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Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop (Text Classics) by Witting, Amy (October 13, 2015) Paperback
(From the blurb) Isobel Callaghan fears she is going mad. She has resigned from her job, and is trying to survive as a writer. With no food left in her rooming-house attic, she sets out to buy provisions from the corner shop. On the way she collapses, and to her surprise wakes up in hospital... From there it's a bumpy ride to the tuberculosis sanatorium, where Isobel becomes a member of a self-contained society. The god-like doctors and an assorted, less than compatible, cast of patients help Isobel to gain hard insights about herself, and about human nature, on the slow path to recuperation. While many of the experiences recounted in this memorable novel are grim, Amy Witting manages at the same time to be continually and compassionately funny. From her humour emerges the profound, ironic wisdom by which all her writing is distiguished.
Unknown Binding
First published January 1, 1999
3 people are currently reading
153 people want to read
About the author
Amy Witting
18 books13 followersJoan Austral Levick was born Joan Fraser in the Sydney suburb of Annandale in 1918. She studied at the University of Sydney and later taught French and English at state secondary schools. In 1948 she was transferred to Kempsey where she met Les Levick, a fellow teacher. They were married in December 1948. In 1953 Witting was diagnosed with TB after a routine school check, and it was while she was confined to the Bodington Sanitorium that she began to write more seriously. Witting has had numerous poems and short stories published in journals such as Quadrant and The New Yorker.
Witting was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 1990 for I for Isobel and again in 2000 for Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop. In 1993 she was awarded the Patrick White Prize.
Amy Witting died a few weeks after her last novel was published in September 2001.
Witting was shortlisted for the Miles Franklin Award in 1990 for I for Isobel and again in 2000 for Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop. In 1993 she was awarded the Patrick White Prize.
Amy Witting died a few weeks after her last novel was published in September 2001.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
January 16, 2023
3.5 stars. A novel about Isobel Callaghan, a struggling young woman writer, an orphan, who lives in Sydney. She works at an office and lives in a boarding house. Shortly after resigning from her job and leaving the boarding house, Isobel is diagnosed with tuberculosis and driven to a sanatorium in the mountains to recuperate. At the sanatorium she becomes acquainted with a number of people.
An interesting character based novel.
This book was shortlisted for the 2000 Miles Franklin award.
An interesting character based novel.
This book was shortlisted for the 2000 Miles Franklin award.
December 13, 2017
Amy Witting should be much better known, she has great flawed characters, a lucid style and makes the mundane interesting.
Following on from the equally engaging I for Isobel, Isobel begins this book a train wreck. She is hungry, unable to write, feverish and angry. She either has one night stands or runs away from affection.
After a comical trip to the corner shop she collapses, is diagnosed with TB and sent to a specialist hospital for a long and drawn out recovery.
Doctors, nurses, volunteers and fellow patients all come to life with compassion through Isobel's subtle wit and observations.
Isobel is an enigma within the patients, well read, intelligent, young, attractive and able to verbally spar with the doctors and nursing staff. She has to deal with people she would normally avoid, learn from others, realise she has value and that there is love and sex which may or may not happen at the same time.
There are so many little simples messages in this book - take every opportunity, being nice to people doesn't hurt and you may actually enjoy doing so, don't judge a book by it's cover and there are always people worse off.
A lovely book.
Following on from the equally engaging I for Isobel, Isobel begins this book a train wreck. She is hungry, unable to write, feverish and angry. She either has one night stands or runs away from affection.
After a comical trip to the corner shop she collapses, is diagnosed with TB and sent to a specialist hospital for a long and drawn out recovery.
Doctors, nurses, volunteers and fellow patients all come to life with compassion through Isobel's subtle wit and observations.
Isobel is an enigma within the patients, well read, intelligent, young, attractive and able to verbally spar with the doctors and nursing staff. She has to deal with people she would normally avoid, learn from others, realise she has value and that there is love and sex which may or may not happen at the same time.
There are so many little simples messages in this book - take every opportunity, being nice to people doesn't hurt and you may actually enjoy doing so, don't judge a book by it's cover and there are always people worse off.
A lovely book.
December 8, 2015
Amy Witting’s pick of words are sweets for the brain. This book is a little gem. The writing is captivating. The author’s prose is clear and precise. She has an acute power of observation. It is such a pleasure to read it. The protagonist Isobel, a writer struggling to survive on very limited financial resources and even less social support, is truly endearing in her struggle to become a writer. She becomes destitute, sick and eventually breaks down mentally and collapses with tuberculosis. Every stage of her illness and disease is described so beautifully and precisely.
The story brings us into a sanatorium where slowly Isobel describes her mental and physical recovery. Although the subject matter is grim, the narration is by no means depressing. Isobel’s struggles are heartbreaking but narrated with such clear insight and in a way that is witty and light to read. I enjoy books set within a medical context so this story was just right for me.The Island Girl
The story brings us into a sanatorium where slowly Isobel describes her mental and physical recovery. Although the subject matter is grim, the narration is by no means depressing. Isobel’s struggles are heartbreaking but narrated with such clear insight and in a way that is witty and light to read. I enjoy books set within a medical context so this story was just right for me.The Island Girl
December 21, 2024
I loved this! Just brilliant. Amazing that a story set in a TB sanatorium was so entertaining. Isobel had so much personality and I loved her. I had a crush on Dr Wang. Nice life lessons without being annoying.
February 9, 2017
When I purchased this book, I bought it because:
1. I like the sound of the title, and
2. the cover fits a task for a reading challenge.
I didn't realise that this was a follow-up to a book, I for Isobel which I've actually read a few years ago though I only vaguely remembered. I read it but I did NOT understand it which is why it remains “un-rated” on my shelf despite being read. Hence, I started reading Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop with trepidation. I don’t know whether I've grown up a little in the past few years or what but I actually enjoyed this book. Hence, the 4-stars’ rating.
The novel opens with Isobel's struggles as an aspiring writer. She’s just taken her first determined step to commit herself as a writer. She’s quit her steady but dead-ending job, having to leave home because of this and found herself in a boarding house without having much left for food. This first part of the book was rather confusing though that is because Isobel herself is confused… this was made obvious when the state of her health was revealed and she suddenly found herself in a sanatorium. It is here, through her interactions with others and certain friendships or even enmities, that she began to accept herself and in doing so, flourish.
“Is it possible to cause so much misery to another human being, simply by being oneself? she wondered, feeling a reflection of that misery. No help for it; she must continue to be herself.”
As always, reading is subjective and what I learnt from this book is probably different from others. I did find this book to be very reflective and rather thought-provoking. With a diverse set of characters to complement and/or as foils to Isobel, Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop is an engaging read. And it doesn't matter if you've read the earlier book as this book can well stand on its own.
1. I like the sound of the title, and
2. the cover fits a task for a reading challenge.
I didn't realise that this was a follow-up to a book, I for Isobel which I've actually read a few years ago though I only vaguely remembered. I read it but I did NOT understand it which is why it remains “un-rated” on my shelf despite being read. Hence, I started reading Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop with trepidation. I don’t know whether I've grown up a little in the past few years or what but I actually enjoyed this book. Hence, the 4-stars’ rating.
The novel opens with Isobel's struggles as an aspiring writer. She’s just taken her first determined step to commit herself as a writer. She’s quit her steady but dead-ending job, having to leave home because of this and found herself in a boarding house without having much left for food. This first part of the book was rather confusing though that is because Isobel herself is confused… this was made obvious when the state of her health was revealed and she suddenly found herself in a sanatorium. It is here, through her interactions with others and certain friendships or even enmities, that she began to accept herself and in doing so, flourish.
“Is it possible to cause so much misery to another human being, simply by being oneself? she wondered, feeling a reflection of that misery. No help for it; she must continue to be herself.”
As always, reading is subjective and what I learnt from this book is probably different from others. I did find this book to be very reflective and rather thought-provoking. With a diverse set of characters to complement and/or as foils to Isobel, Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop is an engaging read. And it doesn't matter if you've read the earlier book as this book can well stand on its own.
January 5, 2014
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this. Very easy reading but no less depth for that. Tender and insightful.
February 6, 2018
The Isobel I met in I For Isobel is doing office work and trying to fit in. She is trying to write in miserable conditions but having some success and there is an excruciating party that was hard to read about and impossible to put the book down. When Isobel tries to make it to the corner shop to buy food her world falls apart. Her excursion is told with detail that takes the reader every step of the way. We are as bewildered as she is when she collapses and wakes up in hospital. And then there is Mornington, a TB sanitarium in the Blue Mountains.
At Mornington Isobel becomes a different person. In a way she is allowed to be herself which is to shine. Every day in the sanitarium is fascinating. I suppose this was set in the 1950s. It is after the discovery of streptomycin (1946) but there is still stigma and a feeling of shame and the strange world of the sanitarium.
I loved every page of this book and of the previous one.
At Mornington Isobel becomes a different person. In a way she is allowed to be herself which is to shine. Every day in the sanitarium is fascinating. I suppose this was set in the 1950s. It is after the discovery of streptomycin (1946) but there is still stigma and a feeling of shame and the strange world of the sanitarium.
I loved every page of this book and of the previous one.
June 15, 2018
Isobel in the hospital.
This is a story of a lonely girl who finds some kind of community in the tuberculosis hospital.
Not a bad book from the literary point of view, the authoress is intelligent and can make saracstic, witty observations and comments. But the burden of emotions, loneliness and the state of unconnectedness of the heroine (or the authoress) makes this a story which is difficult to get engaged to for me. While I respect the above mentioned qualities, I am not able to relate to this novel.
This is a story of a lonely girl who finds some kind of community in the tuberculosis hospital.
Not a bad book from the literary point of view, the authoress is intelligent and can make saracstic, witty observations and comments. But the burden of emotions, loneliness and the state of unconnectedness of the heroine (or the authoress) makes this a story which is difficult to get engaged to for me. While I respect the above mentioned qualities, I am not able to relate to this novel.
March 11, 2018
Lovely little book
Interesting read about an illness that had an impact on so many people. The way this illness was handled was enlightening
Interesting read about an illness that had an impact on so many people. The way this illness was handled was enlightening
Read
September 4, 2020From Carmel, v. fine, touching
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 9, 2022
Significantly better than I for Isobel. I’d probably give it 3 1/2 stars.
January 24, 2017
‘Her reflections on human nature are eloquently drawn, intimate, compassionate and witty.’
Australian
‘Amy Witting is comparable to Jean Rhys, but she has more starch, or vinegar. The effect is bracing.’
New Yorker
‘[Witting] lays bare with surgical precision the dynamics of families, sibling, students in coffee shops, office coteries. One sometimes feels positively winded with unsettling insights. There is something relentless, almost unnerving in her anatomising of foibles, fears obsessions, private shame, the nature of loneliness, the nature of panic.’
Janette Turner Hospital
‘A beautifully but unobtrusively honed style, a marvellous ear for dialogue, a generous understanding of the complex waywardness of men and women.’
Andrew Riemer
‘Sparkling prose and extraordinary ability to enter the minds of a wide variety of characters.’
A Reader's Guide to Australian Fiction
‘Quietly brilliant…Witting’s characterizations are staggeringly sharp—it is hard to imagine a novel more keenly observed—simultaneously heartbreaking and (subtly) hilarious, not because they’re exaggerated, but because they are so unsettlingly, overwhelmingly true…A compassionate masterpiece.’
STARRED Review, Kirkus
Australian
‘Amy Witting is comparable to Jean Rhys, but she has more starch, or vinegar. The effect is bracing.’
New Yorker
‘[Witting] lays bare with surgical precision the dynamics of families, sibling, students in coffee shops, office coteries. One sometimes feels positively winded with unsettling insights. There is something relentless, almost unnerving in her anatomising of foibles, fears obsessions, private shame, the nature of loneliness, the nature of panic.’
Janette Turner Hospital
‘A beautifully but unobtrusively honed style, a marvellous ear for dialogue, a generous understanding of the complex waywardness of men and women.’
Andrew Riemer
‘Sparkling prose and extraordinary ability to enter the minds of a wide variety of characters.’
A Reader's Guide to Australian Fiction
‘Quietly brilliant…Witting’s characterizations are staggeringly sharp—it is hard to imagine a novel more keenly observed—simultaneously heartbreaking and (subtly) hilarious, not because they’re exaggerated, but because they are so unsettlingly, overwhelmingly true…A compassionate masterpiece.’
STARRED Review, Kirkus
February 7, 2016
I think I enjoyed this follow up more than I did the earlier “I for Isobel”, excellent though that one was. In the first book we read about Isobel’s psychological abuse at the hands of her mother, her escape to independent life after her mother’s death and her attempts to fit into a society that leaves her baffled most of the time. In this book we find her alone, isolated and poor, and, as it turns out, suffering from TB. Much of the novel is set in a sanatorium as she recovers, both mentally and physically, and begins to see her future more clearly. There’s some great writing here – the descriptions of life in the sanatorium with its motley collection of patients and staff, the treatments available to them, and Isobel’s maturing as both woman and writer – and Witting is uncompromising, unsentimental, perceptive and observant, and also deeply empathetic. What a pity that she never managed to write another volume – I so would have loved to find out if Isobel actually manages to find her place in the world.
February 13, 2016
Bit of a slow read, but an enjoyable one.
Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop, is a slow burner, getting more interesting and and compelling as it progresses. It is the story of Isobel an aspiring writer, who falls ill and finds her self in an isolation hospital outside of Sydney.
The story is split into two parts, the first being a short description of her life prior to falling ill, and the second part about her time in hospital. The second and longer part of the story concerns her relationships with other patients and the medical staff at the hospital. In particular her relationship with a couple of patients and doctors and how literature and poetry assists in the building of these relationships and her overall recovery.
A good well written read, with interesting characters and ideas.
I was given a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange of an honest review.
Isobel on the Way to the Corner Shop, is a slow burner, getting more interesting and and compelling as it progresses. It is the story of Isobel an aspiring writer, who falls ill and finds her self in an isolation hospital outside of Sydney.
The story is split into two parts, the first being a short description of her life prior to falling ill, and the second part about her time in hospital. The second and longer part of the story concerns her relationships with other patients and the medical staff at the hospital. In particular her relationship with a couple of patients and doctors and how literature and poetry assists in the building of these relationships and her overall recovery.
A good well written read, with interesting characters and ideas.
I was given a copy of this book by the publisher in exchange of an honest review.
May 31, 2016
This book started out with the heroine being bitter and angry -- after she was admitted to the hospital and treatment started for TB, she became a sweet, lovely person. The book is about her relationships with the patients she comes in contact with, and her love for poetry and writing. She meets all kinds of people (as you normally would in a hospital), and somehow manages to become their favorite person. Well -- most of them. She is befriended by the doctors, who want her to stay on as an employee -- at the end, she makes some difficult decisions, but the correct ones. Interesting, but definitely different.
January 25, 2016
A small gem from Australia, recently reissued by Text Classics (sort of like what NY Review of Books is doing here in the US). Gently humorous and warmly imagined, this slight novel captures Isobel as her life takes a turn on her way to the corner shop. To call it charming does not capture the sharp intelligence and wit with which Isobel views her world...it's snarkier and more fun than charming can ever be.
November 30, 2012
Thoroughly enjoyed this. Particularly liked the sense of alienation witting created. Isobel is an unlikely heroine but I grew to like her more over the journey of the book. Learning how tb sufferers were treated as outsiders was fascinating. Also some wonderfully drawn portraits of medical professionals.
February 1, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. Much different than the books I usually read, but it was very interesting. It was very easy to read, and kept me reading until the end. Following Isobel's journey made me really think.
January 16, 2013
One of the best books I have read this year. Easy to read and insightful, it brings a particular time and circumstance to life.
September 23, 2013
A bit disappointing after "I is for Isobel" - too much disease and death for my taste
April 26, 2015
This started well then got sick and (unlike Isobel) died. Why this is considered a classic is beyond me. In a word: tedious.
Read
April 14, 2016Excellent character story of a life interruption because of an illness. Rich in characters encountered during this time.
August 26, 2016
I liked the interactions between the characters and Isobel's discoveries about herself.
March 22, 2017
Usually I'm a bit sceptical about sequels, but I loved this one just as much as I for Isobel. Witting captures Isobel's inner conflicts beautifully, whilst maintaining the tone of the conclusion of the previous novel, when Isobel has begun to embark on her journey of learning self-acceptance.
December 26, 2018
Isobel said how could she write about love when she didn't know the first thing about it. She thought this whole enterprise had been a mistake. That perhaps she couldn’t write after all. Two successful stories and a rave note gotm the editor -Fenwick- and she was off. Fenwick’s letter seemed like a directive. She could not give up, she must not fail. She had burnt all her bridges - thrown up her job. So what was love? A truce? A temporary suspension of the normal state of hostility between the sexes? Isobel went for one night stands not relationships and love. Isobel was on her way to the store when she collapses and wakes up in the hospital and told she had T B. Than she is in a sanitarium named Mornington. Somehow Isobel becomes a favorite to most of the patients. The doctors become friends to Isobel and want her to get a job working there.
I enjoyed this book. I really liked the plot and pace. This was well written. I liked seeing Isobel mature in this book and make friends through her stay at Mornington. The author did a great job on describing the stages of Isobels illness as well as how they people were treated that had T B. I didn’t want to put this down. I loved the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I recommend it. I would have liked to rate it 4.5.
I enjoyed this book. I really liked the plot and pace. This was well written. I liked seeing Isobel mature in this book and make friends through her stay at Mornington. The author did a great job on describing the stages of Isobels illness as well as how they people were treated that had T B. I didn’t want to put this down. I loved the characters and the ins and outs of this book and I recommend it. I would have liked to rate it 4.5.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews