Rodney Hall (1)Reseñas

"The truth is that if we are to be any use tomorrow we have to accept what happened yesterday - so you may be sure there's something amiss when one hears so much about what we will do in the future while there's never a peep about what we have already done."

Rodney Hall is an utterly absorbing writer, and The Grisly Wife is another great success, haunting, atmospheric, darkly funny, and painful in its profundity. In the late 1860s, a radical preacher sails from England to Australia to set up a mission in a remote part of the east coast, with his posse of female followers and his virgin wife, Catherine Byrne, the narrator of the novel. The emigrants set up their new home in the (fictional) settlement of Yandilli, the site of Hall's previous novel [b:The Second Bridegroom|747111|The Second Bridegroom (Yandilli Trilogy, #1)|Rodney Hall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266632691l/747111._SX50_.jpg|733254] which was set around 1838, making this novel a thematic sequel.

Catherine - narrating her tale years later to an initially unnamed listener - is, like many of Hall's protagonists, a figure on the outskirts of her own culture. Like The Second Bridegroom's convict, who experienced the painful dawning of recognition when forced to interact with a society different to his own, Catherine is asking herself questions about social expectations, cultural norms, a figure of suppressed doubt amongst those who would see the choice between belief and savagery as a binary one.

"Ambition is a curious urge, don't you agree? being as much as to say if I do not surrender my place in life to struggle for a different place (some other person's place) then I will not quite fully live."

The novel falls squarely into the long tradition of tales about starchy British colonialists facing off against the Australian bush, attempting valiantly to replicate their culture in a location so very hostile to it. But it is also a novel about belief and doubt, about human connection, and the ways we attempt to navigate our lives as individuals while also existing in tandem with others. It is perhaps a slightly tougher read than Bridegroom on the grounds that Catherine's memory flits from idea to idea, year to year, seemingly haphazardly and with a more idiosyncratic speech pattern (she is rather like Emily Dickinson, with her love of dashes above all other punctuation).

The goal of literature is to discover. The goal of Australian literature is usually to discover what defines our country, our people. Hall suggests that we may not like what we find, but we have little choice, bound on a wheel of fire that must, someday, come full circle.

"Here in New South Wales...the real and the fabulous have not yet gone their separate ways. There is nothing to prevent our fables taking root here. And we have brought plenty of them with us."

What a revelation! Rodney Hall, a two-time Miles Franklin Winner (and seven-time nominee) has always been on my to-read list for that reason, but (in retrospect disappointingly) no-one has ever taken the time to recommend him to me. Indeed, his collective oeuvre has fewer than 400 ratings on Goodreads and around 60 reviews. Mr Hall, how the world has wronged you.

The Second Bridegroom is a sublime piece of literature, set in the 1830s as a convict escapes his dire conditions along the coast of Australia somewhere south of Sydney. In the bush, he finds himself part of a ceremony among local Indigenous people, whom he can barely comprehend even as people, let alone as practitioners of another culture. To say much more would be to spoil an exhilarating read, buoyed by Hall's delicate, exquisite prose and his ability to conjure a world lost to us (arguably two worlds). His narrator, apologetic for upsetting his reader with the mere idea that this other beings might be "men", is an authentic and engaging viewpoint into a mindset. Hall's work fuses the 1830s with the present day, raising questions about our shared past while exploring beyond individuals into the very essence of humanity, power, dignity, grief, and faith.

"Do you hear that as you read my words? Do you know the grief we know? Does life mean what you thought?"

Hall is clearly a writer's writer, but I believe that he could be engaging to all readers of quality Australian literature. I hope his reputation remains.

Rodney Hall as poet emerges from this novel, well worth reading in its complex, twisted prose, although perhaps best placed at the end of the loose trilogy of novels. Although it is not connected to them plot-wise (aside from a couple of subtle references), this story of lust, fear, and captivity on the harsh Australian coast at the end of the 19th century builds much of its strength from Hall's other explorations of such a world.

I am just going to post one of the many powerful passages from the novel, rather than attempt to come to terms with the experience of reading Hall. He deserves to have a much stronger presence on Australian bookshelves.

"Sitting round the oil-lamps of a winter's night, Pa read Lives of the Saints at the rate of about one sentence an hour. Mum read even more dreadful things in the darkness beyond her own familiar dark. And we played a card game called Happy Families.

When the wind blew from the north-east, which it often did, we could hear a distant crash of waves down at the cliffs below the twenty. And when we had gone to bed - as we preyed on each other, breathing each other's snores, turning together in our separate sleep so our bed-springs made harmony or screamed in someone else's nightmare - the cracks between the planks of the rough walls gaped wider and hair-fine glints of a silver sheet turned its wave to our drowning eyes; our bodyheat went sleepwalking till the dogs grew restless and put up their pointed noses and the horses, musing as they stood round in mockery of sleep, bent to stir the fog with caressing tongues and shook magnificent necks in the moonlight of a mare's eye.. While the ocean, that relentless heart, beat beat beat away at the rocks."

Just exquisite from start to finish. My (brief) reviews can be found at the pages of the individual novels: [b:The Second Bridegroom|747111|The Second Bridegroom (Yandilli Trilogy, #1)|Rodney Hall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266632691l/747111._SX50_.jpg|733254], [b:The Grisly Wife|747112|The Grisly Wife (Yandilli Trilogy, #2)|Rodney Hall|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1241158473l/747112._SY75_.jpg|733255], [b:Captivity Captive|747132|Captivity Captive (Yandilli Trilogy, #3)|Rodney Hall|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|733275]. Brought together, these three novels detail the lives of the alienated and bitter residents of a small settlement on the east coast of Australia throughout the 19th century, in a dense, lyrical prose that moves this reader to tears.

Will be my favourite of the year. Not sure why other ratings are so low. Maybe they didn't get it? Who knows. Very poetic and surreal. I loved every word.

This book was amazing. Was significantly more violent than I was expecting.

What I’ve always loved about Rodney Hall AM is that he’s a writer of social conscience. If you check out his Twitter feed @rhallwriter you can see that he cares passionately about social issues and he turns that concern into books that are invariably very good to read even when they expose difficult truths that we’d rather not confront. A Stolen Season is no exception.

For most of the novel it seems as if there are three separate stories, all focussing on how people resurrect some control in their meaningless lives when fate gives them the opportunity. The main characters are:
*Adam, a grievously wounded Iraq veteran, and his wife Bridget, and how they struggle to come to terms with what’s happened. Their marriage was dead when he enlisted and now Bridget is trapped in the role of carer. Adam is riddled with guilt about that, knowing that he should let her have her freedom, but afraid to let her go. The intricacies of this fraught relationship are brilliantly depicted and very thought-provoking. For both of them, the question is, what could make life worth living;
*Marion Gluck, a wealthy woman on the run because of her husband’s perfidy. She attempts to take control of her life again by pursuing a bizarre quest in remote Belize in South America; and
*John Philip, a very rich man at the end of a long and powerful dynasty, who finds a way to use a bequest in a way that shows his contempt for the values of his family.

These threads do all come together at the end, but I think most readers will focus on the tragedy of Adam and Bridget’s lives because it is utterly compelling, and because it forms the bulk of the story. (I completely forgot about Marian until she resurfaced near the end of the book and to be honest, I think the book could have done without these side stories, though there would have to be a bit of plot-tweaking to get rid of them).

Anyway…

As the book progresses Hall reveals the full extent of Adam’s injuries from the explosion in Iraq but the detail is delivered in Adam’s flip tone, which lightens the horror a little:

Ogling reporters descend, eager to secure his ordeal as public property. The only way out is up. Declared fit for discharge he finds himself winched like some treasured relic to take his place in a museum of the grotesque. Spectators lean so close a man can’t breathe in the enveloping depth of their amazement. Crowded out by the humorous intimacy of noses – pitted with pixilated pores and thrust his way – he would laugh if he could. But instead of lungs he has these red hot pincers. He’ll have to put off seeing the bright side till later. (p.6)

And then…

Adam’s first glimpse of Bridget coincides with her first sight of him. The door to the airbridge opens just long enough for a shock of recognition on both sides. His wheelchair glides though an arc of light bent to the curve of the slab-glass walls, but he has already seen her face contorted with horror as she hides her feelings against her shoulder. Meanwhile the pilot and first officer insist on thanking him for flying with them. Courtesies must be observed and they shake hands with his remaining fingers. This gives Bridget just enough time to collect her courage so, when the chair spins his vision in reverse through the same dazzling reflections, she composes herself and steps his way. (p.6-7)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/05/17/a-stolen-season-by-rodney-hall-bookreview/

I’m a bit hesitant to review this exquisite novel too enthusiastically, because I know it’s long out of print and will be hard for my readers to find. I’ve checked Library Link which harvests from all the libraries in Victoria and there are half a dozen libraries which hold it, but other than that, getting a copy is going to involve trawling through second-hand bookshops. Fishpond doesn’t even list it…

But the search is worth it. The Second Bridgegroom (1991) is Rodney Hall’s sixth novel and first in the Yandilli Trilogy, but it was written after Captivity Captive (1988) which is No #3 in the trilogy. Both of the novels were shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award but it was No #2 in the trilogy, The Grisly Wife, published last of all in 1993, which won Hall his second Miles Franklin. (The first was Just Relations (1982) which is on my TBR too, and I will get to it one day soon!)

The other thing that’s special about this book, is that it’s published by McPhee Gribble (1975-1989), an innovative Australian publishing house founded by Hilary McPhee and Di Gribble (who also founded Text Publishing) McPhee Gribble was the initial publisher of many of our most significant writers, including Tim Winton, Murray Bail, Rod Jones, Helen Garner and Drusilla Modjeska. The book (hardback) is beautifully made, with cover art by Keith McEwan, and has quality paper, binding and boards. Reading the novel in this beautiful form seems fitting for such lush prose.

The story concerns an escaped convict known only as FJ, who is narrating events that took place in about 1820. In the process, he also relates his own back story as the son of a rebel from the Isle of Manx, who was hanged by the British for smuggling, under laws he doesn’t recognise any more than he speaks the English language. Ironically, FJ was transported for forgery to a place that is, he tells us, a counterfeit England, created by cutting down strange trees and digging out plants with no name. What is even more ironic is that he was originally charged with theft, because his excellent forgery was thought to be the long-sought-for 100th copy of a document attributed to William Caxton, the man who introduced the printing press to England in the 15th century and was the first retailer of printed books there.

On arrival in New South Wales, FJ is assigned to Edwin Atholl who takes him aboard the Fraternity to establish a new settlement somewhere along the coast. On board FJ is tormented by and eventually kills his fellow convict Gabriel Dean to whom he is chained at the wrist. On landing, when the convicts are brought up from below, these two, the living and the dead, are separated by a callous swipe of an axe so that FJ still has the manacle attached to his wrist when he takes advantage of a lapse in supervision and escapes into the bush.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/07/21/the-second-bridegroom-by-rodney-hall/

A troubling, dark book. About a large, poor family living a life of great hardship and brutality in rural Australia. The father is a ‘sad giant’ of a man, given to violence and very dominating of his children. The mother is a silent, mulish, uncaring woman – yet mother to ten children. The father beats one of his sons so severely he becomes a simpleton. Another is routinely flogged and chained to the bed for perceived infractions. A terrible event occurs in 1898 leading to the death of one of the sons, and two of the daughters. The narrator (one of the sons) lives on to expiate his role and tell the story some sixty years later. The writing is excellent, but it’s quite a challenging read – the style is very allusive. Appears to be based on a real crime

Opening paragraph:There were crows in his eyes when he came right out with it, confessing that he had been the murderer. You could see them flapping in there. And now and again the glint of a beak. You can't tell me anything about crows I don't already know at eighty. Nor about him, either.

A dark tale of family, poverty, and murder from one of Australia's most interesting writers.

A beautiful book. (Although sometimes the language was a bit try-hard: "her eyes grow used to the element she has them for" stumped me for a while, until I could finally read it as "her eyes grow used to the light". And later on "mulch it with mucilaginous and treacherous side-slipping logic" had me gobsmacked with its excessive alliteration.)

All the characters are wonderful. None of them are clear-cut baddies, they all think they're doing the right thing (but does it make a difference if you think you're doing the right thing if you're doing the wrong thing?), or have good motivations (the road to Hell is paved with them), or are just confused and caught up in the middle. In particular, I absolutely adored the character of Dr Archibald Parker. I think we could have a whole 'nother book written just about him.

I didn't find this a clear-cut book: probably what happens when your main character is suffering from dementia (I didn't think that was a question: she did seem to be quite thoroughly confused at times, but that doesn't mean she deserved her treatment over at the Courts of Lunacy). Were her horses really killed? Did Martin ever really exist? Did she really have dementia? (No, Yes, and Yes, were my answers; but I'm sure other people have other ideas, and that's what makes this such an interesting book.)½

The story of the residents of Whitey's Fall: mostly old, set in their ways and all linked in different relationships. There were a few good parts, but on the whole this book dragged on and was not engaging enough.

Shortlisted Miles Franklin 2008