Michelle de Kretser

I've had Michelle de Kretser's novel on my 'random F-Rev' to read list for a while, but only recently succeeded in borrowing a copy from the library, which I think was the right choice - although I enjoyed the author's beautiful writing and quirky humour, I don't think this one is a keeper. The Rose Grower is more a series of vignettes than a story, following the lives and loves of the St Pierre family of Gascony, south-west France, during the Revolution. Some readers might be put off by the show more slow pace and lack of structure, but I actually enjoyed the eccentric, free-wheeling narrative - reminding me of Daphne Du Maurier's The Glass Blowers in the form of an Audrey Tautou comedy - that allowed the characters to come to life and the scenery to take over the book!

But, if you want an idea of the story, then the central series of events begins with Stephen Fletcher, an American balloonist, who falls out of the sky and falls in love with Claire St Pierre, a married woman. Her younger sister Sophie, the rose grower of the title, falls in love with Stephen, all the while unaware that Joseph Morel, the local doctor, is in love with her. Youngest sister Mathilde, the most inquisitive and imaginative of the three St Pierre girls, observes them all with the droll wisdom of an intelligent child, and the Revolution slowly filters down from Paris.

The magic is in the language - de Kretser's descriptions of food, nature and Sophie's roses really leap off the page to captivate the senses. I almost want to start growing my own garden after reading about such beautiful flowers! '[Robert le Diable] flowers late, providing colour at the end of the season, and its violet petals are splashed with cerise and scarlet. Later, they fade to a soft dove-grey. Sophie has a terrible weakness for it'.

I also liked the humour of the dialogue, but felt distanced from the characters by the omniscient narrator, in the mocking style of nineteenth century authors like Thackeray. I was able to escape into another place and time, though, which is all that matters! A lyrical and subtle take on the Revolution, from a very talented author. Recommended. show less

Tom Loxley is a divorced, childless, Jamesian scholar who is stalled at the end of writing his book. He takes his dog to a friend's cabin in the bush in order to find the inspiration to finish but on a long tramp with the dog, the dog runs away and doesn't return. Tom's sometimes frantic and sometimes desultory search for his lost dog then weaves in and out of the other plot threads, flashbacks all: his childhood in India and then Australia, his marriage and its ultimate failure, his show more sexually frustrated obsession with his artist friend Nelly Zhang, and (the only non-flashback) of his mother's aging diminishment.

There are a wealth of themes weaving throughout the tale. There's that of the immigrant and the outcast; there's familial duty and the inheritance of the past. Loss and redemption as well as desire and denial play their own enormous roles as the story builds to its climax. Despite the small action guiding the story, the search for the dog keeps the reader engaged and slightly tensed wanting an outcome even as Tom's life up until the loss of his dog unfolds slowly and with great deliberation reflecting the alternating hope and futility of the search itself.

The writing here is often times dense and rich in meaning with de Kretser showing her deftness with apt metaphors. Her descriptions are minute and startlingly accurate, a decided strength in a story with such an insubstantial plot driving the tale. If there's a weakness here, it's in the characters. Tom himself is hard to like, aimless and as stuck in his life as the conclusion of his scholarly research. Nelly Zhang is eccentric but stand-offish, even to the reader, exploiting her racial identity when it suits. And the long intervening amounts of text between when hints of mystery and understanding are dropped and when their threads are finally reintroduced into the story can induce a sense of frustration in a reader more accustomed to a straightforward writing style. But even with these considerations, it is clear that de Kretser is an accomplished and stylish writer. In the end, while I found it hard to sympathize or care for any of the characters, I wanted to know what happened to the dog, was impressed by the calibre of the prose, and amazed by the dexterity of keeping all the disparate plots going and ultimately interconnected. I look forward to reading de Kretser's other works. show less

This is a gorgeous novel, with some wonderful, insightful writing and beautiful descriptions. It intertwines the stories of two very different characters, Laura from Sydney who has grown up without a mother and a distant father and Ravi who despite growing up fatherless and in poverty, receives a good education and becomes a maths lecturer and early website designer. Each must travel to find out who they are and what they want from life. Laura chooses to follow the backpacking trail to show more Europe when her aunt leaves her some money and ends up settling in London for some time until the thought of light and heat bring her back to Australia. Ravi suffers a tragic event and seeks asylum in Australia. They meet when they both find themselves working for a travel guide company, however neither has yet finished their journey and must continue on.

Although the writing is wonderful, almost lyrical in places and always enjoyable to read, I did find the novel dragged a little in the middle and I wondered where it was going. However it all becomes apparent once we reach the second part of the book where the main characters have arrived in Australia to begin the next phase of their lives. The book raises many questions about the purpose of travel and what we gain from it, it also addresses the difficult life suffered by asylum seekers who must wait in limbo while the courts decide their fate and raises questions about ethnicity and racism is this globalised age. I think this is also a book that will benefit from being re-read, with time taken to enjoy the journey without being concerned about what lies ahead. show less

Questions of Travel is an odd novel. The opening line is fantastic, but the tension it promises dissipates under a rambling prose that is reminiscent of a journey with end. The two characters are as dissimilar as two people can be, and their lives are equally unalike. Readers push forward hoping the their paths intertwine into a joint story that takes the novel to another level. Sadly, this never occurs.

The reader is left with a novel that really should be two separate stories. Laura’s show more life as a globe-trotter has nothing in common with Ravi’s struggles for survival. The near-constant political rebellions and fear that mark Ravi’s youth and early adulthood are a far cry from Laura’s almost posh life as a professional house sitter and someone who spends every free moment traveling around the world. There is something almost obscene about having the two narratives told together because it trivializes both experiences.

While Laura and Ravi are undoubtedly the two main heroes of the novel, the cast of characters is large and varied. The problem with this is that none of the secondary characters make much of an impression, and distinguishing between them proves difficult. This is made worse by the fact that the story jumps between Laura’s and Ravi’s perspectives, so readers must try to remember someone mentioned in passing in Laura’s section after having attempted to untangle the weave of Ravi’s acquaintances, friends, and family during his section. It is a situation that does not improve with the passage of the novel either, as the two main characters grow older and expand their circle of acquaintances.

Questions of Travel is a disappointment. It is the type of story that leaves you wondering what the point of it is and, more to the point, why you bothered to finish it in the first place. Its two meandering storylines never really merge as you expect them to do, and the characters’ fates seem more like a convenience rather than an attempt at closure. While the prose does have moments of brilliance, it too fails to portray any semblance of coherence and cohesiveness between Laura and Ravi; the bloated character list furthers the confusion. The end result is a novel that leaves readers wanting more in the way of a structured plot with well-developed characters whose lives connect more than superficially. Alas, that is not what you get. show less