Xavier Herbert
Xavier Herbert was a notable Australian novelist recognized for his contributions to the literature celebrating the Australian bush and its cultural legacy. He was born Alfred Jackson on the coast of Western Australia but later adopted the more evocative name, Xavier Herbert. Herbert's literary journey began in the 1920s, culminating in his acclaimed first novel, "Capricornia," published in 1938 after he had spent time in England. His later works, particularly "Poor Fellow My Country," published in 1975, reflect a complex character who expressed both admiration and criticism towards Australian society, particularly in its treatment of Aboriginal Australians. While Herbert’s writings often included elements of bigotry and sexism, he simultaneously portrayed Indigenous people with a level of sympathy that was rare for his time. Despite being celebrated for his narrative style and exploration of the Australian landscape, his controversial views have sparked critical discussions about his legacy. Herbert passed away in 1984 in Alice Springs, leaving behind a body of work that remains significant in Australian literary history.
Subject Terms
Xavier Herbert
Australian novelist and short-story writer.
- Born: May 15, 1901
- Birthplace: Geraldton, Western Australia, Australia
- Died: November 10, 1984
- Place of death: Alice Springs, Northern Territory, Australia
Biography
Xavier Herbert was the last and perhaps the best of the nationalist novelists who celebrated the Australian legend of the bush. In his final novel, Poor Fellow My Country, he predicted doom for Australia unless it turned away from modernization, internationalism, and urbanization. He was in person—and often in his fiction—bigoted, homophobic, sexist, and xenophobic. At the same time, however, he was one of the first writers to treat Aboriginal Australians sympathetically.
Born illegitimate on the coast of Western Australia, Herbert dropped his original name, Alfred Jackson, for the more romantic one by which he became known. He left the remote West in the early 1920s and moved to Melbourne, where he began to write. In 1926 his first story was published under the name Herbert Astor. A year later he set out on his wanderings in the Northern Territory, Australia’s most isolated and unsettled region. There he gathered material that he used in his first novel, Capricornia, and in his final book.
In 1930 Herbert went to England, which he disliked immensely, but there with the help of Sadie Nordern, who later became his wife, he completed the first draft of Capricornia, the book generally considered to be his finest work. After two years in England, he returned to Australia. To support himself and to earn money for Sadie’s passage to Australia, he continued to write conventional and formulaic short stories, which were collected and published after his death. The publication of Capricornia, which is Herbert’s name for the Northern Territory, was delayed until 1938, but once it appeared the book became a best seller. It remains his most widely read and admired work, both in Australia and overseas.
After Herbert served in World War II, he and his wife moved to Redlynch, a small town in northern Queensland, and remained there for most of the rest of their lives. Herbert combined writing with a series of casual occupations, but in spite of announcements of forthcoming books, nothing more surfaced until 1959, when the disastrous Seven Emus was published. In 1961 Soldiers’ Women appeared. This urban novel, which explores the lives of women in wartime, has been criticized for Herbert’s offensive views of women’s sexuality. A collection of short stories, Larger than Life, came out in 1963, and the autobiographical account of his first twenty-four years, Disturbing Element, appeared the same year.
Another period of silence followed, punctuated by frequent announcements that Herbert’s greatest work was about to emerge. Finally, in 1975 Poor Fellow My Country was published, all 1,463 pages of it (it won the record for longest Australian novel). Much of the book captivates the reader, such as the outback exploits, the evocation of Australia’s barren and rugged landscape, the satiric thrusts at social pretensions, and the admirable treatment of Aboriginal Australians. It was awarded the Miles Franklin award in 1975. However, the bigotry and hectoring of the protagonist mar the novel. Obviously, the Australia that Herbert dubs "poor fellow my country" did not heed his dire warnings, for in the years after the book’s publication the nation shed its insularity, evolved into an urban, multicultural country, and retained its British and American connections. The treatment of indigenous peoples, though, has improved dramatically since the novel was written.
Herbert moved to the Northern Territory in 1984 and died later that year in Alice Springs at the age of eighty-three. Though his works have fallen somewhat into obscurity, in Australian literary circles he is remembered as one of the nation's premier novelists. A difficult and contradictory figure, his legacy remains tied to the groundbreaking vision of Capricornia and Poor Fellow My Country, while his autobiography also remains interesting.
Author Works
Long Fiction:
Capricornia, 1938
Seven Emus, 1959
Soldiers’ Women, 1961
Poor Fellow My Country, 1975
Short Fiction:
Larger than Life: Twenty Short Stories, 1963
South of Capricornia: Short Stories, 1925–1934, 1990 (Russell McDougall, editor)
Nonfiction:
Disturbing Element, 1963 (autobiography)
Letters, 2002
Miscellaneous:
Xavier Herbert: Episodes from "Capricornia," "Poor Fellow My Country," and Other Fiction, Nonfiction, and Letters, 1992 (Frances de Groen and Peter Pierce, editors)
Bibliography
Clancy, Laurie. Xavier Herbert. Boston: Twayne, 1981. Provides a survey of Herbert’s life and literary career. Discusses the earlier fiction but focuses mainly on Capricornia. Calls Herbert a "nationalist writer" but considers Poor Fellow My Country a failure, dubbing it "poor bugger my book."
De Groen, Frances. Xavier Herbert: A Biography. Melbourne, Australia: Oxford University Press, 1998. A definitive biography that examines all aspects of Herbert’s complex personality from a psychoanalytic standpoint. The figure that emerges is at times appalling, as De Groen does not try to mask her subject’s unlikable side.
McDougall, Russell. "Herbert, Albert Francis Xavier (1901–1984)." Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, 2007, adb.anu.edu.au/biography/herbert-albert-francis-xavier-12623/text22741. Accessed 20 May 2017.
Ross, Robert. "Xavier Herbert’s Poor Fellow My Country: In Search of an American Audience." Journal of Popular Culture 23, no. 2 (Fall, 1989): 55–62. Questions why the novel did not gain recognition when published in the United States. Concludes that its bigotry, attitudes toward sexuality, and anti-Americanism hindered its reception.
Stow, Randolph. "Epic of Capricorn." The Times Literary Supplement, April 9, 1976, 28. An Australian novelist much different from Herbert calls Poor Fellow My Country "perhaps the Australian classic" in spite of its faults. Praises the vigorous narrative.
Wevers, Lyda. "Terra Australis: Landscape as Medium in Capricornia and Poor Fellow My Country." Australian Literary Studies 17, no. 1 (May, 1995): 38–48. Discusses Herbert’s nationalism and his treatment of Aboriginal Australians.