Welloflostplots

Kate Grenville’s The Lieutenant feels very much like a follow up to The Secret River, and in many ways it is. It is the result of the very same research. But The Lieutenant is softer, less complicated.

Daniel Rooke has been an outsider all of his life. His intelligence separates him from others – his fascination for numbers, the way he views the world differently and so forth. His schooling leads him into the navy and a commission to go to Australia.

In this novel, it is the soldier’s perspective that is explored, and Rooke is a gentler character than Thornhill was, seeking only knowledge and in a strange way, arguably belonging.

Sydney provides him with ample opportunities to study and be alone, and he finds a connection with a young native girl – Tagaran, who teaches him her language. Rooke’s study and ruminations on the language is one of my favourite parts of the book.

Rooke is eventually put in an impossible decision, facing a moral dilemma he would rather have hidden from. I wont ruin the story though..

The Lieutenant lacks the hard edges and character complexity of The Secret River, but is nonetheless not bad. Worth reading if you have read the former.

Two days after finishing Tim Winton’s Breath, I still find myself puzzling over what to write in this entry. It wasn’t awful, nor did it make me want to stay home from work just to keep reading. It was kind of interesting, but had no suspense, no pull.. in short, it was a disinterested although not entirely disappointed reading that I made.

Breath was the first title chosen for the book club I have just joined, and is probably an apt choice for our first book given Winton’s status amongst Australian authors. I can confidently say he is not really my cup of tea. Although, I did find Cloudstreet kind of brilliant and do enjoy many of his short stories. The Riders was completely over-rated and so probably, is this.

Breath is about Bruce Pike, an paramedic who encounters a case that inspires him to reflect upon the reckless years he spent as a teenager with his fearless friend Loom, his surfing guru Sando and his difficult wife Eva. Each of them were testing themselves and going beyond the boundaries of what their fear told them was enough. For a while it makes ‘Pikelet’ feel alive, although the endless experimentation of the other characters eventually becomes too much for him. It is a feeling that stays with him for the rest of his life.

The book sets itself up to be circular in structure, but never really goes back to the initial point of the narration. This has to be a flaw – and a somewhat unsatisfying one. Again like much of Winton’s work, I find his character portrayals sketchy. As if his writing reflects that lack of self-analysis so often found in Aussie Blokes. It is a great quality for a short story writing, but dissatisfying in a novel.

It takes an odd little turn at the end – not completely unexpected but still strange. Let me know if it surprises you.

This isn’t my first foray into Winton, I’m a fan of some of his short stories, and really loved the strangeness of Cloudstreet. There were these gorgeous chapters from the perspective of a boy with a mental disability.

The Riders is much more mainstream – and probably the most commercial and well-known of his works. Fred Scully is fixing up an old place in the Irish countryside, awaiting the arrival of his wife Jennifer and daughter Billie who are selling their house in Fremantle. They have been travelling around Europe for years – Greece, London, Paris… Scully is looking forward to settling down, but when he goes to the airport to pick up his family… Billie emerges from the plane alone. She is clearly traumatised, and takes days to speak to Scully, who is frantically trying to figure out what happened to his wife.

What follows is an Odyssey throughout Europe, with Scully trying to re-visit the towns of his past – not only to look for physical signs of Jennifer, but also metaphorically to re-visit those places for clues as to what lead her to leave him.

It is frantically paced, and includes interesting characters. Scully, described as a man who looks like a serial killer, is surprisingly gentle. He has been the main caregiver to Billie for years and is a man who can do “womanly things” such as cooking, cleaning etc. Yet he drags poor Billie around, obsessed with finding his wife. Ironically it is Billie who understands Jennifer more, and who longs for Scully to give up his search and accept that nothing will be the same again. The roles are gradually reversed as Scully’s desperation leads him to drink, and Billie is left picking up the pieces.

It is the emphasis and greater understanding of their love that pulls the novel together. I didn’t find it as riveting as the quotes on the front cover, it was interesting and a worthwhile read.

Thomas Kenneally of Schinder’s Ark fame brings us another novel based upon true historic events. This work focuses on Jimmie Blacksmith, a “half-caste” Aboriginal whose white father taught him to aspire to land ownership, a white wife and children and grandchildren that are more and more white.

Jimmie takes all these lessons to heart, and they are reinforced by the lifestyle he observes in the Aboriginal missions – lives of hazy drunkenness and loose women. He learnt early that this was not for him, so he adopts these “white” attitudes. He believes that with his own hard work will lead to his success.

But this is not a world that is ready to accept an Aboriginal with the same goals as white men. Jimmie is repeatedly cheated by his employers, and when he finally manages to take a white wife, the birth of their first child places Jimmie’s feet firmly on a path of vengeance. The child is snow white, and clearly not Jimmie’s.

Jimmie’s relatives come to visit him and remind him of his forgotten culture, causing his white employers to treat him even more like a stereotypical “black”. When they stop buying food for Jimmie’s family, and try to convince his wife to leave him, something inside of Jimmie snaps. He takes up his axe, and takes revenge.

There is a real irony in the setting of the story. White Australians in the background are talking constantly about Federation – the bringing together of all Australians under one banner – but what about the forgotten Australians? The narrative shows us clearly that this Australia was not at all united, nor ready to confront the race upon whose land they formulated their nation.

Jimmie is a sympathetic character, despite the barbarity of his actions. His rage is the rage of his own nation – for all that had been taken away from them, and all that they were refused access to. It’s an important read, and a nice change to read something of significance.