Not as good as television's 'Secret Valley'...

Given the fact that I had already written this book off as dull and ah-booooo-ring, I was mildly impressed. It was better than I predicted. I give this book one star on the Jess Enjoyment Scale, with a slightly higher two stars on the General Literary Critique scale. It has a boredom factor of 8/10.

I have found this book a hard one to critique. I have carried with me since childhood a resounding disinterest for Australian stories, across all artistic arenas. Predictably, this characteristic has been the subject of contempt from many of my peers. I have always found it hard to engage with stories of my own country's history/people; they don't capture my imagination to the fine degree to which I have become accustomed. I blame television.
So I was totally uninterested by the premise of Secret River, and was really, really not looking forward to reading it. As it turned out, I did find it quite a chore and I wouldn't have gotten very far if not for bookclub (then again, I wouldn't have gone anywhere near it if not for bookclub). However, I did enjoy it a bit more than I thought I would; though still not much. I have been dreading this post as it seems everyone else totally dug Secret River. So I am expecting indignant replies. But here's to honesty.

The rave reviews on the cover seem largely wack to me. 'Unforgettable' - no. 'Overwhelmingly Beautiful' - no. 'Breathtaking' - hell no. I would agree that it was 'Subtle and Satisfying' though. I liked Grenville's style of prose and I appreciated having a traditional story arc for once, with some actual dramatic tension and a conclusive ending. I thought the humour and compassion with which Grenville treated her characters was effective. I liked the way Thornhill was allowed to grow and develop as a character, without forced judgement from the writer. The relationship between Thornhill and his wife was quite lovely, and I liked Thornhill's appreciation of his wife as she matured from a young sprite into middle-age. In the days before divorce and plastic surgery, relationships were for life and you didn't go off someone when they got fat and started growing hair where there was no hair before. Although, we've all seen the English, there's not really such a thing as 'trading up' over there, what with all the bad teeth and the 'freshen yer drink, guv'na?'.

I also thought the dialogue between the Thornhills and the Aboriginal people was pretty hi-larious - giving them names like Saucy Polly and holding one-sided conversations involving the word 'bugger'. You can sense the fear underneath the bravado, with Thornhill putting on a show for his wife and kids.

I also liked the way everyone spoke like Alf from Home & Away.

So all up, a dreary read with some pleasant interludes.

A Great Story

My apologies if i repeat ideas already covered by others..have had this saved as a draft for a while.... I definitely thoroughly enjoyed this book. I felt quite refreshed to read a relatively simple story with a beginnning, middle and end and I found the subject completely intriguing as I've never given much thought to the way the convict system worked and the challenges that faced those sent to Australia. The language of Kate Grenville was soothing and poetic and yet simple and painfully poignant in parts. In my head and heart Wil remained 'lost' throughout the story from the beginning feeling overshadowed by the other William Thornhills in his life until the end where he remained feeling empty and without a home.

I agree that the interaction between Wil and his 'slaves' was intriguing and gave an insight into Wil's character - a wish for power and prestige but not really having the know how to consistently present his authority. I loved the description of the first time he discovered he was 'strolling' after an early power struggle with Dan, having the feeling of power wash over him to allow him to feel as a gentleman would in London. However he could never really hold his authority as in the end it was Dan who pushed him into the final attack by convincing him that Sal would leave unless he "got rid of the blacks". My only criticism is that i suddenly felt detached from the story as the last chapter 'Thornhill's Place' began, time had passed and whereas in the previous parts of the story I felt that the story had few gaps, now I felt that i didn't completely understand how the Thornhills had achieved such wealth and status, is that just the way it happened, that the longer you stayed in Australia the more senior you became in the community? And I wondered how much of Wil's allowing the use of his boat helped to 'buy' some of the prestige that he later enjoyed. But maybe that was just a tactic of Grenville, to allow the reader to detach from the characters that i felt i knew quite well, and allow the story to end.

I also found the descriptions of Wil's verbal interactions with the Aborigines rather amusing and well described, maybe because i have similar difficulties communicating with some of my students and have found myself nodding and smiling to utterances that i cant fully decipher. I felt that the confusion and frustration that occurs when people can not understand each other to be fascinating in the sense that often we construct our views of what people say to fit what we think they would be saying...anyone who has spent some time in a foreign country will agree that you can often have a 'conversation' with someone and then later realise that perhaps they didn't really say what you thought, and didn't necessarily understand as well as you originally beleived.

I guess overall, i found the book totally enjoyable as well as provoking thought about 'big' issues but without being contrived or pretentious, really just presenting a story without any opinion.

Its exciting to see the superfriends blog growing and growing and judging by the previous bloviations you are all doing better than me at explaining your opinions when writing... Maybe its been too long since i've been at uni and too much time conversing with under 5's but i'm really struggling with writing my ideas!

I've written too much!

I really enjoyed this book. Grenville's writing is simple but very evocative and the place that she created stayed with me vividly. I think this story was interesting and challenging because she chose not to write from the point of view of the original inhabitants but from that of the settlers. It would have been easy and perhaps, dull, to write of the horrors of colonialism from the point of view of the Indigenous people (who in dominant Left discourse, are the 'oppressed' in Australian history). But instead she explored the notion of 'oppressed' in multiple sites- the 'natives' oppressed by the colonialists but also the convicts oppressed by the British class system and then the ex-convicts subjugation of the newly arrived convicts. Thornhill realised very early on, in his quest to establish a home in this foreign country, that in in order to have money, power and status, someone has to be below you. And the 'natives' did not count. So we see him embark upon a master and servant relationship with his two lads with little empathy for their loss of freedom.

Thornhill was no doubt a product of his time- the dominant view being that Aboriginal people belonged to the animal kingdom. And even though we get glimpses that he observes things which may in fact challenge this common view (ie their survival skills in the Australian context are far superior), he doesn't allow himself to explore these ideas fully as it would then force him to admit that perhaps his greatest dreams of carving out a home are actually illegitimate. This made me wonder what dominant view we all currently buy into because it is convenient and suits our purposes, but that history will not look kindly on us for. Or even some popular 'truth' that we believe because everyone else does but that future generations will see it as proof of our backwardness. This isn't meant to excuse Thornhill and the rest, but the power of a dominant discourse, such as Aboriginal people= flora and fauna , is something that is hard to fully fathom 200 years later. It's like at the moment we are fully of the belief that apes are not human beings and do not deserve rights at the expense of humans- but what if this was found to be untrue at a later date? Does that mean that everyone who complicitly supported animal testing is in fact a murderer and/or a violator of human rights? If the powers that be, are assuring us that apes aren't humans then doesn't that remove some of our culpability? Complex and controversial questions I know....

Later in the story, Thornhill continues to turn a blind eye to a growing level of atrocities as he has nothing to gain and quite alot to lose by making a stand. Eerily, there was alot in Thornhill that I could relate to- his desire to better himself and his family's station in life. And maybe that is the quiet horror in this story, the fact that very ordinary people with very ordinary desires will be part of evil if they stand to benefit. Grenville painted a very human picture of Thornhill- unremarkable in many ways yet as Paul said, sympathetic. Ultimately, Thornhill was a 'success', he got his land and his wealth and in the background remained the dispossessed Aboriginal people. And I suppose this is Australia's history, that we all have so much only because it has come at others' expense.

Secret's out

With so many people recommending I read The Secret River it is unsurprising I enjoyed the book as much as I did. But, at the risk of going overboard and exposing myself to the harsh ridicule of cynical peers, I think the book was a profound and compelling tale, destined to attain the status of Australian classic (calling here for lists of people’s top 5 Australian novels). Gita, being in this instance an aforementioned cynical peer, would no doubt argue that my love of the story has as much to do with my parochial attachment to this country’s history than the novel’s inherent qualities, but I think it goes beyond that. In The Secret River, Grenville manages to explore complex themes and issues (the idea of ‘home’, loss and grief, difference, hierarchies, group mentality etc) using a fast-paced, intriguing plot, believably simple yet descriptive language and realistic, well developed, characters.

One of the more interesting aspects of the novel was the detailed exploration of human agency, the idea of collective vs individual guilt/blame and the corresponding ethical questions. At what point does a person (ie Wil), shipped off for the term of his natural life to a harsh and exotic land, become responsible for his imposition and detrimental impact on the inhabitants and eco-system? At what point is he (Wil again) in control of his actions and able to exercise agency? When does justifiable ignorance become negligence and when does it go beyond wilful negligence and become active malfeasance?

I found it a particularly poignant moment when Wil went to collect ‘his’ convicts from the wharf only to feel the weight of his own story come crushing down on him as his dishevelled and contemptible superior treated him with such blatant disdain. With his servants, Wil then opts for the authoritarian approach insisting on the formal ‘Mr’ and, from an ethical point of view, goes downhill rapidly. He enjoys the power but in many ways the decision was a spur-of-the-moment tactic: How he had seen others behave, the ‘normal’ way of doing things etc. Wil’s motives in the book are, like others’, invariably multifaceted and rarely singular with justifications tending to follow rather than precede actions. As is written somewhere, with one foot heading down the wrong path it is easier to keep going than to admit defeat and start again. So, beginning with passive complicity Wil eventually joins in the mass murder with men he largely despises, and yet despite this I never really lost sympathy for the Thornhills. The impression is carried throughout that he just did what he thought neccessary and suffered his own psychological consequences in silence. And that’s the tension: he’s both the hero and the villain and not very good at either.