Not funny. Doesn't know footy

by LES EVERETT

IT has been nothing less than a publishing phenomenon.

From Fremantle to parts afar people are talking about and forming opinions about a book few if any have read.

Some are determined to keep it that way.

"I will not be buying that book," one forthright Fremantler told me this week.

Others believe the simple fact the fuss is about a book rather than a Hollywood movie, TV show or pop star is a good thing in itself regardless of the merits of the particular piece of literature.

The book is, of course, Way to Go: Sadness, Euphoria and the Fremantle Dockers by Matt Price published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press.

On the surface this is a standard good vs evil story based on a simple underlying theme. Up Dockers. Down Eagles.

The Dockers live in a mythical paradise called Fremantle, the Eagles come from a poorly defined place called West Coast.

The characters are, at first glance, predictably one-dimensional. There's the villain Malthouse on the side of evil and an array of heroes including the brave, though clumsy, Sir Clive.

But it's the relationship between the writer and his characters that has some readers, would-be readers, committed non-readers and parents worried. Some suggest Price's sympathies lie with the grumpy Malthouse and thus with his style of West Coast evil.

Already Way to Go groups have formed. One mob from cyberspace called Dockerlanders suggest offending pages, including the foreword and a chapter on evil, should be torn from the book before it gets into the hands and minds of the impressionable.

Some say Price is right and believe good is at the heart of this book. They point to battle scenes where comrades of Sir Clive, first the Leach and then the Wizard lead the Dockers to improbable, one could say contrived, triumph.

The literary merits of Way to Go are now irrelevant - it is much more than a book. If you are to function in society, you will need to have an opinion whether you've read the thing or not.

Here's a view you might like to use. It was gleaned it from a non-reader just this week.

"Matt Price is not funny and he doesn't understand football."

You're welcome to pass it off as your own.

WIN WIN WIN: australianrules.com.au has, courtesy of Fremantle Arts Centre Press, five copies of Way to Go: Sadness, Euphoria and the Fremantle Dockers by Matt Price to give away. The books have all pages intact.

To enter simply email the editor and leave, along with whatever else you wish to say, your name and postal address. The winners will be drawn at random on Tuesday, after the Fremantle launch, and announced on Wednesday July 2 2003. We'll post a book to each winner regardless of where they are in the world, or cyberspace. Way you go...

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