Abstract
The article explores the representation and critique of gambling in Frank Hardy’s writing. It analyses the prominence of, and changes in the concept of gambling in some of Hardy’s texts. Despite the frequency and persistence of gambling as a literary subject in Hardy’s work, his engagement with this popular activity has received only scant scholarly attention. This is particularly curious, given that gambling is a considerable and still contemporary cultural phenomenon in Australia and beyond. The study offers some possible explanations for this low analytical interest.
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Notes
Typical of fond tributes to the writer, Clement Semmler depicts Hardy as a “most generous and loyal man,” whose writing stemmed from “sincere indignation and honest reforming zeal” (1994, 13), whereas Philip Adams (a member of the Communist Party of Australia from 1955 to 1958), sees him as “the most ardent apologist for the Soviet Union, willing to perpetrate any number of despicable deeds to advance the cause” (1994, 2). Drawing on Pauline Armstrong’s unfavourable portrayal of Hardy in Frank Hardy and the Making of Power without Glory (2000), Jenny Hocking claims that, in an attempt at “sensationalised life writing with a focus on the ‘private’ that the readers and the publishers now apparently desire,” critics with no access to reliable sources trust the testimonies of “political adversaries, acquaintances and jilted lovers,” rather than regard such testimonies with scepticism (Hocking 2001, 150).
For Jack Beasley, a left-wing intellectual and active member of the Communist Party of Australia, Hardy was never what committed activists would consider fully radicalised.
Hardy’s changed attitude was first revealed in his 1968 series of articles for the London Sunday Times (published from January 11 to February 1), entitled after Yevtushenko’s 1962 poem “The Heirs of Stalin,” and later in his novel But the Dead Are Many (1975).
Several critics have noted the lack of character development and inadequate depiction of female characters, often functioning merely as catalyst for male behaviour (Čerče 2012).
In 1972, Melbourne’s Gold Star Publications published a new edition of these stories under the title It’s Moments Like These
In Power without Glory, chapter two begins with “Our age is lenient with those who cheat”.
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Čerče, D., Haag, O. Gambling as a literary subject in Frank Hardy’s work. Neohelicon 44, 257–270 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-016-0362-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11059-016-0362-9