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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
The Trout Opera 'is a stunning epic novel that encompasses twentieth-century Australia. Opening with a Christmas pageant on the banks of the Snowy River in 1906 and ending with the opening ceremony of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, it is the story of simple rabbiter and farmhand Wilfred Lampe who, at the end of his long life, is unwittingly swept up into an international spectacle. On the way he discovers a great-niece, the wild and troubled young Aurora, whom he never knew existed, and together they take an unlikely road trip that changes their lives. Wilfred, who has only ever left Dalgety once in almost a hundred years, comes face to face with contemporary Australia, and Aurora, enmeshed in the complex social problems of a modern nation, is taught how to repair her damaged life.
'This dazzling story - marvellously broad in its telling and superbly crafted - is about the changing nature of the Australian character, finding the source of human decency in a mad world, history, war, romance, murder, bushfires, drugs, the fragile and resilient nature of the environment and the art of fly fishing. It's the story of a man who has experienced the tumultuous reverberations of Australian history while never moving from his birthplace on the Snowy, and it asks, what constitutes a meaningful life?' (Publisher's blurb)
Notes
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Dedication: For my darling wife, Kate, with all my love
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Epigraph: Whatever lies under a stone
Lies under the stone of the world
'The Green Centipede' by Douglas Stewart
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Other Formats
- Sound recording.
Works about this Work
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Fish-out-of-Water : Mainstreaming Settler-Colonial Myths of Origin in Matthew Condon’s The Trout Opera
2021
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 21 no. 2 2021;'Since the 1980s, Australian critical and creative writers have employed family history as an adaptive metaphor for challenging hegemonic representations of national descent. Literary and cultural critics, in particular, describe a strong connection between complex literary representations of family in self-reflective and generically hybrid novels and an increasingly inclusive national cultural imaginary. In this article, I investigate how genealogy functions as a trope for reimagining dominant models of cultural representation in Matthew Condon’s The Trout Opera (2007). Condon’s novel exhibits both a degree of self-reflexivity and generic hybridity. However, it provides a counterpoint to what critics have described as the productive potential of filial allegories of nation. In both theme and structure, Condon’s novel dramatises a transition to a multicultural order that reproduces the cultural authority of the white patriarchal order it replaces. Genealogy, in this instance, serves as a quasi-biological metanarrative to naturalise the assimilation of multiple cultural identities and experiences in a settler colonial myth of origin. I employ Edward Said’s (1983) model of filiation and affiliation to examine the thematic and generic affiliations underpinning this dialectical manoeuvre and to illuminate how the discursive effects of genealogy are mediated by the author’s subject position and the genre(s) they employ.' (Publication abstract)
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The Interview : Matthew Condon
Phillip Edmonds
(interviewer),
2009
single work
interview
— Appears in: Wet Ink , March no. 14 2009; (p. 23-27) -
Fish Tales : Catches of the Dazed
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 10 January 2009; (p. 13)
— Review of The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel ; Gould's Book of Fish : A Novel in Twelve Fish 2001 single work novel -
An Epic yet Intimate Opera
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Antipodes , December vol. 22 no. 2 2008; (p. 173-174)
— Review of The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel -
The Year's Work in Fiction : 2007-2008
2008
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , November vol. 53 no. 2008; (p. 50-58)
— Review of From : The Time We Have Taken 2007 extract novel ; Prime Cuts 2008 selected work short story ; The Best Australian Stories 2007 2007 anthology short story extract autobiography ; The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel ; Fear of Tennis 2007 single work novel ; The Complete Stories 2007 selected work short story ; Redfin 2007 selected work short story ; Rohypnol 2006 single work novel ; Breath 2008 single work novel ; The Last Sky 2008 single work novel ; Landscape of Farewell 2007 single work novel ; A History of the Beanbag : And Other Stories 2007 selected work short story ; Dead Birds 2007 single work novel ; Secrets of the Sea 2007 single work novel ; Other Country 2007 single work novel ; The Low Road 2007 single work novel ; Lilia's Secret 2007 single work novel
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Untitled
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , October vol. 87 no. 4 2007; (p. 46)
— Review of The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel -
Our Story, Told in a Fish's Tale
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 3 November 2007; (p. 25)
— Review of The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel -
The Right Sort of People Behaving Badly
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , November vol. 2 no. 10 2007; (p. 6-7)
— Review of Jamaica : A Novel 2007 single work novel ; The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel ; The Lost Dog 2007 single work novel -
Untitled
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10-11 November 2007; (p. 15)
— Review of The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel -
Evocative Story Spoilt By Soapy Subplots
2007
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 10-11 November 2007; (p. 32-33)
— Review of The Trout Opera 2007 single work novel -
Gone Fishing
Angela Meyer
(interviewer),
2007
single work
interview
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , October vol. 87 no. 4 2007; (p. 52) -
A Man of Snowy River
2007
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 3 November 2007; (p. 8-9) -
Ray of Inspiration
2007
single work
column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 10 November 2007; (p. 14) -
The Big One Took Its Time to Mature into an Epic
2007
single work
biography
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 10-11 November 2007; (p. 14-15) -
Everyman Has Day after 10 Years' Work
2008
single work
column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 17 April 2008; (p. 3)
Awards
- 2009 longlisted International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
- 2008 longlisted Australia-Asia Literary Award
- 2008 shortlisted Queensland Premier's Literary Awards — Best Fiction Book
- 2008 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Christina Stead Prize for Fiction
- Dalgety, Berridale - Dalgety area, Cooma - Snowy - Bombala area, Southeastern NSW, New South Wales,
- Sydney, New South Wales,
- 1900-1999