A Melbourne Bodgie

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30983, 12 February 1966, Page 4

A Melbourne Bodgie

A Bunch of Ratbags. By William Dick. Collins. 320 pp. This string of autobiographical episodes, from the life of a Melbourne bodgie, has a favourable introduction by Morris West. But his sympathies have spoiled his judgment. The narrative is repetitive, unintelligent—oh yes, bodgies are like that. But they aren’t very interesting to listen to for long. This book has real sociological interest. but it is not literature. Description is warped by selfpity, though the blurb claims that the narrator has never heard of it. The writing needed a lot more work. A reader will stumble over “my old man” repeated four or five times in a paragraph, and carelessness like rendering “you” variously as “yuh,” “ya,” “yer,” and “yah.” Dialogue is sometimes unbelievable, e.g., when a slum woman announces—rather like Liza Doolittle at her best —that ‘lt should not be long now, as lino is getting cheaper and cheaper.” Long words and genteelisms abound: “dilemmas.” “dilapi-

dated conditions.” “a disgrace to human intelligence,” “the toilet,” and—most uncharacteristically!—“women of easy virtue.” The author's difficulties do not make bad writing good. But, for anyone with some understanding, the author vividly describes the conditions and influences that can turn a human being to hatred of his fellows: the cruelty of a really vicious home, the anxiety, the dread of being beaten, the blind loyalty to gangs which offer some security, the hatred of teachers and “foreigners,” fear of the police who may take you “down to the station to be charged and belted up,” the boredom, the feelings of victimisation and belief that destroying property at least gives a chance to retaliate against “them.” The narrator and his friends show characteristically mindless, exploitative attitudes towards sex—and in fact to all human relationships. However, although the changes in his attitudes are not really accounted for adequately, the “hero” is eventually redeemed by The Love of a Good Girl.