SUCH IS LIFE By Tom Collins
Joseph Eurphy, who wrote under the name of " Tom Collins," was born in Australia in 1843, and Such is Life (Cape, zos. 6d.) was first published in Australia in 1903, and has become an Australian classic. Idiomatic difficulties may per- haps prevent it being as popular in England,- but the publishers- are to be thanked for introducing—in an abridged form—to English readers .a book of great interest and considerable merit. Mr. Furphy writes of the days when the gold-boom was over, and unsuccessful prospectors were wandering the country picking up a living as teamsters and station hands, or else fighting for one outside the law. In Such Is Life he describes one week of his life, elabor- ating such brief daily entries in his diary (for 1883) as : " Thomp. Coop, etc. to-mile Pines. Clio. Duff. Selec." In his choice of form, in the scope and atmosphere of his book, as well, as in the idiomatic richness of his style and his handling of long sentences and scenes of complex detail, he is a true antecedent of Joyce. His learning is not so well digested as his experiences, and some- times he is merely garrulous, and, as Mr. Vance Palmer says in the introduc- tion, " his Irish love of the long word " nearly trips him up. But on the whole this is a remarkable piece of work and deserves to be known to a wider circle of readers.
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