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The Cover of Antipodes, June
1999
Joseph Lycett
"Inner View of Newcastle"
Oil on canvas - 61 cm x 91 cm
Painted around 1818
The painting reproduced on the cover of the June 1999 Antipodes has
an interesting story behind it. Transported to Australia for forgery in
1814, Joseph Lycett flooded Sydney with forged notes in 1815, and was sent
to the prison in Newcastle, the ultimate place of banishment. There he
came under the protection of Captain Wallis, a fellow painter and Commandant
of Newcastle. Lycett received a conditional pardon in 1818 and started
a series of drawings of the colony under Governor Macquarie's patronage.
In 1822 he returned to England to publish this work. An uncorroborated
tradition has it that Lycett cut his own throat, while living near Bath,
after being found out for forgery again.
Lycett had strong ties to Newcastle, an industrial city just north of
Sydney. He painted an altar piece for the first church and designed a three-light
window, which still survives in the present Cathedral.
"Inner View of Newcastle" was reproduced through special arrangement
with Newcastle Region Art Gallery.
Review from Antipodes,
June 1999
The timeless conflict between science and religion finds new meaning in
Mr. Darwin's Shooter.
Roger McDonald.
Mr. Darwin's Shooter
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1998. $25.00. 365 pages.
ISBN 0 87113 733 X.
A YOUNG WOMAN with wanderlust, a degree from a prestigious college,
and a background in the Roman Catholic church was asked if there were anywhere
on earth she still wanted to go. Yes, she replied, the Galapagos. Why?
I've been fascinated by Darwin since we learned about him in school and
I want to see the place where he formulated his theories.
Fascination with the ideas of Charles Darwin started with the publication
of The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 and
continues to this day. In a world where tinsel celebrities seem to reign,
the quiet, thoughtful Darwin still compels the interest of the best and
brightest. These interests will be well served by Roger McDonald's new
book, Mr. Darwin's Shooter.
McDonald is one of Australia's finest writers. Like David Malouf, he
started as a poet, published by the University of Queensland Press, and
soon found his other calling in fiction, often rooted in history. Combining
the language skills of a gifted poet with the research instincts of a scholar,
he has created in the new novel a work of great appeal as well as an impressive
blend of fact and fiction.
Controversy over Darwin's work started early and continues. The famous
Scopes monkey trial in the 1920s settled nothing, as Scopes, prosecuted
by William Jennings Bryan, was convicted of teaching the heretical ideas
of Darwin -- but exonerated in the court of public opinion by the arguments
of the brilliant Clarence Darrow. Bryan died shortly after the conclusion
of the trial, some said of a broken heart. Science proved stronger than
faith, and the great orator could not bear the thought of the world without
the faith of his fathers. In Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary,
Darwinism is defined as the theory that species originate by descent through
the natural selection of individuals best adapted to reproductive success.
Creationism is, in contrast, the doctrine that the deity created life in
the same forms as they now exist, as related in the Old Testament of the
Bible.
In intellect Syms (Simon) Covington was not on the level of these men,
but he is very much a part of Darwin's story. He was the "shooter," the
fellow who obtained the animal specimens that became the basis of the postulations
on the origin and descent of man. All the shooting, in fact, ruined his
hearing. Born in England, the son of a horse butcher, he lost his job in
a tannery at age twelve and went to sea under the aegis of John Phipps,
an evangelical sailor with a special fondness for boys.
Covington, as imagined by McDonald, is self-educated, exuberant, profoundly
Christian in his faith. He might be seen as the antithesis of Darwin, but
McDonald is too subtle a writer and thinker to present such a black and
white contrast. In his later years, Covington begins to suspect what Darwin
is up to, and he is both resentful and proud. When he learns about Darwin's
book, he eagerly awaits its arrival. Was he used as a dupe to make the
case for evolution and atheism? Will he nonetheless be given credit for
his contribution?
In the first section, McDonald presents Covington's early years, his
background in the town of Bedford, England, and his affectionate family.
Bedford was also the home of John Bunyan, and his Pilgrim's Progress
was a cornerstone of Covington's non-conformist, Congregational faith.
Then, in a transition some readers may find unsettling, we fast forward
to Australia and a middle-aged, deaf Covington, saved from an almost fatal
attack of appendicitis by an American doctor, David MacCracken. Soon he
and the doctor become friends, although later the volatile Covington will
nearly break the doctor's jaw. He begins to open up to his new friend,
and tells the story of his eight years with Darwin, six on the Beagle
and two as a servant in Darwin's London house. Every aspect of the relationship
is developed, from the boy's first sighting of the "toff" he later served
to the farewell when Darwin tells Covington he is to be married and gives
him a gold guinea as a parting gift.
During the rest of the book, McDonald shifts back and forth between
Covington's early years and his middle age in Australia. Deaf, something
of a physical wreck, prosperous, a paterfamilias with an illegitimate
daughter from an early liaison, Covington becomes a sympathetic, fully
realized character, while Darwin remains something of a mystery, almost
peripheral to the story. Charles Darwin may have up-ended the natural world,
but in the social sphere he remained a Victorian gentleman, a snob, an
observer of the status quo. Covington notes Darwin's desire to have a position
as a parson with a good income and pretty wife in the vicarage.
A reader may ponder if the narrative might have been stronger in straight
chronological order. Dr. MacCracken may be seen as somewhat extraneous
to the narrative, but he falls in love with Covington's love child, and
a bit of romance is always welcome, especially in a book as masculine in
view and tone as this one. Admirers of Conrad and Melville will see McDonald
as walking in a similar path, although he is certainly far more of an optimist
than either of those venerables.
Roger McDonald captures the essence of the collecting and categorizing
that went into Darwin's formulations. In Covington he gives a brilliant
fictionalized portrait of a real person-a devout Everyman, reacting with
pride for his part in and horror at the implications of The Origin of
Species and The Descent of Man. McDonald shows the ultimate
irony --how Covington, a truly godly man -- was instrumental in the success
of Darwin's endeavor. The contrasts in the book -- master/servant, upper-class
snob/working class striver, intellectual esthete/devout sensualist -- provide
the tensions that propel the narrative. Covington actually kept a diary,
which has never been published, but the portrait presented here is McDonald's
creation.
McDonald captures the language of the ordinary sailor as well as his
interior life as he gives us memorable descriptions of life aboard the
Beagle and of the landscapes in South America. In the novel's words, "On
they had sailed to the weird Galapagos, the Encantadas or enchanted Isles,
so named because contrary currents bewitched shipmasters' intentions --
the cold sea lapping the equator's burning hot sands, home of cactus, tortoise
and lizard, where Covington shot Darwin's birds." Only three pages are
devoted to the Galapagos, yet they are three dazzling pages.
McDonald also gives a vivid portrait of mid-nineteenth-century Australia.
He is a brilliant descriptive writer and his evocation of the Australian
landscape is exceptional. A proud if sometimes critical Australian, McDonald
may have been attracted to Covington because the man emigrated to Australia
and built a good life for himself and his family.
In an afterword, McDonald quotes a letter from Darwin to his sister
in 1834: "My servant [Covington] is an odd sort of person; I do not very
much like him; but he is, perhaps from his very oddity, very well adapted
to all my purposes." McDonald goes on to explain:
In basing Mr. Darwin's Shooter on real people and actual
events I have relied on many historical sources. Charles Darwin's archive
is immense: he remains the most thoroughly documented scientific genius
of the nineteenth century. Syms Covington's archive by comparison is tiny.
It consists of a contested birth-date, a scrappy diary, a few watercolours,
and a scattered mention in Darwin's letters and diaries. Yet Covington
was at Darwin's side almost constantly from 1832 to 1839, during the voyage
of the Beagle and for the two and a half crucial years following,
when they lived in the same house and Darwin formulated his theory of natural
selection in private notes. After Covington's emigration to Australia in
1839 they maintained a collecting relationship that ended with the arrival
of The Origin of Species in Australia and, shortly afterwards, Covington's
death ('of a paralysis') on 19 February 1861.
In the 1950s an eastern university offered an undergraduate course in Darwin,
Freud, and Marx as the three thinkers who had most influenced the twentieth
century. This teacher viewed Marx and Freud as the major forces, with Darwin
mostly a good collector and classifier. Today it is likely that Darwin
would be viewed as the greatest influence, who redefined the human race's
past and place in the universe, and provided a challenge to religious beliefs
that even the most outspoken heretic never achieved.
Darwin was a born aristocrat, son of a wealthy and indulgent father,
and with an English reticence to boast or self-advertise. Yet his findings
and insights were revolutionary and have changed the world-view far more
than anyone might have imagined at mid-century. One consequence of reading
McDonald's book may be to quicken a reader's interest in the great Darwin
himself. McDonald also cites in the afterword the various sources he consulted.
He says he learned of Covington while reading Darwin by Desmond
and Moore (London, 1991). The most recent biography, Charles Darwin:
Voyaging by Janet Browne (London, 1995), refers to Covington as "the
unacknowledged shadow behind [Darwin's] every triumph."
Pearl Bowman, City University of New York
Roger McDonald
Born in rural New South Wales in 1941, Roger McDonald was educated at
country schools and at the University of Sydney. One of three sons of a
Presbyterian minister and a local historian and writer, he began his career
at ABC TV, and then, as many a would-be writer, he took a job as an editor,
at the University of Queensland Press, hoping to develop his own writing
skills. His Citizens of Mist was UQP's first poetry publication.
He also recommended publication of his friend David Malouf's first novel,
Johnno.
Roger McDonald has written six novels, two books of poetry, and a book
of nonfiction, as well as television adaptations of several of his own
works and a TV series based on the life of the great Australian diva, Dame
Nellie Melba.
Roger McDonald's books:
Novels
1915
Slipstream
Rough Wallaby
Water Man
The Slap
Mr. Darwin's Shooter
Travel
Shearers' Motel
Poetry
Citizens of Mist
Edited Work
Gone Bush
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