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Talk:Power Without Glory

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Ralston(e)

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Apparently no other locations in Melbourne named "Ralston" than one street in South Yarra, but that is an old one... implies that Ralstone is not just an exact equivalent of Richmond... any other info on history of this name and possible implications within the novel might be appropriate to add, but doing so might require expanding correlation section into a large list of sections, not just one-liners... ?

Note also there was a USA based early 1900s' eugenics/macho health-movement called Ralstonism, named for the fictional alter-ego of its pseudo-science Doctor progenitor... they even discussed founding a City of Ralston... the name was used by Purina for human-food products

A 1922 newspaper advertisement for Ralston Whole Wheat cereal apparently sporting the black-and-white colours of Collingwood, rather than enemy Richmond's yellow-and-black, but it looks like the packet may have been red-white checks, according to an image search tool

, though Purina was better known for animal feed... Hardy himself had grown up on a dairy farm...

Carringbush?

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The article tells us "Abbotsford was known as Carringbush in the 19th century." There is no reference for this and I don't believe it to be true. I believe Hardy simply fictionalised the name Colling-wood to Carring-bush. All references I can find support that view. HiLo48 (talk) 07:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Novel

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To say the novel is set during World War I - as the article currently does, and in those words - is extremely misleading. The earlier events of the novel are set prior to Australian Federation in 1901, and the final pages of the novel are set in the period following World War II. Key portions of Power Without Glory are set during Australia's involvement in World War I, but substantial amounts of it are set before and after that period. Incidentally, the description of the book in the information sidebar as being of the "thriller" genre is very strange. It's not part of that genre any more than the movie Citizen Kane is. Despite the comparatively conventional linear structure of Power Without Glory next to that film, in content and approach it has a great deal more in common with Citizen Kane than it does with any conventions of the 'thriller' genre. Leapso (talk) 12:21, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Power Without Glory: Racing the Big-twin Cooper

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I tried and tried to make my cover picture smaller, ie the same width as that of the novel but I couldn't do it. Sorry. If someone else can thenTsrwright (talk) 11:23, 24 December 2015 (UTC) go for it.[reply]

Improving this article

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I have done some work to improve this article:

Changes I have made:

  • merging duplicate sections (e.g. no need to have two lists of characters, or two sections on the ABC TV adaptation)
  • removing some interesting but un-encyclopedic discussion, particularly in the court case section
  • reducing complexity of some multi-clause sentences, to make the article more readable
  • refining the plot section into a chronological order, to help make the article serve its purpose
  • most notably, I have reduced the extensive character list, which claimed to link characters in the novel with their real-life counterparts. Undeniably the novel is a Roman à clef but no source is given for these allegations, and indeed the page openly states that some of the connections may be vague rather than intentional on the part of the author.

I have removed only the real-life names that did not have a Wikipedia page, and thus must be considered non-notable from an encyclopedic perspective. But it's possible the whole list should go? To be clear, I think this list would do really well in a footnoted edition of the novel, or on a fan page. (And I am a fan!) But it's not what Wikipedia is for. The Cardigan Kid (talk) 11:51, 6 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]