Talk:A Fortunate Life

unsigned comment

this article has many empty headings and barely gives any information on the book. it is not very useful

I agree. It needs a major edit. Just a matter of finding the time. It is on my reading list for later in the year so I'll aim to get to it then. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 00:32, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

To me, the title alone has always seemed to be a provocative and ignorant rebuttal of Donald Horne's 1960's masterpiece "A Lucky Country" - a compelling critique of Australian intellectual and political apathy (if not outright stupidity). Horne's book was written at a time when Australian prosperity had those who benefited from its wealth constantly referring to Australia as the lucky country. The timing of Facey's book was certainly spot on. Horne's 1960's book had such popularity that many people who heard of the book's title but never read it completely misunderstood its title as an affirmation of Australian misplaced pride in its prosperity, rather than the the circumstances in which was acquired and who had access to it. Thus "A Fortunate Life" ironically makes Horne's point for him, even if unintentionally.

After publication of Facey's book, Horne was moved to speak out publicly about how badly "The lucky country" had been misunderstood by Australian's because of its title. However Facey did not intend his book for a large readership, and the false modesty in his describing his hard life as fortunate was intended for effect, because his "fortune" is relative to the genuine misfortune of the times he lived in. However, like Horne, Facey is also completely misunderstood by the Australian majority, who yet again mistake its title as a triumphant affirmation of the lucky country, rather than a simple recognition of the suffering and sacrificing of those not so fortunate. This reaction is not uncommon in books with cynical or arcane titles (ie. suggesting content contradicting their actual content). This was Horne's only mistake, and does not take anything away from the validity of his point. Thus "A Fortunate Life" is now celebrated out of context by Australian philistines as a celebration of Australian prosperity over the minorities from which that prosperity was misappropriated and who still have no access to it.

2003:EB:A721:4800:ACA9:F671:81D7:ADA8 (talk) 10:11, 7 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.168.153.22 (talk) 08:01, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

unsigned comment

this might be a better article if someone proceeds to discuss what the book entails

is it not a fact he was never at Gallipoli? so it is a work of fiction?

Assessment completed for A Fortunate Life

As per either a recent request at section for assessment requests or because this article was listed as fully or partly unassessed at Wikipedia:WikiProject Australia/Assessment I have just now completed a rating of the article and posted my results to this page. Those results are detailed above in the template box. Unfortunately, due to the volume of articles that need to be assessed, I am unable to leave detailed comments other than to make the following brief observation: no further comments at this time

However if you have specific questions, please write to me on my talk page and as time permits I will try to provide you with my reasoning. Please put my talk page on your watchlist if you do ask such a question because in the case of these responses I will only post my answer underneath your question.

ALSO if you do not agree with the rating you can list it in the section for assessment requests below, and someone will take a look at it.--VS ^talk 12:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as stub, and the rating on other projects was brought up to Stub class. BetacommandBot 13:28, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Awards

Does anyone have a reference for the "New South Wales Literacy Award"? I've never heard of it and there seem to be no webpages referenced by Google. I think this should read "New South Wales Premier's Literary Award". In which case it needs fixing as these awards are split between fiction and non-fiction. BLISS is fiction and A FORTUNATE LIFE is non-fiction. They should not be represented as they are in the box here. Perry Middlemiss (talk) 01:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Publishing history

We now have two statements in this article and the publishing date - one maintaining the book was published 9 months before the author's death, and the other one stating 6 months. A level of consistency is needed. --Perry Middlemiss (talk) 06:29, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Nine months is what my 1990 edition says in the first title page. I'll change accordingly. Girabbit85 (talk) 10:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Year of father’s death

One of the references has this as 1898, but the text (plot summary subsection) has it as 1896. I’m reluctant to change that, but...? Boscaswell talk 05:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC)