The Giraffe's Uncle

Description

A unique collection of madcap stories from one of Australia's most eccentric writers.the Giraffe's Uncle is Les Robinson's most unerringly brilliant but least-known work - a collection of stories at once absurd and surreal, hilarious and tantalising. they evidence a mind brimming with ideas and schemes and a mischievous talent.First published in 1933, the stories are strange and dreamlike, full of talking animals and weird transformations, set in landscapes which are curiously impermanent and slightly sinister ? man finds himself trapped within the hard shell of a flea, which goes on to feast on his own sleeping body. Inoculated against smallpox by his scientifically-minded friend, a man turns into a horse. An office worker realises the accountant who torments him is actually a gorilla. Another office worker, forced to sit in front of a window with the sun blazing in on him, goes slowly mad.Full of paradox and gleeful wordplay, Les Robinson's stories owe something to Lewis Carroll, whilst looking forward to Dr Seuss and Monty Python. Wry, intelligent and deeply odd, they represent a tiny, vibrant footnote in 20th century Australian literature.

Les Robinson was born in Sydney in 1886 and grew up in Bondi. He worked at numerous odd jobs in his youth, was a contemporary of Slessor, Dreamer and the Lindsays and eked out for a time a meagre living as a freelance journalist. He was a true bohemian, eschewing the middle class; and lived in a tumble-down shack in the suburban bush as well as numerous caves around Sydney Harbour. He died in 1968.