Most people alive today are more than familiar with the idea of a top 40 listing: it has been a staple of pop music for decades now and as manipulated as they might have been, typically they have had some basis in observable fact: record sales, radio station surveys and so on.

Not so of course for many other lists which people see fit to compile: lists of all time greatest films, racehorses, albums...the lists of lists goes on.

Searching the web one can easily find the list compiled by the Australian Society of Authors which purports to celebrate the society's 40th anniversary last year with a Top 40 of Australian books.

The most revered book was Tim Winton's Cloudstreet, which left the silver medal to Christina Stead's The Man Who Loved Children and bronze to Henry Handel Richardson's The Fortunes of Richard Mahony.

If the allocation of Olympic style medals here is a little jarring, then that is in the nature of such lists: they can only really be welcomed on the basis that they start some sort of discussion - and as any punter knows, it is hard enough lining up 10 horses and determining which is the "best" horse, let alone doing it with books.

That said, the examination of this and other such lists has confirmed in my mind the general oversight of what might arguably be considered if not a Great Australian Novel, certainly a truly great novel by an arguably Australian writer.
The writer in question is Frederic Manning and the novel is The Middle Parts of Fortune.

Knowing the way in which Australians look for offshore praise to legitimise their onshore assessments it is amazing not more people know of and rate this seminal Great War novel.

Ernest Hemingway was prepared to call it "The finest and noblest book of men in war that I have ever read". It was this quote from the author of A Farewell to Arms (published in the same year, 1929) which forced the book off the shelf and into my arms. (Judging books by covers is of course contrary to the advice of the proverb, but it remains the starting point for most of us.) Hemingway went on to add " I read it over once each year to remember how things really were so that I will never lie to myself or anyone else about them". High enough praise?

Further credit flowed from E M Forster who called it "The best of our war novels" and from T E Lawrence who claimed that " No praise could be too sheer for this book".

The novel is in the tradition of Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That and closer in spirit to All Quiet on the Western Front but it is different to both these books.

While it is true that the author left his land of birth at 21 years, to return to his family only a few times, much of the book's difference and therefore greatness might be attributed to his Australian demeanour.

Consider that a distinguishing feature of the novel is that while the central character and the author display a total appreciation of the class system, especially in the military context, the book remains essentially quite classless. There is no clichéd soldierly contempt for the upper ranks whose folly is paid for by the blood of the privates, and there is no special glorification of the humble sacrifice of these same men. It is a very Australian perspective.

Further the author does not shy away from the plain language of the men in the ranks and indeed he has an ear for them that very few Englishmen of similar education have displayed:

[Bourne] heard Pritchard talking to little Martlow on the other side of the tent.

'...both 'is legs 'ad bin blown off, pore bugger; an' 'e were dyin' so quick you could see it. But 'e tried to stand up on 'is feet. " 'elp me up" 'e sez, " 'elp me up"'"you lie still chum" I sez to 'im , "you'll be all right presently" An 'e jes give me one look, like 'e were puzzled, an' 'e died '......

'Well, anyway,' said Martlow, desperately comforting; ' 'e couldn't 'ave felt much, could 'e , if 'e said that'
' I don't know what 'e felt,' said Pritchard, with slowly filling bitterness, 'I know what I felt'

Not just an ear for the dialogue, but a non'saccharine empathy.

A further distinguishing characteristic of the novel is the total resignation to the appalling plight that was the Western Front in 1916. The author's own experience of the war was clearly an acceptance that these cards had been dealt and had to be played. Get on with it. Almost "she'll be right". That so few mutinies occurred in this carnage is hard to fathom but Manning conveys like no other this widespread acceptance of the unacceptable.

Take for example our protagonist assessing the risks of soldiers parading about in drill on open ground despite the overhead threat of enemy aircraft:

Bourne took the men's point of view that these parades were silly and useless; and then he reflected , with a certain acidity of thought, that there was a war on, and men were liable to be killed rather cursorily in a war.

Perhaps the defining rhythm of the Great War and therefore Great War literature is that life was characterised either by interminable boredom or sheer and total terror. Many veterans have spoken of a boredom so profound that against all understandable instinct they eventually craved battle. Manning's mastery allows such boredom and aimlessness to be conveyed without the book ever being boring itself. It is kept moving by the beauty of Manning's language, by the never unsubtle internal dialogue of the protagonist and by the just perceptible descent of gloom as the soldiers move inevitably towards another "show". Show indeed. If ever a time required a euphemism, this was it.

Frederic Manning was born to a newly wealthy family with an Irish Catholic tradition: many of his brothers were Jesuit educated at Riverview and one, Jack, was at one stage the Wallaby rugby captain. Manning himself was considered too ill to attend classes, so apart from some months at Sydney Grammar School he was privately tutored at home: in Bayswater Rd near what is now a chic nightclub, at Elizabeth Bay House, and later Tusculum, in Manning St, Potts Point, now the headquarters of the Australian Institute of Architects. His father, William, had some years as Sydney's Mayor, an unusual achievement for a man of his background.

Given his physical frailty and his fondness for the drink Manning's involvement in the war is extraordinary enough in itself. His stoic survival might be considered a minor miracle.

Before the War Manning had shown his literary ability through poetry and through his 1909 collection of classically themed vignettes, "Scenes and Portraits" , but plot was never his forte. He doubted his ability to write a "normal" novel and it was only through the coercion of publisher Peter Davies, ( whose childhood was in fact the model for J M Barrie's Peter Pan) that Manning wrote the book, under a form of creative house arrest. The Middle Parts of Fortune is dedicated " To Peter Davies who made me write it".

Originally the book was published anonymously, apparently written by Private 19022, and only 520 were printed. The language of this edition was considered too frank for most readers and it was not until 1977 before the unexpurgated version re'appeared: Consider Martlow's disgust that the binoculars he has looted fair and square from a dead German have ended up around the neck of a superior:

'Wouldn't you've thought the cunt would 'a' give me vingt frong for 'em anyway?'
'Your language is deplorable, Martlow,' said Bourne in ironical reproof; 'quite apart from the fact that you are speaking of your commanding officer. Did you learn all these choice phrases in the army?'

'Not much' said little Martlow derisively; 'all I learnt in the army was me drill an' care 'o bloody arms. I knew all the fuckin' patter before I joined'

This is language not prevalent in Graves work or in "All Quiet..." but most certainly prevalent among working men, under constant threat of death and with women virtually non'existent.

Two Manning biographies exist: more than we might expect considering Manning's literary contribution; three books of poetry, his "Scenes and Portraits", a biography commissioned by an industrialist and his war novel.
One is by an American, Jonathan Marwil. Sub'titled " An Unfinished Life" it shows a great understanding of the various Australian institutions with which the Manning family were involved, and is driven by the curiosity of it's author who travels from Michigan to Oxfordshire, to Point Piper and to Cootamundra to learn what he could from Manning's intimates and their successors.

The other is by Verna Coleman, and titled The Last Exquisite it shows a deep understanding of the literary circles and traditions which informed Manning's career, and his qualified acceptance into British social and literary society.
Neither book has any serious flaws and in fact neither makes the other redundant, anyone moved towards obsession by reading his masterpiece will enjoy the insights of both of his biographers.

Having just spent hundreds of US dollars importing one of the original 520 editions of The Middle Parts of Fortune I concede to being in the obsessional category. Its greatness has been acknowledged by better judges than I and should be in no dispute.

Is it an Australian book? Well, Pte 19022, or Bourne is clearly serving in the British Army but he is also clearly an outsider, at least to the ranks with whom he serves. His comrades seem not to be intimidated by his education and value his French language skills without worrying too much about their origin.

Is the character then Australian? Not quite but despite Manning's own comments that Australia had only its climate to commend it, Bourne betrays a different view:

" You want a few thousand Australians in the British Army," said Bourne angrily. "They would put wind up some of these details who think they own the earth".

And more to the point perhaps since we are looking to celebrate the Australian use of the language:

"you're learnin' a lot o' bad words from us'ns," said Martlow, grinning.
" Oh, you swear like so many Eton boys," replied Bourne indifferently. " Have you ever heard an Aussie swear?"

The Middle Parts of Fortune is not an Australian book, it is as great books are, universal. Its publication brought acclaim from both sides of the Atlantic and indeed of the Pacific, but somehow the book remains unfamiliar to most Australian readers who know yet the work of first hand veterans Sassoon, Graves and Remarque, or even Sebastian Faulks and Pat Barker who have more recently mined ( or perhaps undermined) this massive resource. It seems a shame.

The criteria for the Australian Society of Authors' Top 40 is not known to me but expatriate status was clearly no barrier to awards for Henry Handel Richardson or Peter Carey or others.

While one might quibble with the cosiness of the ASA's list surely its principal utility is in kick'starting discussion, and in that sense: Mission Accomplished.

If however there is the ambition to celebrate the contribution of Australia to the literary world, and if the cultural depth of the country needs to be highlighted, then The Middle Parts of Fortune is a book which deserves a wider recognition and a wider readership.

Does it have Top 40 status? To quote a writer with even less Australian credentials; more than somewhat.

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