... meticulously researched and flawlessly written ... Plorn is a compelling narrator, an endearing mixture of youthful innocence and cocky courage. He has a cool-headed ability to observe and describe other people, social situations and the natural world ... The real-life Dickens family was complicated, and Keneally mines that intrigue for all it's worth. Most profoundly, beneath the lively stories of Plorn, his family and his Australian odyssey, this novel is about British colonialism, on which modern Australia was founded. It's about the Brits' repression and poisoning of aboriginal culture, as well as the heady, complicated ways in which they shaped a nation's character, culture and economy. That's no small feat for a novel, especially one by a writer in his 80s. And that is Keneally's gift—to create historical fiction with every shred of fact available, while rounding it out with a powerful narrative that, eerily enough, could be exactly what happened.
Keneally has created an entertaining and moving novel spinning out from this historical fact, creating a vivid picture of colonial Australia ... One highlight of the novel is an encounter between Plorn and some bushrangers, and even here, his father's illustrious name changes the direction of the meeting. Some of the quirky ways people speak in The Dickens Boy, the hidden aspects of their ancestry being revealed, and the need for a young man to find his way in the world provide a link back to Dickens ... However, if, like Plorn, the reader is unfamiliar with Dickens's novels, the book stands on its own as an inventive and enticing vision of 19th century Australia ... The Dickens Boy is wonderfully complex, and, like Dickens's works, deserves reading and rereading. We are lucky to have Keneally continuing to write novels which capture so much of our past in a complex and eminently readable way.
... a novel that is part-Bildungsroman and part-Boy’s Own adventure yarn—one that is strong in atmosphere but curiously thin in terms of plot ... Observing Australia through Plorn’s eyes, we are given a ground-level perspective on the country’s strange, raw beauty ... We are also introduced to an entertaining cast of supporting characters ... Keneally’s main aim is not to re-imagine one of Dickens’s novels but to re-examine the writer himself from a new, oblique angle. It is certainly a bold idea ... Unfortunately, the novel itself is captured rather better by Plorn’s later remark on the beautiful appearance of the Australian countryside in winter: spangled with frost and condensation, it 'glinted forth promises it might not keep'.
From this ingenious premise, Keneally spins a delightful, often hilarious, wide-ranging coming-of-age novel. You have the usual themes, such as sexual awakening, learning to adjust abstract morals to real-life circumstances, and how to judge another person in his or her fullness, allowing for imperfections. To that, add what it means to be a family outcast in a country settled by outcasts. Keneally celebrates the frontier ethic, in which a person’s deeds and capabilities often, but not always, matter more than his or her birth. As such, you can pretty much tell the good guys from the bad guys without a scorecard, and they seldom do anything to challenge the judgment; perhaps that’s Dickensian too. However, laughter levels that broad-brush approach, with a theatrical tone that Dickens himself might have admired. A few characters could have stood more nuance, but this is a thoroughly enjoyable novel. Highly recommended
The story of [Plorn's] encounter with the vast expanse of Australia and the rich variety of its people—colonists, ex-convicts, aborigines, bushrangers and ne’er-do-wells—is engaging. Keneally has always been a wonderful storyteller, a master of the easy-flowing narrative, and even in his ninth decade with more than 30 novels behind him, his energy and inventiveness are unabated. Different strands of the narrative are expertly managed, and the picture of early colonial society, with its hard and often lonely work, its cricket matches and race-meetings, is full of life and very pleasing ... Keneally has brought off a notable double: a delightful and continuously interesting portrayal of mid-19th century life in the rolling sheep pastures of New South Wales and an acute and persuasive examination of the mystery that Charles Dickens still presents, and of the enduring fascination he exerts over us today.
Keneally...retells Plorn’s story in incredible detail. Perhaps the book is at its best when recreating the hard landscape of the Australian Outback, and the everyday lives of the drovers and the Paakantji Aboriginal tribe that live on the Momba sheep station ... In the novel we get a lot of information about Australian sheep-farming practices in the 19th century (after a weirdly gruesome scene where a lamb gets castrated, it was perhaps more than I wanted to know) and all that detail comes at the expense of pace. Keneally is also guilty of some awkward-sounding Victorianese ... Nevertheless, the rich world that is evoked makes The Dickens Boy an engrossing and transporting read.
Keneally takes us on a rather plodding journey through Plorn’s early life ... The difficulty about concentrating on all this stuff is that Plorn was a tiny child when his parents’ marriage broke up and had no direct memory of any of it. Keneally adds to his problems by making Plorn totally ignorant of his father’s books ... Keneally gives Plorn his first experience of sex, with an older woman. It is described rather revoltingly ... In scene after scene, Plorn encounters an Australian who makes some allusion to the novels of Dickens, and he conceals from them the fact that he has not read one. The repeated allusions to (and occasional dreams about) Charles Dickens, his circle, and the England Plorn has left behind only serve to emphasise the aching boringness, by contrast, of Victorian Australia. Likewise, every time someone mentions Little Nell or Lizzie Hexham, you wish you were reading a novel by the ‘guv’nor’ rather than this dreary stuff.
Like the best historical fiction, this adventure-filled novel (featuring colorful scoundrels, fetching young women, suicide, scandals, and no small amount of Dickens lore), rings entirely true. A delightful read, warmly recommended.
Keneally liberally and seamlessly integrates Dickensian allusions, references, and quotes as he weaves his tale and positively delights in spinning the local vernacular into his own Shakespearean yarns. Keneally brings authority and insight to his depictions of his homeland and its people, striking a perfect balance of the historical and poetic while also addressing race issues obliquely yet thoughtfully. The 'guvnor' would approve.
Keneally writes eloquently of his native country’s natural beauty and provides several colorful episodes for his young hero ... most of the characters are as nice as the bandits, which makes Edward’s life easier but deprives him and the novel of the essential conflict that fiction requires. The book’s mostly rosy lens extends even to the treatment of Aboriginal people in colonial Australia, although the darker side of that picture does eventually emerge. Keneally is an accomplished historical novelist, but the history and fiction here aren’t as compelling as they should be. An intriguing but uneven sidebar to the Dickens saga.
... moving if diffuse ... Though the series of episodes generate only mild suspense and largely reproduce the historical record, the author rewards with well-drawn physical and inner landscapes. Still, this is for Dickens obsessives only.
