{"product_id":"2026200016849-secondhand-such-is-life","title":"Such Is Life","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good\u003cbr\u003eJacket: No dust jacket\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good\u003cbr\u003eCondition remarks: Condition as shown in image\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSet amid the sun-scorched plains and vast pastoral runs of colonial New South Wales in the 1880s, Such Is Life is the quintessential Australian novel — a sprawling, irreverent, and brilliantly digressive chronicle of bush life as seen through the eyes of Tom Collins, a government official whose rambling diary entries capture a world of bullock drivers, squatters, swagmen, and the untameable Australian landscape. Written under the pen name Tom Collins by Joseph Furphy, this landmark work presents a richly layered narrative that subverts the conventions of the 19th-century novel, weaving together tall tales, philosophical musings, and sardonic wit into a tapestry of colonial life that is both intensely local and universally human.\n\nFurphy's prose is dense, allusive, and deliberately unreliable — the narrator Collins is a pompous yet endearing comic creation whose self-satisfied accounts constantly betray ironies he himself cannot see, making Such Is Life a sophisticated study in narrative voice and the nature of truth. The novel argues, with great subtlety and humour, that fate is capricious and human understanding is always partial, a theme crystallised in its famous, fatalistic title. Celebrated as one of the founding texts of Australian literature, it remains an essential and gloriously rewarding read — one that rewards patience with some of the most vivid and idiosyncratic writing the continent has ever produced.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49269343846619,"sku":"2026200016849-SECONDHAND","price":10.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/356555d1-01fe-4bcd-a6fc-321c48eed235.png?v=1788998823","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026200016849-secondhand-such-is-life","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}