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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Insightful, humorous and confronting, “Crucible” is a delicate portrait of the thoughts and emotions of a young man experiencing a brutal and bewildering war. This prize-winning Australian novel of the First World War recounts the coming of age of a sensitive young Australian soldier on the Western Front. McKinney, whose portrait appears on the book’s cover, fought in France from 1915 to1918 with the First Anzac Cyclist Battalion, and much of the novel is loosely based on his own wartime experiences. It takes the reader to the trenches and their horrors, as well as to life behind the lines in occupied France. The camaraderie, intense friendships and occasional tensions among the Diggers who lived and died together in France is vividly portrayed, and young John Fairbairn finds himself faced with the painful dilemmas of love and betrayal that war so often brings in its train. “Crucible” broke new ground in its use of a narrative technique that slips between traditional third person narration and the immediacy of a sometimes fragmented and intense inner voice. It won the RSL Prize for an Australian War Novel in 1935, the year it was published.' (Publication summary)
Notes
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This novel deals with the narrator's experiences of trench warfare in France during World War One, in a sometimes amusing way.
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Dedication: To the memory of all those good fellows (which includes many official 'bad' fellows) whom we left behind on the other side.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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“Whichever and Whatever It Was” : Rendering War and Peace in Australian WWI Narratives
2016
single work
essay
— Appears in: Long Paddock , vol. 75 no. 3 2016; 'Australian narratives of World War I (WWI) reflect a different but characteristic commemoration of that event. While the best (to modern eyes) novels of WWI present a comprehensive picture of disillusionment, futility and waste, Australian stories proffer the view that the war was worthwhile, and that the sacrifices of the Anzacs were honourable and justified. In placing WWI as a salient marker denoting the origin of the nation, Australian texts diverge from the revered WWI canon’s convincing portrayal of the war as a symbol of civilisation’s demise. Even accepting this divergence, however, there is much in Australian narratives that amplifies the memorialisation of the war in Australian society.' (Introduction) -
Lovely Boys, Good Blokes, and Bonzer Bints : Love and Eroticism in British and Australian Great War Narratives
2014
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Antipodes , June vol. 28 no. 1 2014; (p. 155-165, 257) 'Rhoden examines love and eroticisam in British and Australian Great War narratives. Interestingly, Australian narratives, with their protagonists even more separated from their women, are also likely to eschew homosexual themes. Although male tenderness exists, it is represented as being of a much lesser degree, at least in its physical manifestation. Male-male friendship–mateships–represented by Australian authors may carry undertones of emotional and physical intensity, but this is usually expressed in curt, economical gestures. The "lovely boys" of British works give way to a bunch of good blokes. Readers need to look more closely for evidence of romance and special individual bonds.' (Publication abstract) -
A Vast White Shroud
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 362 2014; (p. 58)
— Review of Crucible : An Australian First World War Novel 1935 single work novel -
Ruins or Foundations : Great War Literature in the Australian Curriculum
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 1 2012; 'The Great War has been represented in Australian curricula since 1914, in texts with tones ranging from bellicose patriotism to idealistic pacifism. Australian curricula have included war literature as one way of transmitting cultural values, values that continue to evolve as successive generations relate differently to war and peace. Changes in ethical perspectives and popular feeling have guided text selection and pedagogy, so that texts which were once accepted as foundational to Australian society seem, at later times, to document civilisation's ruin.
In recent years, overseas texts have been preferred above Australian examples as mediators of the Great War, an event still held by many to be of essential importance to Australia. This paper first considers arguments for including Great War texts on the national curriculum, exploring what war literature can, and cannot, be expected to bring to the program. Interrogating the purpose/s of war literature in the curriculum and the ways in which the texts may be used to meet such expectations, the paper then discusses styles of war texts and investigates whether there is a case for including more texts by Australian authors.' (Author's abstract)
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What’s Missing in This Picture? : The ‘Middle Parts of Fortune’ in Australian Great War Literature
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Philament : Borders, Regions, Worlds , August no. 16 2010; (p. 21-33) 'Disillusionment as a style of war fiction, with its characteristic debunking of old- fashioned glorious-war notions, owes its prominence more to the post-war, depression-oppressed mood of the 1930s than to the war's factual history. Soldier authors such as Sassoon, Graves and Aldington followed Remarque's popular All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) with their own reminiscences, part auto-biography, part imagination, and wholly literary. With an emphasis on the terrible conditions and the devastating experiences of sensitive individual protagonists, the disenchanted novels of the Great War canon expose war's futility and horror. The disenchantment perspective is generally summarised as the culpable sacrifice of idealistic young men by war-mongering politicians and profiteers. Its tropes are the Western Front trench, mud, shellshock, summary executions and the ruin of a generation. Although recent historical and literary analyses have demonstrated errors, exaggerations and misunderstandings in these clichés, popular memory still prefers disillusion. So indeed does current literary fiction set in the period.' (p. 2)
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New Australian Work
1936
single work
review
— Appears in: All About Books , 13 January vol. 8 no. 1 1936; (p. 4-6)
— Review of Aces and Kings 1935 single work autobiography ; There and Back : The Story of an Australian Soldier, 1915-1935 1935 single work autobiography ; Crucible : An Australian First World War Novel 1935 single work novel ; My Father and My Father's Friends 1935 single work biography ; A Nursery in the Nineties 1935 single work autobiography ; Blue Coast Caravan 1935 single work non-fiction -
[Review] Crucible : An Australian First World War Novel
1935
single work
review
— Appears in: The Bulletin , 6 November vol. 56 no. 2908 1935; (p. 4)
— Review of Crucible : An Australian First World War Novel 1935 single work novel -
A Vast White Shroud
2014
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June-July no. 362 2014; (p. 58)
— Review of Crucible : An Australian First World War Novel 1935 single work novel -
The Novel : Novels of Purpose
1961
single work
criticism
— Appears in: A History of Australian Literature, Pure and Applied : A Critical Review of All Forms of Literature Produced in Australia from the First Books Published After the Arrival of the First Fleet Until 1950, with Short Accounts of Later Publications Up to 1960 1961; (p. 1122-1152) -
Queensland Authors and Artists' Association [Meeting Report]
1937
single work
column
— Appears in: All About Books , 13 September vol. 9 no. 9 1937; (p. 143-144) Report of the meeting of 21 July "devoted to an appreciation of the work of Steele Rudd". Also very brief notes on the meeting of 18 August where McKinney's Crucible was reviewed in his presence. -
What’s Missing in This Picture? : The ‘Middle Parts of Fortune’ in Australian Great War Literature
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Philament : Borders, Regions, Worlds , August no. 16 2010; (p. 21-33) 'Disillusionment as a style of war fiction, with its characteristic debunking of old- fashioned glorious-war notions, owes its prominence more to the post-war, depression-oppressed mood of the 1930s than to the war's factual history. Soldier authors such as Sassoon, Graves and Aldington followed Remarque's popular All Quiet on the Western Front (1929) with their own reminiscences, part auto-biography, part imagination, and wholly literary. With an emphasis on the terrible conditions and the devastating experiences of sensitive individual protagonists, the disenchanted novels of the Great War canon expose war's futility and horror. The disenchantment perspective is generally summarised as the culpable sacrifice of idealistic young men by war-mongering politicians and profiteers. Its tropes are the Western Front trench, mud, shellshock, summary executions and the ruin of a generation. Although recent historical and literary analyses have demonstrated errors, exaggerations and misunderstandings in these clichés, popular memory still prefers disillusion. So indeed does current literary fiction set in the period.' (p. 2) -
Ruins or Foundations : Great War Literature in the Australian Curriculum
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: JASAL , vol. 12 no. 1 2012; 'The Great War has been represented in Australian curricula since 1914, in texts with tones ranging from bellicose patriotism to idealistic pacifism. Australian curricula have included war literature as one way of transmitting cultural values, values that continue to evolve as successive generations relate differently to war and peace. Changes in ethical perspectives and popular feeling have guided text selection and pedagogy, so that texts which were once accepted as foundational to Australian society seem, at later times, to document civilisation's ruin.
In recent years, overseas texts have been preferred above Australian examples as mediators of the Great War, an event still held by many to be of essential importance to Australia. This paper first considers arguments for including Great War texts on the national curriculum, exploring what war literature can, and cannot, be expected to bring to the program. Interrogating the purpose/s of war literature in the curriculum and the ways in which the texts may be used to meet such expectations, the paper then discusses styles of war texts and investigates whether there is a case for including more texts by Australian authors.' (Author's abstract)
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Emu into Ostrich : Australian Literary Responses to The Great War
1976
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Meanjin Quarterly , Autumn vol. 35 no. 1 1976; (p. 78-87)
Awards
- 1935 winner Returned Soldiers League Prize for Australian War Novel Awarded under an earlier working title, 'Over the Top'.
Last amended 27 Jun 2014 10:06:46
Settings:
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cFrance,cWestern Europe, Europe,
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Somme,
cFrance,cWestern Europe, Europe,
- 1910s
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