Ned Kelly : The Man Behind the Mask

Unbelievably, already this year two new books have been published about Ned Kelly. The first was the appalling  “Ned : Knight in Aussie Armour’ by Eugenie Navarre which we reviewed over two Posts here a couple of weeks ago. Its such a dreadful publication that I am not surprised that not a single Kelly sympathizer has dared respond to these damning reviews and attempted to defend it, even though several of them made a big song and dance about its imminent release and the Book launch in Glenrowan. If they had any concern for the bloated and ever growing body of Kelly literature they ought now to be apologising for ever promoting it – nailing it to their dunny walls would be too decent a treatment of it!

“Bailed Up” Tom Roberts

The second 2016 Kelly Book is “Ned Kelly : The Man behind the Mask”  by Hugh Dolan.  I discovered it by accident at the bookshop of the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, where I visited the awesome exhibition of the paintings of Tom Roberts. One of his most famous paintings  “Bailed up” depicts bushrangers holding up a coach on an outback bush track, and I suppose for this reason, among many others in the Exhibition souvenir shop there were a number of books about Bushranging, and inevitably, about Ned Kelly. This one was a modest $20.00, and is the third in a series published by Newsouth Books.

The author, somewhat surprisingly - given the long hair and green bow-tie he wore for his photo - is a retired Squadron Leader, which would explain why his first two works had war themes : one was about an Indigenous War Hero and the other about Gallipoli. He describes these books as  ‘factual graphic novels’ – or in other words ‘comics’ – and he wrote them for schoolchildren. Ive recently reviewed the way in which Kelly history is told in childrens books and found it universally badly done, so my heart sank – was this going to be another sloppy rehash of Kelly mythology masquerading as history teaching, made even easier to ingest by the use of cartoon  cowboy characters ? A further alarm bell went off in my head when I saw on the back cover “Violent Gunslinger or our greatest hero? Find out who Ned Kelly really was”

The book has a soft cover and runs to about 80 pages so can easily be read in one session. Hugh Dolan says that his starting point was a Kelly Country tour with Matt Shore the guy from the Kelly Vault, and says he will measure the books  success ‘by city folk touring the stunning vistas of the Kelly trail’.

 

Can anyone spot the Typo?

I have no idea at all about what the experts might say makes a good comic, but my guess is that this is a good one. The drawings are clear and uncrowded, and the tones are muted to give the whole thing a sort of old fashioned sepia quality. The text is minimal, the dialogues are simple and the text boxes informative. In fact the story told in this comic is surprisingly comprehensive, and I was impressed by the authors attempt to be impartial and fair to all sides. The good and the bad of the Kellys and of the Police are not exaggerated or disguised, and there doesn’t seem to be any attempt to make a hero out of Ned or demons out of the Police. Obviously in such a brief re-telling, theres very little opportunity to deal in depth with many of the contentious and controversial parts of the story, though I think all are touched on. However, there are three versions of the ‘Fitzpatrick incident’.

At the end, Dolan lists the 8 books he says were stacked on his desk for easy reference while doing the writing and it was pleasing to note one was Morrisseys “Ned Kelly A Lawless Life”. He also lists a few websites, and includes the Iron Outlaw Archive as a resource for its collection of newspaper articles and other documents.

Curiously, no link is provided in the book to something I found on Booktopias listing for this book (which they sell for $15.95) – a free downloadable Teachers Guide and Study Notes by Robert Lewis.(Get yours HERE)

This guide ‘shows how to make most effective use of this graphic text in the history classroom so that students can know, understand and critically evaluate the ideas being put. It also offers a set of criteria for helping students evaluate this and other graphic texts.’

Its excellent reading , though I disagree with this:

 “So, which was he: a murderer/terrorist or a victim/hero?  There is no way any of us can finally decide this for ourselves. The historians and writers know far more than we readers will, and they disagree about their conclusions. So we cannot come up with a final conclusion about who Kelly was.”

As I have repeatedly said, alleging that Ned Kelly was either a ‘Villain or Hero’ and one is somehow at liberty to choose between them, depending on how you happen to feel at a particular moment is an illogical and false dichotomy. Its a tactic used by the sympathiser lobby to blur the distinctions and elevate the idea that Ned was a hero and to minimise the villainy of his life. The truth is that we CAN arrive at a final conclusion about who Ned Kelly was, just as we can decide if we answer the right questions that a cat is not a dog.  

The Study Guide provides  sets of questions to be answered about various stages and events in the Kelly story, and provides numerous links to a variety of relevant resources. To my great surprise and delight I found among them two active links to THIS BLOG, the first to our discussion about Fitzpatrick,(here) and the second at the very end of the guide where it says this:

‘The strength of feeling that still exists about the Kelly gang can be seen in the fierce debates that are carried on online between the pro-Kelly Iron Outlaw website, and the critical Ned Kelly: Death of the Legend blog:”

I already liked this Comic, but when I read this reference to my Blog in the Study Guide, I liked it a whole lot more. It signified to me that Death of the Legend Blog is not only being noticed, but is now being recognized as a legitimate part of the serious debate about the Kelly story and that we are making a real difference. I am excited by the prospect of a stream of young historians coming to read our discussions and learning from them, and hopefully even contributing.Kelly sympathisers would have to be concerned about this book being widely distributed, because I don’t doubt that a majority of readers would see through the kelly myths if they applied the techniques of reason and critical evaluation they are being taught in this study guide. 

This book is the best Kelly book ever written for school aged readers, and I hope all Year 9 kids get a chance to read it, but it can be enjoyed by everyone.

At last, another Kelly book I can recommend.