The Passion of Private White AusPolBook

• Author: Don Watson
  
• Title: The Passion of Private White  (3o4 pg)  2022
• Genre: Non-fiction
• Australian TBR List
• #AusReadingMonth23 @ This Reading Life (Brona’s Books)

Introduction:

1. A Vietnam veteran anthropologist and an Arnhem Land community
2. have worked together for over 40 years.
3. Don Watson tells their story.
4. An intimate portrait of Donydji, a remote,
5. traditional Indigenous Homeland in North-
6. East Arnhem Land in the far north of Australia.
7. The book is also the remarkable story of.
8. Neville White, a genetic anthropologist
9. In 1974 he went to Donydji to research a PhD.
10. In effect he has never left.
11. Spending part of each year on the Homeland.

Conclusion:

1. This was a slow burn….but worth every minute I
2. spent reading it.
3. I’ve read several fiction/memoir/non-fiction
4. books about the Australian bush and the aboriginals…
5. …but this is by far the best one!
6. At the end of the book I felt I knew several of the
7. clan’s elders, women and “young bucks” roaming the village.
8. Don Watson has done an excellent job telling Neville White’s story.
9. The writing is clear and crisp…nothing is slick or shallow.
10. Deep learning  about the plight of the Yolgnu/Donydji clan…yet plain in its address.
11. Watson’s book is challenging (…keep reading even through very detailed chapters)
12. Watson’s book is intellectually  stimulatiing by encouraging the
13. …reader to question assumptions, explore new ideas….
14. …but never hangs heavy, it is an uplifting reading experience.
    

Last Thoughts:

1. Will this book win Australian Poltical Book of the Year?
2. It will definitely be shortlisted.
3. Win?  I hope so!
   
4. I think it is the best non-fiction I’ve read so far
5. …on the longlist Australian Political Book of  2023!
6. BIG THUMBS UP!!

Favorite quotes:

1. Part I, ch 5  
2. …to explain what anthropologiy should do…
3. “…training one’s heart to see the humanity of another.
4. Part II, ch 8  
5. …Neville knew he was fighting the tide of history.
6. You have to fight the tide if you want to save folk from drowning.

Quick-Scan  12 chapters …for those who are interested.

Part I

1. Ch 1 – Arrival – Tom Gunaminy Bidngal (senior at Donydji) picks Neville up from Nhukunbuy and
2. …they ride to a forsaken part of  Arnhen land, about 3 hours by car
3. …from Nyhulunbuy along the central Arnhem road.
4. Ch 2 – Backstory Neville White – Army draft – 9 Platoon Viet Nam – start La Trobe University
5. Ch 3 – Backstory of Neville and a band of Viet vets – helping build a school at Donydji
6. …they all suffer from PTSD.
7. Ch 4 –Backstory – the Makassans (Indonesian traders), missionaries, cattlemen and miners
8. …changed the (NT) East-Arnhem Land, zooming in on the Yolngu people.

Part II

1. Ch 5 –  Delves deeper into Neville’s work as an “biological antropologist“
2. …How the social, cultural and environmental differences influence the biology of people.
3. Ch 6 – Magic was the key to the underlying reality, the poetic truth in things in Yolgnu country
4. Ch 7 – Neville suggests that the Yolngu apply  for inclusion of
5. …their lands on the Register of National Estates. Promises were made
6. …but promises to the clans were latyer dishonoured.
7. Ch 8 – In 1980 Neville dragged in the caravan fitted out as a laboratory
8. …make an intensive study of nutrition and health.

Part III   (short summary of Part III)

1. Neville White he suffers flashbacks to the Vietnam War.
2. His PTSD is so extreme he has no option but to resign.
3. He decides to concentrate his efforts on building infrastructure
4. and helping with community development at Donydji.
5. Neville devises a scheme whereby the Veterans he served with in Vietnam
6. and the young men of Donydji work together
7. to build the infrastructure needed on the Homeland.

1. Ch 9 – Such a depressing chapter
2. …Neville tries so hard to help the people in the Donydji homeland
3. …and it feels as if  it is a sisyphean endeavour
4. .... a task as seemingly endless and futile
5. …you keep doing it but it never gets done.
6. Ch 10 – Road trip in the direction of  Arafura Swamp.
7. Neville brings Don (author) with him and the aborigianl guides to seek out
8. sacred and protected lands with cave paintings.
9. Absolutely beautifully described by Don Watson!
10. Ch 11 – Continuing struggle with bureauacy to get supplies/teachers/tools
11. to help Donydji.
    
12. Ch 12 -A funeral takes place.
13. Nights of singing and ceremony brought such a haunting peace to the camp.
14. Coda – Neville found Donydji in good shape (July 2022).
15. Now a shady hamlet nestling in the vast savanna
16. The place gave the impression of tranquility, order and permanence.
17. Abidingness, perhaps.

Neville White 

biological anthropologist, is an Emeritus Scholar at La Trobe University, Melbourne

1. Just had to add this fella to my review
2. …Australian koel!
3. He was mentioned very often in the book.
4. PS: koel = great word for scrabble!