By Kenneth Cook
This 1966 debut novel
exceeded my expectations. I had an idea of what I’d be in for having seen the 1971 film by Ted Kotcheff just weeks ago. Though I didn't know it yet, this would be the most faithful adaption of a book I’ve ever encountered. The only time the film took a different approach was with the ending.
It took me two years to summon the courage to watch Wake In Fright on Shudder. Why? You might ask.
It took me two years to summon the courage to watch Wake In Fright on Shudder. Why? You might ask.
Because the kangaroos.
It's not a spoiler because everyone reading this would know about the kangaroos (and no one reads this blog anymore anyway). I admit I shut my eyes when the scene kept going. I, who could otherwise stomach rape revenge films and torture porn, drew the line at animal cruelty.
Olman has yet to watch the film,
but he had this 1967
Penguin copy for a while (it was first published
in 1961) and decided to finally read it. And when I saw that he was
reading it, I wanted to read it.
The writing was exceptionally good. Apparently Wake in Fright was billed as the first Outback horror story. But it's also psychological and existential horror, as there were no traditional monsters, psycho killers nor the
occult. There were certainly horrific
situations, and men with monstrous appetites, but no pure evil was portrayed. There were awful, pathetic, mundane situations
that only a weak, meek, hard-up man like John Grant would let himself be caught up
in a living nightmare of his own making.
Some of the situations I personally
found horrifying did not involve the slaughter of wild animals, or any violence
for that matter. Rather what really struck me were passages describing the visceral claustrophobia of being trapped inside a baking car in the middle of a wasteland
inhaling the stench of sweaty people that you mildly despise:
They were on their way, four men and a dog, stewing together.When you travel by road in the west you travel with a cohort of dust which streams up from your tyres and rolls away in a disintegrating funnel, defining the currents of air your vehicle sets in motion. And somehow a lot of dust comes in the windows and settles in your hair and your clothes and most of all in your eyes and throat.And the heat is unthinkable, no matter how widely the windows are open, and the sweat streams off your body and into your socks, and if there are a number of people in the car their body stenches mingle disagreeably.
Now that to me is true horror!
There was also a lot of drinking and all the consequences of out of control boozing. And boy, were there consequences, and it didn't just stop with the consumption of kangaroo testicles. All this and more, laden with a fair amount of sardonic
humour via the thoughts and observations of our hapless and arrogant anti-hero, John Grant.
Here was a passage which struck me as sharp and funny:
Hynes talked continuously through dinner. Mrs. Hynes laughed politely sometimes, said ‘My! My!’ at appropriate points and displayed absolutely no interest in either Grant or Hynes. Janette said nothing. Grant gained the impression that Hynes was recognized as the head of the family and that his wishes were more or less law, but that nobody thought much of him. He had encountered similar situations in other western families.
Both book and film languished in obscurity for a while,
especially Australia where locals did not take well to the unsympathetic portrayal
of their own kind, but both had some acclaim overseas, and are now recognized as Australian
classics.
