty, and for many people no amount of hard work will get them out of poverty.I’m writing a lot about this because it is a huge part of The Far Country, or at least it seemed to take up a huge amount in my reading of it.There is also the romance, and the wonderful writing. It’s a very easy read, Shute has a very flowing style that just lets the reader keep on reading, even if they don’t agree with everything he says. I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on Shute, it was the times he lived and wrote in, but for a modern reader I think there are a lot of issues with the book. It didn’t spoil my enjoyment of the book, or at least, I still enjoyed parts of it, but I don’t think it is one I’d be recommending to a lot of people.
What do You think about The Far Country (2002)?
Right before I read this book I was reading Nevil Shute's Pied Piper and thought I'd give this a go because I was curious about the characters. Reflecting back on the opening of this book, I thought of Shakespeare's Hamlet, where you see a some narrative about a character we don't hear much about for the rest of the book. (Therefore: if you started reading it and didn't like it, keep going until you get into the meat of the story.)Even though we don't live in the time period this story takes place in, I thought about what it would be like to emigrate in our current world.NHS was decidedly painted in a bad light, but I would have liked it if Nevil Shute would explain more WHY it was not a good thing. Right now we have Call the Midwife sort of trumpeting how nice NHS is and it rubs us that we Yanks don't have it, but then The Far Country makes it seem like the post-war UK was a horrible place to be although they have NHS and food rationing and a miserable economy.I rather liked the main character and didn't think her too weak but -1 star because there are some elements of the story that were just too convenient to make the story play out as it did. It's fiction, so I guess that is how it works.There is a movie of this novel that I have not seen but based on what I read about the film adaptation I think the book is far better, as it doesn't sound like the movie follows this book. (I suppose if you're writing any book reports or participating in book discussions about this novel, that's a warning to you to not use the movie as a substitute or you're going to look ridiculous.)
—Christine
In its way, it's a relatively simple story, but I love Shute's style. He tells a story gently, lovingly and at the same time, matter of factly (Is that a proper word? :0)). At its core it's a love story, but it represents its time as well. Set after WWII, England is struggling to feed its people, life is hard; whereas in counterpoint, in Australia, the frontier so to speak, life is pretty good, wool prices are high, money is good, there is work available. Helen goes to England at the request of her auntie, who thinks Australia might represent England more from her time in the early 1900s. Helen visits with an Aunt and her family, meets Carl, a Czech doctor, who works in the forest as a lumberman (as a Displaced Person from the war) he must work where the Australians let him for 2 years as a sort of payment for being allowed to live in Australia. He can then work towards getting his Doctor's certificate. The two meet under very interesting circumstances, a friendship/ relationship develops. This is the simple story, but there is so much more. Shute doesn't get involved in the politics of the time, other than in the background as it affects peoples' lives, but he does present an excellent picture of the time, contrasting life in England and Australia very nicely and very simply. It's a lovely story, not one I would have picked earlier in my life I don't think, but the more I read Nevil Shute's stories (two of my all-time favourites are his, On the Beach and Pied Piper) the more I enjoy his writing and the more of his books I want to read. Highly recommended.
—Bill
In "Far Country," Shute creates a love story of warmth, realism, and charming inevitability. What I love about a Nevil Shute novel is the absolutely unsentimental way in which it relates a seemingly sentimental tale. In Nevil Shute's world, you can have a man and a woman and a buzzing, unraveling story of their developing affections (what would normally be a recipe for a sentimental disaster), but never once does it ooze "cheese factor" or an over-the-top pomposity. Instead, you find yourself routing for two resourceful, strong, and likable people across difficult circumstances. This is definitely the case in "Far Country," as Jennifer Morton (an English girl who travels to Australia from a post WW II, depressed and food-rationing England at her late grandmother's insistence) and Carl Zlinter (a post German Army officer and doctor who serves in an Australian lumber camp) meet and fall in love with the wealth, breadth, and beauty of Australia, a country that offers far more hope than either of their native lands. What is most interesting are the depictions of post WW II/Korean War England, where we see a Socialist country, the squandering of food and supplies and scraps along with extreme rationing and no retirement savings, and the bleakest of winters to boot. The feel of this England reminds me of the England portrayed in the famous graphic novel, "V"--an England who is so afraid of destruction that they've squelched their own will to live, their own freedom, and the happiness of its citizens.In Australia, however, we see a land quite the opposite, a country abundant and overflowing, a cornucopia of opportunity. The price of wool is up for graziers, the wealth far beyond that of its bleak parent England.The two nations are placed into contrast with one another, and the themes of loyalty to one's nation and family versus seeking new opportunity elsewhere is played with expertly.My only complaint of the novel, however, is the avoidance of (or perhaps a too subtle treatment of) Carl Zlinter's back story, specifically, his involvement in the German Army, his reason for coming to Australia, and whether or not (at age 36) he had interactions with the Nazi party. This is avoided completely, and is not quite clear, making the historical time line of the book a bit fuzzy and intangible. A bit frustrating, at times.Overall, though, a wonderful, charming read (charming, being the key word here) that I'd recommend to anyone who adores love stories, who is interested in Korean-War England and Australia, and who longs to know more about the Australian countryside.
—Ally Armistead
