Gossip from the Forest

This article is about the novel. For the book subtitled "the tangled roots of our forests and fairytales", see Gossip from the Forest (Maitland book).

Gossip from the Forest
First edition
Author	Thomas Keneally
Country	Australia
Language	English
Publisher	Collins, England and Australia
Publication date	1975
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	222 pp
ISBN	0151367051
OCLC	1863442
Dewey Decimal	823
LC Class	PZ4.K336 Go 1976 PR9619.3.K46

Gossip from the Forest is a novel by the Australian author Thomas Keneally which deals with the negotiations surrounding the ending of World War I.

Subject matter

"In Gossip from the Forest, Keneally offered a concentrated fictional presentation of the peace talks that took place in the Forest of Compiègne in November 1918, focusing on the highest-ranking German negotiator, Mattias Erzberger, a liberal pacifist.

Critical reception

According to the New York Times Book Review's Paul Fussell, Gossip from the Forest 'is a study of the profoundly civilian and pacific sensibility beleaguered by crude power.... it is absorbing, and as history it achieves the kind of significance earned only by sympathy acting on deep knowledge.'

Robert E. McDowell in World Literature Today concluded that 'with Gossip from the Forest Keneally has succeeded better than in any of his previous books in lighting the lives of historical figures and in convincing us that people are really the events of history.'"^[1]

Notes

"Dedication: To My Father."
"Author's note: In the season in which this book was written, the French government persisted in exploding nuclear devices above the ocean where my children swim."

Awards and nominations

Man Booker Prize: shortlisted 1975
FAW Barbara Ramsden Award for the Book of the Year, 1975: joint winner

Adaptations

"Screenplay", Season 1, Episode 1, UK television adaptation. This first screened on 19 July 1979. The teleplay was written and directed by Brian Gibson, and featured Ray Armstrong, Hugh Burden, David Calder, and Paul Clayton.^[2]
Theatre Adaptation by Sydney Theatre Company. The play premiered on 5 May 1983.^[3]

External links

Book review by Danny Yee

References

Novels by Thomas Keneally

The Place at Whitton (1964)
The Fear (1965)
Bring Larks and Heroes (1967)
Three Cheers for the Paraclete (1968)
The Survivor (1969)
A Dutiful Daughter (1971)
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972)
Blood Red, Sister Rose (1974)
Gossip from the Forest (1975)
Season in Purgatory (1976)
A Victim of the Aurora (1978)
Passenger (1979)
Confederates (1979)
The Cut-Rate Kingdom (1980)
Schindler's Ark (1982)
A Family Madness (1985)
The Playmaker (1987)
Act of Grace (1985)
By the Line (1989)
Towards Asmara (1989)
Flying Hero Class (1991)
Chief of Staff (1991)
Woman of the Inner Sea (1993)
Jacko: The Great Intruder (1993)
A River Town (1995)
Bettany's Book (2000)
An Angel in Australia (2000)
The Tyrant's Novel (2003)
The Widow and Her Hero (2007)
The People's Train (2009)
The Daughters of Mars (2012)
Shame and the Captives (2014)
Napoleon's Last island (2015)

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