Ian Townsend (1)
Autor de Affection: There is No Cure
Para otros autores llamados Ian Townsend, ver la página de desambiguación.
Sobre El Autor
Créditos de la imagen: Picture by John Bean.
Obras de Ian Townsend
Etiquetado
Conocimiento común
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Miembros
Reseñas
Premios
Estadísticas
- Obras
- 3
- Miembros
- 93
- Popularidad
- #200,859
- Valoración
- 3.7
- Reseñas
- 10
- ISBNs
- 19
This is the blurb:
The structure mirrors the way that 19th century weather forecasting across the vast distances of North Queensland was fragmentary and hampered by poor communications. So it takes a little while to bring together the fractured threads of the narrative...
Centred on the pearling industry when pearls were an unpredictable by-product of collecting mother-of-pearl shell, a.k.a. nacre which was widely used at the time to inlay cutlery, jewellery boxes, buttons and jewellery — the novel brings together these issues:
- The illegal pearl industry. Shells and whatever's inside them belong to the boss, but pearls get found and sold illegally to offshore buyers, obviously for less than they are worth, but the pearler gets a healthy 'bonus' instead just his pay for the day. Two characters are employed in the risky business of spying out these illegal transactions. One of these is dead, or might be, but whether he is or not, he's triggered an 'investigation' by the Native Police because he is said to have been speared.
- Frontier conflict: the characters of Dr Walter Roth, Chief Protector of Aborigines, and Constable Jack Kenny, a Native Policeman, are alert to the irony that Roth's job is to protect the Aborigines, and Kenny's is to 'pacify' them.
- Romance, and its complications: Maggie marries a pearler, dislikes his long absences at sea and decides to live on board with him and their baby Alice. This leaves her father, the Chief Resident alone and frail on Thursday Island, so the unmarried older sister Hope is (as was common in those days) the obvious choice to be his carer. But Hope has accepted an impulsive declaration of love from Kenny, from a difference social class and not in a position to support her. There are more complications than this spoiler-free summary, but the racial dilemmas introduce another interesting thread. (The novel is rich in issues for book groups to discuss.)
… (más)To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2020/11/19/the-devils-eye-by-ian-townsend/