A second brother, Joseph, was killed by multiple bayonet wounds while Facey was convalescing in Egypt. Thousands of them. Facey had escaped the danger of death by explosion or bayonet but at a cost, and the war haunted him for the rest of his days.
On disembarkation at Fremantle on 20 November , he was admitted to hospital where he remained on and off for several months. Forty-one other sick and wounded disembarked with him HMAT. Around one third, experiencing nerve-related illness, had been sent home for rest; while none returned to the war, some of the physically wounded did War Service Records. He was discharged from the army in June but, his drafts suggest, his war never really ended. He began a new life as a wounded Anzac.
His dependent and often fractious relationship with the Repatriation Department ended only with his death 66 years later.
Historian Marina Larsson persuasively argues that repatriated sick and wounded servicemen from the First World War represented a displaced presence at home. Its primary definition invokes coming home but to repatriate also implies banishment from a place that is not home, so that Facey was in this sense expelled from Gallipoli and, by extension, excluded from the myth of Anzac. Unlike his two brothers, he would not join history as one of the glorious dead; his name would appear on no roll of honour.
Return home is not equivalent to restoration of his prior state and identity, for baggage from the other place perpetually weighs. This might be exacerbated where there is no evident or visible injury, creating suspicion of resistance, cowardice, or malingering.
However, Alberti points out that, despite such developments, war-related trauma continues to be contested We propose that Albert Facey spent his adult life troubled by a sense of regret and failure because of his removal from Gallipoli and that he attempted to compensate through storytelling, which included his being an original Anzac and seriously wounded in action.
By writing, Facey could shore up his rectitude, work ethic, and sense of loyalty to other servicemen, which became necessary, we believe, because repatriation doctors and probably others had doubted him.
By his own account, he enlisted for war as a physically robust and supremely athletic young man and returned nine months later to life-long anxiety and ill-health.
Publication transformed him into a national sage, earning him, in his final months, the credibility, empathy, and affirmation he had long sought. Exploring different accounts of Facey, in the shape of his drafts and institutional records, gives rise to new interpretations.
Alberti, Fay Bound. Matters of the Heart: History, Medicine, and Emotions. Oxford: Oxford UP, Butler, A. Canberra: Australian War Memorial, Campbell, A. Damousi, Joy. Marilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds. Dutton, Geoffrey. Eager, R. Echterling, L. Field, and Anne L.
Marilyn P. Safir and Helene S. New York: Springer, First Tuesday Book Club. ABC Splash. Foster, Dennis. When he was 86 Facey published A Fortunate Life , the autobiography that made him and his life famous. His ordinariness and decency, and the enjoyment he took from a life that by the usual standards was far from fortunate, endeared him to his fellow Australians.
The style of the book passed beyond plainness into an elemental purity. The chapters are short, each one like a yarn. Critics have suggested that the book had been heavily edited, but surviving manuscripts of his several versions refute this contention. The final version reveals considerable artifice.
He was uncertain about dates and the book contains some factual errors. Six feet cm tall with blue eyes, as a young man Facey had dark brown hair. He always kept his promise to his grandmother that he would not drink alcohol.
Survived by his three daughters and three of his four sons, he died on 11 February at Midland and was buried in the local cemetery. He made the first notes of his life soon after World War I, and filled notebooks with his accounts of his experiences.
Finally, on the urging of his daughter, Barbara Rose, the hand-written manuscript was submitted to the Fremantle Arts Centre Press to see 'if they could print a few copies for the family'. They very soon found they had a bestseller on their hands! Albert died in , nine months after A Fortunate Life had been published to wide acclaim. A Fortunate Life Home.
0コメント