Some time ago someone asked for Australian book titles.Here is one I didnt mention, having only just read it.It is historical fiction, a cameo through a very small window, yet it represents every case of colonisation almost the world over.It is Kate Grenvilles The Secret River,Text Publishing, Melbourne,2005. I have reserved, from the Library, Kates book on the research she did to arrive at this story which has won several awards. Would it spoil the story to say any more? Australia, starting with Sydney, was chosen as place to send convicts late in the eighteenth century, but with the ulterior motive of claiming the land as an overspill for too large a population, particularly of petty criminals, for those born in cities with absolutely no wealth or land with which to earn it, subsistance was near to impossible without thieving.It is debatable whether to steal food in order to live is a sin. Having arrived, similar problems arose in regard to stealing land that did not appear to be in use by nomadic people.A people with great wisdom regarding plants and seasons and animal behaviour, with uncanny skills and insights. This story, based on truth, is food for so much thought.Jane Nauta ISBN 1 920885 75 7 Her writing is as pithy as a proverb.A powerful storyteller. NEW YORK TIMES Grenvilles writing is adveturous thematically, sensual, ironic and provocative. AMERICAN BOOK REVIEW
Good to hear a few Tranterites communicating again on both fronts.The silence from the Northern hemisphere reminded me of Nevil Shutes On the Beach. Now there is a writer ! Somebody bequeathed our Library a set of 16 of his books and Rick and I have had a marathon of reading them on & off over the last six months. 20th century social history fiction, they are centred around development of flying yachting some mysticism too, pre and post WWII. Then we googled him and found more, and an interesting background.. Like Nigel, his main character is usually a decent, fair, unbiased, upright sort of person, though right now in Chequerboard we have a petty crim come good. Its easy reading you cant put down. Wish I had had a deep enough literary education to analyse style. Only thing annoys me about this writer is when he refers to a baby or toddler as IT, when he already sexed it with a name, so HE/SHE would do nicely, thank you. Aussied Pom Neville Shute also became an Aussied pom.
Shute has been one of my favorite authors for a long time, BUT the novel he is most famous for "On The Beach" is awful, and not of the same character as most of his other works which are pretty upbeat stories of ordinary people. Shute in real life was an engineer in the early days of aviation, in fact he was one of the first people employed by DeHavilland Aircraft. Therefore most of his books with an aviation history are very historically accurate as to the setting.
If you like books set in Australia, there is "A Town Called Alice" and "The Far Country" There is also "In the Wet" and "the Rainbow and the Rose" which are partially set in Austrailia.
Hello Jane, you have mentioned Nevil Shute, so now I will tell you a wee story which I shared with Dot some time ago, When they were making the film taken from his book, On The Beach, the racing car scenes with Fred Astaire were shot at the Phillip Island Track which was owned by the Lukey family, of Lukey car exhausts; Len Lukey was a friend of my late Father and invited him down to watch the filming, ( Nevil Shute hated the film and tried to get the company making it to stick more to his book), of course Dad took me with him and I got to meet Fred Astaire, whilst Dad was enjoying a "couple' I went for a walk and saw a new Landrover parked away from the track, it was the first long wheel base I had ever seen, I was looking at it when a voice from the vehicle said Hello, young fellow, do you like my car, I said I did and after a few minutes went back to my Dad, Len Lukey asked me what I thought of the car and what did Nevil Shute say to me; I had no idea who I had been talking to however things did not end there, I knew that Nevil Shute lived in Australia but I was not sure where, he died here in 1960. In the summer of 1973/4 we had bad bushfires in the area where I had built my first house and I was a member of the volunteer fire brigade, we were fighting the fire about a mile from my town Pearcedale and we had returned to town to fill the tanker with water, the radio crackled and I answered and I was told that the fire was flaring up and we were to get back as fast as we could, I asked where we were required and was informed "just on Robinson's Rd behind Nevil Shute's old Joint, ( joint is Aussie slang for house). To cut it short ,I visited the house some time later and I sat in the room in the very chair at the desk where he had written some of his books including "On The Beach" that was it until Dot mentioned his name in an email to me and I emailed back with this story together with photos of the original front gates, I have been invited back to photograph the house and his writing room but have not got around to it yet, however I will now the subject has been bought up again, the original Shute property has been divided up now into 4 parts ,it is hidden away and is so beautiful, trees, flowers, all sorts of plants and almost all of Neville Shute's farm equipment, there is a lot more to this story but I will leave it for now, OH, one last thing, Dot just sent me Nevil Shutes, What Happened To The Corbetts which he wrote in 19 38 , Regards Rab.
Rab! We are so wrapped up in Neville Shute's books that we are really delighted that you met him and know his last home.It is quite a rare thing for us both to whole heartedly enjoy the same writers - though there was a time when we explored Africa with Wilbur Smith and tied ourselves in knots trying to find which came before what. Thanks to Toby I no longer have that problem with Nigel. It doesn't matter so much with Neville - his books are not sequential. Jane
