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Harland's Half Acre (Vintage International) Paperback – January 14, 1997

by David Malouf (Author)
3.2 3.2 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
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Born on a poor dairy farm in Queensland, Frank Harland’s life is centered on his great artistic gift, his passionate love for his father and four brothers and his need to repossess, through a patch of land, his family’s past. The story spans Frank’s life; from before the First World War, through years as a swaggie in the Great Depression and Brisbane in the forties, to his retirement to a patch of Australian scrub where he at last takes possession of his dream.
 
Harland’s Half Acre tells how a man sets out to recover the land his ancestors discovered and then lost and how, in fulfilment, this vision becomes a new reality.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    240 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  4. Publication date
    January 14, 1997
  5. Dimensions
    5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0679776478
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0679776475
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A rare novel . . . rich in descriptive detail . . . and thoroughly persuasive in its portrayal of a world and an era.

From Publishers Weekly

A novel about an Australian artist and his family by the author of Remembering Babylon.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group; Vintage Intl ed. edition (January 14, 1997)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679776478
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679776475
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9.6 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.2 3.2 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

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David Malouf

David Malouf

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Customer reviews

3.2 out of 5 stars
3.2 out of 5
28 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Shazartist
4.0 out of 5 stars A Book to revisit
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2014
I had three books I really wanted to read and this was one of them and unfortunately I know I read it too fast. The subtlety's were many and it deserves a slower more thoughtful read than I gave it. What a wonderful writer Malouf is that can punch out something as good as this so quickly. His thoughts must just be worth writing down unedited.
I paint so I can really see how Harland managed to be were he was. Without the tag of Artist he would have been deemed nuts and with the obsession of his Art it most likely made him worse than he may have been, doomed one way or the other. I enjoyed the whole book, not all the characters were particularly endearing but the plot and the way we as readers are taken through the family drama's almost was and it personal so you got involved. There were so many uplifting and generous parts of the book that it created a balance.
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Mark Buckley
1.0 out of 5 stars Unabashed confusion
Reviewed in the United States on October 14, 2011
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This book had no depth was irritating to read. It was like reading rambling gossip. The timeline changes and new characters abound then disappear.
I have read Maloufs' Ranson and An imaginary Life and both were excellent. This was like reading another author.
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Stephen A. Haines
5.0 out of 5 stars A thesaurus is required
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2002
The thesaurus is not needed to read this book, but to describe Malouf's work. There is certainly no single term that can encompass his superb writing abilities. "Opulent" might cover his descriptive powers, but fails to address the strength of Malouf's chronicle of Frank Harland. "Gripping" isn't appropriate to a life so realistically portrayed - with its tumultuous events mixed with the mundane. Artist Frank Harland is anything but mundane, however. Raised in a rural, hilly environment, Harland is buffeted by lasting poverty, overborne by deep loyalties to father and brothers, never losing sight of the meaning of "place." That place is the one-room house of his birth. No matter how far he strays from that locale, it haunts his life and his paintings. In the end, he confines himself to the "Half Acre" in solitary exile. What the thesaurus fails to convey for the reviewer, Malouf's own words will keep you embedded in this real life story.
This early book presages why many awards are granted Malouf for his writing. He was the first winner of the IMPAC award, the richest in publishing. The story of Frank Harland captures the reader from the first page. His father, an indolent dairy farmer, imparted a sense of story in Frank from his earliest days. He applies his learning to drawing instead of text, giving a fresh image of his home and its people throughout his life. Affected by the powers experienced in the hill country, the various intensities of light and shadow, the wonder-generating storms that beset the hills, the flora and fauna encountered, he struggles to impart his feelings to his art. Using any available medium, Frank paints on wood, cardboard panels, paper or whatever is at hand. The work gains wide circulation, almost unknown to Frank. Success and fame are not his aim, however, but getting through life remains the dominant theme throughout this work. In the background, he remains beset by "place," which is translated into spending his earnings on enlarging his father's land holdings.
Malouf's great strength is in characterization. Every person in this story is vividly depicted, Frank, father Clem, Tam the stepbrother and Phil the lawyer. Would you like these people? It's doubtful. Frank, caught up in his art, is slovenly, his various residences a chaos, his appearance ragged. Phil is hesitant, charmless and limited in scope. Little wonder he remains unmarried throughout his life. There is little to attract in any of these people. Still, Malouf manages to portray them sympathetically. His prose keeps you attentive, following their fates, no matter how distasteful their personalities might seem. It is Malouf's honed skills that keeps this book timeless.
7 people found this helpful
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Mads Clausen
4.0 out of 5 stars Malouf's Struggling Artist.
Reviewed in the United States on April 18, 2000
David Malouf's Harland's Half Acre is by every standard a great book. Malouf has elected to deal the life of Frank Harland, a fictional Australian painter based loosely on real-life painter and recluse Ian Fairweather. Thematically, Malouf's book is comparable to Patrick White's The Vivisector, although Malouf's book certainly is a less demanding and far more beautiful read. As usual, Malouf's almost liquid prose is beyond reproach, and the central characters are more substantial than in previous works. Harland's Half Acre has not received as much acclaim as other novels by David Malouf, which is a great pity. The novel is not as grandly imagined as Malouf's masterpiece An Imaginary Life, yet it follows in the footsteps of Johnno, 12 Edmondstone St. and The Great World by painting an intensely personal picture of Australian history/memory.
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

GetGar
4.0 out of 5 stars Good Not Great
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 6, 2010
Verified Purchase
Even though I liked the book I couldn't give it more than 4 stars because I had to compare it to the better "Remembering Babylon," by the same author.
David Malouf is a sometimes brilliant and always worthwhile. However, this book left me less than fully satisfied. In particular, the last quarter of the book felt like the writer ran out of steam. I don't want to ruin it with retelling the plot, which in Malouf's case would be difficult, because it is in the descriptions of the characters inner life that he excels.
He is a sometimes poet and it shows in passages of great beauty.
This is an author worth reading and perhaps others will find this book perfect. In my case by having read Babylon earlier I had to make a difficult call on which one was better.
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Sandra Davies
5.0 out of 5 stars Oh! Those paintings!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 11, 2017
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This gained an extra star for the wonderful descriptions of the paintings and because, in the end the arc of the book became clear and satisfying, David Malouf's writing is always impactful but at times I needed to re-read parts of it to fully grasp the meaning.
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