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The Bell of the World
When a troubled Sarah Hutchinson returns to Australia from boarding school in England and time spent in Europe, she is sent to live with her eccentric Uncle Ferny on the family property, Ngangahook. With the sound of the ocean surrounding everything they do on the farm, Sarah and her uncle form an inspired bond hosting visiting field naturalists and holding soirees in which Sarah performs on a piano whose sound she has altered with items and objects from the bush and shore.
As Sarah’s world is nourished by music and poetry, Ferny’s life is marked by Such is Life, a book he has read and reread, so much so that the volume is falling apart. Its saviour is Jones the Bookbinder of Moolap, who performs a miraculous act. To shock and surprise, Jones interleaves Ferny’s volume with a book he bought from an American sailor, a once obscure tale of whales and the sea. In art as in life nature seems supreme. Ngangahook and its environs are threatened, however, when members of the community ask the Hutchinsons to help ‘make a savage landscape sacred’ by financing the installation of a town bell. The fearless musician and her idealistic uncle refuse to buckle to local pressures, mounting their own defence of ‘the bell of the world’.
Gregory Day’s new novel embodies a cultural reckoning in a breathtakingly beautiful and lyrical way. The Bell of the World is both a song to the natural wonders that are not yet gone and a luminous prehistory of contemporary climate change and its connection to colonialism. It is a book immersed in the early to mid-twentieth century but written very much for the hearts of the future.
As Sarah’s world is nourished by music and poetry, Ferny’s life is marked by Such is Life, a book he has read and reread, so much so that the volume is falling apart. Its saviour is Jones the Bookbinder of Moolap, who performs a miraculous act. To shock and surprise, Jones interleaves Ferny’s volume with a book he bought from an American sailor, a once obscure tale of whales and the sea. In art as in life nature seems supreme. Ngangahook and its environs are threatened, however, when members of the community ask the Hutchinsons to help ‘make a savage landscape sacred’ by financing the installation of a town bell. The fearless musician and her idealistic uncle refuse to buckle to local pressures, mounting their own defence of ‘the bell of the world’.
Gregory Day’s new novel embodies a cultural reckoning in a breathtakingly beautiful and lyrical way. The Bell of the World is both a song to the natural wonders that are not yet gone and a luminous prehistory of contemporary climate change and its connection to colonialism. It is a book immersed in the early to mid-twentieth century but written very much for the hearts of the future.
409 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 1, 2023
19 people are currently reading
305 people want to read
About the author
Gregory Day
18 books17 followersGregory Day is an Australian novelist, poet and musician who is best known for his Mangowak novels,
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
March 6, 2023
As I made my morning coffee today in the quiet of my kitchen, a bird was singing outside. Mindful of the motif of listening in Gregory Day's new novel The Bell of the World, I paused, and listened, really listened, so that I could identify the bird.
The Bell of the World is a challenging book, not because it's hard to read and make sense of, but because it challenges our ideas about what art is, what music is, and even what literature is.
Titled 'Big Cutting Hill' and set in the early years of the 20th century, Part One introduces Sarah Hutchinson, a troubled young woman under the care of an Indigenous woman called Maisie. Sarah's immediate family is absent from the novel, so we know only that her mother drank to excess and that after her parents' acrimonious divorce Sarah was packed off to boarding school in Devon. There, bells punctuate her day and she feels claustrophobic after the wide open spaces of Australia. From there she is offloaded to Uncle Ferny's bohemian circle in Rome.
In Rome, in artistic circles (that include 'poetivores'!) Sarah is exposed to (and excited by) modernism. But sent home to Uncle Ferny's farm Ngangahook she is confused, lethargic and depressed, and it is Maisie's wisdom that begins to heal her. This healing coincides with the return of Uncle Ferny (who is hairy from reading i.e. unshaven!)
In Part Two, (in Sarah's voice) Ngangahook illustrates the clash between European settler values and the Hutchinsons' desire to belong in their landscape. The local wannabe dignitary Selwyn Atchison wants a civic bell to dignify the town (and himself), expressing...
Sarah and Uncle Ferny reject the entire concept. Such a bell would impose itself on the bush which has its own ancient soundscape of birds and the rustlings of native fauna and the whistling of the wind in the trees.
(The point is that nations do irreversible things without any consideration for how it might impact globally... climate change, nuclear waste, starting endless wars, noise pollution from planes, blighting the night sky with satellites, invading privacy with drones. None of us can escape from it, and on and on and on it goes with global forums powerless to put a stop to it.)
Uncle Ferny's refusal to contribute to the fund to pay for this intrusive bell arouses not only indignation but ostracism in the town. The townsfolk were already bemused by Sarah's concerts on her 'altered piano'. In her narrative she includes a newspaper clipping:
What is music? Sarah's composition is titled 'My Autumn' and it distinguishes the Australian autumn from the European one with its very sound. We learn later in Part Three that Sarah — alone on an isolated property — is creating experimental music that could take its place amongst the most radical of experimentalists in the 20th century.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/03/06/t...
The Bell of the World is a challenging book, not because it's hard to read and make sense of, but because it challenges our ideas about what art is, what music is, and even what literature is.
Titled 'Big Cutting Hill' and set in the early years of the 20th century, Part One introduces Sarah Hutchinson, a troubled young woman under the care of an Indigenous woman called Maisie. Sarah's immediate family is absent from the novel, so we know only that her mother drank to excess and that after her parents' acrimonious divorce Sarah was packed off to boarding school in Devon. There, bells punctuate her day and she feels claustrophobic after the wide open spaces of Australia. From there she is offloaded to Uncle Ferny's bohemian circle in Rome.
In Rome, in artistic circles (that include 'poetivores'!) Sarah is exposed to (and excited by) modernism. But sent home to Uncle Ferny's farm Ngangahook she is confused, lethargic and depressed, and it is Maisie's wisdom that begins to heal her. This healing coincides with the return of Uncle Ferny (who is hairy from reading i.e. unshaven!)
In Part Two, (in Sarah's voice) Ngangahook illustrates the clash between European settler values and the Hutchinsons' desire to belong in their landscape. The local wannabe dignitary Selwyn Atchison wants a civic bell to dignify the town (and himself), expressing...
...his own Presbyterian need for a bell to civilise, indeed to drown out the pollinating salt airs of this small inlet into, and out of, the sea. (p.69)
Sarah and Uncle Ferny reject the entire concept. Such a bell would impose itself on the bush which has its own ancient soundscape of birds and the rustlings of native fauna and the whistling of the wind in the trees.
No schoolbell, no churchbell, no bell for service nor for storm. Just the silence that is so filled with sound. The reach of the pealing bell of the moonlured surf, beseeching no one at the rivermouth. That, I came to believe, through the pressure of engagement, is the only bell of auditory range that ever an inlet wanted to be heard.
But still: a niceness in the offing, something coming our way other than weather, that's what caused the bitter unsuccessful petition to so deepen and endure. (p.66)
(The point is that nations do irreversible things without any consideration for how it might impact globally... climate change, nuclear waste, starting endless wars, noise pollution from planes, blighting the night sky with satellites, invading privacy with drones. None of us can escape from it, and on and on and on it goes with global forums powerless to put a stop to it.)
Uncle Ferny's refusal to contribute to the fund to pay for this intrusive bell arouses not only indignation but ostracism in the town. The townsfolk were already bemused by Sarah's concerts on her 'altered piano'. In her narrative she includes a newspaper clipping:
In a novel procedure Miss Hutchinson had adjusted the workings and thus the sound of the homestead's grand piano with the following items from the field: a bullock bone, a piece of ironbark, a banksia cob, a scrap of 8 gauge wire, a kangaroo rib, a train ticket, a fray of crinoline, a bandage, a letter, fern fronds, a bridle hasp and fox-fur. (p.61)
What is music? Sarah's composition is titled 'My Autumn' and it distinguishes the Australian autumn from the European one with its very sound. We learn later in Part Three that Sarah — alone on an isolated property — is creating experimental music that could take its place amongst the most radical of experimentalists in the 20th century.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/03/06/t...
April 9, 2023
Hard to describe this book other than to say it was one of those special books. At times achingly beautiful, at times challenging. I read it more slowly than is my habit for both those reasons. And very glad I did. ⭐️
May 31, 2023
I’m finding it difficult to work out what to say about this book. This feels like poetry, novel, musical score, art, landscape and history but more encompassing than each component. This novel starts with the story of a young woman, not really wanted by her parents. Sarah finds her place with her uncle Ferny, in Europe first and then on the family property in the very south of Victoria, west of Geelong. There is an amazing sense of place and the descriptions of this landscape are beautiful. We meet various people in Sarah and Uncle Ferny’s life and we learn of their connection with the local community and then their ostracism. The story covers the decades of Sarah’s life from the early years of Australia’s federation. More importantly this is a story about sounds and the music Of nature that surrounds us if we take the time to really connect.
July 16, 2024
"‘Oh well,’ said Jem, with a disinterested air, and turning back to continue his work on the tree, ‘maybe you’d be better off then with a bell. That way you could face your facts every day, on the hour in fact, or even the half-hour. Selwyn Atchison, with hands on hips, turned then to look back fiercely at Ferny. They considered each other closely. ‘Well in that case,’ Ferny said gently, almost as if to himself, ‘it would be a penitential bell. And I’m not sure that’s what Selwyn here has in mind.’
There is a strong central concept that the Bell of the World is organised around. The good citizens of Angahook want to install a bell, which would unify their settlement as it rings out the hours, establishing the colonial dominance of the soundscape. Our heroes, Ferny and Sarah, bohemians on Ngangahook farm (with the velar nasal intact), want instead to listen to the Bell of the World, the soundscape of the bush and the continent they live on. They seek to forge some kind of hybrid existance, which can inhabit the world with respect and embrace. Around this, there is quite a lot of other plot, characters come and go, there is a book or two and a gorgeous evocation of the power of literature to provide inspiration and solace, and a somewhat jarring, long time jump, taking us into mid-century modernity, and experimental composition.
I expected to love this and I didn't. I'm still not sure how much I like it, which feels almost treasonous. It has many great qualities. Day's mastery of language can be wonderful. His characters feel not only real, but bewitching. By emphasising sound as well as vision, he brings the full sensory experience of southern Australian ecosystems straight into your dreams.
So why I didn't I love it? Some of it is probably taste. For all the complexity of plot, the themes here are strongly drawn and often returned to, which I think is not entirely my thing these days. The ideas of hybridity, in particular, feel a little hammered home. Our protagonists way of life evidently superior to those around them. In addition, I'm not a musical person, so I suspect a lot of the fabric of the novel, woven out of music, was lost on me.
I also found the language occasionally overwritten, especially in the earlier sections of the book. Day injects playfulness into the narrative, but it sinks into taking itself a little too seriously in some of the more embellished passages, just when it needs to do the opposite.
I also do have a sense of unease about writing which seeks to resolve colonialism while focusing largely on sympathetic settler characters. I am aware this may be about where I am in my own life - it is partly why it took me so long to read this book, because I am aware it is a genre currently making me less comfortable. And when our settler protagonist, sitting in the garden of one of the few Indigenous characters, looks up at the stars and thinks "Here was the correspondence to my soul, my counterweight in the Heavens, already there in the night sky. Yes, it was already there all along. I cannot fully, or precisely, describe the effect of my sighting of the Seven Sisters that night. I cannot adequately express the faith it gave me, the way it lodged that faith into my very self, knowing as I now did that everything I wanted, everything I had always wanted and everything I’d feared as well, had all along already been in existence in our world." it wasn't really a kind of hybridity I was comfortable with. I think we have a way to go before we have a synthesis of worldviews, perhaps I am only comfortable now with listening to, not owning, cycles like the Seven Sisters. (Or perhaps I was just grumpy because the very start of the book featured one of my least favourite tropes, the teenage girl who sexually pursues a man in his 60s, which is much more artfully done than it sounds).
I'm not sad to have read this. I can't even say that it wasn't the right book at the right time - as you can see, it has given me a lot to think about, at a time I think I did need that. It is a book I will be in conversation with for some time. But perhaps at a different time, I would have embraced it with more warmth than I can in this place, at this time.
There is a strong central concept that the Bell of the World is organised around. The good citizens of Angahook want to install a bell, which would unify their settlement as it rings out the hours, establishing the colonial dominance of the soundscape. Our heroes, Ferny and Sarah, bohemians on Ngangahook farm (with the velar nasal intact), want instead to listen to the Bell of the World, the soundscape of the bush and the continent they live on. They seek to forge some kind of hybrid existance, which can inhabit the world with respect and embrace. Around this, there is quite a lot of other plot, characters come and go, there is a book or two and a gorgeous evocation of the power of literature to provide inspiration and solace, and a somewhat jarring, long time jump, taking us into mid-century modernity, and experimental composition.
I expected to love this and I didn't. I'm still not sure how much I like it, which feels almost treasonous. It has many great qualities. Day's mastery of language can be wonderful. His characters feel not only real, but bewitching. By emphasising sound as well as vision, he brings the full sensory experience of southern Australian ecosystems straight into your dreams.
So why I didn't I love it? Some of it is probably taste. For all the complexity of plot, the themes here are strongly drawn and often returned to, which I think is not entirely my thing these days. The ideas of hybridity, in particular, feel a little hammered home. Our protagonists way of life evidently superior to those around them. In addition, I'm not a musical person, so I suspect a lot of the fabric of the novel, woven out of music, was lost on me.
I also found the language occasionally overwritten, especially in the earlier sections of the book. Day injects playfulness into the narrative, but it sinks into taking itself a little too seriously in some of the more embellished passages, just when it needs to do the opposite.
I also do have a sense of unease about writing which seeks to resolve colonialism while focusing largely on sympathetic settler characters. I am aware this may be about where I am in my own life - it is partly why it took me so long to read this book, because I am aware it is a genre currently making me less comfortable. And when our settler protagonist, sitting in the garden of one of the few Indigenous characters, looks up at the stars and thinks "Here was the correspondence to my soul, my counterweight in the Heavens, already there in the night sky. Yes, it was already there all along. I cannot fully, or precisely, describe the effect of my sighting of the Seven Sisters that night. I cannot adequately express the faith it gave me, the way it lodged that faith into my very self, knowing as I now did that everything I wanted, everything I had always wanted and everything I’d feared as well, had all along already been in existence in our world." it wasn't really a kind of hybridity I was comfortable with. I think we have a way to go before we have a synthesis of worldviews, perhaps I am only comfortable now with listening to, not owning, cycles like the Seven Sisters. (Or perhaps I was just grumpy because the very start of the book featured one of my least favourite tropes, the teenage girl who sexually pursues a man in his 60s, which is much more artfully done than it sounds).
I'm not sad to have read this. I can't even say that it wasn't the right book at the right time - as you can see, it has given me a lot to think about, at a time I think I did need that. It is a book I will be in conversation with for some time. But perhaps at a different time, I would have embraced it with more warmth than I can in this place, at this time.
October 22, 2023
I purchased this book by Gregory Day on a recent book tour - in part because it was set in the Otways near where I live. The places that were referenced were very familiar to me and resonated quite strongly as a result- Moolap; Wensleydale; Bell Post Hill, Winchelsea; Bell Brae; Angahook or Ngangahook Run- albeit that the latter was fictitious. Such familiar places enabled me to visualise the events that took place in around the early 1900s as well as to connect with the distinctive environment. The battle to develop or leave an environment on its natural state resonated strongly and was symbolically represented by the battle for a bell to be built that would ward off dangers including indigenous assailants.
The personal transformation of Sarah Hutchinson, niece of Ferny Hutchinson, from a troubled adolescent to one who was totally in tune with the natural environment was a central theme of the story and provided a dramatic backdrop to the other events that underpinned the narrative.
While some of the language proved challenging, this made the narrative ultimately more compelling as literary references required concentration and reflection to be fully absorbed.
Life in the bush was both exhilarating and at the same time daunting - never to be taken for granted or fully underestimated.
The personal transformation of Sarah Hutchinson, niece of Ferny Hutchinson, from a troubled adolescent to one who was totally in tune with the natural environment was a central theme of the story and provided a dramatic backdrop to the other events that underpinned the narrative.
While some of the language proved challenging, this made the narrative ultimately more compelling as literary references required concentration and reflection to be fully absorbed.
Life in the bush was both exhilarating and at the same time daunting - never to be taken for granted or fully underestimated.
July 23, 2025
What a strange book. I did not like it at the start . It’s esoteric and there is a lot of stream of consciousness writing that was so meandering, it felt unskilled and self indulgent. I was impatient with it. However as the story advanced these ramblings seemed to have more purpose and I grew to want to read it to the end. I’m not sure it’s worthy of the accolades it’s getting, it’s a really specific audience. But it is a book to be savoured, if you have the time and patience. I loved the main character and there were some funny, ridiculous episodes, such as with the bookbinder, that really were memorable.
April 5, 2023
Our Review...
Gregory Day is a much loved author at Great Escape Books, and we are so very pleased that he is receiving widespread recognition for his latest novel, The Bell of the World by literary community both at home and internationally.
Locally, Carmel Bird in
The Saturday Paper writes,
"This novel is a glorious creation, a singing gift. The reading mind is transported to a wider world: guided, illuminated, and nourished."
The praise continues in The Guardian, with Jack Callil describing the work writing, "The novel’s incantatory yet challenging prose makes flaneurs of its readers, leading us down innumerable warrens of evocative natural imagery and sinuous thought. It is heart-sleeving earnest … often it is hypnotic, eschewing read-by-numbers storytelling that deadens much contemporary Australian fiction. It is also resplendent with literary allusions and encyclopaedic ecological knowledge."
Personally, I’m absolutely loving my journey with Sarah Hutchinson, who at the turn of the century who has never fitted into the narrow confines of an English boarding school or the rigid expectations of her frigid mother and her largely absent father. Packed off as a burdensome child she is sent to stay with her eccentric Uncle Ferny on his farm, Ngangahook in the wilds of Aireys, which in her eyes is no punishment at all.
Greg of course weaves stunning imagery of the very essence of the earth, of trees, of old possums and of course of native birds throughout this novel, portraying his great and vast love of the land of Aireys and the Bambra surrounds.
Come and read this mesmerising and utterly beautiful novel for yourself.
Limited signed editions available in-store only.
Review by Nicole @ Great Escape Books
Gregory Day is a much loved author at Great Escape Books, and we are so very pleased that he is receiving widespread recognition for his latest novel, The Bell of the World by literary community both at home and internationally.
Locally, Carmel Bird in
The Saturday Paper writes,
"This novel is a glorious creation, a singing gift. The reading mind is transported to a wider world: guided, illuminated, and nourished."
The praise continues in The Guardian, with Jack Callil describing the work writing, "The novel’s incantatory yet challenging prose makes flaneurs of its readers, leading us down innumerable warrens of evocative natural imagery and sinuous thought. It is heart-sleeving earnest … often it is hypnotic, eschewing read-by-numbers storytelling that deadens much contemporary Australian fiction. It is also resplendent with literary allusions and encyclopaedic ecological knowledge."
Personally, I’m absolutely loving my journey with Sarah Hutchinson, who at the turn of the century who has never fitted into the narrow confines of an English boarding school or the rigid expectations of her frigid mother and her largely absent father. Packed off as a burdensome child she is sent to stay with her eccentric Uncle Ferny on his farm, Ngangahook in the wilds of Aireys, which in her eyes is no punishment at all.
Greg of course weaves stunning imagery of the very essence of the earth, of trees, of old possums and of course of native birds throughout this novel, portraying his great and vast love of the land of Aireys and the Bambra surrounds.
Come and read this mesmerising and utterly beautiful novel for yourself.
Limited signed editions available in-store only.
Review by Nicole @ Great Escape Books
May 3, 2023
A unique book, initially set in the early 20th century and peopled by country folk, Sarah Hutchison and her uncle 'Ferny' and their property called Ngangahook in the country on the coast near Geelong. We meet them initially as Sarah returns from schooling in Britain, to stay with Maisie until the return of her uncle from Europe. Sarah has a troubled family, and Ferny offers her a loving home as an alternative.
She is a musical woman, and in Ferny's home she creates music that reflects the physical environment, and he invites neighbours to enjoy her performance.
The language is dreamy, beautiful and non specific, meaning we have to infer events from her observations. She is also able to talk about behaviour, such as Ferny's homosexuality in a matter of fact and accepting way that suggests maturity.
Ferny's beloved book, A Fortunate Life is repaired and compiled into a book blended with Moby Dick, a bizarre episode that Sarah and Ferny shared and pursued, one of the peculiar stories, the purpose of which I found difficult to reconcile but very much in keeping with the story form, beautiful but bizarre!
The scene is set for them to be ostracised by neighbours when they oppose the purchase of a town bell and people close to them are hurt through the reprisals, isolating Sarah when she needs support and encouragement. Her isolation increases but her musical life supports her.
The story takes place over many decades:Ferny passes away but leaves her with staff who maintain her life style on the property. Sarah gradually establishes a writing contact with a journalist, and as an older woman she meets him, realising she has been his inspiration in composing music but also in appreciating silence and the natural world.
Reading this book is not simple, some commitment to patient reading and thinking is required but will be rewarded with a thoughtful, unique tale of grreat beauty.
She is a musical woman, and in Ferny's home she creates music that reflects the physical environment, and he invites neighbours to enjoy her performance.
The language is dreamy, beautiful and non specific, meaning we have to infer events from her observations. She is also able to talk about behaviour, such as Ferny's homosexuality in a matter of fact and accepting way that suggests maturity.
Ferny's beloved book, A Fortunate Life is repaired and compiled into a book blended with Moby Dick, a bizarre episode that Sarah and Ferny shared and pursued, one of the peculiar stories, the purpose of which I found difficult to reconcile but very much in keeping with the story form, beautiful but bizarre!
The scene is set for them to be ostracised by neighbours when they oppose the purchase of a town bell and people close to them are hurt through the reprisals, isolating Sarah when she needs support and encouragement. Her isolation increases but her musical life supports her.
The story takes place over many decades:Ferny passes away but leaves her with staff who maintain her life style on the property. Sarah gradually establishes a writing contact with a journalist, and as an older woman she meets him, realising she has been his inspiration in composing music but also in appreciating silence and the natural world.
Reading this book is not simple, some commitment to patient reading and thinking is required but will be rewarded with a thoughtful, unique tale of grreat beauty.
August 6, 2024
A historical fiction novel mainly set in Western Victoria, Australia in the early 1900s. Sarah Hutchinson returns to Australia from boarding school in England and time spent in Rome, Italy. With her likable Uncle Ferny, she finds herself living on the family property, Ngangahook, near the ocean. Sarah and her uncle live a secluded, lonely life that they are comfortable with. They host four field naturalists to their property for a week. Sarah performs on a grand piano whose sound she has altered with items and objects from the bush and shore.
A neighbour wants Uncle Ferny to contribute to funding the installation of a town bell. Uncle Ferny is against the idea as he likes just the natural sounds of the landscape. Uncle Ferny is taken by the book that recently was published, ‘Such is Life’, which he has read and reread many times. He decides to go to a bookbinder to have the book repaired. The bookbinder of Moolap is particularly keen on Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’, and recommends the book to Uncle Ferny.
This novel is a slow burner that I appreciated, however I do not think this book is a ‘popular’ type of read as plot momentum is slow and the characters are not fully developed. It’s a novel that has a unique, dreamy type of atmosphere. I prefer his novel, ‘A Sand Archive’, (2018).
This book is shortlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Award.
A neighbour wants Uncle Ferny to contribute to funding the installation of a town bell. Uncle Ferny is against the idea as he likes just the natural sounds of the landscape. Uncle Ferny is taken by the book that recently was published, ‘Such is Life’, which he has read and reread many times. He decides to go to a bookbinder to have the book repaired. The bookbinder of Moolap is particularly keen on Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’, and recommends the book to Uncle Ferny.
This novel is a slow burner that I appreciated, however I do not think this book is a ‘popular’ type of read as plot momentum is slow and the characters are not fully developed. It’s a novel that has a unique, dreamy type of atmosphere. I prefer his novel, ‘A Sand Archive’, (2018).
This book is shortlisted for the 2024 Miles Franklin Award.
August 30, 2025
The book has some clever and intriguing themes, including an Industrial Revolution perspective on ecology as experienced in rural Australia, the juxtaposition of two different but complementary ideas and the spontaneous nature of original art. These themes are explored through the eyes of the heroine, Sarah, an orphan who goes to live with her Uncle first in Europe, then at his remote cattle property in Victoria.
For me the trouble was that so much of the book was taken up with Sarah’s philosophical musings and that, as I often find when a male author writes from a female perspective, her feelings and experiences did not quite ring true. I persevered and felt more connected to the book in the last chapters.
For me the trouble was that so much of the book was taken up with Sarah’s philosophical musings and that, as I often find when a male author writes from a female perspective, her feelings and experiences did not quite ring true. I persevered and felt more connected to the book in the last chapters.
May 12, 2024
This is a very unusual book. At first I wasn't sure if I would persist with it because I felt it was 'over my head'. Often I didn't know what was going on. But I kept going because the writing was so captivating. After I had got a certain way into it I needed to know what happened. But amazing writing. I loved the sun in the kitchen, coming in as if it owned the place. And the person for whom time didn't so much pass as fall in on him. And the number of people in the Melbourne streets being likened to the number of leaves in the forest at Ngangahook. This was a special book and I'm glad I gave this time in my life to experiencing it. I may even need to read it a second time.
June 9, 2023
I think other will get more from this than me. Yes, it is beautifully written & causes the reader to think about various forms of art (music, books). And I loved the relatively subtle take on first nations people (albeit I felt more from a 21st century perspective than the book's setting in the early 20th century). But it was a bit slow &, at times, pretentious. (or maybe I just didn't understand it?). I've read & loved all Gregory Day's prior books, but for me this one just didn't quite hit the spot. Sorry.
January 25, 2025
Oh my days, what a ghastly book. Just revolting. So hard to read; I had to force myself to continue reading. A self indulgent, dangerous book that tries to normalise indecent behaviour. Definitely do not recommend to anyone. I’m scarred from reading it. Just my opinion; there might be some academic scholars that enjoy prose that seems written by someone with a thesaurus at hand, picking out the largest words they can find, but that don’t make sense in the context that they’re written.
January 23, 2024
I appreciated rather than enjoyed this one although there were lots to like, the setting, the characters. It's not an easy read because of the old-timey style and flowery expressions. At first I found the third act quite jarring but then settled into it. Lots of unanswered questions, it doesn't tie in all the ends neatly. Maybe that's life.
June 25, 2023
I love the works of fiction written by Gregory Day. His style is unique, poetic, and surprising. He illustrates the Australian bush with such love and depth.
The main character is intelligent interesting and full of natural curiosity about the world.
The main character is intelligent interesting and full of natural curiosity about the world.
August 14, 2024
DNF - The synopsis sounded great, but got to page 38 and had to stop reading. So many adjectives within the similes, it became increasingly difficult to read and follow as it jumped back and forth in time. Just feels incredibly overwritten.
January 30, 2025
Didn’t quite finish it - the exquisite writing kept me going, but I’m just in the mood for a bit of a stronger plot at the moment.. would be great to read in longer blocks, like on a plane or something.
February 3, 2025
There were many beautiful passages and sentences. I’d recommend it to anyone who appreciates lyrical prose.
The plot… I didn’t find the bell plot to be that great and under developed.
It needed a good trim in parts, but I also wanted more access to the uncle and that book of his.
The plot… I didn’t find the bell plot to be that great and under developed.
It needed a good trim in parts, but I also wanted more access to the uncle and that book of his.
January 20, 2024
Maybe I am just not smart enough to understand this book. Was tempted to abandon it several times, but persevered to the end and then regretted the time spent on it.
Read
June 26, 2024DNF. Too flowery and over written for my taste.
Read
September 9, 2024Gave up. Struggled to become engaged. Narrative pace was tedious and the style of language constantly slowed my reading. I’m sure it’s probably a book worthy of praise but it didn’t capture me.
not-finished
September 11, 2024Overblown prose, did not engage me.
October 22, 2024
3.5 At times I really had to work hard with this book as I honestly found some of the prose impenetrable. At other times I loved it!
January 1, 2025
Evocative and lyrical. What a treat to read about my own landscape and places, and hear a language to understand it.
January 25, 2025
The story was engaging from the start and I was deeply invested in the fate of the central characters. Set in a region I know in the early 20th century it was both familiar and strange. I loved it.
February 25, 2024
Pfff, so many adjectives that the story itself is probably one/third of the book.
I seriously tried, but surrendered half way. If all that so called beauty was actually telling something, that would have been something, but this was just dragging along. However, the cover is beautiful.
I seriously tried, but surrendered half way. If all that so called beauty was actually telling something, that would have been something, but this was just dragging along. However, the cover is beautiful.
February 22, 2025
Such depth to this book, deserves another read!
September 19, 2024
I found this book transcendent in the way it delivers the reader right into the physical and emotional landscape of the setting and its protagonists. A moving story of a young woman and her tenderhearted uncle, who find themselves forging unique and creative lives as somewhat outsiders in both time and place.
The language is lyrical and evocative - Day's keen descriptions of rural Victoria and the sensory experiences of the characters as they navigate their physical and mental boundaries is heart-achingly real. You need time and space to absorb and breathe in all that this book offers, it's an engaging and immersive read. Pick it up if you want a wondrous and sensorial journey into themes around landscape, creativity, morality, individuality, and hope.
The language is lyrical and evocative - Day's keen descriptions of rural Victoria and the sensory experiences of the characters as they navigate their physical and mental boundaries is heart-achingly real. You need time and space to absorb and breathe in all that this book offers, it's an engaging and immersive read. Pick it up if you want a wondrous and sensorial journey into themes around landscape, creativity, morality, individuality, and hope.
April 10, 2023
This was a great read, one of my best this year.
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