These are a few brief comments and general views on a number of books read over recent weeks, continuing with my series of book reviews and comments. The dates indicated are when I completed the book in queation.
15 August 2023
‘The Farmer’s Wife’ by Rachael Treasure, published in 2013, 390 pages – another light easily read novel of rural life in Australia by this popular author who is also a farmer herself, and often writes from experience. An enjoyable read again, although on this occasion, I did find the constant references to sex and the male organs a bit off-putting! Putting that aside, a wonderful story read over a couple of nights.
As her website states: ‘Author Rachael Treasure currently lives in southern rural Tasmania with her fiancé Daniel, two comedic teenagers and a collection of blissfully indulged animals’
From a broad range of suppliers and reviewers, the relevant synopsis of the novel reveals the following –
The Deniliquin [NSW] Ute Muster had always been on Rebecca’s wish list, but with the farm and babies, she’d never managed to make it. Tonight, she decided to reclaim herself. After ten years being married to larrikin Charlie Lewis and living on her beloved property, Waters Meeting, Rebecca is confronted by a wife’s biggest fear, a mother’s worst nightmare and a farm business that’s bleeding to death.Can Rebecca find the inner strength she once had as a young jillaroo, to save everything she cherishes? Or is life about to teach her the hardest lesson: that sometimes you simply have to let go.This uplifting and insightful tale deals with the truth about love that the Cinderella stories never tell us. Rebecca’s journey is everywoman’s journey, and a resonant tale for our times.The long-awaited sequel to Rachael Treasure’s bestselling debut, ‘Jillaroo’.
23rd August 2023
‘The Keeper of Hidden Books’ by Madeline Martin, published in 2023, 387 pages…a tragic, heart-rending, but a wonderfully inspiring story. As the promo on the book cover states: “A heartwarming story about the power of books to bring us together, inspired by the true story of the underground library in WWII Warsaw…”
A couple of quotes taken from the latter stages of the story touched at my feelings and heart.
[1] – ‘They entered the library together, followed by scores of readers ready to celebrate how their love of books helped them through the terrible days of the occupation. For it truly was an event to celebrate when a library whose existence had originated in donated collections almost forty years ago, had now risen from the ashes of war and oppression by virtue of donations once more’ [pages 380-381]………’Good books were like amazing sunsets or awe-inspiring landscapes, better enjoyed with someone else. There was no greater experience in the world than sharing the love of a book, discussing its finer points, and reliving the story all over again’ [page 299].
[2] – ‘Now that it is done, I know I must share these stories so they can never be forgotten. We cannot let the atrocities and persecution of the Jews slip between the cracks of history. We cannot allow education to be stifled or cultures to be erased or books to be banned. Nor can we let the memory of those brave men and women who fought for freedom and what is right disappear in the turning pages of time’ [page 387];
[3] – When Hitler first took Poland, his intent was to relocate or murder 85 percent of Poles, leaving around 15 percent to be used for slave labor, along with completely eradicating the Jewish population. This was part of his Generplan Ost and Lebensraum plans for genocide and German settlement in Eastern Europe, which resulted in the murder of almost three million Polish Jews and almost two million non-Jewish Polish civilians’ [Author’s note];
[4] – ‘The Polish Underground State and Home Army [the military branch of the Polish Underground State] were what coordinated the official Warsaw Uprising [or Rising, as it is referred to in Poland]. In late July, 1944, the Soviet Union promised to help the Home Army defeat their Nazi oppressors. When the Red Army was visible on the other side of the Vistula River in the Praga district, the Home Army assumed their support to be fully ready and decided to attack an August 1 at 5.00 p.m. [a day and time still celebrated in Warsaw today]. It was believed by many that it would be a quick battle lasting only one to three days. As the Polish Home Army and the Nazis fought, however, the Soviets remained in place without offering aid, abandoning the Poles so that they could easily defeat the beleaguered victor and absorb Poland into the Soviet Union……In the end, the Polish Warsaw Uprising that was supposed to last one to three days went on for just over two months. During this time, 150,000 civilians were killed by German troops [40,000 to 50,000 of those were slain in just a few days in the Wola district], with around 20,000 soldiers killed. Of the soldiers fighting with the Home Army, this also included the Gray Ranks, the boys and girls belonging to Poland’s Guides and Boy Scouts, meaning many of these soldiers were between the ages of eleven and eighteen’ [Author’s note].
Shortly after the book was released for publication, Madeline Martin had this to say on her writer’s page, as reviewed on Goodreads – “Also, I officially turned this in last month and put everything into writing this book!! What you can expect from The Keeper of Hidden Books – An unbreakable friendship – Books (including classic authors you know and maybe some Polish ones you don’t) – A secret book club (oh, yes – I went there) – Intrepid librarians and true events surrounding the Warsaw public library – Acts of bravery and kindness and love – My heart, which I poured into these pages – To have your tissues handy
26th August
‘The Sultan and the Queen’ The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam by Jeremy Brotton, pub in 2016, 338 pages. An interesting book, a little difficult at times to keep track of places, people, etc And, like the ‘Family History of the World Book’ by Simon Sebag – which I’m part of the way through at present, and struggling with, mainly because of the extreme violence depicted page after page – Bottom’s story also depicts the not so pleasant descriptions of the way royalty and leaders treated their own families let alone their perceived enemies.
A different style of history, where in relating his story of the subject, Brotton often uses the works of writers and playwrights like William Shakespeare and others of that era, to illustrate how the relationship between England [and Elizabeth I] and the Islamic world was presented to the public of the time [at least those who had the time, interest or money to go to the theatres of the day] – this technique is especially prevalent in the second half of the book, where plays of Shakespeare such as Othello, Twelfth Night and Titus Andronicus amongst others, are often described in substantial detail as an illustration of what the book’s author is trying to relate in his writings.
A brief precis of the book, as described by Goodreads, puts it into perspective.
The fascinating story of Queen Elizabeth’s secret outreach to the Muslim world, which set England on the path to empire, by The New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps
We think of England as a great power whose empire once stretched from India to the Americas, but when Elizabeth Tudor was crowned Queen, it was just a tiny and rebellious Protestant island on the fringes of Europe, confronting the combined power of the papacy and of Catholic Spain. Broke and under siege, the young queen sought to build new alliances with the great powers of the Muslim world. She sent an emissary to the Shah of Iran, wooed the king of Morocco, and entered into an unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Murad III, with whom she shared a lively correspondence.
The Sultan and the Queen tells the riveting and largely unknown story of the traders and adventurers who first went East to seek their fortunes—and reveals how Elizabeth’s fruitful alignment with the Islamic world, financed by England’s first joint stock companies, paved the way for its transformation into a global commercial empire.
From the writer’s point of view, as he describes what he is attempting to depict from the following quotation, on page 299 in the Epilogue
“The story told in this book is one of a largely unknown connection between England and the Islamic world, one that emerged out of a very specific set of circumstances during the European Reformation. English history still tends to view the Elizabethan period as defined by the timeless rhythms of agrarian Anglo-Saxon traditions, ethnically pure and exclusively white. But, as I hope this book has shown, there are other aspects to this island’s national story that involve other cultures, and in the Elizabethan period one of them was Islam. To occlude the role Islam played in this past only diminishes its history. Now, when much is made of the ‘clash of civilizations’ between Islam and Christianity, seems to me a good time to remember that the connections between the two faiths are much deeper and more entangled than many contemporary commentators seem to appreciate, and that in the sixteenth century Islamic empires like those of the Ottomans far surpassed the power and influence of a small and relatively insignificant state like Elizabethan England in their military power, political organisation and commercial reach.. It turns out that Isla in all its manifestations – imperial, military and commercial – is part of the British national story.
One way of encouraging tolerance and inclusiveness at a time when both are in short supply is to show both Muslim and Christian communities how, more than four centuries ago, absolute theological belief often yielded to strategic considerations, political pressures and mercantile interests. In a period of volatile and shifting political and religious allegiances, Muslims and Christians were forced to find a common language of messy and uneasy coexistence. Despite the sometimes intemperate religious rhetoric, the conflict between Christian Europe and the Islamic world was then, as now, defined as much by the struggle for power as precedence as by theology”.
29th August
‘Restless Dolly Maunder’ by Kate Grenville [published in 2023], 242 pages. An interesting historical fiction novel, easily reads, and quite enjoyable. I would add the following quotation to my Family History, because the story-line was I thought, reflective of much of the family history I have been writing about, even if much of my writings are guesswork, or family assumptions based on what records were or are available at the time of my research..
“I’ve noted, while working through this document, that so often, the ladies in our story, especially through the C19th and early C20th centuries, often don’t seem to have a great deal to add to the family life, eg, on electoral roles their occupation after marriage is usually described as ‘Home Duties’ [once married, any employment ambitions they may have hoped for, disappear] . That’s not the way I want to present them, but often there is little other information to provide, as perhaps illustrated by the following quotation. From a recent book release, which allows us to put that situation into some kind of perspective. The book ‘Restless Dolly Maunder’ by Kate Grenville [published in 2023] is an historical novel where the author uses family memories to imagine the way into the life of her grandmother, a woman who worked her way through a world of limits and obstacles.
Kate writes near the end of the story:
“The only way we know many of these women born in the 1880’s is from stiff, unreal old studio photos. Unless they were privileged or exceptional, most women vanished from the record. Their lives often can’t be reconstructed beyond a few dates – their births and deaths, when their children were born – and maybe a recipe for drop scones or oxtail soup……It’s only two generations ago, but Dolly’s world seems a foreign country. In the old photos those women in their impossible clothes seem like another species, their lives unimaginable” [p.238-89]”
Dolly Maunder , the subject of this book, was born at the end of the nineteenth century, when society’s long-locked doors were starting to creak ajar for women. Growing up in a poor farming family in country New South Wales but clever, energetic and determined, Dolly spent her restless life pushing at those doors.
Most women like her have disappeared from view, remembered only in family photo albums as remote figures in impossible clothes, or maybe for a lemon-pudding recipe handed down through the generations. Restless Dolly Maunder brings one of these women to life as someone we can recognise and whose struggles we can empathise with. In this compelling new novel, Kate Grenville uses family memories to imagine her way into the life of her grandmother. This is the story of a woman, working her way through a world of limits and obstacles, who was able—if at a cost—to make a life she could call her own. Her battles and triumphs helped to open doors for the women who came after.
From the Art House Book Review [by Ellie Fisher, 22/8/2023]
In her new novel, Kate Grenville takes her grandmother as muse. Weaving familial histories with graceful prose, she uses memory and research to reimagine the life of Dolly Maunder – bringing into being a textured, nuanced appraisal of intergenerational dynamics.
Born in New South Wales in the early 1880s, Dolly is part of a sprawling sheep-farming family. Quick and intelligent, she excels at school. There, Dolly learns that women can live beyond the scope of the domestic. One of the student teachers is ‘the only woman’ she knows who isn’t ‘at home all day, banging the stove door open and closed, heaving the wet sheets around on washday’. Gradually – ‘like water seeping into sand’ – Dolly grasps the idea that the life ahead of her does not promise much in the way of liberation. ‘If you were born a girl,’ Dolly realises, ‘the life you’d have to live’ was that of obedience. Unless, of course, ‘you could find a way out’. Locating a doorway to autonomy, however, proves difficult within the societal confines of the period.
At the age of 14, like most girls, Dolly leaves school. She works in the familial home, the shadow of her father staining her days. Yet Dolly retains her sense that there is more to life than this obedient drudgery. She earns the eponymous epithet of ‘restless’ from the fact that she pushes at the boundaries set down upon her because of her gender – boundaries that are, gradually, flexing at the seams. Dolly is part of a ‘transition generation’, out of which is birthed the prospect of ‘a different future’ for women.
Marriage presents a trap – but also a potential window to freedom for Dolly. Bert Russell, whom she eventually weds, seems to understand that she is more than simply a reproductive vessel or domestic skivvy. While Bert has a wandering eye, he also allows Dolly space to exercise her faculties through business – and, eventually, teaches her to drive. Together, they build a string of enterprises, which leads to financial success.
Yet Dolly is not invulnerable to the structures of misogyny that surround her, or immune to enacting them upon others. While she finds some sense of liberation through her engagement with capitalism, she inflicts the wounds of intergenerational trauma upon her own daughter – Grenville’s mother, Nance – which leads to interesting writerly positionalities the author explores in the novel.
The scope of Nance’s view of Dolly – who forcefully trampled her daughter’s dreams of an artistic career in order to direct her towards a life of relative financial independence – shifts Grenville’s narrative to a place of speculative understanding. Grenville moves to enact a distant reading on her own family history, in an attempt to understand how her grandmother was shaped into appearing ‘uncaring’, ‘unloving’ and ‘dominating’ to her children. Here, the liberties of fiction allow Grenville to theorise, freeing her to examine the subtleties and ‘complicated feelings’ of her family’s history.
In her closing chapter, ‘Thinking About Silences’, Grenville writes towards an acknowledgement that the life of her grandmother took place on the ‘taking of land’, but that the personal archive of remembered family histories from which she wove the novel ‘record no awareness of the enduring sorrow all the taking meant – and means – for First Nations people’. She recognises that the history of her family is but ‘one story’, and that ‘standing beside it is another’, which, while recognised, goes untold.
In Restless Dolly Maunder – which successfully interweaves memoir, biography and remembrance of things past into a nuanced piece of fiction – Grenville has produced a novel that is unafraid of pushing the scope of what it means to unpick the intricacies of family history. There is a tenderness to the weight of the realities Grenville offers us – an awareness that love can wound, but that it can also redeem.
31st August
‘That Bligh Girl: by Sue Williams, published in 2023, 391 pages [a gift prize from National Seniors]. This was another wonderful way to recall a bit of history, and from a different viewpoint, albeit, written as a fascinating piece of historical fiction, easily read and enjoyed. A story written from the perceived point of view of Mary Blyth, daughter of William Blyth [of Mutiny on the Bounty fame] as she unwillingly accompanies him to New South Wales where he is to take up the role of Governor. But as the book describes, she is no ‘shrinking violet’, and after an horrific six-month sea voyage from Britain, she proves as strong-willed as her bloody-minded father.
But despite being bullied, belittled and betrayed, Mary remains steadfast, even when her desperate father double-crosses her yet again in his final attempt to cling onto power. The pair immediately scandalise Sydney with their personalities, his politics and her pantaloons. And when three hundred armed soldiers of the Rum Rebellion march on Government House to depose him, the governor is nowhere to be seen. Instead, Mary stands defiantly at the gates, fighting them back with just her parasol.
But despite being bullied, belittled and betrayed, Mary remains steadfast, even when her desperate father double-crosses her yet again in his final attempt to cling onto power.
While researching the story for the book ‘Elizabeth & Elizabeth’, Sue Williams was intrigued by the life of Mary Bligh and found it had a few touchpoints with her own. Both Mary and Sue grew up in London, spent time in Portsmouth, lived in Potts Point and were daughters of a strong-willed father.
Publishers Allen & Unwin say, ‘Sue Williams returns to give a voice to the previously untold stories of the women in colonial Sydney. Sue is known for her meticulous research and fascinating narratives. That Bligh Girl is no exception. This is her second novel as she continues to explore the untold stories of the women of colonial Sydney, her previous effort being ‘Elizabeth & Elizabeth’ [Elizabeth Macarthur and Elizabeth Macquarie], both of whom feature prominently in this story of the Bligh’s.
A fascinating imaginary depiction of two lives, based on factual events of the early days of Sydney.
19th September
‘Bryce Courtney: Storyteller” A Memoir of Australia’s most beloved writer by Christine Courtney, published in 2022, 431 pages [completed 3 August 2022]
This was a wonderful read about one of my favourite readers, only one of whose novels I’ve not been able to obtain so far, ‘The Night Country’ which I noted in this book, was no longer in print, and was difficult to come by. Christine spent years of research writing this book, especially about his early years in Africa – apart from the incorporation in the ‘writings and characters’ of many of his novels, Bryce generally revealed little of his life in apartheid Africa. Much of that has been discreetly revealed through the characters and lifestyles depicted in his many novels.
From Booktopia:
When Christine Courtenay began penning her own life story during the 2021 lockdown, she found herself increasingly drawn into the story of her late husband and bestselling author Bryce Courtenay. The manuscript that evolved is the memoir his readers have longed for, and is the first biographical work of one of Australia’s most beloved authors.
Bryce Courtenay was a figure larger than life, and his extraordinary, adventurous, rags-to-riches life story reads like one of his epic fictions – and indeed characters, places, episodes and themes have made their way into his novels. He was born in South Africa, an illegitimate son to Maud Jessamine Greer, who gave him the name ‘Courtenay’, and spent his challenging childhood in a number of small African towns. He was later schooled at an exclusive boarding school in Johannesburg, and worked the dangerous mines of Rhodesia in the fifties to pay his way to journalism school in London, where he met his first wife Benita Solomon. Bryce followed Benita home to Sydney, where they married and raised three sons.
He embarked on a career in advertising, first as a copywriter, that spanned 34 years, and was Creative Director at McCann Erikson, J.Walter Thompson and George Patterson before following his childhood dream to become a novelist. The Power of One was published in 1989, and quickly became an international bestseller. Bryce went on to write another twenty bestsellers, and can only be described as an Australian publishing phenomenon. Bryce and Benita parted ways in 1999. Bryce engaged Christine Gee as his publicist in 1997. She became his partner in 2005, and they married in 2011. Bryce passed away on 22 November 2012, ten days after the publication of his last book, Jack of Diamonds.
Bryce Courtenay: Storyteller is a personal memoir and tribute, featuring untold stories, original insights, extracts from his personal letters and previously unpublished photographs – from the woman who knew and loved him dearly. That author: Christine Courtenay (nee Gee) was born in north-eastern Victoria in 1954 and grew up on a cattle property before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts from the Australian National University. In 1975 she co-founded Australian Himalayan Expeditions, which offered trekking trips to the Himalayas, and became a world leader in adventure travel. In 1989 she created her own marketing company and was engaged by several pioneering tourism projects. She also worked alongside acclaimed authors, world-renowned mountaineers and polar explorers. Christine served as the Nepalese honorary consul-general in NSW from 1987, and as Nepal attaché during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, and was a founding director of the Australian Himalayan Foundation. She was awarded an Order of Australia Medal in 2013. Christine was Bryce Courtenay’s partner from 2005, and they married in 2011. She has a son called Nima, and continues to enjoy travelling, writing, and walking in wild and beautiful places. She lives in Sydney.
From the Canberra Times [19/11/2022]
Christine Courtenay, the widow of the best-selling Bryce Courtenay, says she felt she knew what it took to write a book. Until she wrote one herself.
The discovery of a cache of letters Bryce Courtenay had written to his mother throughout his life spurred Christine Courtenay to write a memoir of her late husband, the South African-born ad-man turned novelist who dominated the best-seller lists in Australia from 1989 to his death a decade ago, aged 79, in Canberra.
Every year on February 1, Bryce Courtenay started writing a novel. And every year on August 31, he finished the book. Except the year gastric cancer forced him to miss his usual deadline.
“Sometimes I honestly wished he would maybe take a year off, spend more time relaxing, spend more time with his family, friends. And I think, in the end, you just have to respect that that’s like trying to talk a mountaineer out of climbing mountains,” Christine Courtenay says. Christine Courtenay had started on another book, a record of her life in and amongst the business of adventure travel, before she stumbled on her late husband’s letters home.
“Bryce had never mentioned it. I’ve never seen them. He had a vast archive of things from his life, his working life, his writing life. He was a bit of a bower bird. He sort of never threw things out, but he also didn’t ever go through them,” she says. “But when I took them upstairs and sat down to read them, I couldn’t believe it. I just couldn’t believe it. “And also that I could see that there were gaps, but they were written from early childhood years right through until when he was writing The Power of One. And they sort of stopped, I guess, after the next couple of books. And then I guess he probably went on to computers, because people didn’t stop writing letters, I guess.
2nd October
Finally the book ‘Saga Land: The island of stories at the edge of the World’ by Richard Fidler and Kari Gislason, published in 2017, 447 pages. A combined travel/personal lifestyle and history of Iceland, and the sagas [stories] that were passed down and saved through the centuries. – these sagas revealing the true stories of the first Viking families that settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages. An unusual book, written jointly by two chaps travelling and living in Iceland for 2 months – an author [Gislason] and radio blogger & presenter and author [Fidler] who share the input to the writing of the book [their research was also presented as a Series on ABC Radio National].
I’ve previously read two of Fidler’s history-based books [and referred to them at the time through this Column] – The Golden Maze [the biography of Prague] and The Book of Roads and Kingdoms [explorations from Baghdad], both fascinating examinations of the history of those two cities.”
From Saga Land – a quote from page 397/398: “Icelanders didn’t forget about the sagas. The stories of the first settlers were reproduced in manuscripts long after the loss of the commonwealth, and over the centuries came to form part of an array of storey types and scholarly works, from fantastical works to royal biographies. But there were few libraries, and for hundreds of years it fell to farmers and merchants to keep the manuscripts in their own private collections. It wasn’t until the sixteenth century, when the first schools were established, that priests and teachers began to look for the most precious of the documents. Even then, they did so with a view to sending them to Sweden and Denmark, as treasures for the royal households of the most powerful nations in the region”.
From the general reviews of the book, we read:
Broadcaster Richard Fidler and author Kári Gíslason are good friends. They share a deep attachment to the sagas of Iceland – the true stories of the first Viking families who settled on that remote island in the Middle Ages These are tales of blood feuds, of dangerous women, and people who are compelled to kill the ones they love the most. The sagas are among the greatest stories ever written, but the identity of their authors is largely unknown. Together, Richard and Kári travel across Iceland, to the places where the sagas unfolded a thousand years ago. They cross fields, streams and fjords to immerse themselves in the folklore of this fiercely beautiful island. And there is another mission: to resolve a longstanding family mystery – a gift from Kari’s Icelandic father that might connect him to the greatest of the saga authors.
Reviewing the book for Readings Books, Marie Matteson writes
Fidler and Gíslason met over a radio interview and immediately hit it off. As firm friends, who Kári describes as having a conversation that will never end, it seemed to make sense when Kári said he was off to Iceland, and Richard said he’d go with him. Saga Land starts as many good Icelandic sagas have: two men head off on an adventure. Along the way, they stop to tell stories of the past, to encounter new people, and to reaffirm their friendly and familial bonds. In alternating chapters, Richard and Kári travel to Iceland with the intention of recording a radio series about the sagas, as they travel to the places they belong to. The Icelandic Sagas form one of the great bodies of literature. Written during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they tell the stories of the Icelanders: from the establishment of Reykjavik in 874 (dated by a volcano eruption) up until the time of writing. They also include the most complete remaining account of Norse mythology.
While the sagas capture and hold the imagination as Richard and Kári travel around Iceland, another family saga closer to home is woven through the tale. Kári’s relationship to his Icelandic heritage has always been complicated by his relationship with his Icelandic family, which had been unacknowledged for much of his childhood. In one of their rare meetings, his father had mentioned a connection to the sagas that Kári had never anticipated. Now was the time to find the end of the tale.
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