Illywhacker [Paperback]

Peter Carey (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 30, 1996

In Australian slang, an illywhacker is a country fair con man, an unprincipled seller of fake diamonds and dubious tonics. And Herbert Badgery, the 139-year-old narrator of Peter Carey's uproarious novel, may be the king of them all. Vagabond and charlatan, aviator and car salesman, seducer and patriarch, Badgery is a walking embodiment of the Australian national character—espcially of its proclivity for tall stories and barefaced lies.

As Carey follows this charming scoundrel across a continent and a century, he creates a crazy quilt of outlandish encounters, with characters that include a genteel dowager who fends off madness with an electric belt and a ravishing young girl with a dangerous fondness for rooftop trysts. Boldly inventive, irresistibly odd, Illywhacker is further proof that Peter Carey is one of the most enchanting writers at work in any hemisphere.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

First published in 1985, this picaresque tale from Australian novelist Carey presents the life story of a highly unreliable 139-year-old con man.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"One of the funniest, most vividly depicted, most entertainingly devious and bitterly insightful pieces of fiction to be published in recent years." —Newsday

"Carey can spin a yarn with the best of them.... Illywhacker is a big, garrulous, funny novel.... If you haven't been to Australia, read Illywhacker. It will give you the feel of it like nothing else I know." —The New York Times Book Review

"A book of awesome breadth, ambition, and downright narrative joy.... Illywhacker is a triumph." —Washington Post Book World

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 608 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; 1St Edition edition (April 30, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780679767909
• ISBN-13: 978-0679767909
• ASIN: 0679767908
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1.1 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #135,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Epic Australian allegory, and fun to boot August 3, 1998

By [e-mail]

Format:Paperback

Peter Carey seems to be a great literary secret -- hugely imaginative, immensely readable, a touch surreal, full of startlingly accurate insight into the frailties of humanity, and just plain funny -- but until I came to Australia I hadn't heard of him and his stunningly absorbing novels. His books are TERRIFIC.

Illywhacker is, on one level, a highly absorbing story about a born liar and showman and his varied life across southeastern Australia during the twentieth century. But on a deeper level, Illywhacker is a complex allegory about Australia itself, with interwoven and tangled images of cages, the uses and abuses of lying, Australia's search for itself vs. the UK and US, Australian animals, and Australia's simultaneous entanglement with and rejection of the Asian cultures with which it coexists. The result is a complicated, thoughtful, and even disturbing portrait of a maturing Australia that has made me reassess my own view of the country. Read Illywhacker! for the amusing liar's tale, read Illywhacker for the thoughtful commentary on Australia's national self-consciousness and insecurity -- but either way, read it!

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Picaresque shaggy-dog story, clever but not that deep July 27, 2000

By Yaumo Gaucho

Format:Paperback

Carey is an excellent storyteller, with a gift for witty juxtaposition and dropping plot bombs on his readers. We've all known someone a little bit like Herbert Badgery: "I am a liar. I am one hundred and thirty-seven years old." So it's a shaggy-dog story about a pathological liar who has a lot of charm and can lead people to believe exactly what they'd like to believe in the first place.

However, this book has garnered many awards, and wide critical acclaim, and I don't see why. Many people say it is symbolic of Australian culture and history. Perhaps I, as an American who hasn't even been to Australia, don't know enough about Australian history to fully read Herbert Badgery as a stand-in for Australia itself, or to catch the many historical references that Carey has probably hidden in the book. Yet my position is likely similar to that of most of Carey's prospective readers; he cannot assume a deep knowledge of Australian history from someone who is just picking up the book as a pleasure read. Maybe I will give the book another try, this time explicitly trying to dissect it as an analogy and as "great literature." Right now, I can only see it as a pleasurable and fairly simple read.

In summary, this is a highly entertaining novel, even if its headier aspects are lost on many readers. Carey is a long-winded storyteller, but a very funny one, and the interweaving plot of Badgery, his mythical airplane factory, and the people who surround him is engaging and humorous.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Returning to Illywhacker 10 years on, it holds up nicely October 13, 1998

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I recently reread Illywhacker, and found it every bit as gripping, entertaining, and hilarious as on my first trip through the novel, over ten years ago. Crammed full of daffy but believable characters, remarkable stories, and useful details (how to transport a snake in a hessian bag, how to build your own airplane), this remains among my top-ten novels ever written.