Grand Days

Over the pre-Christmas weeks, there was the usual flurry of lists of best reads of 2011. One title appearing highly recommended on several reliable lists was a new Frank Moorhouse – the third in his series on the League of Nations. I bought the the first one (Grand Days) about fifteen years ago; and the second one (Dark Palace) when it was released in 2000. ‘Dark Palace’ won the Miles Franklin that year. There was a huge fuss because, while it is about an Australian, it is not actually set in Australia and that was really pushing the boundaries of the award criteria – and you know how the luvvies work themselves into a state about things like that!

They are HUGE (both over 700 pages) and very earnest seeming from the blurbs - you know, the sort of thing one thinks one should read - eventually. They've both been sitting on Mt TBR awaiting an appropriate moment.

The recommendations - and a sense that I should read at least one ‘worthy’ thing over the break instead of all escapist fantasy and mindless crime thrillers - prompted me to bite the bullet. I selected a larger handbag on Thursday, hefted ‘Grand Days’ into it; and headed off into town for a round of personal wellbeing appointments - the hairdresser, the optometrist etc.

Well, despite its weight, I couldn’t put the bloody thing down. I was so enthralled I didn’t even get grumpy at being kept waiting long past scheduled appointment times.

It is the mid 1920s and a young Australian diplomat, Edith Campbell Berry, arrives in Geneva to take up a role with the newly established League of Nations. Berry leaves home as an impractical idealist and ends up as a somewhat jaded, but still idealistic, international bureaucrat. She has to be one of the most interesting characters I've come across in years - and the world she lives in feels as real as the one I inhabit.

I finished it at 3am on New Years Eve; and promptly searched out the second on Mt TBR. It took sheer willpower not to start it there and then and turn the light off. ( )

My memory is that it was overly long with not a lot actually happening ( )

Pretty slow. Couldn'r relate very well to the character. Will read Dark Places but I probably won't bother with more Frank Morehouse after that. ( )