That black back must be slippery, treacherous like rock … But you see the hole in its back, the breath going in and out, and you think of all the blowholes along this coast; how a clever man can slip into them, fly inland one moment, back to ocean the next. But it is a ship, not a bird, Menak reminded himself again. While the latter two a certainly valid, none of the three are representative of what a character should be: a human being, complete with vulnerabilities, flaws and fears. There's a lot of play to balance the slowly unfolding tragedy of changes to the life and land. The novel is set in the early to mid 1800s, with the burgeoning whaling industry as the backdrop, and the attitudes and relationships between the races are seen to be constantly changing and evolving, with young aboriginal boy Bobby Wabalanginy often being the lynchpin between the two cultures. Bobby Wabalangay's joy in European style whaling is as real as his pleasure in reading, and learning - but his attempts to forge unity between the groups are doomed by the relentless logic of expansion, growth and profit, which relentlessly denies the local people access to resources they need, and own. Scott's novel, 'That Deadman Dance' is a powerful and pressing retelling of the colonisation of the King George Sound area in South Western Australia. It wasn’t true, it was just an old story, and he couldn’t even remember the proper song.”“Wooral was in the pilot boat now, heading for where the ship rested, its wings folded and tied.
Set in Western Australia in the first decades of the nineteenth century, That Deadman Dance is a vast, gorgeous novel about the first contact between the Aboriginal Noongar people and the new European settlers. The remains trodden on by Bobby and his cohort as well as the plebeian settlers that have somehow become lost in the colonial history of Australia and wondered onto the pages of this rather unfortunate , which had me weeping within twenty pages and wondering whether I had become so bored I had forgotten how to read or that my mind had simply switched to auto pilot. It probably mainly has to do with my lack of interest in Australian history but even a fictional retelling of the first settlement didn't keep my interest. The ending was really strong; the start was kind of slow: an annoyingly filmic montage that skipped back and forth in time, not grabbing hold of anyplace or anywhere quite enough to sink you into the story, so it took me a while to feel like it was starting. The book's feature is the change in the White's attitude towards the Indigenous went from needing their help to active forms of exile, murder and abuse. You learn a lot, reading this book. This happens in a binary way. Older texts heinously allocate them the role of uncivil savages while modern media either portrays the helpless victim or the proud campaigner. The subtlety of the writing is also matched by the subtlety of the narrative, there is no evil, only ignorance and badly executed good intentions, the ripple effect of actions in a distant memory scar the present and the future. Although a work of fiction, it still presents an incredible insight into this time in history. Is it possible to tell a story with too much subtlety? That deadman dance is the first indigenous Australian novel I’ve read about the first contact between indigenous people and the British settlers. But through Bobby's life, the novel exuberantly explores a moment in time when things might have been different, when black and white lived together in amazement rather than fear of the other, and when the world suddenly seemed twice as large and twice as promising. And I’m sure the author’s descriptions of landscapes & whaling were wonderful, but they were too much for me, and very quickly the book became tedious. We’d love your help. You learn a lot, reading this book. Plunge your hands into that whale heart, lean into it and squeeze and let your voice join the whale’s roar. As the new arrivals impose ever stricter rules and regulations in order to keep the peace, Bobby Wabalanginy's Elders decide they must respond. The narrative is impressionistic rather than linear, a style that I have read is supposed to mirror the story telling of Scott's ancestors. And I did finish it (I hammered through it in 4 days, or it would have sat on my bedside table half read for 6 months). Mainly told through the eyes of a young aboriginal boy, It was able to reflect upon some of the main concerns with colonisation and the tragic story behind a magnificent culture. Two steps more and you are sliding, sliding deep into a dark and breathing cave that resonates with whale song. I found the narrative very disjointed & had a hard time piecing it together chronologiI wanted to love this book. His poetic writing leaves much to infer and that in combination with the way the text weaves in and out of past and future makes orientating oneself somewhat challenging initially. Again, while this is true, the indigenous characters suffer a great reduction because of it. Firstly, there were too many names (and 2 of them sounded similar to begin with) and then, I think there was also the timeline because I think (?) It makes perfect sense, as well, that in order to achieve the most complete contrast to other portrayals of indigenous affairs in media, Scott would reach back to the First Contact years, a time often skimmed over in contemporary revisions as a time of great suffering and persecution. However it also wasn't a very interesting book, at least to me. That Deadman Dance is a 2010 historical fiction novel from Australian author Kim Scott. Both where dashed upon the rocks of the coastline on which this very novel is set. The lack of quotation marks, the way the author went back and forth and the somewhat choppy style made it quite hard to read.This is an excellent read which vividly portrays the story of the British colonisation of Australia in the early 19th century and the sad account of the indigenous people's appalling treatment .This is an excellent read which vividly portrays the story of the British colonisation of Australia in the early 19th century and the sad account of the indigenous people's appalling treatment .That Deadman Dance by Kim Scott is the book that many readers (and Australians in particular) have been waiting for, perhaps without even realising it.
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