HERE'S LUCK

First published in 1930, this reissue of what has been hailed as "Australia's funniest book" will leave modern American readers asking, "Says who?" Lower's pursuit of irony and folly is tireless. But with a trifling plot line—used primarily as a vehicle for the jokes— the comedy soon grows tiresome. So do the cantankerous characters who inhabit nondescript settings and whose emotional states are frequently reduced to adverbial phrases. Residing in a seedy Sydney suburb, Jack Gudgeon is a middle-aged, unemployed male chauvinist and part-time drunk whose wife leaves him and their 19-year-old son, Stanley. Under his father's supervision, Stanley is introduced to drinking straight whiskey from a mug, nights in the slammer and his father's views on the perils of loving women ("I have noticed this in women, that they positively glory in displaying a long-suffering meekness in the face of imagined wrongs. They do it in the hopes of embarrassing the male"). Joined by a motley crew of derelicts, father and son set out on a hedonistic rampage, visiting strip clubs, dive bars, race tracks and all-night diners, and hosting boozy fiestas. Lower, a popular Australian newspaper columnist, was a mere 27 when this book, his only published novel, went to press—quite remarkable considering his narrator is middle-aged and holds the cynical opinions of a bitter old man. Clever musings are overshadowed by an oft-formulaic irony (at least by modern standards) that would play better in a stand-up routine or collection of vignettes than over the course of a novel. (Nov.)