Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction: Writing Patrimony: The Son's Book of the Father as a Sub-genre
- Part I Challenging Authority
- Part II Memorialising Self-Denial
- Part III Performing Masculinity
- Chapter Five A Speaking Subject/A Watching Object: Addressing the Father in Peter Rose's Rose Boys
- Chapter Six Choosing Patrimony: Performing for the Father in John Hughes's The Idea of Home
- Chapter Seven ‘Neither to Vindicate nor to Vilify’: Becoming the Father in Robert Gray's The Land I Came Through Last
- Conclusion: The Turn to the Father in Autobiography
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter Five - A Speaking Subject/A Watching Object: Addressing the Father in Peter Rose's Rose Boys
from Part III - Performing Masculinity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Miscellaneous frontmatter
- Acknowledgements
- List of Illustrations
- Introduction: Writing Patrimony: The Son's Book of the Father as a Sub-genre
- Part I Challenging Authority
- Part II Memorialising Self-Denial
- Part III Performing Masculinity
- Chapter Five A Speaking Subject/A Watching Object: Addressing the Father in Peter Rose's Rose Boys
- Chapter Six Choosing Patrimony: Performing for the Father in John Hughes's The Idea of Home
- Chapter Seven ‘Neither to Vindicate nor to Vilify’: Becoming the Father in Robert Gray's The Land I Came Through Last
- Conclusion: The Turn to the Father in Autobiography
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
To really develop the traditional masculine role, the young boy needs to be able to try out different behaviors and feelings, practice and display them, and have an audience - especially a male audience - that mirrors back how wonderful and masculine he is.
—Warren Steinberg, Masculinity: Identity, Conflict and TransformationAdrian. Why do you wanna fight?
Rocky. Because I can't sing or dance.
—Sylvester Stallone, RockyYet why not say what happened? […]
We are poor passing facts,
warned by that to give
each figure in the photograph
his living name.
—Robert Lowell, ‘Epilogue’Rose Boys originated from the eulogy the author gave at the funeral of the central subject of his memoir. Robert Rose's death and funeral conclude this work of tribute by the subject's brother, an inevitable climax to a family narrative of suffering and life curtailed. In describing the service, the author summarises his eulogy, eloquently stating the autobiographical impulse and purpose of Rose Boys:
I was determined to express my revulsion at the suffering inflicted on Robert. I described it as grotesquely cruel, like a stupid, vicious swipe from the gods. I wanted the high ceilings and elongated crosses to resound with some kind of refusal, however feeble. I spoke about Robert's sporting career. Many in the church, I knew, were unfamiliar with his record. I drew on crucial incidents and images, some of which will be familiar to readers of this book […] Then I turned to my consolations: Robert's closeness to Salli and my parents and his genius for friendship.
(Rose Boys 283)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Australian PatriographyHow Sons Write Fathers in Contemporary Life Writing, pp. 115 - 138Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2013