Tag Archives: Kate Grenville

#BookReview ‘Restless Dolly Maunder’ by Kate Grenville #historical

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Restless Dolly Maunder by Kate Grenville tells the life story of a poor white girl who wants to be a teacher in late 19th century Australia. Dolly Maunder must gain her father’s approval to take the pupil teacher test and is determined to ask though she knows he will refuse. This beginning sums up the story of Dolly’s life which Grenville recounts until her end in 1945. Kate GrenvilleA melding of fiction with family history, memoir and feminist study, we follow the restless heroine who always wants more. At the beginning I was sympathetic with Dolly’s lot, cornered into marriage, her dreams crushed, taken to live on a windswept isolated farm. This is a portrayal of a woman who rubs against her parents, their narrow expectations, the drudgery and lack of emotion and who as a parent herself struggles with the same constraints. But when life improves and there is money, Dolly still struggles to connect with those around her.
This constant searching for something new is a classic case of grass being greener on the other side of the fence. Sometimes Dolly’s plans work out financially for the family but sometimes end in struggle and hardship. And each time her three children are uprooted, taken somewhere unfamiliar where they must start again.
Dolly was born too early, struggling for her right to be a woman in a man’s world where every legal document must be signed by a man. From farm to shop to hotel and bar, Dolly and husband Bert Russell move on as the 20th century passes from the Great War and Great Depression to the approach of the Second World war. She is a tough woman living in tough times, unwilling to reshape her ambitions and accept the good of what she has achieved, unable to soften herself to allow others to love her.
At the end of the novel the position of women in society is contextualised, viewed across three generations comparing Dolly’s life with that of her mother and her own daughter Nancy. ‘She thought of all the women she’d ever known, and all their mothers before them, and the mothers before those mothers, locked in a place where they couldn’t move.’ Dolly’s own generation, she decides, is like a hinge allowing a door to be opened, slowly at first, painful inch by painful inch, for the women who follow.
A linear story which I read quite quickly, at times admiring Dolly’s determination and sheer strength of will, but struggling with her inability to connect emotionally with anyone around her. Don’t miss the Author’s Note at the end which adds context to the story.
A sad, depressing story.

Read my review of A ROOM MADE OF LEAVES, also by Kate Grenville

If you like this, try:-
‘Barkskins’ by Annie Proulx
‘At the Edge of the Orchard’ by Tracy Chevalier
‘My Name is Yip’ by Paddy Crewe

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER by Kate Grenville https://wp.me/p2ZHJe-7wJ via @SandraDanby

COMING SOON… THE NEXT BOOK I REVIEW WILL BE:- Verity Bright

#BookReview ‘A Room Made of Leaves’ by Kate Grenville #historical

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When she is 21, a moment’s dalliance in a bush forces orphan Elizabeth to marry soldier John Macarthur. The story of their marriage in 1788, journey to the colony of Australia on board a convict ship and life in the new settlement called Sydney Town, is told in A Room Made of Leaves by Kate Grenville. Kate GrenvilleElizabeth was a real woman but little is known of her, though her husband features in Australia’s history books as the British army officer who became a politician, legislator and pioneer of the Australian wool industry. Grenville is free to imagine what life must have been like as a white settler, and a woman, in a rough, uncultured town where the native people are viewed as animals.
Very quickly Elizabeth finds her new husband is a bully and her new home is a brutal, unforgiving, judgmental place. She spends much time alone with her sickly son and survives by disguising how clever she is, particularly from her husband. More children quickly follow and she bonds more with the convicts who work for her as servants, than she does with the wives of her husband’s friends. An outlier, she decides to improve her learning and seeks lessons on astronomy from an officer in her husband’s corps. What follows changes her understanding of her new country and her place in it.
The pacing seems at times off kilter, a trifle slow in places and rushed at the end, but the writing is as beautiful as I remember from Grenville’s earlier books. Of the book’s two halves, I wanted less of the first half and more of the second about Elizabeth’s role in developing breeds of sheep suited to the wool trade.
Essentially this is a delicately-written story of a young woman who, after making one mistake, is trapped in a loveless marriage far away from her Devon home. She learns how to manage her husband without him realising he is being managed, she tempers his outbursts and steers him out of trouble. Perhaps this fictional account of Elizabeth’s life will mean more to Australians who have grown-up with the historical story of the real John Macarthur.
A good read but not my favourite Grenville book.

Read my review of another Kate Grenville book, RESTLESS DOLLY MAUNDER.

If you like this, try:-
‘Dangerous Women’ by Hope Adams
‘The Pearl Sister’ by Lucinda Riley
‘Rush Oh!’ by Shirley Barrett

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview A ROOM MADE OF LEAVES by Kate Grenville https://wp.me/p5gEM4-5jI via @SandraDanby

A book I love… Wind in the Willows

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One of the reasons I love this book still is the actual edition: a green cloth-covered hardback with a green paper cover. wind in the willows1 I can remember the excitement at being given a hardback book which in 1969 was expensive. I was more used to devouring as many Famous Five and Secret Seven books as possible that we could pick up secondhand at the school fete: my reading at that age was voracious. wind in the willows3The book was a birthday gift from my parents for my ninth birthday, the birthday greeting inside is written in my elder sister’s neat italic script. wind in the willows2It never dawned on me that the language was old-fashioned – Oddsboddikins! – I just lapped it up. Today the book sits on my bookshelf between Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, and Stamboul Train by Graham Greene.
‘Wind in the Willows’ by Kenneth Grahame